PSU to get?

AaronS

AaronS

AaronS

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Joined
9 Feb 2010
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242
Location
Bristol
My proposed spec I think will need a lot of power(well more than 400w or so), here it is:

AMD Phenom II 965
Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H
Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600C9DHX Twin3X (1600MHz PC3-12800)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 XXX Edition 1024MB
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3
My old Maxtor DiamondMax 21 (250GB SATA)
Xclio NightHawk Extreme (4x 160mm case fans)
Sony AD-7241S-0B 24x DVD±R + Lightscribe
Also going to power a better than stock cpu cooler(unless I choose one without a fan, hmm) and headset via USB

So I was thinking of one of these, I don't really think I will get less than 600w, I am prefering a modular PSU aswell, is the extra 100w shows below worth £8(maybe it makes it more future proof?)

OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply - £55
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply - £65
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply - £73

Any other suggestions welcome
 
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I'm pretty certain a good 400W will be just fine with that. Out of the options listed I'd buy the 500W ocz, but only afte finding a review where they stress test one. OCZ have a good name, and ocuk occasionally praise the modxstream as having an exceptionally low returns rate, so I can't see there being as problem with it.

Fanless cpu cooling is a more interesting question. I'm assuming this is a gaming build, will you be doing anything with it which will benefit from using a quad core? Dual (or tri) cores are a lot easier to cool quietly for obvious reasons.
 
JonJ678 said:
I'm pretty certain a good 400W will be just fine with that. Out of the options listed I'd buy the 500W ocz, but only afte finding a review where they stress test one. OCZ have a good name, and ocuk occasionally praise the modxstream as having an exceptionally low returns rate, so I can't see there being as problem with it.
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Well I forgot to mention CPU and most likely graphics and ram will be overclocked aswell, but thanks.

JonJ678 said:
Fanless cpu cooling is a more interesting question. I'm assuming this is a gaming build, will you be doing anything with it which will benefit from using a quad core? Dual (or tri) cores are a lot easier to cool quietly for obvious reasons.
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Lots of gaming, media center, programming, torrents, lots of web browsing, photo and video editing, I think that's it other than general use stuff.

Ontop of that I want it to last me quite a while... I've left 2 ram slots for upgrades, and may get a sound card in future if needed for the basic surround sound media center usage, and may add another side screen in future, but I suppose that is GPU specific..

I think only things that will use multiple cores are games, photo and video editing, probably some browsing, don't know if torrent programs even support it..
 
Torrent programs are almost invariably internet limited, not cpu. That said, my netbook does take longer to take an iso file down than my desktop so there might be something in it. Photo editing won't place any significant load on the system unless you're working on large and complex projects, however video editing can do. If serious about video editing you'd probably want an intel cpu, not an amd one.

Programming takes no processing time at all, compiling can do but again only if you're working on large things. The linux kernel takes something like ten minutes to compile on current hardware.

Overclocking a cpu does markedly increase power consumption. Linearly with frequency increase, quadratically with voltage increase. Nonetheless a 500W will do it fine. An argument in favour of the 600W is that your system should be closer to the point of maximum efficiency under full load, so electricity bills will be a bit less.

I'm playing devils advocate to some extent as I tend to overspecify power supplies, I'd rather have it idling than struggling since bad things happen when they die. In that spirit, I'd probably get the 600W.

^Relative to what esat? They're inevitably worse than seasonic or pc p&c, but for the money I'm not sure you can do better.

Not a glowing review here, it failed testing at 45 degrees ambient.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2008/11/12/ocz_700w_modxstream_pro_power_supply/9
 
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JonJ678 said:
Torrent programs are almost invariably internet limited, not cpu. That said, my netbook does take longer to take an iso file down than my desktop so there might be something in it. Photo editing won't place any significant load on the system unless you're working on large and complex projects, however video editing can do. If serious about video editing you'd probably want an intel cpu, not an amd one
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I appreciate the help, but I am really only asking about the PSU, torrents on my current system run fine unless I tell it to download something like over 20 at a time, and then it will go to 0kb/s and stay that way and then the program will be so slow it will be hard to re-limit how many things it is downloading again, but once limited (I set it to 10) then it runs fine

JonJ678 said:
I'm playing devils advocate to some extent as I tend to overspecify power supplies, I'd rather have it idling than struggling since bad things happen when they die. In that spirit, I'd probably get the 600W.
Click to expand...

That was my purpose of this thread, I don't want it to struggle in the least, so you have pushed me in the 600w direction with no need for 700w
 
You may have missed the edit, hardocp didn't think much of the modxstream so I'm less keen to recommend it than previously. Not that you're likely to run it at 100% load in 45 degrees ambient, but still not encouraging.

Interesting response to the torrents, thank you. May I ask what your current processor is?
 
JonJ678 said:
You may have missed the edit, hardocp didn't think much of the modxstream so I'm less keen to recommend it than previously. Not that you're likely to run it at 100% load in 45 degrees ambient, but still not encouraging.

Interesting response to the torrents, thank you. May I ask what your current processor is?
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Coolermaster and Corsair still good?

My system is old.. I will have to double check.. Sempron 2800+ only 768mb ddr ram
 
Nice, I decided to go for: Coolermaster Storm Scout + Coolermaster Silent Pro 700W Modular PSU bundle for £129.98 which means my case has also changed(improved) from my proposed spec, ram also changed, nothing else... just going to look at some cpu coolers tomorrow
 
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