Do I need more power?

Dragster93 · Dec 13, 2011

In a few days I'm going to set up a rig. I was wondering whether I need to invest in a more powerful PSU or am I good with one of the regular Mercury 500W or 600W PSUs. The specs are:

Motherboard : ASRock Z68 Extreme Gen3
http://www.advantionline.com/ASRock...SATA-6Gb-s-USB-3.0-ATX-Intel-Motherboard.html

CPU : Intel Core i5 2500K

RAM : Mushkin 2x4GB 1600MHz

Graphics Card : I've got two cards in mind. Still deciding.
EVGA GeForce GTX550Ti
http://www.advantionline.com/EVGA-0....0-x16-HDCP-Ready-SLI-Support-Video-Card.html
and
SAPHIRE Radeon 6850
http://www.advantionline.com/SAPPHI...sFireX-Support-Video-Card-with-Eyefinity.html

Also, I would like to know that consequences of inadequate supply of power. Can I in any way damage the other hardware? Or will it just refuse to power certain parts?

jiggamanjb · Dec 13, 2011

A name brand 500 or 600w PSU would power that just fine. I would stay away from Mercury or generic PSUs.

An inadequate PSU would not really harm hardware other than blue screen and random shutdowns. Generic PSUs can take out your whole computer though.

darkpyro1 · Dec 13, 2011

I don't have the most experience with this, so I'd wait until someone else replies before you go and do anything xD But personally, I think I'd go with a slightly more powerful PSU. From what I've heard if you've got the sandy bridge, and the GTX550Ti you should be good with a 600W, and you should still have breathing room, should you want to upgrade and grab a second card or something. That said, a dual card system might be pushing the limits even with the sandy bridge and the 550 for a 600W. So being a man who likes a lot of breathing room, I'd go with something just a bit higher - maybe an 850W or 900W. 1000W and higher would probably be more than you need, but I think 850W or 900W would be pretty nice.

So far my experience with inadequate power shows basically just what you proposed. It didn't power some things correctly, for example on my system it was my CPU fan. Also, my power supply died after I tried booting it a couple times, so it would appear in my case that it can also damage the PSU itself.

Dragster93 · Dec 13, 2011

jiggamanjb said:
A name brand 500 or 600w PSU would power that just fine. I would stay away from Mercury or generic PSUs.

An inadequate PSU would not really harm hardware other than blue screen and random shutdowns. Generic PSUs can take out your whole computer though.

I'm sure branded PSUs would differ from Mercury PSUs in the fact that the branded ones give out more power. But exactly how much difference are we talking about here?

Also, what's a Generic PSU?

darkpyro1 said:
I don't have the most experience with this, so I'd wait until someone else replies before you go and do anything xD But personally, I think I'd go with a slightly more powerful PSU. From what I've heard if you've got the sandy bridge, and the GTX550Ti you should be good with a 600W, and you should still have breathing room, should you want to upgrade and grab a second card or something. That said, a dual card system might be pushing the limits even with the sandy bridge and the 550 for a 600W. So being a man who likes a lot of breathing room, I'd go with something just a bit higher - maybe an 850W or 900W. 1000W and higher would probably be more than you need, but I think 850W or 900W would be pretty nice.

So far my experience with inadequate power shows basically just what you proposed. It didn't power some things correctly, for example on my system it was my CPU fan. Also, my power supply died after I tried booting it a couple times, so it would appear in my case that it can also damage the PSU itself.

Yeah I'm gonna buy one of the Corsair 800W PSUs. I'm sure that'll work pretty well for me. Will see if I can get a 600W though.

jiggamanjb · Dec 14, 2011

Dragster93 said:
I'm sure branded PSUs would differ from Mercury PSUs in the fact that the branded ones give out more power. But exactly how much difference are we talking about here?

Also, what's a Generic PSU?

This should be some good reading. It answers all your questions better than I could.

Bobnova · Dec 14, 2011

A 600w PSU will be plenty for you, IF it can actually put out 600w.

A cheap PSU that fails can take out everything plugged into it. If you think about it that means your entire computer, except for your monitor.
Motherboard? Dead.
CPU? Dead.
Ram? Dead.
GPU? Dead.
Hard Drive? Dead.
Optical Drive? Dead.
Mouse? Dead.
Keyboard? Dead.

Now that is the extreme case, killing the CPU/GPU/Motherboard is far more common than slaughtering mice. The basic message is, get a real PSU from a good company.
Don't trust hundreds of dollars of hardware to a $30 pile of junk PSU.

Dragster93 · Dec 14, 2011

jiggamanjb said:
This should be some good reading. It answers all your questions better than I could.

Will read up on this. I'm sure it'll clear quite a few doubts that I've got. Thanks.

Bobnova said:
A 600w PSU will be plenty for you, IF it can actually put out 600w.

A cheap PSU that fails can take out everything plugged into it. If you think about it that means your entire computer, except for your monitor.
Motherboard? Dead.
CPU? Dead.
Ram? Dead.
GPU? Dead.
Hard Drive? Dead.
Optical Drive? Dead.
Mouse? Dead.
Keyboard? Dead.

Now that is the extreme case, killing the CPU/GPU/Motherboard is far more common than slaughtering mice. The basic message is, get a real PSU from a good company.
Don't trust hundreds of dollars of hardware to a $30 pile of junk PSU.

Thanks. I'll definitely go for a branded PSU.
Would you say this Mushkin Enhanced Volta 500W PSU is sufficient?
http://www.advantionline.com/Mushkin-Enhanced-Volta-500-Watts-Power-Supply.html

Or will I have to go with this CORSAIR Builder Series CX600 V2 600W PSU?
http://www.advantionline.com/CORSAI...0-PLUS-Certified-Active-PFC-Power-Supply.html

By the way, I've chosen to go with Saphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB.

Bobnova · Dec 14, 2011

With a single 6850 and a SB chip you could run a corsair 430w PSU. 600w is way overkill for that setup.
Maybe a corsair 500w just to have lots of wiggle room.

I haven't seen any reviews of modern Mushkin units, I got a couple of old ones and was horrified by them.

GoD_tattoo · Dec 14, 2011

+1 for the Corsair. They have a great warranty should you ever need it, and they are reliable. Don't skimp out on a quality PSU.

darkpyro1 · Dec 14, 2011

Everybody feel free to disagree, but so far I've had really good experience with Cooler Master too. Definitely +1 for the corsair though. :thup:

mjw21a · Dec 15, 2011

Yeah, the Corsair CX is a decent PSU.

Do I need more power?

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