500-550w is oftentimes enough.

[minervx]

Many enthusiasts and websites offer suggestions for power supply wattage capacities that are often very much on the safe side.  Better safe than sorry.  But these estimates tend to take extreme circumstances into account.  If you're not using an AMD FX processor and you're not trying to overclock a GPU to the absolute possible max, 600-750w PSU's are not mandatory.

 

It's hard to find a PSU below 350-450w and they accomodate most systems up to a GTX 1060 (at least) just fine.  The idea that a 1070 absolutely needs 550w or higher is a myth.  I've built systems with a 550w and GTX 1080 Ti, which I do admit, is cutting a bit close.  But I do want to caution beginners that advice given to diehard enthusiasts is not always the same as what's necessary for the majority of enthusiasts.

[VioDuskar]

i find a good 750W PSU will keep you rolling for years. they can be used more down the line, even if you later decide to go SLI. for the most part they just give you longevity. 

a 550-600w is all most people need, but i've used the same 750W in 3 builds over 8 years now. 

 

at one point i used it with 3x gtx550 GPUs and an fx9590 CPU.

[Oshino Shinobu]

True, but unfortunately very few people are going to see this thread so it won't help much. 

 

We have quite a few users on the forum that are well informed when it comes to PSUs, so generally people asking for advice on PSUs, or full systems tend to get pointed in the right direction. That's really the best way to manage it too, rather than giving broad advice. While 500-550w is often enough, there's also many situations when it isn't, so it makes sense to just give the right advice on a case by case basis. 

[SupaKomputa]

i've used a 450watt psu for 4 years now.

if you don't plan to have more than 1 gpu, 500 watt will do.

its all about the quality of the psu not the watt.

pc get less and less power demanded.

[minervx]

SLI is not something 95% of enthusiasts are going to do because it's impractical most of the time and has extremely diminished returns.

 

Future proofing makes no sense here either because new PSU's get LESS power hungry over time.

[divito]

Far too many people over-do their PSU over some notion of not wanting to skimp on an important part, or some power myth, or that they might upgrade in the future. Most of it is hogwash.

The majority of builds could do with a 450W. 

[sauce-c]

I think its important to look at efficiency as well though, if a PSU is running full force to keep a system running it is going to be far less efficient than a PSU using only have its capacity. 

[Taja]

Just now, divito said:

Far too many people over-do their PSU over some notion of not wanting to skimp on an important part, or some power myth, or that they might upgrade in the future. Most of it is hogwash.

The majority of builds could do with a 450W. 

Yes, I often find that people are either getting shitty PSUs OR overkill ones. I guess only 1% of the population gets adequate PSUs.

[Wonderguy464712]

Hey i got a 850w gold or whatever corsair psu to last me a long time with 2x crossfire r9 280s but then i upgraded to a 1080 and my whole system probs dont use more then 350 watt's if i would think about it now i would go with a 650-750w good reliable psu but it was not much exspensive at the time either. 

[Drak3]

While high wattage PSUs are overkill, many good quality ones offer benefits over getting one that is just enough.

 

Zero RPM mode.

Higher efficiency and typical loads.

Better components that can supply the requisite power for a longer time.

More cable combinations out of the box.

 

And the price increase from a decent 450W to a good 1000W is not all that much.

[GDRRiley]

I went with a 750W at the time becasue it was a great unit on sale for 20% off. do I need that no a OCed 6600K, GTX970 and a few SSDs don't draw more than 450W but I have considered more power hungry cards and that would move me closer to 650.

[onlybuilt4cubanxlinx]

I always get paranoid when PCPartPicker says 353w for my system, but I plan on aggressively over-clocking both the GPU and CPU. So in my head I think I need at least 650w when others are saying 550w. 

[minervx]

I do agree it's best to have 20% more headroom in case you want to overclock and upgrade.  My area of disagreement is in how much headroom there is.

 

 

For a 1070, 550w is not "barely skating by" - it would offer plenty headroom.

 

[seon123]

50 minutes ago, sauce-c said:

I think its important to look at efficiency as well though, if a PSU is running full force to keep a system running it is going to be far less efficient than a PSU using only have its capacity. 

The efficiency is among the least important things to look for in a PSU. The difference in efficiency between at a 50% load and a 100% load is 3%. That's nothing. 

[seon123]

19 minutes ago, onlybuilt4cubanxlinx said:

I always get paranoid when PCPartPicker says 353w for my system, but I plan on aggressively over-clocking both the GPU and CPU. So in my head I think I need at least 650w when others are saying 550w. 

A system with an overclocked 1080 Ti should draw well under 500W. If others are saying 550W, you can be fairly sure that they don't know what they're talking about.  

