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Building gaming PC.... please help?

I am building a new gaming PC, what factors should I look for in a Power Supply? Please Help!?

  • I have a motherboard, 4GB RAM, a 3.4 GHz phenom II quad-core processor. I haven't bought a GPU yet, but it should be powerful.

  • Answer:

    Factors to consider: Reputation and brand. Some of the consistent brands of high reliability and stable clean power supplies are OCZ, Antec, Corsair for example. Enough amps on the 12+ rail. Make sure sure your rail has enough amps, my Corsair TX650 has around 62 amps, my old Alpine 650W had 36 amps. Determine whether you need dual or single rail. Single rail is the best in my opinion, dual rail just separates the current to different components. Rating, is it bronze gold 80+ etc. Look for 80+ for the best power supplies providing enough power. Always add 20% to your required wattage. Don't go too mad, too high wattage is wasted, and in fact the lower in use the power supply is the less efficient it is. See the Corsair power chart for example, depending on load depends on the efficiency. Going for a 700w power supply when you only need 400w will result in a non-efficient power supply current, which isn't good for components and isn't good for electricity bills. A decent 500w would be suffice for your components, but I would up this to 550w-600w depending on your graphics cards power consumption.

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I'd go for a 650W one but thats mainly cos the cost difference is marginal and I prefer too much than too little. Probably 500W+ would be adequate for a single GPU setup. http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/ there are many psu calculators, try the one above

DB

If you're not wanting to sli / crossfire two graphics cards then a bronze rated 600 Watt power supply should be more than adequate.

michael

You have to pick your GPU first, before you pick your power supply. The power supply should be sized roughly according to the recommendations of the manufacturer of the video card. Right now, you don't even know who that manufacturer is. IN GENERAL though, the most powerful graphics cards on the market require up to 600W for a single video card...and that is the recommendation for the whole system. So look for a good brand (Seasonic, Silverstone, XFX, OCZ, to name a few) 600W or slightly larger power supply unit that is 80+ bronze, silver or gold rated... Oh, and if you pay less than about 75 bucks for it, you just bought junk...

Dave

Basically, the PSU should be 10 x the power consumption of the motherboard to adequately provide power, not just for the GPU, but for all other components, as well, and when gaming, more power is required. So if your motherboard requires 95 watts then the PSU should be 950 watts minimum.

Mister Answerman

Simply add up the consumption of all your components and then buy a power supply to cover this and to allow enough watt's to cover any expansion you may want to do. Also make sure the PSU allows for the ports your hard ware is using.

Nik

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