Right PSU

Hiyya all am getting stuff together for my first build and been following Scott Muellers DVD and book. Now my build is fairly straight forward I haven't decided on the total set of items but looking at an i5 2500 CPU, Gigabyte GA-H67MA-UD2H Motherboard, Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB HD502HJ x2, Sony AD7240SGB 24X SATA DVDRW OEM, Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3N9K2/8G (bit of overkill I know but...), CoolerMaster 140mm Silent Fan (x2), Aerocool VX-e Pro LE midi tower case (free my son's got one spare).

But am stuck on a PSU. Scott is recommending a 12v single rail device and a good one at that as he reckons he replaces more of these than any other component.

I picked out these Corsairs - CX-500 and the GS-600 not much difference in price so which one? If anyone is wondering why not the i5 2500K it's a $100 dearer than the 2500 here in Australia or I would. I was going to run with the AMD x6 Phenom as my lad did but the Intel seemed to be a bit ahead with the onboard graphic stuff.

Use - average not a lot of if any gaming more into experimenting etc hence the overkill with the RAM. Plus I want to add more later. A must requirement is silent running as much as I can.

Oh if anyone has any thoughts on the above specs - most welcome as I said first build no idea how I am going to go but..

Thanks DeVandal will give it a go. Just that I was after a good reliable brand too as ScottM said it pays to get a well made one for eliabilty.

Anyway this is going to help - cheers!

That build would be fine with a good 400W PSU.

But as mentioned, the 500W Would give you some headroom for future upgrades.
For instance, if you decide to upgrade to a dedicated graphics card later, youll already have the extra power to run it. Certainly worth considering.


I prefer the Corsair PSUs w/the Single rails myself as well.
But Antec also has good PSUs worth looking at.

I have been doing a lot of reading on PSU's and have read hundreds of user reviews. I just purchased the Corsair 650HX. From what I read they are extremely reliable, and equally important to me is they have excellent customer service.

ICit2lol,
Please consider this, the case and the PSU are the underpinnings of your build and if purchased properly they will long outlast the mobo, ram and cpu's you choose now. For this reason I would over purchase on both fronts and then build your system. As a side note my need for a cool and quiet rig has brought me to rather expensive Noctua fans but many other excellent and quiet fans are available. Keep in mind that the large 200-230mm fans are very quiet as they spin at a much slower speed but still generate good air movement. Take lots of pictures and post them when done......good luck.

Thanks to you all some great tips here and am going to check out the prices here of the ones mentioned.

Hmmmmm I did some research too on a site of a fellow in the states and it was excellent can't recall where without going back and looking at Scott's quick link, suffice it was surprising the difference in quality of the heat sinks alone. If I find it a add the link although I reckon most of you will know it anayway.

Cheers - IC