• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

power supply next??

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
B

box bundy

Registered
​
Joined
Mar 4, 2012
I'm liking the look of the Asus Z87-Expert with the i7 haswell. next onto the power supply. any suggestions on specs, brands etc for this setup. mild OC. at least 6 sata power supplies, a bit of cooling etc.
what do yas reckon?
 
Well, "yas reckon" you tell us your idea of what the full system will be.

If you plan onboard graphics then go with a 450watt, if you plan quad Titans, then its a whole other playground.
 
don't worry about the wattage. I can work that out myself.
I think I'd go for a supply that could power 2 graphics cards in case I wanted to go that way in the future.
What I want to make sure of is that I'm not skipping any important features in my search such as for eg.
get a psu that has enough wattage to run at 20% load
get a psu with short circuit protection
that type of thing.
 
An efficiency rating has nothing to do with the quailty of the psu...

At box, what will the specs be? Most go way over on power requirements. You have experts here, use us. ;)
 
EarthDog said:
An efficiency rating has nothing to do with the quailty of the psu...

At box, what will the specs be? Most go way over on power requirements. You have experts here, use us. ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks I know where you're coming from but..

I don't have specs yet because I haven't looked into cards yet. First I intend to see if I'm satisfied with the onboard graphics (not much of a gamer - a little bit). If I'm not I'll look at a new card. That's basically why I can't list my wattage use - I don't know myself yet. I want a supply that will allow me to upgrade as I explore my needs. So I'd prefer to be going for a larger capacity to allow for this. So in other words, just pretend I'm using 2 high end graphics cards, a couple a expansion cards, water cooling, say 4-5 fans, 6-8 sata drives.

I'd like to think I have a fair knowledge on this sort of stuff. I'm a sparky. I work on multi million dollar machinery that is fairly complicated. So none of this is foreign to me.

As Pierre suggested then, I'll be looking for supplies with an 80+ efficiency rating.
Anything else ?

thank you both
 
Last edited:
Pick the cards first.
A PSU for 2x7790 and a PSU for 2x 7970 GHz are two very different PSUs.
 
how much wattage do you need for the more juicier cards then?

O.K. where shall I start with cards? AMD, Nvidia. 1 or 2 cards? I'm dumb as with this.
My old board has 1 nvidia gts 250. Remember I'm not a big gamer (just a bit) as I mentioned but I don't want something that is sh*t.
I wouldn't know where to start. what advantages would 2 cards give me other than the obvious higher framerate?
whether or not I decide on 1 or 2 cards I'd be looking at a value for money type setup. I'm more concerned about performance and speed. I will be using it to watch videos though.
I don't know if it makes a difference but 2 monitors will be used. One on a HDMI touch screen type and the older one has a VGA connection.
One more thing. Are PCIe 2 cards compatable with PCIe 3 mobos?
can someone give me a starting point and recommendations please. Info and links as well pls
 
Last edited:
the only reason I mentioned this one was because it's a similar price to the 860.
I know it's overkill. I want to allow for 2 cards though. I figured the 860 would be about right???

I see the specs for the GTX 650Ti Boost are:
Maximum Graphics Card Power (W)134
Minimum System Power Requirement (W) 450
Base Clock (MHz) 980
Boost Clock (MHz) 1033

so tell me

does the card simply use a max of 134W?

and

wouldn't I be better off with a higher clock than this considering that the i74770k has a sweet spot at 1600MHz?

I don't know how it works. I just want to make sure I understand correctly and don't buy something that I find out later on that I don't really want.
thanks
 
Yes, 135w + 10% more for overclocking. For two high end gpus, a 750/850 is needed. A quality 550w would handle 2 650ti boosts.

Not sure what you are saying higher clock than 1600.. the ram? If so, not really as there are little to no gains with faster ram as bandwidth isn't a bottleneck.
 
I'm probably looking at it wrong. Electrics I understand, this stuff I don't.
If you could explain a bit that would be great. I assume these are speed ratings??
What I'm trying to ask you is:

The i74770k CPU has it's RAM rating at 1600MHz (not overclocked)

I thought that GPU would be like RAM. eg capable of doing 1600MHz comfortably (not overclocked).

so with that considered, wouldn't I be better off looking for a GPU with a base clock of 1600MHz and a boost clock similar to what my RAM is capable of?? eg up to 2133MHz

or am I looking at it wrong?

can you or anyone else explain it to me please.
 
You are looking at it wrong.

The ram that is in GPUs are DDR5, not DDR3. GPU ram doesnt have anything to do with system ram nor do they need to match or be close at all. Completely different things.
 
ok. thanks for that. Sorry about the dense questions.
just a couple more...

Would my old card that was on the PCIe 2 mobo be compatable with a PCie 3 mobo?

The old card is a nvidia gts250e 1GB - is it any good?

What would be a good GPU RAM size? how does the size affect performance?
eg. 1GB, 2GB etc.

I take it you don't think I should bother with 2 cards then??

Thanks again
 
Not dense questions at all.. :)

PCIe2 cards will work in PCIe3, yep!

Its good for putting an image up on the screen, sure. But for gaming, in modern games at 1080p, not good at all.

The amount of vram you need depends on the resolution of your monitor and the settings you play at. The higher the resolution and settings, the more vram you need. For 1080p 2GB is solid for today's games. 3GB would be what I would go with honestly (AMD 7950).

I wouldn't SLI GTS250, nope.
 
So in summary (in your opinion) I should go

1 AMD 7950 3GB- if I want something really good
or
1 GTX 650Ti Boost 2GB- if I'm money concious but still want a reasonable performance

I'm leaning towards the GTX considering my needs and the fact that at my shop the AMD is nearly double the price.

Thanks for your time
 
For your needs since you are not a 'big gamer' the 650ti boost will do you well. It wont run today's hardcore games cranked, but close enough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ptm
power supply suggestions
Replies
2
Views
593
Niku-Sama
Niku-Sama
Overclockers.com
FRONTPAGE Phanteks Introduces All-White AMP 1000W Power Supply
Replies
0
Views
633
Overclockers.com
Overclockers.com
D
New Build questions
Replies
9
Views
134
Droidriven
D
Y
ASUS TUF RTX 4090 - My review
Replies
0
Views
52
yoadknux
Y
S
CMT32GX5M2X6200C36 *4 Sticks Z790-E GAMING WIFI i9-13900K XMP Unstable
Replies
4
Views
683
Woomack
W
Back