PSU for an i7 build

[palladium]

I'm getting my new Core i7 build next week, specs are:

Core i7 920 ( plan to OC to 2.8-3.0GHz)
HIS Radeon HD 4870X2 - stock speed
Gigabyte EX58-DS4
Corsair TR3X6G1333C9 (6GB) 3X2GB DDR3-1333 XMS3 9-9-9-24 ( 2pcs for a total of 12GB)

I'm planning to get a Corsair TX750W PSU for this rig, it has 60 amps on the 12V rail, and from reviews that I've read, Corsair PSUs are generally good. As this is my second time building a PC, I want to get some opinions before I proceed.

So, is this a good PSU to get?

Thanks in advance.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

how about the PCPC750 Silencer? they've gone really cheap these days and have been known as the TANKS of PSUs. i just got a 610 and the build quality is TIER 1

 

[dangman4ever]

Both the Corsair 750TX and PC P&C Silencer 750 are good choices for a PSU. With that said, in terms of bang for the buck value, performance and amperage/wattage, this BFG ES-800 is the far far better choice:
BFG Tech BFGR800WESPSU ES-800 800W PSU

It has 65A on the +12V rail, backed by a lifetime warranty and received a Gold Award over at HardOCP:
http://hardocp.com/article.htm...Q2NywsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

 

[shempf]

I don't see where 750w is required for that equip.
the OC is the only thing that may be borderline.
Your better off running the PSU within it's efficiency spec. (watt/$ wise)

Corsair & PP&C are the ones I lean towards.

 

[tim924]

Go for Corsair 750TX,performance-wise they are about the same,but Corsair 750TX has better cooling and is quieter,also a little smaller in size which in some situations may come in handy!

 

[palladium]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Well for some strange reason 750TX is only a few dollars more expensive than the lower wattage PSUs in my region ( New Zealand), and PC P&C Silencer Quad is priced the same as a HX1000. No BFGs in my region T_T.

Also the retailer that I bought from recommends me to get a Seasonic M12 700W, is this PSU any better than the 750TX? ( the retailer claims it is of higher quality and also modular) It seems to have multiple 12V rails ( well, not really multiple but one rails split into many) but the overall amps on the 12V is less than the 750TX, don't know about the other specs such as ripple, efficiency, temp, quality, etc.


Thanks again

 

[jvnk]

Apparently noone recommending the 750TX reads Anandtech's own reviews.

http://www.anandtech.com/casec...howdoc.aspx?i=3445&p=9

Compared to other Corsair offerings, the TX750W is simply not up to snuff. The previously tested HX1000W was an excellent power supply, but that power supply uses a different topology. We also received an HX520W recently and that power supply performs very well -- it's a Seasonic-built unit. Pricing may be the one saving grace, however.

Dunno what other sites say, so you're probably fine off with it. Just see their review first. It's possible their results are specific to their test model.

Otherwise, I'd highly recommend PCP&P, they are very highly rated and respected in the industry afaik.

 

[tim924]

Originally posted by: jvnk
Apparently noone recommending the 750TX reads Anandtech's own reviews.

http://www.anandtech.com/casec...howdoc.aspx?i=3445&p=9

Compared to other Corsair offerings, the TX750W is simply not up to snuff. The previously tested HX1000W was an excellent power supply, but that power supply uses a different topology. We also received an HX520W recently and that power supply performs very well -- it's a Seasonic-built unit. Pricing may be the one saving grace, however.

Dunno what other sites say, so you're probably fine off with it. Just see their review first. It's possible their results are specific to their test model.

Otherwise, I'd highly recommend PCP&P, they are very highly rated and respected in the industry afaik.

I trust real users's reviews more than anandtech's single point of view,at newegg,actually more people are getting Corsair 750TX and generally get better ratings lately,All those hundreds of reviews are more accurate than a single test of a particular psu of a brand i guess(not saying Anandtech is inaccurate but there is always a "not so perfect" product from every company,so a particular case will not prove its quality alone),anyways Corsair 750TX got a Silver Award from Hard Forum a year ago,that said it's far from the "not up to snuff" statement you mentioned.

