PSU ?

thamighty213

After Quiz pointed out that the old GX 750w I have in my new refurb salvaged build is a bag of crap I started reading up on it and sure neough its a bag of crap that is going to struggle to deal with the build without potentially causing damage to it.

 

Still looking to build on the cheap so have came up with 3 other options.

 

Ebay AX1000 for auction still early days but a very low price at present.

 

CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold 800W £120ish a fair bit more than I want to spend.

 

Antec Truepower 750w roughly £75

 

 

WHat are your htoughts on the 3 above brands ?

 

I want to stay as cheap as possible but without buying a naff unit so if you have alternate cheaper options then feel free,  in an ideal world I'd prefer a modular unit.,   have the money but this has turned into a excercise in thriftiness and seeing just how cheap I can pull this off for.

Quizzical

Corsair's AX line is excellent.  As of a year ago, it was arguably the best power supplies on the market.  While that isn't still true today, it is still excellent by today's standards.  However, there isn't an AX1000, so I'm not sure what you found.  My guess is that you found a Corsair HX1000, which is also very good, though not as good as the AX series.

The most appropriate power supplies that I found for your system are these:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-117-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1088

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-004-XF

They're both pretty good.  Incidentally, they're both made by Seasonic, and the latter is the same as a Corsair TX V2 series.

A GeForce GTX 480 pulls an awful lot of power, so I wouldn't recommend that you go below 650 W on the power supply.  If you're giving the processor a large overclock, too, then you might want to opt for the 750 W power supply.

Cooler Master's Silent Pro Gold line is pretty good, but I wouldn't recommend it at that price.  It will get you better energy efficiency than the power supplies linked above, but isn't otherwise a better power supply.

thamighty213

Cheers definately need a 750w so I'll likely go with that Antec true power 750w as its modular.

 

other option for a little more and to give some future headroom is the Antec high current 900w for £90  -- thoughts ?

 

 

 

Quizzical

I don't see any plausible reason to go for more than 750 W unless you're going to go CrossFire or SLI in the future.  Even a good 750 W power supply can handle most CrossFire or SLI setups.  Probably not a pair of GeForce GTX 480s, though.

For a quick approximation of your peak power consumption:

GeForce GTX 480:  300 W

Core i5 2500K at stock speeds:  100 W

Core i5 2500K with a large overclock:  200 W

Everything else added together, with a generous overestimate:  100 W.

So it's pretty unlikely that you'll pull 600 W from the power supply.  It's also very unlikely that you'll ever upgrade to a single-GPU video card that pulls more power than the GeForce GTX 480.  There has never been a card that came all that close to it in the past, and may or may not ever be one in the future.

Now, 600 W from a Cooler Master GX 750 is dangerous.  But from a good power supply that can readily deliver 750 W under real-world conditions, it's not a problem.

77lolmac77

Corsair is the brand I always go with for PSUs and RAM, until they give me a reason not to. Coolermaster and Antec have gotten good reciews for the most part but Ive never had one personally. Its never a bad thing to have too much power, just make sure the listed wattage is for continuous power not just the maximum output. Cheaper brands often list the maximum output in the name when feally its meant for less wattage over the long haul.