Is my power supply gone be enough?

Hey all.

I came across these forums while googling about power supplies, and i have a small question i was hoping some of you fine folks might be able to help me with.

Basically as the title of this thread states, im wondering about my power supply. Its a Chieftec A-135 550W Power Supply, and at the moment its running my system just fine.

The system:

Asus P6X58D-E Motherboard
Intel i7-950 @ stock
Kingston DDR3 HyperX 1600Mhz 12GB
XFX Radeon HD 6870 "Black"
1x WD VelocityRaptor 150gb
2x WD Green 2TB


I have just invested in a H50 to maybe bring my CPU up to 4Ghz so what im curious about is, will i need a new power supply to do so? Will i maybe need a new power supply even if im running this in stock ? Ive read alot of places that 550W is really low for an i7 system with a newish graphics card.

Thanks for any help in advance, i dont wanna be running with a power supply that cant supply the power for a longer period of time if my system may take damage from doing so.

greetings

Well I took the courtesy of using some PSU calculators and for a stock i7 950, its all recommended a quality 550watt, sometimes 500 watts. 550 watts could handle normal load for a 4ghz i7 CPU because never are all the components going to be 100% all the time, even when playing games the CPU is barely stressed. But you'd be living some what dangerously. Having a 750 watt PSU running at 80% load is a lot better than having a 550watt running at 100% load. The PSU will get worn out and might overheat and lose efficiency. I'd play it safe and upgrade. You can get good 1000 watts for under $125 at the egg now. 700 watts would be what I would recommend for your system at least. I'd get a 1000 watt for future crossfire.

While it may be running it now, It would be wise to upgrade your psu to a more quality unit than what you currently have.

Take a look at the corsair and antec brands over at newegg. A Qaulity 650w -800w would give you a lot less worry than what you have.

You have nice parts. Do your system a favor and bring that psu up to par with the superb parts you are using.

Chieftec PSUs are generally below par at best I believe. So yes, get another one. Even with a 6870 and an i7 overclocked, you wont be breaking 400W anyway (My reivew of GTX470 which uses WAY more power than a 6870 only broke 400W with Furmark, 380W regular load with CPU at 4Ghz). With that in mind, I would suggest a Corsair 550VX. If you plan on crossfiring that GPU down the road, a 750TX from Corsair is will handle that load EASILY. Dont believe the 1KW hype that still seems to propogate all over the place.

Thanks alot for the fast replies, i will deffinetly look into getting a Corsair HX-750 in the near future. But i was not aware that the Chieftec series were bad, i saw that they have also come with a new series called Nitro. So are all Chieftec power supplies really bad? Do you have any information that backs up this claim?

Not all are bad. There are some Channel Well builds from them that are solid, but the ones that come with cases for example are normally subpar.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cases/display/chieftec-psu-roundup_14.html#sect2

There is also a link in my signature to the PSU guide. CHeck that out. I doubt you'll find any in that list...

Not on this one as well: http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=136602

Corsair TX series PSU's are pretty good value if you don't want to shell out to much dosh. If your looking at efficiency then the best choice becomes a bit more complicated.

To be honest im not looking for power efficieny. Im looking for a PSU which has a reasonable price tag and will be powerful enough to run 2x6870 in CF since i will eventually want to get another card. I will also be OC'ing my CPU to 4GHz, dont know if that may also put an extra strain on the PSU. I thought the Corsair HX series would be a good option as someone mentioned above but if someone has a cheaper solution i would love to hear some suggestions.

wish^ said:

To be honest im not looking for power efficieny. Im looking for a PSU which has a reasonable price tag and will be powerful enough to run 2x6870 in CF since i will eventually want to get another card. I will also be OC'ing my CPU to 4GHz, dont know if that may also put an extra strain on the PSU. I thought the Corsair HX series would be a good option as someone mentioned above but if someone has a cheaper solution i would love to hear some suggestions.

Click to expand...

Go Corsair TX if you dont care about modular and dont want to break the bank.

Like I said, there is a link in my signature to check approved PSU's find one with ample power (650W+) and get it.

mjw21a said:

Corsair TX series PSU's are pretty good value if you don't want to shell out to much dosh. If your looking at efficiency then the best choice becomes a bit more complicated.

Click to expand...

What, finding the 80PLUS GOLD sticker on the box/link?

wish^ said:

To be honest im not looking for power efficieny. Im looking for a PSU which has a reasonable price tag and will be powerful enough to run 2x6870 in CF since i will eventually want to get another card. I will also be OC'ing my CPU to 4GHz, dont know if that may also put an extra strain on the PSU. I thought the Corsair HX series would be a good option as someone mentioned above but if someone has a cheaper solution i would love to hear some suggestions.

Click to expand...

Efficiency is important for PSU reliability and maximum output. More efficient PSUs will run cooler, which generally lends itself to better regulation, tighter tolerances, longer life, etc. Fortunately, most PSUs are 80 PLUS these days, so you don't have much to worry about.

I agree on avoiding the 1kW hype. You don't need more than 750w tops, and even that gives you a pretty big margin. This would be my default recommendation, but you should look around at some other options too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...6&cm_re=seasonic_S12II-_-17-151-096-_-Product

I doubt going with an 80+ Gold psu would make any real difference to my power bill, though Johan has summed up pretty well the reasons for oing down that route.

Problem is the expense. The Kingwin Lazer Gold series is probabely the best value 80+ Gold rated line of PSU's at the moment. Having said that they're still a fair bit more expensive than something for the Corsair TX series.

You want a supply that is rated 80+ efficiency and I would recommend 700 watt minimum, but I have always gone overkill on power supplies. Look at how many 12v rails the supply has and how many amps each have as well. This will help you get the most out of your system, especially if your secondary mainboard 12 volt power connection is on a separate rail.
The supply in my sig has 4 rails...forget how many amps each has though.

Thanks for all the replies, youve all been very helpful. I think im gone go with the Corsair HX850, after looking at the list i was directed to i looked at some reviews and it really seems like a good unit. Since im probably gone upgrade to Crossfire pretty soon, more power cant be bad right ? It does cost a bit extra but then i can also tidy up my case since i will have modular cables. Another good thing about it is that the place i buy my hardware at has it in stock, and since im in Norway i dont have instant access to all the makes and models on that list.

Onto another sbuject though, i bought this system about 2 weeks ago, and i feel like it isnt working the way it should be, whats wrong with i am not sure. The thing is after i changed my cooler from stock intel to Corsair H50 i only noticed a change of about 5-7 degrees in idle, the load temps went down about 10-15 degrees so i guess thats good, but i was kind of expecting alot more. When i got the new cooler and went straight into the bios it was sitting at 22.5c so i thought awesome, so i tried to overclock it a little bit to see how much the temps would change and it went up to 33-35c and after i set everything back to default the temperatures didnt really go back down to the 22 mark.

I have 1600mhz Kingston memory and theyre currently running at 1066, when i try to enable the X.M.P option i get a warning in the bios that the ram voltages that have been set may damage the cpu. Im kind of confused, i used to be pretty good with this stuff. But that was back when 775 was new on the market, so if anyone could help me out with some proper settings and some general setup options so i might be able to get my system running the way it should i would really appreciate it. I realise i should probably be asking more specific questions and work off trial and error, but i cant really afford to break anything.

Thanks alot

You might try some other thermal compound. MX-3 is pretty good stuff, and MX-2 will suffice just fine. The stuff that comes with the H50 isn't the best. It does the job, but it could be done better.

How do you have the rad mounted? Push pull, or just pull? The rad should be pulling cold air, not warm air that's already been through the computer.