How big PSU this build will need?

[MDNO]

CPU: AMD FX-6300 (possible OC to 4.5?)
MOBO: ASUS M5A78L-M LX3
RAM: 8GB DDR3-1866 2x4GB
GPU: XFX Radeon R9 280X Black Edition 3GB
HDD: Toshiba 1TB SATA 6 gb/s 7200 rpm
CASE: Sharkoon MA-W1000

 

[Shamar Holtz]

I changed it in the bios from 1333 to 1600, that's really all I altered. I really only know the basics about RAM so you'll have to bare with me my friend. Tell me everything I need to change and where is the best to change it?

From what I see in your pics my readings are about the same as yours except i'm running single channel and my DRAM frequency is 669mhz

 

[mdocod]

your wildly overestimating the power draw mate,at 4.6ghz full load on all cores ( & that takes a big voltage increase to 1.475/1.5v) the max itll pull is around 140w.

I'm not estimating, I've actually measured the peak power dissipation of 2 separate FX-6300's on 3 separate AM3+ motherboards at all sorts of clock speeds and voltages (from ~1.0V ~3ghz all the way to 1.55V@5ghz+). That includes testing on the GA-78LMT-USB3.

You're the one who is wildly under-ESTIMATING.

You would have to be pushing silly voltages to pull over 200w on a 6300 mate is all im saying,Ive always said stick to stock voltage or a tiny bit higher & any 125w compatible board will have no trouble at all with a 6300 at max clock speed stable at that voltage.

Peak power dissipation at various voltages... FX-6300
1.25V@4.5ghz= ~140W at the CPU, ~160W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~180W from the wall.
1.30V@4.5ghz= ~150W at the CPU, ~170W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~190W from the wall.
1.35V@4.5ghz= ~160W at the CPU, ~180W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~200W from the wall.
1.40V@4.5ghz= ~170W at the CPU, ~195W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~220W from the wall.
1.45V@4.5ghz= ~185W at the CPU, ~210W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~240W from the wall.
1.50V@4.5ghz= ~200W at the CPU, ~225W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~255W from the wall.
1.55V@4.5ghz= ~210W at the CPU, ~240W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~275W from the wall.

You can decide for yourself how much voltage is "silly," but please stop shooting from the hip about the power dissipation.

Achieving 4.6ghz stable with ONLY ~140W peak power dissipation would require an FX-6300 that can run a full 1.1 ghz over factory clocks with basically NO voltage increase from VID. (stock VID on these is typically ~1.212-1.325V). That's a pretty special gem you're talking about there and really isn't something anyone should count on getting. (probably less than 1/1000).

For most people familiar with overclocking piledriver, the subjectively "silly" zone doesn't really start till ~1.5V+. Most FX-6300's are going to need in the neighborhood of 1.40V to be stable at 4.5ghz.

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MDNO,

Please consider the chart above and the following:

Peak power dissipation of a factory OC edition R9 280X is ~285W
The chipset, southbridge, ethernet, sound, RAM, drives, fans, all dissipate power at a relatively steady state, which in a simple build like this will add up to ~45W.

By my math, if you intend to overclock to 4.5ghz, and assuming your chip needs 1.45V to do this, (not unusual at all), then the peak power dissipation of the machine you are building is in the neighborhood of 540W, with the vast majority of that power dissipation coming from the 12V rail.

The 12V rail on the ETL550AWT PSU you are intending to use to power this machine, is only rated for up to 504W, and the build quality of the unit is mediocre (filled with chinese capacitors, for example). The component sizing and quality (thermal and power headroom) is not adequate to be used to power this system given your current plans, ESPECIALLY in a case with a top mount PSU, where the charge air for the PSU cooling is already going to be elevated well above ambient, and in the case you have selected, will probably wind up elevated to higher than the PSU is even rated for (40C).

The case you intend to build this system inside of also does not appear to be well suited to dealing with the thermal load here. Look for something with a bottom mount PSU and at least a 4x120mm or 2x140mm fan configuration.

 

[madmatt30]

your wildly overestimating the power draw mate,at 4.6ghz full load on all cores ( & that takes a big voltage increase to 1.475/1.5v) the max itll pull is around 140w.

I'm not estimating, I've actually measured the peak power dissipation of 2 separate FX-6300's on 3 separate AM3+ motherboards at all sorts of clock speeds and voltages (from ~1.0V ~3ghz all the way to 1.55V@5ghz+). That includes testing on the GA-78LMT-USB3.

You're the one who is wildly under-ESTIMATING.

