Asking too much from my Psu?

uksoldierboy · 4 Apr 2013 at 11:20

Hi all,
As thread title suggests, i'm worried i may be asking too much from my currently psu so i'm looking for opinions.
System specs are:
Asus M5A99X Evo
AMD FX4100 @5ghz (1.488v)
12 GB Corsair Vengeance LP
Gigabyte 7970 Ghz edition (1200/1650) stock volts are 1.256 underload.
1X 7200rpm hdd
1x Ocz vertex 4 ssd
DVD rewriter
Ocuk V6 watercooling kit
1X Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm
1X spectre pro 120mm
1x coolmaster 200mm
The Psu powering it all is the Corsair CX600 V1.
I can't help feeling that it's a lot to ask for it especially with the overclocked hardware, so just wanted to see what opinions are before i buy something more powerful.
Thanks guys
David

Smoogels · 4 Apr 2013 at 11:25

The 7970 recommends a 500W PSU for the whole system.

http://www.amd.com/uk/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7970/Pages/radeon-7970.aspx#2

I do not know if it really is to much for your PSU, but if you are running full load (or a game) are you noticing any problems such as bad performance?

Idleman · 4 Apr 2013 at 11:52

Depends which CX600w you actually have. Looking at the 4x600w versions in the link, which is yours?

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page447.htm

dacads · 4 Apr 2013 at 12:02

OP has stated it's V1 so the first one I assume.. either way I would be steering clear of the CX series

pastymuncher · 4 Apr 2013 at 16:37

If it is the first one then it's only got 480w on the 12v rail which is extremely poor for a supposed 600w psu.

Overclocked 7970 and overclocked FX is going to be giving it a good workout.

uksoldierboy · 4 Apr 2013 at 18:27

Cheers for the post guys and sorry for the late reply,
After closer examination of the psu it appears its the V2 (CMPSU-600CX V2).
Tbh i'm not noticing any problems really, my GPU seems to be playing up recently with crashing while playing gpu intensive games, but this is with an overclock of 1200/1650 so i'm guessing it's just not stable at those speeds when under 100% load, although i don't get "Driver stopped responding", all i get is green vertical bars (sometimes a different colour) down my screen and the whole rig needs restarting, doesn't happen if i run the card at stock though.
My concern was that it may go bang and take something with it if i was pushing it too hard.

pastymuncher · 4 Apr 2013 at 18:36

Still only 480w on the 12v rail on the v2.

uksoldierboy · 4 Apr 2013 at 18:40

Cheers pasty,
I take it that's crap then? or at least not enough for my specs? forgive me my knowledge of Psus is terrible and i know very little in regards to what to look for when buying one etc.
Why isn't the 12v rail 600w like the psu?

pastymuncher · 4 Apr 2013 at 21:03

Some psu's have a lot of the power on the 5v and 3v rails where it's not really needed. Yours has 150w spread between them. A decent psu will have the bulk of it's power on the 12v rails. Take mine for example. It's a 750w psu but has 720w on the 12v rails. Other's can actually exceed their total wattage on the 12v rails because they are built to such high standards.

Bargain basement psu's are even worse and are really misleading people when a 500w psu can have as little as 250w on the 12v rail.

The Corsair Builder series are budget psu's built down to a price. I really don't like them and personally only rate them slightly above the budget brands. I would'nt touch one.

If you want a decent psu take a look at the XFX range. All units are built by Seasonic and you can't really go wrong with them.

Hagar · 4 Apr 2013 at 23:02

just written this for another thread

As a point of interest, the 8350 with eight cores at 4.6GHz running prime AND the 6950 running heaven 2.5 simultaneously uses 350 watts at the wall. At 80% efficiency, about 280 watts inside the psu.

with ssd, 2x hdd, spec in sig.