Higher rated PSU yes/no

[Berger]

I am doing a few upgrades at the minute to my desktop pc, unsure if I’ll need a higher rated psu or not.

Currently has a Corsair 400w.
i5 lynnfield 2.67 @ 3.2ghz
4x2GB DDR3 XMS
It has two Sata 7200 drives and one DVD RW.

I plan on installing an SSD and disconnecting the IDE drives unless I need to access the data from them (unlikely).

The current graphics card is a Gainward GTX 260 Golden sample, google suggests 500w min psu required and consumption of 185w for this.

I am replacing with a GTX 970, which also says min 450/500w psu.

Will I get away with changing the card and using the current PSU or is it worth swapping out for a 600-750w unit. Long term I can’t really see myself upgrading the computer as I don’t play FPS style games, I use the PC to play Zwift which the new card will do great.

If I need to replace, I’ve read the Gibbo guide, Antec or similar Gold/Platinum rated psu. Any shining stars which I should go buy over any others?

 

[pastymuncher]

Which 400w Corsair psu though? If it is the original CX400 it was the best of the CX series before Corsair cheaped out on the oem but is ancient now so could do with replacing anyway. If it's the VS400 then that is just a poor quality budget basement unit with cheap and nasty internals and should be replaced. There is a Vengeance series that comes in a 400w size that is actually quite good but I don't think I have ever seen them sold in the UK.

If it was me then I would be looking at one of the excellent Seasonic Focus Plus series right now. They are all single 12v rail designs and the 550w has 540w on the 12v rail, the 650w has 648w on the 12v rail. All have a 10 year warranty. You can read reviews of the 550w here, 650w here.


My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Seasonic Focus Plus 550W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply= £84.95
• 1 x Seasonic Focus Plus 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply= £94.99

​

 

[EsaT]

High quality 400W PSU would be basically enough for reference GTX 970.
For non-reference card would be definitely looking for fair 450W.
Higher clocks of those cards always comes at expense of higher power consumption, sometimes quite notable.
(even for just small overclock if default clocks were already at upper limit of sweet spot)

But if that PSU is as old as PC would replace it anyway.
Not that much of high quality capacitors in cheap Corsairs after their first cheaper model VX450.
Though at least original CX400 was honestly specced unlike some later CXes...


550W is easily enough for that class graphics cards.
Seasonic Focus Plus is currently pretty much as good as it can get without going to luxury PSU price class.
10 year warranty tells that they're not playing Chinese component lottery when making those.

Efficiency difference between 80+ Gold and Platinum isn't really much.
Though 80+ Titanium gets bigger difference to 80+ Gold than measuring margins along with also high efficiency down to 10% load.
(crazy high in Seasonic Prime Titanium, though also its components are ridiculously oversized)

 

[Berger]

They sound quite good and not too pricey.

A little digging and it’s the original CX400 which is Seasonic internally pretty much. The computer is old but only had use in 2011 as I then moved abroad and had a laptop/MacBook Pro so it hadn’t been used for 5 years (it hurt running those windows updates!)

Thanks for the advice, I’ll probably pickup one of the above if it gives me a little overhead for the future without going nuts!

 

[Berger]

Sprung for the 650w.

Seems a quality item, how it took so long to come up with the idea of the modular psu I don’t know, simple yet works great.

What happened to Enermax? They used to make quality stuff and now I don’t seem them talked about.

 

[lee32uk]

What happened to Enermax? They used to make quality stuff and now I don’t seem them talked about.

They closed down their factory so no longer make power supplies. Most of the Enermax units are made by CWT these days.

 

[Berger]

All installed, but the Molex for the hard drivers is upside down with a top mounted psu... so you have to twist the wires around or mount the drives upside down.

Bit of an oversight!

 

[EsaT]

All installed, but the Molex for the hard drivers is upside down with a top mounted psu... so you have to twist the wires around or mount the drives upside down.

Bit of an oversight!

How freaking old case you have?
PSU on top design had its expiration date dozen years ago.

 

[Berger]

How freaking old case you have?
PSU on top design had its expiration date dozen years ago.

7 years, same as the rest of the system! Back then all PSUs were on top!

Changing the graphics card, doubling the ram and upgrading to an SSD has given it another lease of life.

 

[EsaT]

7 years, same as the rest of the system! Back then all PSUs were on top!

First cases with PSU on bottom became available dozen years ago.
Ten years ago it was pretty standard in all new good cases.
My case was literally designed in 2006/7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EWbNjWcJVg

While quality PSUs aren't that sensitive to heat (like Seasonic M12 pulling "no-sell" for problems from roasty 55C intake temp in Jonnyguru's test) I would at least make sure case has as good as possible cooling with that design.
PSU on top was simply designed in time when max heat output of PC parts was well below 100W and PSU itself produced basically half more heat.
Now non-reference graphics card alone can dump that much heat into case.
So if exchaust fan of case has restrictive stamped mesh half blocking hole, it would be better to cut it away and use finger guard made from wire.

 

[Sasahara]

My Case is 10.5 years old and has a bottom mounting PSU as well.

PSUs back in the day of top mounted cases tended to have faster fans (and louder), that could expel a reasonable amount of extra heat from the case.

With a modern PSU the case my get a bit hotter, but it's not a major issue with that PC and it's power usage.

 

[Berger]

My Case is 10.5 years old and has a bottom mounting PSU as well.

PSUs back in the day of top mounted cases tended to have faster fans (and louder), that could expel a reasonable amount of extra heat from the case.

With a modern PSU the case my get a bit hotter, but it's not a major issue with that PC and it's power usage.

I won’t worry about it then, the computer is in my summerhouse and only sees 2-5 hrs use a week.

It’s a Coolermaster case, whatever the machine was built with.

The last case I bought was a Coolermaster ATC 200 which is probably older than half of the forum