You would have to be pushing silly voltages to pull over 200w on a 6300 mate is all im saying,Ive always said stick to stock voltage or a tiny bit higher & any 125w compatible board will have no trouble at all with a 6300 at max clock speed stable at that voltage.

Peak power dissipation at various voltages... FX-6300
1.25V@4.5ghz= ~140W at the CPU, ~160W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~180W from the wall.
1.30V@4.5ghz= ~150W at the CPU, ~170W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~190W from the wall.
1.35V@4.5ghz= ~160W at the CPU, ~180W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~200W from the wall.
1.40V@4.5ghz= ~170W at the CPU, ~195W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~220W from the wall.
1.45V@4.5ghz= ~185W at the CPU, ~210W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~240W from the wall.
1.50V@4.5ghz= ~200W at the CPU, ~225W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~255W from the wall.
1.55V@4.5ghz= ~210W at the CPU, ~240W at the VRMs (from the PSU), ~275W from the wall.

You can decide for yourself how much voltage is "silly," but please stop shooting from the hip about the power dissipation.

Achieving 4.6ghz stable with ONLY ~140W peak power dissipation would require an FX-6300 that can run a full 1.1 ghz over factory clocks with basically NO voltage increase from VID. (stock VID on these is typically ~1.212-1.325V). That's a pretty special gem you're talking about there and really isn't something anyone should count on getting. (probably less than 1/1000).

For most people familiar with overclocking piledriver, the subjectively "silly" zone doesn't really start till ~1.5V+. Most FX-6300's are going to need in the neighborhood of 1.40V to be stable at 4.5ghz.

----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------

MDNO,

Please consider the chart above and the following:

Peak power dissipation of a factory OC edition R9 280X is ~285W
The chipset, southbridge, ethernet, sound, RAM, drives, fans, all dissipate power at a relatively steady state, which in a simple build like this will add up to ~45W.

By my math, if you intend to overclock to 4.5ghz, and assuming your chip needs 1.45V to do this, (not unusual at all), then the peak power dissipation of the machine you are building is in the neighborhood of 540W, with the vast majority of that power dissipation coming from the 12V rail.

The 12V rail on the ETL550AWT PSU you are intending to use to power this machine, is only rated for up to 504W, and the build quality of the unit is mediocre (filled with chinese capacitors, for example). The component sizing and quality (thermal and power headroom) is not adequate to be used to power this system given your current plans, ESPECIALLY in a case with a top mount PSU, where the charge air for the PSU cooling is already going to be elevated well above ambient, and in the case you have selected, will probably wind up elevated to higher than the PSU is even rated for (40C).

The case you intend to build this system inside of also does not appear to be well suited to dealing with the thermal load here. Look for something with a bottom mount PSU and at least a 4x120mm or 2x140mm fan configuration.

The fact is he's not going to hit 4.7ghz at 1.5v on that board full stop.
Anything over 1.4v the board will throttle plain & simple irregardless of any power saving features being disabled
A good overclock on that little gigabyte board is 4.2 at 1.35v ,thats as far as Id go ,its as far as he'll honestly need to go.
Youre pushing extreme circumstances here which he's not going to encounter in any way ,shape or form,which are what I would consider extreme overclocks & power draw circumstances.
The enermax is a capable enough psu for that build ,as is the seasonic 520 ,even a corsair cx500 would power it fine
he'll do 4.2ghz on any of those psu's with a 280x without a problem imo.
Im not going into the tier list,its filled with inconsistencies anyway,& people act like the tier 2b are bad psu's when they're clearly not.
There are only 3 type of psu imo
High end for people with expensive build & power requirements.
mid range (like the corsair cx range) - cheaper but will do the job
Absolutely Rubbish - Psu's that should never be used & generally come in prebuilds.

The enermax is clearly mid range,you wont find a particularly bad or damning review - apart from the mention of cheaper chinese caps which affects roughly 80-85% of all current psu's on the market.

Im not going to get into the actual dissipation at the vrm's,certainy not going to start messing with a multimeter & the like to measure onboard draw - you obviously know your stuff Im not disputing that.
I will state quite clearly though that the last build I tested just with a plugin power meter ( & a fairly decent & accurate one) was my own 6300 at 4ghz 1.25v with a turboduo factory overclocked 280x pulled 440w at the plug on a corsair cx500 fully stressed,taking into account 80% or 85% efficiency thats pretty much 350-380w worst case scenario.
Thats not 'shooting from the hip' as you call it but my own personal experience
& theres a guy here running a big big overclock on a 6300 with 660 sli
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0HuxE_p6HM

Im not trying to create an argument here but I do think you're worrying the OP unnecessarily in this case.
Ill grab my power meter back tonight ( someones had it 3 weeks now when I onyl lent it out for a couple of days) & test both my rigs again when I get half a chance.
Youve interested me tbh on the power draw while overclocked as I didnt see any of those kinds of extremes from the stock clocks up to 4/4.2ghz ,maybe 40-50w max.

