Will this PSU work on a new rig?

[rootaxs]

Howdy folks,

I've done the calculators and it seems this may work, but wanted to check with you seasoned folks if i can get this to work somehow.

The PSU is a Corsair CMPSU-400cx.
80 PLUS Certified
Output: +3.3V@20A, +5V@20A, +12V@30A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@2.5A

Currently running stable with these: QX6700, 560Ti, 8gb (4 DIMMS), (2) Caviar Blacks, (1) Caviar Blue, (1) SSD, 2 USB peripherals at any single time and a DVD/RW drive.

I'm going with a new Z68 mobo + i7 2600k and 16gb (4 DIMMS), moving over all the drives and peripherals and adding another SSD.

Thoughts?

Thank you.

 

[lehtv]

That CX400 is stressed pretty badly... I'd rather get a 2500K and a new power supply in the 550-650W range. 2600K is only relevant for those who regularly use heavily multithreaded productivity apps, and even then 2500K is better bang for buck. Do you really need 16GB RAM as well?

As a rule of thumb, you don't want to stress your PSU more than 80% of its capacity. With the system at full load, your CPU takes 100W, your GPU takes 170W, and your hard drives take 5W each. That's already 80% of the 360W +12V output of the CX400. It'll work, but it's not optimal, and I would not advise to do any overclocking. A new power supply would allow you to comfortably overclock the Sandy Bridge CPU and the 560 Ti, both of which are in fact very good overclockers.

FWIW Nvidia recommends minimum 500W for 560 Ti in an average system, and since CX400 only has one 6-pin PCIe connector it's obviously not designed to power a 560 Ti.

 

[rootaxs]

Thanks, lehtv.

I do a lot of multimedia and graphics work, no gaming whatsoever, thus the 16gb/i7 combo. The 560Ti is there basically to help with Premiere.

I guess you could stay i'm already stressing the current system as-is, no? Probably on borrowed time.

Thanks again for the input, i may just go ahead and get the Antec HCG-520 that's currently on sale locally. That should hopefully be ample.

 

[lehtv]

Well actually I don't know how much 560 Ti consumes power doing CUDA in Adobe Premiere. I wonder if anyone could shed light on that...

Regardless the HCG-520 is plenty for that setup even if you OC the 2600K.

 

[rootaxs]

lehtv, thanks again for the help on this.

I got the HCG-620, but alas it was DOA. The thing would power up then die, then cycle through that process until you switch it off.

I needed to get the computer up and running again, so while i wait for the replacement i fired up the new rig with the old Corsair. So far so good, even while encoding.

Supposedly the 400cx is supposedly under-rated based on various online reviews at the time it was released (more like 450w continuous at the +/-79% efficiency mark). I figured all the components use up 305w with typical load, so this should work for a little while.

 

[Halogen23]

I really didn't think you needed a new PSU to begin with. The 2600k and DDR3 will use less power overall than the QX6700 by a noticeable margin to the tune of as much as 40W total under system load. I still think you should be fine with the old corsair. To prove my point, go here(http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp) and plug in your old config. When I did, your original specs came out to having a minimum PSU capable of 385W(!). After putting the 2600k and ddr3 with everything else the same it called for a PSU min to the tune of 353W. For a PSU really capable of about 440W peak and 400W constantly, I would say you're good and sent the new PSU back for a refund.

 

[lehtv]

Here's the PSU overloaded to 480W. That's with the +12V at 360W, the rest comes from the minor rails to get it to 480W. And here it is loaded to its rated 400W, with the +12v at 324W.

Out of that 324W, 560 Ti and 2500K will use 270W or over 80%, and you still have hard drives (and some of the mobo...?). It probably won't use more than 80% when encoding, but it will mean that overclocking is not a good idea. With an adequately powerful PSU (400-450W +12V) you could tap into something like 30% better encoding speed