Raolan wrote:
Admiral Lubriderm wrote:
Oh, silly question. I have no idea what I should do for wattage. It's either got 4 or 6 cores, 8 gigs of ram, one so-so sata HDD, and a 470 gpu or something. Think 850 will cover it?
Probably.
Go over to Corsair's website and use their PSU finder. That'll at least give you a range for where you should be. And you could always grab whatever they recommend, they make some pretty solid PSUs.
If you don't go with a Corsair model, make sure you are getting an 80+ certified model (some descriptions may not mention 80+, but may mention being certified for nVidia SLI). Otherwise, eventually your PSU may only be able to deliver output in the 60-70% range under sustained loads, so you'll need to pad the rating a bit (basically, go a tier higher: instead of a generic 600w, go with 700/750w, etc.).
I know the prices may look a bit steep for the 80+ models, but these new GPU's combined with the multi-core CPU's can really hammer a PSU--and when those generic models get hot, their output drops off pretty quick. You may actually save money in the long run with a higher quality PSU because of the longer warranties. I got a Corsair TX650 on sale a while back at Best Buy for $85--and it has a 5yr warranty (Corsair typically just swaps things out, so their warranties usually translate to free replacement). Even their entry level CX models have 2 years--Pro lines have 7.