What PSU should i really get for i5/XfX7850??

Your power consumption with this while gaming will be about 250-325W at the most. So, a good quality-made 400-450W PSU is all this will ever need. This doesn't mean that you need that headroom; it means that there aren't a lot of PSUs under 400W that I can recommend that are worth purchasing because their price is very similar to the price of some of the good 400-450W PSUs.

However, what video card will you get after the 7850?

Run the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator it will give you a general guideline, to what kind of PSU you will require.

x BlueRobot said:

Run the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator it will give you a general guideline, to what kind of PSU you will require.

This can give very bloated results if it's not used correctly, and I find that most people don't use it correctly. The biggest offenders in this calculator are:

• System Load
• Capacitor Aging

The most realistic system load setting for most people is about 70-80%. For people who are doing Folding or other similar things that put the system under a higher load for extended periods of time, 85-90% should be used. You see, this setting is referring to the entire system, but too many people think it's referring to CPU load. So, 100% System Load means that everything that's plugged into the PSU is at 100% load, including the fans, the hard drives, the optical drives, etc. Everything. That's why 70-80% is best for the average user.

Capacitor Aging is a non-issue with good quality-made PSUs. So, even setting this at 10% is too much unless you're going to be gaming for like 15 hours a day every day for a few years in a row. I mean, notice what it says:

"Electrolytic capacitor aging. When used heavily or over an extended period of time (1+ years) a power supply will slowly lose some of its initial wattage capacity. We recommend you add 10-20% if you plan to keep your PSU for more than 1 year, or 20-30% for 24/7 usage and 1+ years."

For PSUs with high-end capacitors like the good Japanese capacitors that are rated for 105°C, this degradation is significantly slower. Their statement is more generic and it's covering PSUs that have those cheap capacitors that are in PSUs that shouldn't really be recommended in the first place - but they have to consider them because they can be purchased. So if someone were to end up with a cheap PSU, then yes they should definitely take capacitor aging into consideration, but not with a PSU like Corsair's AX series. No, not at all. Maybe go with 10% for 24/7 usage and 1+ years. Now, don't misunderstand this: 24/7 usage means that your computer is under full load 24/7, not simply on 24/7 and idling most of the time.

There are other offenders in this calculator, but these are most certainly the biggest ones. I mean, I see too many people selecting the following when they shouldn't:

• High End - Desktop - these are expensive motherboards with very expensive CPUs. For example: Intel's 2011 socket is only in high-end systems. Socket 1155 and 1150 is Regular.
• High rpm SATA (this is only for 10,000 and 15,000 RPM SATA hard drives)
• Additional PCI Express cards, when they have two video cards. This is not for video cards.
• USB devices. Don't count your mouse and keyboard because this calculator already includes that power consumption
• Fans: High Performance. Most people don't have high performance fans. You would know it if you did!

So yeah, for this reason I never recommend PSU calculators.

MrSH4RKYY said:

Thanks for the help but i should have stated i am not going with anything under 800Watt as ill be over clocking, i will go for a 670 or 680 or even a 690 after the 7850 i will never go any lower and i am sorry but saying a 450 for these specs is not right and i really do not know alot about it as there is going to be water cooling and extra fans in the case

Well even so, with the 7850 in your system with the 3570K overclocked to 4.2 GHz, your power consumption will be about 250-325W at the most. Therefore, a good quality-made 400-450W PSU is more than enough; it would be overkill. Maybe 350W at the most, but it's unlikely. Your power consumption will not increase by that much with water cooling and extra fans.

If you go with the GTX 680 and overclock it, then a good 550W PSU would be a perfect fit. A GTX 690 is an SLI card and there are games that don't support it, such as Diablo 3. Look into it before considering an SLI card.

I'm sorry, but I know what I'm talking about here and I am telling you factual 100% correct information here. By helping you, I'm automatically making myself responsible for your computer, so it is in my best interest to only give you the truth and not my opinion. So the truth is, if you go with an 800W or higher PSU, then you would be wasting your money in a very big way.

Layback Bear said:

MrSH4RKYY more power supply than you need hurts nothing. The cost difference is small when getting more watts.
A higher watt power supply than needed doesn't work as hard to get the job done. Therefore it runs cooler and quieter.
A higher watt than needed power supply give you and your computer to grow without replacing the power supply.
I have to put my compute under heavy load to get the power supply fan to come on. It just runs cool because of the demand my computer put on it is just a walk in the park to it.
I do favor two brands.
Corsair and Seasonic. My Corsair power supply was made by Seasonic.
Check my specs. My system could run on a 500 to 550 power supply but I chose more power.

It hurts the average efficiency. For example, you're not getting the 80+ Gold efficiency with the tiny load that you're putting on it. If you had a good quality-made gold-rated 450W PSU, then the amount of power that's being pulled out of your wall outlet would be noticeably lower than it is with the AX850. I mean, your power consumption while gaming is no more than about 250-350W at the most. So, your average efficiency is lower than what you paid for. Your efficiency while idling is likely even lower.

So, not only did you pay way more than you needed on the PSU, you're spending more money each month on electricity than you otherwise would be.