[SOLVED] How do you know how big of a PSU you need?

[drummerJ99]

So I'm in the initial stages of putting together a list for a PC I'd like to build this winter. However I have a couple questions. #1) How do you know how big of a PSU you need? I realize PC Part Picker gives a estimate but didn't know how accurate that was. My estimate watt is 299.

#2) On My List under notes it says "The Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard has an additional 4-pin ATX power connector but the Corsair CV 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply does not. This connector is used to supply additional 12V current to the motherboard. While the system will likely still run without it, higher current demands such as extreme overclocking or large video card current draws may require it. " Can anybody tell me what that means in simple terms? Or can you recommend a power supply I need?

 

[logainofhades]

Motherboard has an 8 pin CPU connection, and an extra 4 pin, which is really only needed for extreme overclocking, on high power draw CPU's. I am not sure why they mention graphics cards, as that has nothing to do with it. That is what external PCI-E connectors are for, as the PCI-E slot is limited to only 75w of power. I would recommend a better quality PSU, regardless. I am going to assume this is a gaming PC? If so, I would do it this way, if you absolutely had to buy today. Personally, if you can, I would wait it out, as we have RTX 3000, Big Navi, and AMD 4th gen coming soon.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 GAMING X ATX AM4 Motherboard ($129.99 @ B&H)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Silicon Power A60 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($94.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8 GB Video Card ($399.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400A Digital ATX Mid Tower Case ($98.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS Gold 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($89.95 @ Amazon)
Total: $1113.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-15 10:34 EDT-0400

 

[jeremyj_83]

A good place to start on knowing how big of a PSU you need is looking here: https://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm Going with a bit bigger of a PSU, in your case a 550W vs 450W allows for future GPU upgrade.

I do have a few notes in regards to your build. First paying $320 for a 1660 Super is a ripoff. For that same amount of money you are able to get an RTX 2060 or possibly a Radeon 5700 but for sure a Radeon 5600XT. Second why do you need 32GB RAM? Most people do not need more than 16GB. On top of that the extra charge going to CS16 from CS18 isn't worth the 1-2% performance improvement. Third the Corsair CV 550W is not a PSU I would recommend using with anything. The CV 650W is OK as it has DC to DC, but no other model does. When it comes to finding a good PSU, look at these two posts for starters. https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/recommended-psu-to-buy.3603290/#post-21736677 & https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...pply-discussion-thread-toms-hardware.3212332/ On the first link pay specific attention to what Jonnyguru says. The man has forgotten more about PSUs than most people will ever know. Forth the SSD choice while fast and solid, leave a lot to be liked when it comes to price/performance. Going with the ADATA 8200 Pro will save you almost $25 and give nearly the same performance. I personally just got a 2TB ADATA 8200 Pro and it is amazing. Finally deciding on a GPU right now is a bad idea with both Ampere and Big Navi coming out before you will be building the system.

 

[jeremyj_83]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Best Buy)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard ($164.99 @ B&H)
Memory: GeIL SUPER LUCE RGB SYNC 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB MECH OC Video Card ($389.99 @ B&H)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400S ATX Mid Tower Case ($95.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1135.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-15 10:39 EDT-0400

 

[drummerJ99]

Motherboard has an 8 pin CPU connection, and an extra 4 pin, which is really only needed for extreme overclocking, on high power draw CPU's. I am not sure why they mention graphics cards, as that has nothing to do with it. That is what external PCI-E connectors are for, as the PCI-E slot is limited to only 75w of power. I would recommend a better quality PSU, regardless. I am going to assume this is a gaming PC? If so, I would do it this way, if you absolutely had to buy today. Personally, if you can, I would wait it out, as we have RTX 3000, Big Navi, and AMD 4th gen coming soon.

Yes, it'll be a 1080p gaming pc and Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop PC. I don't plan to buy before the next 2-3 months. Intial plan is to see what if any kind of deals are around on Black Friday and then go from there. My plan is to have this built late December/early January at the latest. I just like to preplan, so started putting it together on paper.

A good place to start on knowing how big of a PSU you need is looking here: https://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm Going with a bit bigger of a PSU, in your case a 550W vs 450W allows for future GPU upgrade.

