Is an OCZ ModXStream 700w a good replacement for a Fatal1ty 550?

[cm72]

Not looking to buy, but I have a gaming computer with the Fatal1ty 550, and a work computer with the ModXStream 700. I'm upgrading some components on the gaming computer (adding a GTX 560Ti, another fan or two, and thinking of overclocking my CPU) and I'm worried that it might be too much for the 550. I really don't want to buy another power supply, and I figure 700 watts will be more than enough if I just swap the two, but as I understand it the Fatal1ty is designed for gaming rigs and the ModXStream isn't. Still, will the ModXStream be a good, solid psu for my gaming machine if I need to swap?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

550 watts is plenty for a system with a GTX 560 Ti. Both power supplies are about equal in quality and both are fine. Both units are made by Sirtec.

As long as they are not more than 3 years old anyway. Older OCZ power supplies had issues but newer ones are good.

The "designed for gaming rigs" thing is marketing hype and meaningless.

 

[cm72]

Thanks anort, that makes me feel better. My concern comes from the fact that this isn't a stock 560 - it's the MSI Hawk overclocked to 950 MHz, so that uses a good deal more power. Add in an overclock on the CPU and that'll push up the wattage even more. In fact, the card just came in, and the back of the box says you need a 600w PSU. I'll still give it a shot with the 550 and hopefully I'll be fine, but at least I feel comfortable that I can swap it out with the ModXStream if I need to. Thanks again!

 

[Silvune]

The 600W recommendation from MSI has to account for people using very power hungry systems and/or people using PSUs which are not high quality/ can't deliver their rated power/specs.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

^ Yep. That recommendation assumes you have a generic low quality power supply. As you can see here with that specific card Guru3d recommend a 500w power supply. Even with their power hungry test system the whole computer only uses 339 watts under full load.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gtx-560-ti-hawk-review/7

 

[cm72]

Excellent! Thanks to both of you. Doesn't look like I have too much to worry about, I'll just overclock my CPU in small increments and test for a while to see how high I can get it. I've been looking around, but I don't suppose there's much out there that can measure how much power my PC is pulling other than a Kill-A-Watt unit, right?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Yep that's about the only way.

 

[cm72]

Well, so far so good, guys. I've been running Crysis and Crysis 2 maxed out most of the night with the MSI factory overclock and the standard CPU speeds. Not exactly scientific, but surely good enough to confirm that the PSU is doing just fine. The card is running a bit hot I think, so I'm going to add a couple more fans next week. In the meantime I'm going to play around with the ez overclock settings in the BIOS and see just how fast I can get this CPU. Thanks again for your help!

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Glad we could help. Enjoy!

 

[cm72]

Best answer selected by cm72.