Pls Recommend a PSU - £100 or not much more

[myPCBlewUp]

Hi all,

I have an old AMD AM3 based system with M5A97 R2.0 motherboard and what was an OCZ 600W PSU.

The machine was originally built by me in 2012 and has never had a problem until today.

Due to money being tight I have been slowly upgrading components rather than build a new machine.

First was a FX 8350 CPU, then Radeon R9 390 GPU, CoolerMaster AIO, Sabrent 2TB M.2 NVMe and finally a new Silverstone case to house it all in.

I figured most of the parts I can take with me into a new Ryzen Threadripper build when things pick up.

What I didn't upgrade was the OCZ 600W PSU. It was bought brand new when I originally built the machine and I thought it would be ok for my current use case.

I know the CPU and GPU are both power hungry, and I had also overclocked the CPU to 4.5GHz but I was still shocked when it went bang during a FurMark stability test I ran today.

My APC UPS kicked in and tripped the power as it happened, but I'm still worried that the PSU may have taken other components with it to a smoky grave.

Anyway, as there is only one way to find out and because I'd need a new PSU for a new build if I have to scrape cash together to do so...Can someone recommend a good 1000W one.

Thank you.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

Thanks Sparx I do work on the machine and game on the side which is why I'm looking at such specs in the future (coding, running multiple virtual machines for test environments, AV etc).

I also wanted good overhead for the machine but you're right 1000w is OTT...and I also saw the prices

Looking at 800 Watters...Thanks for links.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

Sparx I think I'll be going for your Corsair recommendation but in the 750w.

Cheers

 

[myPCBlewUp]

Use pc partpicker to build a system similar to what you have or similar to what you want to build and then use some sites to run a power calc. Then add 20% extra on top and you will see for a top end system you will end up with 600 to 800 watts.

I went with EVGA but honestly any good gold rated PSU manufacturer will do with decent warranty. Get a popular one if you chose to get custom sleeving or do it yourself.

Great advice...Thank you for this.

Looks like Corsair gear is sold out for a while so need to look around.

Cheers.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

It puts the system under an unrealistic load. I’d had 780ti croaking a frog and pulling bonkers power, 360watt IIRC. I think the Nvidia driver now detect furmark and cap the power consumption as it was killing cards.

It does put the system under unrealistic load but so does Prime95.

Basically software shouldn't be able to permanently damage well designed hardware...As you state yourself....Nvidia put in mitigations for their cards but they should have them there anyway regardless of what software is being run on the system since they know best the limits of the hardware they sell.

Same deal with CPUs in desktops, mobiles, consoles etc having a way to scale down if they are getting close to thermal limits or just shut the system down if something abnormal occurs.

I'm not blaming OCZ or anything...It was an old PSU and I put it under abnormal strain...I believe it would have given many years more service if I hadn't have done to be honest...I don't agree with james.miller that it was on the way out.

I would however expect a modern unit to shut itself off rather than blow up though.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

Use pc partpicker to build a system similar to what you have or similar to what you want to build and then use some sites to run a power calc. Then add 20% extra on top and you will see for a top end system you will end up with 600 to 800 watts.

I went with EVGA but honestly any good gold rated PSU manufacturer will do with decent warranty. Get a popular one if you chose to get custom sleeving or do it yourself.

Spot on mate
https:// ************.com/list/8jbKzN

I think the 750 or 800 would be good.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

If you Google the Corsair RM750 is definitely in stock at one or two places

Not for the £100 the RM750x is being advertised at.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

RM750 I said not the RM750x lol - £109.99

But the x is the better unit from what I read as uses better caps (Japanese)....Plus certain retailers are selling for £100 delivered, but no stock at the moment. I can wait if its not too long as have a decent laptop I'm using until then.

Yeah unfortunately PSU prices have increased slightly.

Also I don't know why so many are out of stock. Blame it on the COVID I guess.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

yeah people building systems left right and centre! I have decided to water cool my pc because my head was running to hot with all the lock down measures.

LOL...Yeah lockdown has been crap for many reasons but I've saved a packet not travelling into the office for work.

I added a CoolerMaster MasterLiquid AIO recently. Its only a 120mm but I've managed to boot at 5GHz with it. Not stable though and I fear that's pushing my old rig too far so knocked it back to a safe 4.5.