I do have a few notes in regards to your build. First paying $320 for a 1660 Super is a ripoff. For that same amount of money you are able to get an RTX 2060 or possibly a Radeon 5700 but for sure a Radeon 5600XT. Second why do you need 32GB RAM? Most people do not need more than 16GB. On top of that the extra charge going to CS16 from CS18 isn't worth the 1-2% performance improvement. Third the Corsair CV 550W is not a PSU I would recommend using with anything. The CV 650W is OK as it has DC to DC, but no other model does. When it comes to finding a good PSU, look at these two posts for starters. https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/recommended-psu-to-buy.3603290/#post-21736677 & https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...pply-discussion-thread-toms-hardware.3212332/ On the first link pay specific attention to what Jonnyguru says. The man has forgotten more about PSUs than most people will ever know. Forth the SSD choice while fast and solid, leave a lot to be liked when it comes to price/performance. Going with the ADATA 8200 Pro will save you almost $25 and give nearly the same performance. I personally just got a 2TB ADATA 8200 Pro and it is amazing. Finally deciding on a GPU right now is a bad idea with both Ampere and Big Navi coming out before you will be building the system.

This is a initial list. So I really haven't paid attention yet really to prices of components and what they should be going for. I just like to plan out my purchases. I thought 1660 Super should be closer to $200-$250. $250-$300 is about my max for a graphics card, so was hoping the older generation cards would go down in price by time I build.

As for 32GB of ram, I'm a photographer that uses Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop weekly. My current PC has 16GB and laptop has 12, I really feel like 32gb will speedup where my current pc and laptop slows down currently.

What exactly are you referring to with the CS16 and CS18? I'll check out those links on PSU. Corsair was a name I thought was with good quality, so only reason I really selected that one.

I will admit I don't know much about Adata. They seem to always be linked with cheaper SSD's and I knew Samsung EVO's were suppose to be some of the best. That's main reason I went with that one. But will check out the ADATA 8200 Pro .

 

[King_V]

There are some excellent Corsair PSUs, but there are also some budget models, and one or two that are really more appropriate to office machines using integrated graphics or low-end video cards.

Seasonic is another one with a great reputation.

Still, even the best, including Corsair and Seasonic, have at least one or two stinkers.


On a side note, what's the refresh rate of your monitor, and does it have FreeSync, GSync, or neither?

If you were buying today, I'd say this is the best bang/buck for a video card right now:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/radeon-5600-xt-deal

But, deals are going to change, and if you're looking more toward Black Friday, then the market's likely to be significantly different, with the Nvidia 3000 series, and very likely AMD's Big Navi cards being available.

 

[drummerJ99]

There are some excellent Corsair PSUs, but there are also some budget models, and one or two that are really more appropriate to office machines using integrated graphics or low-end video cards.

Seasonic is another one with a great reputation.

Still, even the best, including Corsair and Seasonic, have at least one or two stinkers.


On a side note, what's the refresh rate of your monitor, and does it have FreeSync, GSync, or neither?

If you were buying today, I'd say this is the best bang/buck for a video card right now:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/radeon-5600-xt-deal

But, deals are going to change, and if you're looking more toward Black Friday, then the market's likely to be significantly different, with the Nvidia 3000 series, and very likely AMD's Big Navi cards being available.

Monitors are next on my list but I use triples for iRacing, so figured PC would be the smartest upgrade first. But my current monitors are plan jane 60hz.

 

[DSzymborski]

I definitely wouldn't buy a GPU right now unless it was an absolute emergency. Given the things coming out very soon, the current prices are almost certainly very bad ideas. Upgrading to a SeaSonic Focus is much recommended; the CV is a good entry-level PSU for good entry-level rigs, but it's not for this kind of build.

 

[jeremyj_83]

I definitely wouldn't buy a GPU right now unless it was an absolute emergency. Given the things coming out very soon, the current prices are almost certainly very bad ideas. Upgrading to a SeaSonic Focus is much recommended; the CV is a good entry-level PSU for good entry-level rigs, but it's not for this kind of build.

The only Corsair CV model to get is the 650W, all others don't have DC to DC.

As for 32GB of ram, I'm a photographer that uses Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop weekly. My current PC has 16GB and laptop has 12, I really feel like 32gb will speedup where my current pc and laptop slows down currently.

What exactly are you referring to with the CS16 and CS18?

That makes sense for getting the 32GB RAM then. CS16 and CS18 are the latency cycles. While lower CS offers better performance, the difference is much smaller now than it was in each previous DDR version. The added cost of going to CS16 from CS18 is much greater than the performance increase. On average DDR4-3600 @ CS16 will only give you a 1-2% performance increase over DDR4-3600 @ CS18 but the CS16 RAM will cost 25% more.

Intial plan is to see what if any kind of deals are around on Black Friday and then go from there.

Most likely the hardware landscape is going to be very different by the time you get around to buying a computer. nVidia's Ampere is being released today I believe and might have the 3060 available when you purchase. AMD will be releasing their Big Navi in a month. For CPUs AMD will most likely have their Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 CPUs out with greater performance than the Zen 2 Ryzen 3000 series.