would i need to upgrade my PSU?

[lovewin7yea]

okay i made a thread about my h70 just recently, but i got to thinking, am i selling my system short with the PSU i have? im running 4 HD's, 2 DVD drives, 5 fans, a R5770 and my Phenom II x4

i have a corsair 400watt PSU, ive had this thing for close to almost 2 years. still running like a champ, never had a problem but i somehow feel im hurting my system by having such a low wattage PSU, with PSU's having 80 gold and so forth as the standard now. i dont know anything different, but would this make a dramatic effect on my system as far as pulling resources from the supply itself? i do game, i dont notice any lag in my system, what would be your recommendation? i was thinking about upping to 750watt corsair

 

[mckillwashere]

To be honest I am surprised you haven't fried your 5770. My co worker fried his video card with a low watage PSU, as it wasnt pushing enough to power the fan fully.

 

[Britton30]

Wow that is a low powered PSU for the setup. In your configuration you are probably maxing out your PSU. An upgrade to 750W will give you a bit of headroom and if your system is calling for max power, the PSU will only be at 50%-60% which is what you want to avoid overworking the PSU and under powering your graphics, CPU, RAM, etc.

 

[lovewin7yea]

yea, the 5770 handles the PSU like no problem, i never had a problem in game, when im running fraps im still avg 60 FPS in most games.

the fans on my 5770 run great, never had a problem, when i play games they both increase to over 2000 rpm, so its getting the power. im pretty sure ima get a new modular, just wanted a second opinion

 

[pparks1]

To be honest I am surprised you haven't fried your 5770. My co worker fried his video card with a low watage PSU, as it wasnt pushing enough to power the fan fully.

Thats often the difference between a quality power supply and a crappy power supply. The corsair is putting out an honest to goodness 400 watts of power. And this thread goes to show that PSU, can stretch farther than a lot of people think.

 

[Layback Bear]

Your Corsair power supply is a very good one, you are just working it very hard. That creates heat and shortens it's life. A Corsair 750 or 850 would do just great plus give you a little head room for other things down the road.

 

[Zepher]

750 is way overkill, but if you want to spend the money for it, do it.
I personally wouldn't upgrade the PSU right now unless there was a very good deal on one, otherwise I would wait till I upgraded the system or the PSU fails.

I am running an Antec 650 in my current setup, and in my old setup I had more than double your hard drives (9), Intel C2Q cpu that was overclocked, had 4 sticks of DDR2 1066 ram, and a GTX285 and 9600GT video cards, on the same 650watt PSU.

 

[lovewin7yea]

yea absolutely i agree, when i bought this PSU i threw it in the dell dual core i had cause the PSU on that blew out, did my research and it led me to Corsair, ill probably keep it as a back up or if i build a browser computer cause its legit and i leave it running 24-7 and never had a hiccup. i was on newegg and i was looking at PSU's

any recommendations besides corsair

 

[Zepher]

I've been running Antec PSU's in all of my personal builds and machines I build that have higher than $450 budgets.

I haven't had one fail on me yet, but I did have one that developed a loud coil whine. Antec replaced it for me, just had to pay to ship it to California.

 

[TVeblen]

yea absolutely i agree, when i bought this PSU i threw it in the dell dual core i had cause the PSU on that blew out, did my research and it led me to Corsair, ill probably keep it as a back up or if i build a browser computer cause its legit and i leave it running 24-7 and never had a hiccup. i was on newegg and i was looking at PSU's

any recommendations besides corsair

Be sure to look at Seasonic.
Seasonic makes most of Corsair's and many of Antec's power supplies.

 

[essenbe]

TVeblen is correct about Seasonic. But for some reason in most of the reviews I read, seasonic doesn't get as good reviews as Corsair. I don't know why and find it strange that they would build a better PSU for others. But, at any rate I have 2 Corsairs HX650 and HX750. Neither has caused one bit of problems. If I need another it will be an HX corsair model.

 

[lovewin7yea]

yea me thinks ima stay with corsair, i was checking out OCZ and PC power and cooling as well. im thinking a 650 will be just perfect so when i get my other card for crossfire it will work out

 

[bobkn]

I looked at a couple of 5770s, and both "required" 450W PSUs.

On the other hand, the 5770 uses a single 6 pin PCI-E power connector, so it must consume less than 150W.

Maybe the "450 W" bit is calibrated to inferior PSUs. I'd expect a good 400W one to be more than adequate, especially if you're not using 200W+ to power a massively overclocked CPU.

I've been quite pleased with my PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750. (It's a single rail unit, 60A at +12V.) It has only two drawbacks: it's not modular, and it's painted ATI red.

 

[essenbe]

bobkn. I have a 5770, it graws 70W. Manufacturers are notorious for overstating the required PSU. Maybe CYA?

 

[th3r0ck]

• PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard
• 450 Watt or greater power supply with one 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (600 Watt and two 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode)
• Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to AMD Certified Power Supplies for a list of Certified products
• Minimum 1GB of system memory
• Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
• DVD playback requires DVD drive
• Blu-ray™ playback requires Blu-ray drive
• For an ATI CrossFireX™ system, a second ATI Radeon™ HD 5770 graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable per graphics card (included) are required

check before u jump!! u need an extra pSU indeed! cause the PHENOM II X4 =95W and u got ur HDD and other things runs! the good thing for ATI is it consumes less power! and rarely requires a COOLER! happy Gaming!!

 

[bobkn]

bobkn. I have a 5770, it graws 70W. Manufacturers are notorious for overstating the required PSU. Maybe CYA?

CYA? In a way.

Cheapest 450W PSU at Newegg with at least one PCI-E power connector:

Newegg.com - Diablotek PHD Series PHD450 450W ATX12V V2.2 Power Supply

Diablotek PHD450, 24A at +12V.

One that costs twice as much as much:

Newegg.com - SILVERSTONE ST45SF 450W SFX12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

SILVERSTONE ST45SF, up to 36A at +12V.

A fairly low-end Antec 380W piece:

Newegg.com - Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Antec Earthwatts EA-380D, 17A/15A on its two +12V rails.

A cheap "600W" PSU:

Newegg.com - Broadway Com Corp OKIA-BLACK-600 600W ATX 12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

Broadway Com Corp OKIA-BLACK-600, 13A/16A on its two +12V rails.

If the numbers can be believed, the Antec 380W supply should be more useful than the Broadway "600W" unit.

 

[essenbe]

bobkn. I have a 5770, it graws 70W. Manufacturers are notorious for overstating the required PSU. Maybe CYA?

CYA? In a way.



If the numbers can be believed, the Antec 380W supply should be more useful than the Broadway "600W" unit.

The reviews on the Antec are considerably better also.

 

[hjonesMCT]

I second all the Corsair and Antec recommendations. I love my Corsair HX750.

 

[essenbe]

I second all the Corsair and Antec recommendations. I love my Corsair HX750.

I have a HX 650 abd HX750 and love them both. Unless I am mistaken,both the Corsair and Antec are made by Seasonic. And BTW, once you build with modular, you will never look at anything else.

 

[lovewin7yea]

thanks for the recommendations guys. i was told when i bought my Corsair that the CX400 was a quality PSU and i cannot agree more, but i just feel 400 for running as much as i have pretty strenuous. i built my intel build with a kingwin modular, great power supply, nice blue fan and more than enough cables.