Looking for advice on PSU choice..

[smargh]

I just got an E8400 with a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UDP3.
In addition, I have...
17" Dell LCD
Procurve 1700 24-port switch
1x WD GreenPower HDD
1x WD Velociraptor
2x2GB RAM
Alix 2C3 firewall+QoS thingy
6 low-speed 120mm fans
Asus HD3450 graphics card (yes, probably one of the lowest-powered cards you can get)
About 7 USB devices
Corsair HX520 PSU.

All the above is plugged in to an APC Smart-UPS 750i, and the magic number of watts taken from the wall socket (as from my self-calibration-verified wattmeter from Aldi) is.....

115 watts. Yes, 115. That's including the extra waste from the UPS. 155 watts when running Prime95.

When I turn off the monitor, the UPS doesn't even register any LEDs on the load meter. When I turn the monitor on, one LED turns on.

The board+CPU+monitor only took about 75 watts from the wall when I was setting it up and left it idle.

A branded (i.e. not a £15 random UberTech UltraPower Gold kind of model) 520W PSU would be overkill for most home users. I guess it depends on how much power the graphics card(s) pulls though.

Ars has some good threads on their Case & Cooling forum about PSU requirements.

[Blitzen]

Well if you must have more power then this
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/620W-...ty-NEW-VERSION!

or the enermax modu82+ 625W then but honestly it isn't worth it you won't be pulling anywhere near that.

If Blitzen comes along he will tell you that his 625W modu82 is running a more hungry system than yours (X38, q6600 i think and 2x HD4870's).

I am and it does
Best PSU i ave ever bought.