So surprising how such an old system is still performant with modern games at 1080p but its in my 3D rendering (and code compiling) that has me saving up for a new system.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

What are you considering for you new rig then? CPU/GPU etc?

It's a little way off, but the spec so far...

I'll re-use the SilverStone case, RM750x PSU that I'm about to buy, storage, and cpu cooler, and then get these:

Asus ROG Zenith Extreme Alpha
Threadripper 2950X 3.5 GHz 16-Core
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB DDR4-2666 CL15
Asus Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB STRIX

 

[myPCBlewUp]

You might be better off with a 3900X or 3950X performance wise unless you need the extra lanes from Threadripper or you can get it on the cheap.

Thanks...I'm sure there will be even more options / better prices when I'm able to pull the trigger on the upgrade

You'd rather believe furmark blew a good PSU up but left the GPU, motherboard and CPU unharmed? How do you supposed it did that ?

Well indeed it might all be dead hardware in the case.

Although everything looks visually good, I've yet to test things post explosion since I'm waiting on the new PSU, but yeah I don't see why the OCZ wouldn't have lasted much longer in standard use that didn't include sustained abnormal load.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

Sometimes things just fail.

Yes true. I did some digging and found some bad stories about reliabilty for OCZ (who are now owned by Toshiba).

Seemed like the higher wattage units were better than the cheaper lower wattage ones.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

Which one did you get finally? I've been looking for a PSU for work machine as well.

Sorry didn't know this thread was still going.

I'm still waiting for my order of the Corsair RM750x.

It's been out of stock for sometime but I'm noticing that some retailers are being restocked tomorrow so I'm hoping mine is too far away.

I've waited this long because mine is on a deal fro £100.

You dont need a 1000 watt supply as others have already said and it looks like you have also worked out . Even with a threadripper thats somewhat overkill. To give an example I run a threadripper 1950x, 64gb ram, radeon 7, 3 nvme drives, a couple of ssds and around 4 mech drives and its all powered off of an 860w seasonic platinum series supply.

That same machine and same supply at points in its life has had 4 gpus in it at the same time (radeon 7, vega 64, and a couple of rx 570s) on top of all that hardware and the supply has never skipped a beat.

Cheers yeah... @sadat recommended doing a virtual build with PC part picker to check how much wattage I really needed for now and future use (cheers @sadat ) so it opened my eyes a bit.

I found out a few days ago on post mortem of my dead PSU that it was actually a lowly 500W unit

No wonder it blew up with the power hog FX8350 and R9 draining it.

I really didn't remember...I could have sworn it was a 650 but I check an old scan receipt and the horror was revealed.

Just hope my PC still lives after all this.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

Ooooooo, remind me never to make that mistake EVER! I hope it didn't damage any of your other components when it died...

Yeah, just remember that if you update your PC a lot more than from when you bought it, especially if you do it over a long period of time, check on health of your PSU or just replace it as they do have a lifetime anyway.

Should be fine! 99% of the time nothing gets taken out. I did have a cable take out a B450 motherboard and a 2700x a few weeks back though so fingers crossed for you.

Yeah here's hoping.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

I'm a software engineer, when I left university I worked at a company part owned by a software developer that worked on Corcorde, fly why wire, head up display, all done in FORTRAN, he also worked inside the actual UK test Concorde 002 on the electronics bays.

His advice was pick a quality PSU, that's double the wattage of the computer, he said never skimp on the PSU.

Bloody good advice that...Also FORTRAN...Wow that's a bit old school I never learnt it myself, as went from Basic to Assembly, to Java and now settled on C# (which is almost the same but cleaner )

I think what some have missed here regarding the 'you don't need that much PSU' is two fold

1) There's no price on peace of mind if you can afford it

2) I equate it to a motor engine...If on say a 1 litre naturally aspirated (car as bikes that's a quite large capacity) and you are getting to high revs to achieve say 70 MPH, you are near the full potential of that motor and its under more strain than if you were at the same speed with a 2 litre.

 

[myPCBlewUp]

After two weeks and Corsair not being upfront about availability, have cancelled the RM750x and gone for a Seasonic Focus GX 750.

£5 more expensive but at least I get it tomorrow.

Also I kept hearing persistent complaints about this Corsair model having coil whine, although doubt it would bother me if true anyway.