Power Supply Question, building system soon.

[Gatt]

Hi,

I've got a question about Power Supplies for the guru's here. Building a system soon and narrowed down my choices to 2 PS's...

Seasonic 380w Dual Rail
Linky

or

Seasonic 430w Dual Rail
Linky

The components it'll be powering are...

AMD 4200+
Asus A8n-e
BFG OC 7800 GTX
Pioneer DVD Burner
Seagate 250gig SATA
2 gigs OCZ DDR 400
Some Creative Labs sound card(Haven't decided, probably just an Audigy 2 or 4)
Possibly a HDTV Tuner
In the future, if it's worth it, that PPU thing may one day make it in

Odds are good that at some point after the Arctic Silver settles I'll try OCing it some, I'm hesitant to play with voltages because me and electricity have never gotten along very well, so when it craps out at stock voltages that's where I'll probably stop. I've no idea how much difference the 50w makes, or if it's necessary to keep everything happy and powered. So I figured I'd come ask the guru's here which way I should go.

Thanks all in advance!

 

[Fresh Daemon]

Without an OC, either one should work. With an OC, the more amps, the better. Anandtech found that overclocking was actually improved just by upgrading the PSU (over 550W). This is probably because of the nature of the latest-generation chips - after a certain point of speed, power consumption begins to increase exponentially. The PSU can easily become a limiting factor. For a heavy OC, I would say a 430W is too little - a good >500W is necessary.

 

[mezrah]

Agreed. Don't limit yourself with the PSU. Get a decent >500W

 

[wpshooter]

Originally posted by: mezrah
Agreed. Don't limit yourself with the PSU. Get a decent >500W

I third the motion.

 

[biostud]

430W is fine for light o/c but if you want a "futureproof" one that can handle the load once you get the guts to play with voltages, SLI etc. I think that you should go for the S-12 600W. It's a one time investment. But if it's too much for you now the 430W will handle that system perfectly fine.

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: wpshooter

Originally posted by: mezrah
Agreed. Don't limit yourself with the PSU. Get a decent >500W

I third the motion.

Fourth.

 

[Gatt]

Cool, Ty all!

Going back to looking at the Powersupplies to see if Seasonic has a decent one above 430w. All the advice is greatly appriciated!

 

[biostud]

If in doubt:
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=15&page=1

 

[orangat]

I prefer Tom's HW roundup of power supplies which is more comprehensive.
A 60min testing running prime95 is laughable. At least Toms maxed out the specs for 24hrs.

I'll be the lone dissenting voice and say the 430W is pretty good. If you're not planning on running SLI setups its plenty since Seasonics are rated for sustained output. Look at all the Shuttle 250W setups.

 

[ryox03]

I am actually running everything in my sig stable with no problems whatsover on a stock 250 watt....Doesn't mean that I am not slapping my new 520 in the Centurian that is waiting at my doorstep when I get home from work though

 

[Fresh Daemon]

I am actually running everything in my sig stable with no problems whatsover on a stock 250 watt.

It's certainly possible, and if you look over SPCR's power-supply section they reveal that quite a lot can be run on very meager PSU's. However, they are very much at odds with overclockers - the SPCR guys often undervolt and underclock, whereas overclockers obviously overvolt and overclock. And as I said, especially with newer generation chips (which your P4 3.2E is not), once a given speed threshold is reached power consumption increases exponentially. This is especially true with SOI chips. I'm not sure why. I don't even think Intel and AMD fully understand it, if they did, maybe they'd fix it.

There's also the question of stability. I'd be curious to know what your "crappy emachines" PSU actually delivers on the rails, not through the flawed mobo readings but from an actual multimeter.

But the PSU is not the place to cheap out, not when a cheap one has the potential to damage any or every other piece of equipment you have. As biostud says, it's an investment. A good PSU should last you at least a few system builds.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: Ike0069

Originally posted by: wpshooter

Originally posted by: mezrah
Agreed. Don't limit yourself with the PSU. Get a decent >500W

I third the motion.

Fourth.

What are you basing that on? No single CPU / GPU systems needs more then 350-400 watts. More power might make a slight difference in an overclocking but I doubt. Buying a 500 watt PSU and using 50% of its capacity is simply stupid yet so many people here do it....

Short answer buy the 380 watt S12.

 

[suicidalpigeon]

meh, 500w will be fine for future proofing. 600w is too much. 380w will do just fine as well, but dont expect to do anything crazy with it.

 

[Fresh Daemon]

What are you basing that on? No single CPU / GPU systems needs more then 350-400 watts. More power might make a slight difference in an overclocking but I doubt. Buying a 500 watt PSU and using 50% of its capacity is simply stupid yet so many people here do it....

Short answer buy the 380 watt S12.

Read what I said again. I said the 380W would be fine if he doesn't overclock it much. But - for the third time now - power consumption increases exponentially as speed is increased. Therefore, the more you overclock, the bigger your PSU has to be.

"As surprising as it will seem to some, that should include the highest quality power supply that you can find at 500 watts or more. We found that replacing a well-respected 465 watt PS with a 520 watt PowerStream allowed even higher memory overclocks. This was true with both the power-hungry nVidia 6800 Ultra as well as the more mainstream ATI 9800 PRO. If top memory overclocks on the Athlon 64 is your goal, don't skimp on the power supply."

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2226&p=22