 

[mdocod]

madmatt,

You can use your wall power meter to calculate out CPU power dissipation, and power dissipation from the PSU (including VRM losses) to within a perfectly acceptable accuracy (+/-10% or better). All you need to know is the approximate efficiency at each conversion. The PSU efficiency is usually pretty easy to lookup if you have a mainstream model (lots of reviews). VRM efficiency is typically 85-90% depending on the design and load.

Use Prime95 in-place large FFT's to achieve peak power dissipation. Make sure APM is disabled in BIOS, make sure to observe real clock speeds and voltage during the test.

FYI: on several of the boards I have tested, an FX-6300 configured with all DEFAULT settings will actually pull back to ~3.3ghz@1.15V while running the P95 torture test. Measured/calculated power dissipation at the chip is ~85W when this occurs. Disabling APM will prevent this throttling effect, and the chip will run 3.5ghz@1.21V ~100W.

The GA-78LMT-USB3 had absolutely no problems running a stable 4.5ghz overclock on the FX-6300's I have run on it. The board is good for loads over 150W. With active cooling on the VRMs there's evidence to suggest it's capable of pushing near 200W to the socket.

--------

The currently accepted method of measuring the peak power dissipation of a personal computer is to run P95 in-place large FFT's and FurMark simultaneously.

Anything short of P95+Furmark is not a peak power dissipation test, and should not be used when selecting a PSU. Selecting a PSU whose 12V rail power rating is LOWER than the peak power dissipation of the computer is irresponsible and unprofessional.

 

[MDNO]

How can I change the ram speed to 1600 from that 1333 with 1600 installed? does it even boot and can it access the bios settings?

 

[madmatt30]

How can I change the ram speed to 1600 from that 1333 with 1600 installed? does it even boot and can it access the bios settings?

Yes mate,I swear to god I did a build with that same board the week before xmas using corsair dominator 1600mhz cl9.
give me 5 minutes ,im flicking through the manual i still have now

back quicker than expected
the ram will install at 1333 by default ,get your windows install & everything else done
download & install cpu-z
http://www.cpuid.com/downloads/cpu-z/1.71.1-setup-en.exe
run it
goto the spd tab



1.copy the info from the 1600mhz profile EXACTLY as it reads
IF the voltage tab from the 666mhz (to the left of the one ive highlighted) then you dont need to write this the voltage down
some ram sticks run at 1.5v across all speeds,others require 1.65v at the higer speed



2.shutdown pc,boot to bios
3.open the M.I.T tab in bios
goto set memory clock (outlined in yellow) - change it to x8.00
goto dram configuration (outlined in red) - press enter
extra tabs will now come up coinciding with the timing/latency tabs you wrote down from cpu-z
enter the readings that you have written down precisely - correct tab for each option
If the voltage differed in step 1 between the two tabs then go down to system voltage control (highlighted green) & change it to manual
this will open the options below
goto the ddr3 voltage tab (highlighted blue) & change it to your required voltage

save & exit bios
reboot
run cpu-z
open memory tab
your ram should now read as 1600mhz,dual channel in top right box as below



& it honestly sounds much more complicated written down ,than it actually is.

apols - messed up the thumbnails - now working

 

[Shamar Holtz]

You sexy son of a bitch!!! It worked, my RAM speeds are now at 803mhz each! Yaahoo! I'm going to go play Dead Rising 3 now baby!!

 

[madmatt30]

^ shamar - that's good mate -I'm not sure that it will make much difference with the unoptimised mess that is DR3 though.
Even i7/gtx 980 owners struggle with it at higher settings - fun game though ;-)

 

[madmatt30]

MDNO - while I disagree with mdocod regarding the psu I do agree with him on the case itself.
The n200 is a far far better case than the sharkoon for around the same money.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/en/Mini/84537/Cooler+Master+N200+mit+Sichtfenster%2C+mATX-mini-Tower%2C+schwarz%2C+ohne+Netzteil.article

It may look plain but it's one of the best designed matx budget cases there is.

