[SOLVED] Radeon RX 580 with a 500w PSU

curly0ne

Honorable
Sep 29, 2014
7
0
10,510
Hi.

I would love to hear your opinion or, perhaps, real life experience on the subject. The GPU is going to be a Gigabyte RX 580 8 Gb. The currently installed PSU is a several years old Chieftec APS-500s (A-135 series). The other power-hungry component is a Xeon E3-1230 v2.

Similar threads' opinions on the forum appear to have both "yes, it's sufficient" and "no, get a reliable 650w or higher PSU" among answers. Searching the Internet results in rather "yes, it's enough". However, one of the answers here listed Chieftec in general as a "should be avoided" brand. So at the moment there're more questions than answers.

Any on-topic input is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
The 850W power supply is excellent. You probably won't need that much headroom, but it won't harm you in any way if it's a good sale. I have an EVGA G3 750W in my daily rig for a similar reason; I hate multiple GPU solutions, but at $69.99 during the summer, it was less expensive than the 550W G3 at the time.

And just in case, I heartily also lend my support to the "don't use the Chieftec" voices as I fully agree with them. At the very top end of their range, they have some that are halfway-decent but unexciting (generally Gold rated CWTs with second-tier capacitors), but these old ones like your are based on cutrate Sirfa designs with the quality slashed to the bone. You'd probably be OK if you just wanted a 1050ti, but with...

curly0ne

Honorable
Sep 29, 2014
7
0
10,510
Thanks for the answers, guys.



So based on your recommendation I started looking into what Seasonic has to offer. So far Focus+ Gold 650w/750w models have brought the most of my attention. However today I came along the 850w model to be on sale and cost less than the 750w one. I'd like to have some headroom for an update, as I'll have to replace my H77 mobo along with the CPU at some point. Is the Focus+ Gold 850w decent enough to handle any/most modern consumer-grade single-CPU + single-GPU build? Or should I rather look towards either its Platinum version or the Prime model range?

Thanks a ton once again.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
The 850W power supply is excellent. You probably won't need that much headroom, but it won't harm you in any way if it's a good sale. I have an EVGA G3 750W in my daily rig for a similar reason; I hate multiple GPU solutions, but at $69.99 during the summer, it was less expensive than the 550W G3 at the time.

And just in case, I heartily also lend my support to the "don't use the Chieftec" voices as I fully agree with them. At the very top end of their range, they have some that are halfway-decent but unexciting (generally Gold rated CWTs with second-tier capacitors), but these old ones like your are based on cutrate Sirfa designs with the quality slashed to the bone. You'd probably be OK if you just wanted a 1050ti, but with supplemental power required and a greater investment of funds, it's smart to buy a better power supply and then enjoy it for a decade.
 
Solution

Aeacus

Titan
Ambassador
Focus+ 850 80+ Gold is more than enough both wattage wise and build quality wise to any PC build with single GPU,
PSU review: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seasonic-focus-plus-gold-850-psu,5247.html

Going with Focus+ 80+ Platinum unit over Focus+ 80+ Gold unit gives your PSU a bit better efficiency. Build quality is same between both units and warranty wise, you'll get 10 years of OEM warranty.
PRIME is best offered by Seasonic and with PRIME unit, you'll get the best in PSU world; which also includes 12 years of OEM warranty and bragging rights of owning PRIME series PSU. :D

I also stand by Seasonic and their build quality. All 3x of my PCs: Skylake, Haswell and AMD are also powered by Seasonic (i have: PRIME 650 80+ Titanium in Skylake, Focus+ 550 80+ Platinum in AMD and M12II-850 EVO 80+ Bronze in Haswell). Full specs with pics in my sig.