For my former build (Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Core2 Q9450 2.67GHz quad, 4GB DDR2) I used a Corsair HX520 PSU and was impressed by its build quality, stability (been using it every day since 2008) and modularity, and wanted to opt again for a Corsair PSU for a new build.
Looking at the following build:
• Asus Z170-A motherboard
• Core-i7 skylake 6700K 4.0GHz quad, with Noctua NH-U14S CPU fan (air cooling)
• 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, 3000MHz, CAS 15-17-17-35, 1.35V
• 4GB MSI nVidia GeForce GTX 970 graphics
• 3 or 4x SATA 7200RPM internal hard-drives
• Texas Instruments Firewire PCIe board with bus power (to power an external Motu Traveler firewire soundcard)
• Samsung DVD-RW/BluRay
• Floppy drive (yep, I still use floppy disks for external studio equipment)
• 3 standard case fans (no radiators nor liquid cooling)
• Windows 8.1/10
Extra details:
• The computer will mostly be used for:
• I may have the CPU professionally overclocked to 4.6GHz by 3XS - but if doing so necessitates liquid cooling, I'll most likely leave it at stock 4.0GHz and stick to using standard air cooling instead.
- high-performance, very low-latency audio production
- 3D rendering (3Ds Max)
- casual gaming
• I will never install a graphics card more powerful than the GTX 970 for the lifetime of this machine, I'm merely a casual gamer and the GTX 970 is already more than I'd ever need.
• I will never need nor use two graphics cards (SLI/Crossfire).
• The only thing I may add in future is an SSD harddrive.
Given the above, which wattage should I be looking for in a PSU for this build?
Many thanks,
Timo