& I would recommend aftermarket cooler as you build rather than afterwards mate ,many of the better coolers require motherboard removal to fit a custom backplate mount.
You will create a lot of extra work for yourself buying one after the PC is up & running.

 

[mdocod]

Speak of the devil:

(GA-78LMT-USB3 + FX-6300 + N200)...

Great minds ...

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Note: the N200 is narrow. Most 120mm heatpipe towers won't fit. The T4 pictures above is one of the shortest in that size class and it barely fits.

 

[madmatt30]

^ hi bud - yep ,I don't like the t series coolers due to the vertical mounting only. They should have sorted this many moons ago IMO.I used the little zalman cnps5x on the last few Matx 6300 builds I did - very impressive for a cheap 92mm cooler.
Looking at the site he's buying from that's not available - there's a couple of fairly decent raijentek ones for around 20 euros that will do a good job.

 

[mdocod]

Yep, I've also used the CNPS5X.. Only problem with it, is on some boards where the first 16X PCIE slot is in the first ATX standard position and the socket is positioned relatively close to that first slot, the CNPS5X's fastening screw/clip system actually blocks that first slot, preventing the use of a dGPU...

The width of the CNPS5X including those "screw-down-clip-antlers" is like 127mm, effectively wider than many HSFs that use 120mm fans.

Though it does keep our A10-6800K running at 4.6ghz pretty comfortably (and can technically go higher, depending on the workload).

 

[madmatt30]

^ yep mate - fits the GB board with a 7950 in OK though (last one I did) 48c full load at stock ,massively impressed for £12 from amazon.
The one thing I don't like about the board is the slot positioning - makes the pci-e x1 slot unusable with a GPU in.
Used to use the little Asus board as it had the x1 slot above the GPU - 9 times out of 10 though this was used for a usb3 card for front case ports as it has no header onboard.The GB has a header so problem solved there & standard PCI WiFi cards are easily available.
I have the Asus board myself in a htpc ,its OK but the GB is better & cheaper.

 

[MDNO]

MDNO - while I disagree with mdocod regarding the psu I do agree with him on the case itself.
The n200 is a far far better case than the sharkoon for around the same money.
http://www.hardwareversand.de/en/Mini/84537/Cooler+Master+N200+mit+Sichtfenster%2C+mATX-mini-Tower%2C+schwarz%2C+ohne+Netzteil.article

It may look plain but it's one of the best designed matx budget cases there is.

& I would recommend aftermarket cooler as you build rather than afterwards mate ,many of the better coolers require motherboard removal to fit a custom backplate mount.
You will create a lot of extra work for yourself buying one after the PC is up & running.

Okay. What cooler would you recommend? I've been thinking some cheap(but functional) maintenance free liquid cooler such as Antec Kuhler H20 650. I just don't know is it enough for lightly ocd FX-6300.

 

[MDNO]

And what do you mates think about this PSU? http://www.hardwareversand.de/en/500+-+600+Watts/113858/Cooler+Master+G+550+M.article
Just found it. It's same price as that Enermax and this is even modular which I like.

 

[MDNO]

I've realized while this budget gets bigger and bigger it'd be same to invest little bit more money and do a better build.
CPU: Intel i5-4460
MB: MSI H81M-P33
RAM: 8GB Crucial Ballistic Sport DDR3-1600 (2x4GB)
GPU: Gainward GeForce GTX 970
HDD: Toshiba 1tb sata3 6gb/s
PSU: Cooler Master G550M
CASE: Cooler Master N200
This all cost about 730€ (oops) from hardwareversand.de and this is just another option, not sure about this. The reason I made this option is better CPU upgrade possibility, better CPU for gaming and more performance(gtx 970) ofc. That previous build we made costs over 650€.

 

[mdocod]

I would avoid the little MSI H81M-P33. Way too many things about that board are squeaking by on the bare minimums.

B85M-D3H or ASRock H97M Pro4 or Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H

 

[MDNO]

I would avoid the little MSI H81M-P33. Way too many things about that board are squeaking by on the bare minimums.

B85M-D3H or ASRock H97M Pro4 or Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H

I'm on pretty tight budget so is there a little cheaper but good mobo?

 

[louron]

Your PC as stated, OCd to 4.5GHz (assuming a small voltage bump) will require ~625w.
Allowing around 20% headroom, I would go for no less than a 700w PSU, maybe 750w wouldn't hurt.
I like Corsair RM or AX series as well as the Thermaltake ToughPower. There are plenty of good ones to chose from however.