QOTW: What wattage is your power supply?

[pastymuncher]

I have downgraded from a Seasonic G series 750w (gold rated) to a BeQuiet Straight Power 11 550w (gold rated) that I recieved as a review sample on OCUK's forums. Even the 550w is more than I will ever use as the pc in my siggy along with Alphacool VPP655 pump(D5 Vario), 12x 120mm fans, 4x 200mm fans, 2x fan controllers, 2x Temp monitors and a couple of leds for the reservoir only pulls 128-275w at the wall while gaming (depending on the game) and the very max I have managed to make it pull was 367w at the wall while using OCCT's psu torture test. Idling/ internet browsing is 72w at the wall.

What people need to remember is that while the psu may be labelled as 500w, 600w etc it may not be capable of anywhere near that on it's 12v rail where you need the power. There are plenty of psu's that have significantly less on their 12v rail(s) than the overall figure on the label. A modern design, quality psu will have all or near enough all of it's power on it's 12v rail(s). A older design or cheap psu can have much less on it's 12v rail(s). Corsair's CX series were a prime example of weak 12v rails for several years after they ditsched Seasonic and switched to CWT as their oem. The CX600 only had a very poor 480w on it's 12v rail and this didn't improve until the 3rd version which had a 552w 12v rail. Now that they have ditched CWT for Great Wall on the non modular CX series they are actually a decent psu. The CX600 has been replaced by the CX650 which has a 648w 12v rail and the warranty has increased from 3 years to 5 years. It can get much worse than that though. Those so called "high power" psu's that you can buy on the likes of Ebay for £20 often have half their supposed power on the 12v rail and even then it's doubtful that they could ever provide that much without blowing up.

At the end of the day the psu is not a place to save money. Buy a quality one and it will last through several upgrades and many these days have warranties of 7 years, 10 years or even more. £80-100 may seem a lot for a quality psu but is it worth the risk of cheaping out and buying a psu that could fail and take other components with it? If things are tight rethink your other components. Do you really need that super duper top of the line factory overclocked card or could you go for the next one down and save £30-50 which you could put towards a better psu? I know where my money would go.

[flearider]

evga g2 850w .. hit's the sweet spot for me most of the time i'll use 40-70% of it's load . which is where you should use it ..

[DevDrake]

XFX 750W not modular unfortunately

[GoNz0]

Had my Enermax 1500w for a decade I think. It had a new fan about 4 years ago as the bearings started to go otherwise it is still going strong and I would hope if it did go wrong that the handmade design means it is easy to repair!
Back when I bought it I was running 1kw easily but now I expect half of that tops. Ironically it only seems to play lego harry potter when my 9 year old gets on it as I quit gaming 2 years ago!

[Friesiansam]

There's a big solar farm only around a mile away from home. That does for me.

[Korrorra]

Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 850w. That's a mouthful. At the time I wanted to buy one of the best. So I went for it.

[outwar6010]

Corsair ax760

[Rad77]

When my Corsair TX650 died (after only a couple of years, not pleased with that) power consumption of my PC build had dropped considerably, so I downsized to an EVGA 550W.
That's plenty for my Ryzen 1600x and R9 285.

[DanceswithUnix]

650W.
At the time it seemed ott, but with the Vega 56 it's nice to know it can handle any spikes in demand.

I usually overspecify the PSU to get a quieter machine.

[c12038]

Mine is a 700W Cooler master 55A that's all I require for my setup just recently upgraded to RX 580 and FX-8350 so happy with the results....

[Saracen999]

With multiple PC's, it depends which one you mean.

At the liw end, there are a couple of quite basic and elderly (if they were human, they'd be pensioners and probably luving in a small villa in Marbella by now) that are there to run either specific hardware ir software, and they're of the 230w range.

At the other end is a graphics workstation with a fairly high draw. I'm not at home (home/office) to check but it's a pretty chunky Delta PSU designed to have what the graphics card needed. My recollection is that it's 750w-800w, but I'm not sure.

Then there's a server. This is the old-fashoned full-tower type with space for about a dozen HDs, and a few 5.25 devices too Currently, it has two 6-drive SCSI RAID5 arrarys in it, using hot-swap bays converting most of the 5.25 bays into trayless 3.5" SCSI bays. That, IIRC, has something around the 900w size, and again, a Delta.

My "main" PC is again a full tower, Antec 1200 from memory, with a now fairly elderly (Q6600 era, though a sljghtly newer but low thermal profile "mobile" CPU ... 9300 rinfs a bell) chop, and that, IIRC, is a gold-rated 650w Enermax.


My strategy has always been to work out what I think I need, add 25%-ish for future needs then add 25% to that, so as go never stress a PSU too highly. I want it ru ni g in the sweet spot, but not ludicrously over-specified and never, ever under-specified.

Oh, and always, always always get what I believe is a good quality unit, not one built down to a price. Once I made the mistake of relying on a 'standard' PSU in a pre-configured PC supplied by a company big enough and famous enough to know better. Then something, and I know not what (PSU fault, mains surge, lightning strike, PC poltergeist, dunno what) let go and the resulting power surge cooked a £800 processor, £1000 golden sample video board and both a RAID-5 controller and 4 HD's (about £200 for the board, and 4x£150 for the drives).

I can't prove it, but I'm convinced a well-built and adequately protected PSU would be likely or st least much more likely, to have died itself but without cooking £2500-£3000 of other bits.

Someone said earlier about never skimping on a PSU, and I wholeheartedly agree. Just be aware that neither higb power ratings nor fancy marketing claims are any guarantee of either good design or quality components/manufacturing.

For me, a good PSU is like tyres and brakes on a car/bike .... not a good place to cheap-out. Pay for quality.

[fail_quail]

Corsair CS650M
Which is an 80+ gold semi-modular unit

probably a little overkill if i'm honest.

My old PC had an 850W unit, with an overclocked FX8120 and a R9 390 plus a bucket load of HDDs, i think i needed the extra. The PC doubled as a room heater

[OOSeven]

Just picked up an Antec HCG 850W in a sale.

[Millennium]

I may build with a 650w evga soon I have the parts for my non bed room. I'm just all is fed ~: up.

[jnutt]

Corsair 750w

[pp05]

Kolink 350w.

I may swap to 550w depending on GPU purchased in the future.