Power needs of a Fx-6200 based system.

[Drp]

I am currently in the process of building a computer and im looking for a realistic estimate of how many watts my power supply should be, the specs are as follows.

Antec Nine Hundred case
MSI 990FXA-GD80 motherboard
AMD FX-6200 (3.8 gHz)
Coolermaster v8
Corsair Vengeance (2x4GB) 1600
Evga GeForce GTX 560
DVD/RW Drive
1TB 7200 RPM HD
(Would like to get a SSD drive soon as well, so id like to include it)
....Power supply?

 

[EarthDog]

A quality 500W unit would be plenty for that system even with everything overclocked.

 

[Drp]

Any suggestions? i was looking at the corsair GS700, too much?

 

[RGone]

Good specs for sure...


SeaSonic M12II 650 SS-650AM 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Semi-modular Power Supply

 

[EarthDog]

+1 ^^. Higher quality, and modular vs GS700.

 

[drosera01]

I would go with something like this.
Corsair AX, HX or TX models or XFX or Seasonic. 550W would do, but 650 would give you good headroom if you need to upgrade/add anything/parts later on.
Remember, PSU is one of the most important part on your assembly, when it fails normally it takes quite a few if not most of the parts on your system with it. So, i would rather spend 30-40 extra bucks now. And most of these good quaslity PSUs come with 5 yrs of warranty.

XFX 650W
or

XFX 550W

Both are great PSUs.
Search for Corsair TX 650w V2, I have seen this on sale on newegg quite often.

 

[EarthDog]

500w DOES give enough headroom for adding on (except another gpu for Sli/crossfire). My benching rig with 3770 at 4.8ghz and 680 at 1300MHZ pulled a bit over 360w at the WALL.

 

[Hicksimus]

It really depends on your overclocking goals, with my FX-6100 at 4.7Ghz, 1 HDD, and 1 GTX 460 my Antec Truepower 550w wasn't working out. I was having all sorts of little issues and was getting confused until I touched the power supply and realized it was getting very warm.

You don't have to believe me though, you can find the power draw numbers in many reviews. Here is the first google result for me. Sure it's an 8 core with a 590 idling, that's still a 590 watt reading versus 313-333 watts with a similarly overclocked 2600k which also has an idling 590.

 

[EarthDog]

I dont see a 590 in his build. I see a 560 which uses SIGNIFICANTLY less power than a dual GPU 590. On the order of 1/2 the power.

As far as your PSU not handling the load well..

1. Its older..
2. There is only 36A available to the 12v rail which puts that at 432W. A quality MODERN PSU has more on the 12v rail, like this Corsair (45A= 540W on the 12v).
3. Old PSU spec on a new PC will have problems as there is not as much weight on the 12v rail on those PSU's.
4. That PSU is like 77% efficient compared with modern PSU's.


EDIT: Though 500W is fine, I should say 550W just to give a bit more headroom. Anything more than that is overkill for a single GPU single CPU system with air/water overclocks.

 

[Hicksimus]

1. Its older..
2. There is only 36A available to the 12v rail which puts that at 432W. A quality MODERN PSU has more on the 12v rail, like this Corsair (45A= 540W on the 12v).
3. Old PSU spec on a new PC will have problems as there is not as much weight on the 12v rail on those PSU's.
4. That PSU is like 77% efficient compared with modern PSU's.

Sorry, kinda going in reverse order of your post. My tp550 may be confusing you with the old truepower trio 550, of which I own both. The one I refer to is semi modular and has a maximum 12v output of 45 amps. To be fair it is 2 years old, it is now sitting in my spare machine running an e6750, gts250, and 8800gts for occasional LAN parties and folding.

As for your point about the 590, I pointed out that it is idling. Bulldozers have ridicilous power draw. Here is a less over clocked 8 core system drawing 406w with a 6870 idling. That's still almost 200 more watts than a 2600k system in that same test. Note that in this review we are quite far away from 5Ghz unlike the first review. Linky

Like I said, it depends on how much overclocking he wants to do, I've been there and done it. I'd rather see somebody spend an extra $20 on a PSU and be ready for anything than skimp and have to buy 2 or as in my case chase gremlins for a week not knowing just how hungry the bulldozers are.

 

[EarthDog]

Yep. Well aware of its power consumption. Normal overclocks in the 4.5Ghz range and and 560 (no ti, non 448c) I still believe to fine. The link you provided in the post above with BD at 4.6Ghz shows 406W AT THE WALL (so you need to take in to account efficiency... if 90%, platinum level, you are looking at an actual draw of ~366W) with a 250W TDP card(6970) vs the 560 that is ~150W or ~190W OC'd.

That said it doesnt hurt, but I really dont think its needed. Just depends on his overclock (which he didnt mention he was doing so far).