 

[Howard]

I was thinking you'd mention a budget of some sort.

 

[theAnimal]

If the Seasonic M12 is within your budget, go for it.

 

[Rabbits]

Seconded for the Seasonic.

 

[palladium]

Thanks again for the replies. Now I have another problem, the Seasonic Unit is now out of stock ( and I just found out it doesn't have the 8-pin PCIe power connector that my HD4870X2 needs), and the retailer recommended me Antec True Power Quattro 850W instead. I've just read the ' Attention System Builders' thread in General Hardware, it seems Antec is one of the reliable brands. On the other hand, I've read quite a few threads ( here and elsewhere) of people having issues with Antec PSUs lately. So now I'm tossed between TX750 ( NZ$189) and Antec TPQ 850 ( NZ$289). I have no idea why he recommended me these over the TX750 - my guess is that the Antec have multiple 12V rails (not necessarily a good thing) , and perhaps the TX have ripple issues ( as demonstrated by Anand and to some extent, jonnyGURU.com) and maybe a loud fan.

PC P&C Silencer Quad 750 is so overpriced here that the HX1000 is cheaper than it ( neither of which is within my budget) - how I wish we have a bigger market for PC components here in NZ.

Please help me~~~

Thanks again.

 

[theAnimal]

You could get a 650W PSU. Corsair TX650, Corsair HX620, Antec Signature 650.

 

[Dudereno]

Hello, minor thread hijak.
I am trying the same project- building around an Core i7 920 . I bought an intel motherboard.

I am begging for help because my _first_ build - already I think I messed up. I bought
--------------
10009642 INTEL BX80601920 Core i7-920 2.66GHz Intel(r) QPI 4.80 GT/s
Socket 1366 Desktop Processor Retail

10009487 INTEL BOXDX58SO Intel X58 Core i7 Socket 1366 PC3-12800
(DDR3-1600) ATX Motherboard Retail

--------------
and a power supply/case combo

http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...ails.asp?EdpNo=3634728.

This power supply does not seem to have long enough wires to go into all the motherboard plug in points.

I dont care if its 600 W, but it would help if the power supply came inside a nice mid tower case
that fits the motherboard well.

Any recommendations are _greatly_ appreciated.

Good luck with your build palladium, remember to get a Power supply with enough wires

 

[dangman4ever]

Originally posted by: jvnk
Apparently noone recommending the 750TX reads Anandtech's own reviews.

http://www.anandtech.com/casec...howdoc.aspx?i=3445&p=9

I'm basing my recommendation for the 750TX off HardOCP's and JonnyGuru.com's reviews:
http://hardocp.com/article.htm...QwMywsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modul...views&op=Story&reid=73

Did fairly well under their testing.

Originally posted by: tim924
I trust real users's reviews more than anandtech's single point of view,at newegg,actually more people are getting Corsair 750TX and generally get better ratings lately,All those hundreds of reviews are more accurate than a single test of a particular psu of a brand i guess(not saying Anandtech is inaccurate but there is always a "not so perfect" product from every company,so a particular case will not prove its quality alone)

I would not trust Newegg user reviews when it comes to PSUs since a good majority of them are written by noobs, idiots, incompetent, and PSU ignorant people. Just take a look at all the 4 and 5 star ratings for APEVIA PSUs. Apevia makes some of the shittiest and over-rated (both in terms of wattage and ratings) PSUs out there. The fact that Apevia PSUS get such "good" reviews over at Newegg is more than enough for me to distrust Newegg user reviews for PSUs. And here's my proof that Apevia makes shitty PSUs:

Apevia ATX-AS500W-BL
Apevia Warlock Power 900W
XQPack's Included 420W PSU
Aspire Beast 680W Power Supply

So take Newegg user reviews with HUGE grain of salt

Originally posted by: Dudereno
and a power supply/case combo

http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...ails.asp?EdpNo=3634728.

