[SOLVED] Newbie PC Power Advice

[eggfriedrice]

Hello I am planning to build my first PC which happens to be a SFF (Lazer3d HT5), I have chosen most of my components (AMD Ryzen 5 3600, GTX 1650 Low Profile, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD etc) including the Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Mini-ITX board. I have used online power estimate generators and got a range between 180W to 240W power requirements for said system.

Now I am unsure on the power components needed, apparently I need a DC-DC unit and an external power brick. Could someone advise if that sounds right? Also how much power realistically is this build likely going to need?

 

[jonnyguru]

Hello I am planning to build my first PC which happens to be a SFF (Lazer3d HT5), I have chosen most of my components (AMD Ryzen 5 3600, GTX 1650 Low Profile, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD etc) including the Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX Mini-ITX board. I have used online power estimate generators and got a range between 180W to 240W power requirements for said system.

Now I am unsure on the power components needed, apparently I need a DC-DC unit and an external power brick. Could someone advise if that sounds right? Also how much power realistically is this build likely going to need?

Well.. you definitely went with a (potentially) expensive set up with a high learning curve for a first time build. whew

So, the trick here is that that case is so small, it can't use a standard PSU. It has a place to mount a DC to DC power supply inside, but then you also need an external power brick (laptop brick). So you got that right. There's a place in the PC to accommadate an HD PLEX PSU, but since you're only using a GTX 1650, you can probably just get away with a Pico PSU since the card gets all of it's power from the slot. The tricky thing is going to be finding a decent brick to power everything. Since a lot of the Pico PSUs except a wide range of input voltages (from 9V to sometimes up to 48V), you have a lot of options to choose from. Like a Dell/Alienware power brick to a replacement XBOX power brick to a Meanwell power brick.

 

[eggfriedrice]

Well.. you definitely went with a (potentially) expensive set up with a high learning curve for a first time build. whew

So, the trick here is that that case is so small, it can't use a standard PSU. It has a place to mount a DC to DC power supply inside, but then you also need an external power brick (laptop brick). So you got that right. There's a place in the PC to accommadate an HD PLEX PSU, but since you're only using a GTX 1650, you can probably just get away with a Pico PSU since the card gets all of it's power from the slot. The tricky thing is going to be finding a decent brick to power everything. Since a lot of the Pico PSUs except a wide range of input voltages (from 9V to sometimes up to 48V), you have a lot of options to choose from. Like a Dell/Alienware power brick to a replacement XBOX power brick to a Meanwell power brick.

Thanks for the helpful reply! Yes I have sort of jumped into the deep end, didn't realise how much difficult I made it for myself, but I am determined to make this work! I've been looking into PSUs and found that the Pico supports a maximum of 160W, as I previously mentioned the estimated wattage requirement is as high as 240W whilst the GPU specifies 300W of power. If the PSU only goes up to 160W surely this will cause problems? I have found a more powerful (and costly) PSU, the HDPLEX HiFi DC-ATX. But am still unsure...

 

[jonnyguru]

Thanks for the helpful reply! Yes I have sort of jumped into the deep end, didn't realise how much difficult I made it for myself, but I am determined to make this work! I've been looking into PSUs and found that the Pico supports a maximum of 160W, as I previously mentioned the estimated wattage requirement is as high as 240W whilst the GPU specifies 300W of power. If the PSU only goes up to 160W surely this will cause problems? I have found a more powerful (and costly) PSU, the HDPLEX HiFi DC-ATX. But am still unsure...

There's more than one PICO PSU. They go all the way up to 200W. And your PC doesn't need 300W, never mind just the graphics card. Not sure where you got that number from. And remember that if you go with something like a 200W PICO PSU, you'll need at least a 200W brick to provide it with power.

 

[eggfriedrice]

Sorry for the late reply, had a health scare, all is good thankfully.

That helps clear things up, so I don't need a very high wattage PSU which is good since it'll keep the costs down. I'm going to crack on with my research on which parts to buy, if I need more help I'll post here.

 

[jonnyguru]

Sorry for the late reply, had a health scare, all is good thankfully.

That helps clear things up, so I don't need a very high wattage PSU which is good since it'll keep the costs down. I'm going to crack on with my research on which parts to buy, if I need more help I'll post here.

Not sure if you're in the US, but make sure you check out Mini-Box: https://www.mini-box.com/site/index.html

And Logic Supply: https://www.onlogic.com/