PSU, Sizing, Selection Question...

Sorry for all the questions lately...

I am down to my final shortlist for my system upgrade...

Current system:
AMD64 3200+ S939
ASRock DUALSATA2
6600GS 256MB PCI-E
36GB Raptor
320GB Seagate (IDE)
2GB Kingston RAM PC3200
Case supplied 430W psu

Proposed upgrade components:
BFG OC2 8800GT 512MB
Seagate 7200.11 500GB HDD
New PSU

Now onto the power supply, I am currently looking at the following option:

Corsair 450W - £41
Corsair PSU 450W VX450W ATX12V v2.2 5 year manufacturer's warranty - CMPSU-450VXUK - www.microdirect.co.uk

OCZ 500W XS StealthXStream - £40
OCZ 500SXS StealthXStream 500W PSU (3 year Direct Manufacturer's PowerSwap warranty) - OCZ500SXS - www.microdirect.co.uk

Coolermaster 650W extremepower - £44
Coolermaster eXtreme Power 650W PSU ATX Form Factor RP-650-PCAP - RP-650-PCAP - www.microdirect.co.uk

Virtually no money difference, however have not seen any reviews on hexus over coolermasters psu's.

I do plan to go quad core (Intel), with 4GB DDR2 Ram later this year if that makes any difference....

Any advice on my plans, especially about the above branded PSU's would be very welcome. I believe corsair do better psu's? however will 450W cover my current & future plans?

That OCZ PSU is £32 on ebuyer

OCZ StealthXtream 500W PSU - 1x PCI-E 6/8pin, 2x SATA 12cm Fan - Ebuyer

However, in you position Iwould go for the Corsair 520HX or 620HX
Cost a bit more but silent and excellent quality (and modular connectors)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kmac

However, in you position Iwould go for the Corsair 520HX or 620HX
Cost a bit more but silent and excellent quality (and modular connectors)

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I second this man... The 520W one is enough unless you want dual graphics :)

Its a bit more expensive, but worth it in the long run. If you don't want modular cabling you can go for the 550W corsair
500W is the minimum you should be looking at though for quad... if you are on a tight budget, the OCZ for £32 is the best choice:)

Thanks for the feedback so far. Tbh I dont plan to run cards in Sli anytime soon... but am on a budget, the reason I am leaning with Microdirect atm is the GPU & HDD pricing & performance. I just need to pair them up with a PSU.

If the corsair is better, will the 450W not be enough for my requirements?

Yes the 450w corsair will be plenty mate.I'm running one with AMD 5000+ @ 3.0ghz,4gb ram,2 hard drives,mobo,8800Gt 512mb.

It will be enough for your current setup, but your future quad might struggle

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SiM

It will be enough for your current setup, but your future quad might struggle

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450W should handle everything unless you want to go for Triple SLI/CrossFire.

As long as you have enough ampere on the 12V rail you will be fine.

Even heavily overclocked Quad core + single GPU will be hard-pressed to go over 300W

Excellent, thanks very much for the help. I read further into the coolermaster psu, and alot of people complain about the noise of the fan. The corsair seems to get consistant feedback, therefore have ordered the 450W. Thanks very much for the help. It really is appreciated :bowdown:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arthurleung

450W should handle everything unless you want to go for Triple SLI/CrossFire.

As long as you have enough ampere on the 12V rail you will be fine.

Even heavily overclocked Quad core + single GPU will be hard-pressed to go over 300W

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Are you sure? My single core system used to struggle with 380W antec...

The vx450 is made by seasonic on behalf of corsair so it's a very good power supply and considering you are effectively buying a seasonic, a very good price.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SiM

Are you sure? My single core system used to struggle with 380W antec...

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Some older Antec PSU got really crap 12V rail, thats probably your problem. Also 380W PSU is probably like 2-3 years old or more and it could probably degraded to about 300W or so.



I got a Tagan 480W in my Pentium D 4Ghz now and its only drawing 260W from the socket doing x264 encoding. My single core system use 100~110W from the socket depending on load. But then that single core system is not overclocked.

That Corsair PSU is lovely, My desktop would have been more quiet than my laptop if the hdds stop resonancing with my akasa eclipse 62

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arthurleung

That Corsair PSU is lovely, My desktop would have been more quiet than my laptop if the hdds stop resonancing with my akasa eclipse 62

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Suspend it with some strong elastic bands as a number of people have done:

silentpcreview.com | View topic - HDD Elastic Suspension... Show your pics!

(Link courtsey of Fraz)