PSU Wattage

[Ergroilnin]

Hello guys,

 

I've been wondering about this for a while... Is there ANY reason to not get a higher wattage PSU (and now I am talking only about the wattage, getting a premium tier 1-2, at least gold PSU is given) other than the price? 

 

I mean, is there any harm to it? Isn't it a decent idea to get a higher wattage psu for future proofness in both the possibility of adding extension cards/getting newer GPU/etc and for the fact that they may over time degrade and lose efficiency? I am not talking about something crazy like going for 1200w for a build that would totally do fine with 550w one, but let's say 750w one instead of the 550w one?

[3 Lions]

What specs do you have? 

[Ergroilnin]

This at the moment is not aimed at any given build or setup, I am curious about this in the general sense.

[Ergroilnin]

Though I will admit, that this question sprung up in my mind mostly because of the situation really stupid me from few years ago putted me to right now. Since my current rig is very unballanced:

MOBO: Asus Z-87-PLUS

CPU: Intel i7-4770 (yes, I was even stupid enough, to get a Z series mobo with locked CPU)

GPU: ASUS GTX760 2GB

RAM: 2x8GB DDR3 1600MHz Kingston

SSD: Kingston HyperX 3k 240GB

HDD: WD Black 2TB 7200RPM

HDD2: WD Green 1TB 7200RPM

PSU: Enermax ENP500AGT 500W

 

Now the one thing that is truly bother me, since I have already learned from my mistake of making unbalanced build is that while the most of my PC is still going decently strong for gaming on my 1440p 144hz monitor (well 120hz now, since GTX760 cannot pull out 144 at all), the sort of weak GPU is really starting to bite me in the bottom by now. So I would really enjoy breathing a bit of life into this rig, but simply buying a GTX1080Ti does not cut it, since the PSU is just not strong enough for that, if I had bought a stronger and better rated psu back then, I could have just go for new GPU and be done with it. Not like this.

[W-L]

24 minutes ago, Ergroilnin said:

This at the moment is not aimed at any given build or setup, I am curious about this in the general sense.

In general the PSU should match the quality and level of components in the build, so you can oversize your PSU and it's not uncommon to do so to ensure your PSU stays in it's silent fan mode until a certain load or temperature is reached. That being said it also provides you the option to grow if your build expands but with components getting more power efficient with greater performance you will not commonly see system require 1000W units unless for very specific applications. 

 

A good example is if you have a basic office PC (~200W) it doesn't need a tier 1 PSU that is 750W, could it use it of course, but for costs effectiveness sake you could get a good quality 450W unit and call it a day. 

[Ergroilnin]

And okay let's actually maybe OT just a liitle bit... With the info I posted before, is there any good 10 series card, that would be a serious upgrade over the old 760 while still possibly using that PSU?

[W-L]

11 minutes ago, Ergroilnin said:

And okay let's actually maybe OT just a liitle bit... With the info I posted before, is there any good 10 series card, that would be a serious upgrade over the old 760 while still possibly using that PSU?

I would suggest to change it out before anything else as it's a pretty entry level unit. As for a good GPU that would fit well with that build a GTX1060 shouldn't have any issues with that pairing. 

[Stefan Payne]

5 hours ago, Ergroilnin said:

PSU: Enermax ENP500AGT 500W

I'd replace that.

Have no information about it, never seen anything about that.

But that is something to worry, especially when the last Enermax Entry Level units weren't that great and rather to be avoided.

 

A good PSU is something like a be quiet Pure Power 10, Straight Power 11, Bitfenix Formula and Whisper M.

If you can save a bit, you could go for the 400-450W models, without OC you can get pretty far with that.