 

[drosera01]

500w DOES give enough headroom for adding on (except another gpu for Sli/crossfire). My benching rig with 3770 at 4.8ghz and 680 at 1300MHZ pulled a bit over 360w at the WALL.

Manufacture recommended power for 560 is 460W, i always add at least 30% on that to supply power for other periferals that takes it to 598W.

You dont want to run your gaming rig underpowered. On top of that PSUs degrade when they age. So, i would not go anything less than 550, but 650 would be ideal.
May be its just me.

 

[EarthDog]

MFG ALWAYS put that number much higher than it can be due to sub par PSU's. As it stands, even overclocked, unless he is shooting for 5Ghz (which is that even a 24/7 clock, especially on air?) Its not even 400W actual use.

Your PC in sig could have been fine on a 400W PSU WITH 30% added.

Anyway, it only hurts the wallet a little to go bigger. I know, with certainty 650W isnt needed for that setup..with overclocking, over time... YADA. But it cant hurt. 550W is the perfect match of $ and having enough PSU IMO.

 

[Bobnova]

The manufacturer is hoping to prevent people using $10 PSUs from killing their systems and blaming their GPUs. By "requiring" a 460w PSU they're hoping that the user's PSU will at least be capable of coughing up the 250-300w it needs to.
In reality they need to aim higher as there are plenty of 500-700w PSUs that are just barely capable of 300w.
They would be better off with a minimum PSU cost, really.

A GTX560 has a TDP (maximum power consumption) of 150w. That's it, just 150w.
That CPU has a TDP of 125w.
Hdds are about 10w each, fans on average are 1-3w. Ram/mobo/VRM inefficiency typically eats another 15-35w.
Total all that up and tell me if it's 460w.

The thing with that 460w number is that it is for the full system and they have no idea what other parts you have.
A PhII 965 first revision eats 140w.
A SB core i3 eats 45w. Little bit of a difference eh?

Anyway, his PSU is far more than large enough.

 

[Hicksimus]

I think this discussion will benefit him so I went and got some numbers for everybody to consider. These are at the wall, my psu is this. I have a 480 which is idling that should be around 55W.

Format: Ghz/Volts Idle/Load/Cinebench 11.5 Score

3.3Ghz/Stock: 175/280 to 300/4.01 (i5 2400S range)
4.2Ghz/1.45: 220/410 to 420/5.16 (i5 2400 range)
4.5Ghz/ 1.46: 225/ 440 to 460/5.47 (i7 960 range)

I'd say at stock with a 560 he can certainly use a quality 400, with a slight overclock he'd be fine on a quality 500, with an overclock that I see a lot of people using(4.5Ghz) it seems to me he could reasonably be expected to be hard on a 550. Add my experience using a 550 with my FX-6100 and GTX460 to that and what I'm saying seems perfectly reasonable to me(keeping in mind I did not do a 4.7Ghz run here because it's 34C in my room atm).

 

[EarthDog]

460W at the wall... now lets say your PSU is 90% efficient, you are looking at ~410W actual use. I stand by a 550W PSU with the system being fully overclocked with PLENTY of headroom.

I think your old PSU may have had an issue personally. I dont know...

Thanks for the numbers.

EDIT: Your PSU is around 80% efficient too... so its even less actual use.

 

[Bobnova]

That PSU is only 80+. At high loads it's (hopefully) a bit over 80% efficient.
That means that your 460w wall load is only a 368w load to the PSU.
It's also worth noting that there are excessive numbers of variables in that test anyway.

EDIT:
The truepower 550w was not a particularly good PSU, from what I can find.

I stand by what I said.

 

[Hicksimus]

Tough crowd. I'd always thought running a PSU near its stated maximum output wasn't a good idea from an efficiency and longevity perspective. I take it I'm wrong?

 

[EarthDog]

Its not close to its stated maximum output though. Its ~370W of 540W in your example (~68%).

The sweet spot is around 50-75% or so as far as efficiency is concerned on most PSU's I believe (BobN?). But I posed that question to Oklahoma Wolf a couple years ago and his response, IIRC, was something along the lines of he would be disappointed if a PSU rated at XXX wasnt able to sustain its maximum load for the term of its warranty...something along those lines. I hope I didnt butcher it.

 

[Bobnova]

That's roughly what OW said I believe.

If it's a quality PSU it should be able to do that without an issue.
If it's rated creatively, such as "peak" load rather than sustained load or outright nonsense (like $60 "1000w" units), that's a different story.

If you think about the warranty and rating a bit, it essentially states "This PSU will do X watts on Y rails for Z years, or more".
If it's rated for 550w@40c for 5 years of warranty it had better be able to do it.