That "600W" PSU only has 32A on the +12V rail, which puts it on par with many 450W PSUs out there. That's already a bad sign of it's quality. Anyway, the cables should be long enough to reach all of the Intel's mobo's spot considering the placement of the PSU. Oh and generally the PSUs that comes with cases suck, with the exception being Antec.

 

[tim924]

Your logic doesnt work as Corsair itself was a silver prize winner last year on Hard Forum and just in case you dont know Corsair was the selected as the best Power Supply Manufacturer of 2008,and there was a reason for that,how could you compare a Corsair with an unknown Apevia power supply in the first place,Apevia was only heard of in the computer case category maybe,and Corsair has been well known for making great and stable power supplies and memories.If your logic works ideally people could just skip the newegg reviews and buy what's more expensive at the top list for their safety,and if all those reviews were so ignorant why the the heck people knew how to rate PC P&C and Corsair power supplies as the top notch as those two have the most voted reviews yet 5 stars rating,you really think your so trustable anatech or maybe some a few forums are the only things you can trust and actual users who build their computers from the ground up are so ignorant that they cant distinguish what is a good or bad even they had knowledged the details of what they needed to build a system and then used them daily and not knowing their quality?Come on,open yourself up to the world a bit more,dont let your pointless worship of these forums blind your sight to the reality

 

[dangman4ever]

I AM a member of HardForum and yes I know do know that Corsair and Apevia are worlds class apart. It was Hardforum that told me the difference between a good PSU and Apevia. However, if you look at just the newegg reviews for Apevia and Corsair, the average person would think that the two were almost equal. In addition, I never said "people could just skip the newegg reviews and buy what's more expensive at the top list for their safety", I said "take Newegg user reviews with HUGE grain of salt". Not once did I say "buy the most expensive PSU out there at the top list".

In addition, I never said "ALL" newegg reviews were ignorant, I said "A majority of them". There's a difference there. Anyway, like I said, much of Newegg user reviews for PSUs are made by PSU ignorant people. More than likely they just plugged in their PSU, saw that it didn't blow up and gave it a good review. A lot of those Newegg user reviews are like that. Sites like HardOCP and jonnyGuru actually test the PSU under proper conditions. In addition, their PSU sub-forums are filled with PSU experts who know or at least can tell what's a good PSU and what's not. That's why I put a lot of weight on advice and reviews offered by those sites and their forums.

Also word of mouth does help many people assume which PSU brand is good or not. Unfortunately even word of mouth is a bit inaccurate considering that I still meet many PC builders and enthusiasts who think OCZ's GameXStream PSU line are good quality. They're not. If you check Newegg, the GameXStream PSUs get 4 and 5 star reviews BUT those PSUs are based on the FSP Epsilon PSU line that has out of spec ripple at high loads. I bet you won't find any sort of info like that in those Newegg user reviews. I found that out from the PSU sites I mentioned earlier.

You can go ahead and assume the Newegg PSU user reviews are made by intelligent and knowledgable people but after seeing so many 4 stars for Apevia PSUs and other shit power supplies on Newegg, I can only take those reviews with a huge grain of salt. Yes Corsair and PC P&C gets high user reviews at Newegg but so does poor quality PSUs from Apevia, OCZ's GameXStream line of PSUs, HEC, Coolmax, Raidmax, Thermaltake Purepower line of PSUs, Antec Basiq line, and Rosewill.