[seon123]

24 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I went with a 750W at the time becasue it was a great unit on sale for 20% off. do I need that no a OCed 6600K, GTX970 and a few SSDs don't draw more than 450W but I have considered more power hungry cards and that would move me closer to 650.

How tf do you manage to pull 450W with a 970? Even overclocked, it should be well under 400W in total. 

[seon123]

1 hour ago, VioDuskar said:

i find a good 750W PSU will keep you rolling for years. they can be used more down the line, even if you later decide to go SLI. for the most part they just give you longevity. 

a 550-600w is all most people need, but i've used the same 750W in 3 builds over 8 years now. 

 

at one point i used it with 3x gtx550 GPUs and an fx9590 CPU.

All PSUs from any decent brand are rated to run at a 100% load 24/7 at their max rated temperature for the entirety of their warranty. Many higher end PSUs have a 7 year-ish warranty, so buying for longevity doesn't make sense. 

SLI is more silly now than ever, with poor support and scaling. Buying a single higher end card makes more sense, and will often times perifrm better, while avoiding the usual multi GPU issues. 

Using an 8 year old PSU is not really a good idea. Lots of stuff has changed over the last 8 years. 

Newer parts use less power than older ones. So the power consumption of a normal build has been going down. 

[GDRRiley]

4 minutes ago, seon123 said:

How tf do you manage to pull 450W with a 970? Even overclocked, it should be well under 400W in total. 

I have it pushed to the max that my single 8pin can give and my CPU is a 1.3V.

[seon123]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

I have it pushed to the max that my single 8pin can give and my CPU is a 1.3V.

Even a 1080 Ti with an overclocked 4960X pulled slightly over 400W from the wall with an AX1200i, looking at Anandtech's review. So you're saying that you pushed your quad core CPU and 150W GPU to pull more than that? Did you measure it? I'm curious. 

[sauce-c]

10 minutes ago, seon123 said:

The efficiency is among the least important things to look for in a PSU. The difference in efficiency between at a 50% load and a 100% load is 3%. That's nothing. 

I never said it was the most important thing first of all. And 3% is something when you're in a country with high electricity costs, running your computer 8+ hours a day for work, and many other situations. Its worth considering when purchasing a PSU given the fact that your PSU will last you for multiple builds. 

[seon123]

Just now, sauce-c said:

I never said it was the most important thing first of all. And 3% is something when you're in a country with high electricity costs, running your computer 8+ hours a day for work, and many other situations. Its worth considering when purchasing a PSU given the fact that your PSU will last you for multiple builds. 

If it's not the most important thing, why only mention the efficiency, and not anything else?

Let's say that you somehow run a 400W PC at 100% load for 8 hours per day (that's very unlikely, unless it's used only for computation), with an electricity cost of 30c per kWh. That's roughly $10 per year. If you consider use for several years, it makes more sense to step up in PSU tiers rather than wattage. To something that is quieter, has a longer warranty, performs better, has a better fan etc. And that is rated for a higher efficiency. That's something you'll actually appreciate, rather than buying a lower end, higher wattage PSU. And it'll be more efficient. 

[sauce-c]

11 minutes ago, seon123 said:

If it's not the most important thing, why only mention the efficiency, and not anything else?

Let's say that you somehow run a 400W PC at 100% load for 8 hours per day (that's very unlikely, unless it's used only for computation), with an electricity cost of 30c per kWh. That's roughly $10 per year. If you consider use for several years, it makes more sense to step up in PSU tiers rather than wattage. To something that is quieter, has a longer warranty, performs better, has a better fan etc. And that is rated for a higher efficiency. That's something you'll actually appreciate, rather than buying a lower end, higher wattage PSU. And it'll be more efficient. 

Why only mention efficiency? Because that's all I wanted to add to the conversation that had not already been brought up. 

 

I did not say to buy a lower end PSU for "more efficiency" over a higher tier PSU. My only point is that for the small price jump between lets say a 450w PSU and a 750w PSU of the same model it's worth it to pay the very small premium for the extra wattage. It will have higher efficiency in most cases, the fan wont be full blast all the time which has plenty of pro's, etc. 

 

I think you're literally just looking for arguments here, I'm out. 

[Stefan Payne]

5 hours ago, minervx said:

 If you're not using an AMD FX processor and you're not trying to overclock a GPU to the absolute possible max, 600-750w PSU's are not mandatory.

Only FX9k Series or overclock to 5GHz...

5 hours ago, minervx said:

It's hard to find a PSU below 350-450w and they accomodate most systems up to a GTX 1060 (at least) just fine. 

No, even 1080.

And every Desktop/Mobile Processor (LGA115x for Intel, AM4 for AMD), without hard sledgehammer overclocking.

 

 

650W is just a bullshit wattage that nobody needs because "Headroom" is wasted and doesn't give you any advantage. People only strongly believe that a 650W has to have an advantage even if it is not true...

