PSU - Advice needed.

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4 Jun 2007
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3
I'm looking at buying a silent PSU, my current one is 600W (Seasonic) but I'm wondering if I can get away with spending less on a 500W.

Zalman seems to be the way to go and I hear they are up to 84% efficient? If anybody could offer some explanation/recommendations of whether a 500W PSU would be sufficient I'll send you a cup of earl grey in the post, guaranteed.

My specs:

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard
AMD X2 4400+ processor (the 110W model I think)
4x 512MB DDR400 RAM
AMD 3870 XT 512MB
X-Fi XtremeMusic
2x 120mm low RPM case fans
Zalman Reserator 2 Water Cooling Kit
Just a Graphics Tablet, standard keyboard, Logitech G5 Mouse and sometimes a XBox 360 controller on the USBs.

Thankyous.
 
Up to 84% efficient will depend on the load you place on it, PSUs have efficiency bands so if you underload or overload then they become less efficient but as a very rough example you are probably looking at something like 50-80% of the PSUs max output as being the optimal band.

I'm pretty sure that a good 500w will be fine but you may want to wait for further confirmation.

Can I ask why you are replacing your current PSU?
 
It's actually up to 81% efficient. OCUK has the details wrong. It has dual 12v rails, 25 and 18 amps so should be fine for your rig. For more details see Zalmans website. Why do you need a new one if you already have a 600w Seasonic?
 
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