How many watts?

[Joey895663]

I plan on building a pc with ryzen 5 1500x and Rx 480 with a custom water loop. Is 700 watt enough? I also plan on doing some slight overclocking.

 

[the nerd 389]

In theory, 700 watts is enough. In practice, it depends on the PSU. Some Chinese models advertise peak power output, not continuous power output. For example, the Sentey BXP-65-OR is marketed as a 650 watt PSU but only supplies up to 320 watts of continuous power.

Also, when estimating power requirements, don't forget that fans, pumps, drives, and lighting all draw power. They don't draw much alone, but when combined they can be significant.

Finally, when you know how much power things need, add in 20-30% for overclocking to each component you intend to overclock depending, and then a 10-20% safety factor for the total power consumption. This will give you a bit more power than you probably need, but the extra capacity can improve stability of your OC.

 

[bignastyid]

A good quality 550w PSU would likely be plenty. A cheap low quality 700w unit could leave you with an unstable system or a smoking hole in the ground.

 

[4745454b]

Going from memory the 480 is a 150W card, which is why the original/stock ones had issues. Aftermarket ones or ones that have been OC'd are going to be closer to 200W each. The CPU is either a 65 or 95W part. You are looking at around 300-325W, maybe 350W if you OC a lot on both the CPU and GPU. This includes the drives, ram, etc, but not the pump. You'll need to figure out how much the pump draws and add that in. But I'm guessing as bignastyid said a quality 550W unit will be fine. You can go for a 600 or 650W, but make sure it's a good one.