EVGA 500W PSU enough for STRIX GTX 970/i5-4460?

[OddGonzo]

Months ago I bought a real cheap Sumvision 600w PSU as an extremely temporary replacement for my previous PSU, like temporary as in a matter of a few weeks. Well, time flies and it's still in my rig and as I'm planning to upgrade my GPU to an Asus STRIX 4GB GTX 970 I decided to finally get that raging fire-hazard out of my system. So I've done my research and at this very moment (I want it out ASAP) I've landed on the EVGA 500w PSU. Multiple PSU calculators have come up saying I only need ~360w to power my rig with the 970, so I figured a 500w PSU would be more than satisfactory. So just to make sure that this will do, can anyone tell me whether this will do or not? Any suggestions for better options within the same price range?

 

[DasHotShot]

500 is more than enough and leaves plenty of headroom.

EVGA units of the G series (or supernova) are ok, however brands like seasonic, superflower, xfx or silverstone are adviseable

 

[Ubrales]

The GTX 970 needs a system power of 500 watts with 28 Amps on the 12 Volt rail. Yes the EVGA PSU you selected will do the job very well.

Another option is the XFX 550 watts PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013

 

[DasHotShot]

The GTX 970 needs a system power of 500 watts with 28 Amps on the 12 Volt rail. Yes the EVGA PSU you selected will do the job very well.

Another option is the XFX 550 watts PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013

You can easily run a gtx 970 system on a 420w PSU if you know for sure it delivers at 90% or higher efficiency...500 is just a conservatively safe recommendation to negate liability and lower the chance of legal action should a bad quality unit, falsely advertised cause problems.

 

[Zerk2012]

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w-xfx-core-edition-p1-550s-xxb9-80-plus-bronze-1x135mm-fan-atx-psu
It would be enough power but the W1 series are rather low quality.
A GTX 970 has a TDP of only 140 Watts.

 

[Ubrales]

The GTX 970 needs a system power of 500 watts with 28 Amps on the 12 Volt rail. Yes the EVGA PSU you selected will do the job very well.

Another option is the XFX 550 watts PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013

You can easily run a gtx 970 system on a 420w PSU if you know for sure it delivers at 90% or higher efficiency...500 is just a conservatively safe recommendation to negate liability and lower the chance of legal action should a bad quality unit, falsely advertised cause problems.

Macro Economics come into play here. 550 and 650 watts are more popular capacities and therefore more competitive in pricing.

From an engineering aspect, 550 watts will be more resilient to aging of the capacitors and to overall decline is efficiency.

 

[Karadjgne]

It's a question of quality. At 420w, your choices of good psus are extremely limited. At 500w, your choices are dismal. It's not until you hit 520w/550w the choices of quality psus really open up.

And then there is OC. Intel OC can easily be 200w, amd can get higher, add in another 100 for drives and mobo, 150 for 970, and you are up around 450w, then add in some gpu and ram OC and getting close to 500w is a possibility.

Efficiency has nothing to do with output. A 550w unit will output 550w. If it's 80% efficient, it'll suck @690w from the wall. If it's 90% efficient, it'll suck @610w from the wall. Of course if it's a crappy psu, it may not reach 100% load output, but that's a different story.

 

[Zerk2012]

It's a question of quality. At 420w, your choices of good psus are extremely limited. At 500w, your choices are dismal. It's not until you hit 520w/550w the choices of quality psus really open up.

And then there is OC. Intel OC can easily be 200w, amd can get higher, add in another 100 for drives and mobo, 150 for 970, and you are up around 450w, then add in some gpu and ram OC and getting close to 500w is a possibility.

Efficiency has nothing to do with output. A 550w unit will output 550w. If it's 80% efficient, it'll suck @690w from the wall. If it's 90% efficient, it'll suck @610w from the wall. Of course if it's a crappy psu, it may not reach 100% load output, but that's a different story.

Thats fairly funny he has a less than 300 Watt PC running a ofull system stress test.