[Stefan Payne]

4 hours ago, Drak3 said:

While high wattage PSUs are overkill, many good quality ones offer benefits over getting one that is just enough.

No, they do not.

They only offer disadvantages like higher speed fans, higher cost-

4 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Zero RPM mode.

Higher efficiency and typical loads.

Better components that can supply the requisite power for a longer time.

More cable combinations out of the box.

1. Irrelevant, doesn't really give you anything and can be annoying and a problem sometimes.

2. No, that's a Myth and depends on the PSU. Some have their peak efficiency at 30%, others at 50% and some others even higher. You have to look at the PSU you want.

3. No shit, sherlock. But what if you do not need it? What good does a 750W do for a system that consumes 300-350W at most? What benefit do I have from such situations?
Well, except for 2000-2500rpm fans instead of 1200-1500rpm and idle fan RPM of 700-900rpm instead of 400-500rpm of course..

4. No shit, sherlock! 

And what if you don't need any of the cables?

4 hours ago, Drak3 said:

And the price increase from a decent 450W to a good 1000W is not all that much.

Lets look:

450W, 90€ -> https://geizhals.de/be-quiet-straight-power-11-450w-atx-2-4-bn280-a1753697.html?hloc=de

1000W 175€ -> https://geizhals.de/be-quiet-straight-power-11-1000w-atx-2-4-bn285-a1753728.html?hloc=de

 

Yeah, that isn't that much, totally. Absolutely. Only almost double the price of the 450W. it matters not, does it?!

And it comes with a 2100rpm fan instead of the 1250rpm!!11 

~double the power ~double the fan RPM!!!11

That's totally better. Because 2100rpm >>>> 1250rpm...

 

4 hours ago, minervx said:

I do agree it's best to have 20% more headroom in case you want to overclock and upgrade.  My area of disagreement is in how much headroom there is.

Headroom for what?

When the manufacturers of modern PSU state that their PSU are able to output 100% of the advertized wattage at 24/7 Operation. Bitfenix does that on their boxes for example.

We aren't talking about 2006 and earlier, when most PSU ware garbage (well, OK, that didn't change that much).

But today we have some really awesome quality ones that can easily deliver 100% of their wattage.

4 hours ago, minervx said:

For a 1070, 550w is not "barely skating by" - it would offer plenty headroom.

Yes, but for that even a 450W would have been plenty of headroom.

 

With most systems we are talking about something around 250-350W under normal gaming load...

There has to be something really trying to push it, to get even close to 400W or over.

You need overclocked hardware for that...

 

4 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

I have it pushed to the max that my single 8pin can give and my CPU is a 1.3V.

No, you think that while there is no basis for believing that.

Since we are talking about a Desktop/Mobile System with garbage thermal paste between lid and die.

If the CPU would draw some serious wattage, it would die instantly because it can not transfer the heat from the Die to the heatspreader.

4 hours ago, sauce-c said:

I never said it was the most important thing first of all. And 3% is something when you're in a country with high electricity costs, running your computer 8+ hours a day for work, and many other situations. Its worth considering when purchasing a PSU given the fact that your PSU will last you for multiple builds. 

No it is not. With normal usage its something like 5-10 bucks per Year.

And you already wasted around 30€ for the 750W instead of the 450W, so that's at least 3 Years.

And even if, we have to take a closer look at the load. What you believe might not be that true.

So it is entirely possible that one line like 450-650W is based on the same plattform and optimized for 650W, the 450W is downgraded a bit with parts but the efficiency at 450W load doesn't differ more than 1%. 

 

So we are drifting in the land of fairy tales and believing strongly that something has to be true, even if it is not true and just something you imagine.

 

And in that time isn't it highly probable that you might replace the graphics card??

So what then? What if you replace your 200W TDP Graphics card with a 120W TDP one?

The x04 Chips from nVidia were Mainstream for a long time - somthing around 200€ or less...

Now its sold for as much as 750€ (500€ before mining) (GP104 -> Geforce 1080) while the cheap ass x06 chips take the place of the x04 chips from then...

 

And with that the Power consumptin shifted DOWN for most people...

 

So for most people who don't want to pay 750€ or so for a high end chip, they are stuck with the 150W TDP ones or less...

[aezakmi]

Ahh my old friend the FX CPU... needed like 200W and turned my computer into a room heater, not to mention the R9 card, 80C after playing five minutes of New Vegas

 

Now it's my sister's heater and I had to buy a new CX650 for it, at least it was cheap, she plays a dancing game and the heat coming out of the case it's like she's playing DOOM on ultra and a horde of demons is trapped inside the computer.

 

I now have the original 750W that was from that build on mine and it's total overkill