 

[tim924]

I did not judge them by purely the "Stars" ratings,as most of us know it could just be a new arrival product which received a good ratings,but take a deeper look and think twice,when you go to Power Supplies sections then categorize them by best ratings at the top of the list there's Corsair and PC P&P there,and the most important thing is they both did not get the "5 Stars" ratings by accident,they are both close to 500 reviews of overall 5 stars ratings of people who actually used them(well you might say some of them may not have purchased there)but think about it how many people would really waste their time giving a product reviews,oh now you might even imagine some of the company's staffs made them up,but chances are as the more "5 Stars" received,more shoppers would likely buy that product and if the product was not a great product itself those shoppers would more likey come back and bash the product with a low rating given they have been fooled,so when a product received so many "5 stars" ratings after a long time,that's something in quality itself you could get a hint why arent others receiving that kinda of ratings and yet with a large margin of them.And with just a little bit research,I think most grown-up adults have the ability to distinguish what a top brand is in the industry for that,not by some "Apevia Vs Corsair" examples you would just want to use to justify your sake,my point is while PC P&C is surely a great psu itself,you dont have to be like a fanboy yourself to close the doors on others as we all know there's not a single brand that only stands top of the industry nowadays,judge them fairly,and judge them logically,not only by "What some forums say",they sure did their part of research but look on the other part of the world who are the actual users,they afterall are the ones and the most that use them daily,and when most of them say good things about a product it voices something you dont hear here that truly exists.

 

[HardBill]

To the OP.

My ongoing investigation indicates the Uncore portion of an i7 draws it's power from the +5 from the main motherboard connector and has a significant power draw rated at

Table 2-6. Processor Absolute Minimum and Maximum Ratings
VTTA - Voltage for the analog portion of the integrated memory controller, QPI link and Shared Cache with respect to VSS
? 1.35 V 3
VTTD - Voltage for the digital portion of the integrated memory controller, QPI link and Shared Cache with respect to VSS
? 1.35 V 3

3. VTTA and VTTD should be derived from the same VR.


2.11.1 DC Voltage and Current Specification
ITTA Current for the analog portion of the integrated memory controller, QPI link and Shared Cache
? ? 5 A
ITTD Current for the digital portion of the integrated memory controller, QPI link and Shared Cache
? ? 23 A

Intel recommends for their own X58 board (and of course the do not consider any OCing when stating their specs/recommendations)

The power supply must comply with the indicated parameters of the ATX form factor
specification.
? The potential relation between 3.3 VDC and +5 VDC power rails
? The current capability of the +5 VSB line
? All timing parameters
? All voltage tolerances
For example, for a system consisting of a supported 130 W processor (see section 1.4
on page 14 for a list of supported processors), 1 GB DDR3 RAM, one high end video
card, one hard disk drive, one optical drive, and all board peripherals enabled, the
minimum recommended power supply is 460 W. Table 24 lists the recommended
power supply current values.
Table 24. Recommended Power Supply Current Values
Output Voltage 3.3 V 5 V 12 V1 12 V2 -12 V 5 VSB
Current --------22 A 20 A 16 A 16 A 0.3 A 1.5 A


My point is that it now seems that it is no longer not all about the +12. Either of the supplies you are looking at, and in fact most high performance supply's should have sufficient +5 but I have found a few less powerful/expensive ones that are marginal or do not. While Intel recommends at least 20A on the +5 for their own X58 board I would want more and I would want it to be clean and just as important would want to know how did loading up the +12 affect the voltage regulation and noise on the +5.

I highly recommend that people recommending supplies for i7 systems go back and look at the quality (noise, ripple, regulation) of the +5 of a supply before recommending it for an i7 machine.

Disclaimer: As mentioned my investigation is not complete as there are no new VRD specs from Intel and Motherboard manuf do not bother to provide sufficient technical details of there board designs but Intels own specs and reviews around the web where i7 CPU power requirements that where determined only by measuring the current flowing through the 4 or 8 pin aux 12V power that feeds the CPU VRD (aka VRM) are wildly incorrect supports my preliminary conclusions.


edit: hmm it appears the +5 feeds the memory controller part of the i7 and the 3.3 feeds the QPI and I/O so it may be the 3.3 that really needs to be looked at. but the point is the same the 3.3 and +5 are now important again or at least need to be looked at harder when choosing a supply for an i7.