[SOLVED] Seasonic Focus Plus 850W Gold enough for i9 10900k OC and RTX 3080?

[Stuffz121]

Hi,

My main question is essentially the title. Is a Seasonic Focus 850W PSU enough to power an overclocked i9 10900k and RTX 3080? Or should I get a 1000W PSU instead? That or to power a
Ryzen 9 5900x, of course if that's the case I will need to switch the mobo.

My specs are:

MSI Z590 PRO WIFI
I9 10900K Processor CPU or
DEEPCOOL CASTLE 360EX 360MM RGB
16 Gb Ram DDR4 3200MHz
7x Case Fans
5 storage devices, mix of SSDs and 7200 HDDs
PSU?

So ya anyone have thoughts or experience with this? I would like to have some nice e extra power left in case I'd get a better GPU years later for example and of course just make sure I have enough power for the PC. I keep seeing that some people get by with 750W even but if anything it seems to play it safe I for sure need an 850W but with all the case fans and AIO and storage devices, maybe I do need a 1000W PSU?

Any advice would be very appreciated and I would be very grateful for any help.

Thanks!

 

[jonnyguru]

850W is definitely enough.

 

[lvt]

The RTX 3080 has a 350W rating, so 850W is enough for your actual config, but not much room left.

Get the 1,000W PSU if you already have the fund for it.

 

[Juular]

The RTX 3080 has a 350W rating, so 850W is enough for your actual config, but not much room left.

I don't see the logic here. There will still be about 200W headroom, maybe not 'much room left' but you don't need it.

 

[lvt]

I don't see the logic here. There will still be about 200W headroom, maybe not 'much room left' but you don't need it.

You probably won't want to run your PSU at its max rating all the time, always stay at 80% to avoid premature failure. So on a 850W you have like 650W available. When the PC runs heavy tasks that GPU can easily eat up to 350W and an Intel i7 can draw 200W, leaving you about 100W for everything else.

So the headroom is there, but not as big as you might think.

 

[Juular]

always stay at 80% to avoid premature failure.

Who told you that ? You think PSU manufacturers rate their PSU for 850W at 50°C ambient and give 10 years warranty are idiots ? Besides, it wouldn't be even close to running 'at it's max rating all the time', it would be like 85% at peak during more like 75-80% average load during a few hours per day, unless they'll be mining on it which is a completely different story.

 

[lvt]

Who told you that ? You think PSU manufacturers rate their PSU for 850W at 50°C ambient and give 10 years warranty are idiots ? Besides, it wouldn't be even close to running 'at it's max rating all the time', it would be like 85% at peak during more like 75-80% average load during a few hours per day, unless they'll be mining on it which is a completely different story.

Manufacturers that offer 10 years warranty are rare, and the warranty is only applicable on certain models that they know will last. What makes those models stand out I don't know, maybe they have parts with higher quality and higher output rating straight from factory. Let's say you got a 1,000W PSU but with 750W label, that's common trick I've heard many years ago.

 

[Juular]

Manufacturers that offer 10 years warranty are rare

Pretty much entirety of high-end Corsair, Thermaltake, EVGA, Cooler Master and Seasonic lineups, at least modern ones, plus a rebrands of said Seasonics from ASUS, Antec, Phanteks etc, plus some relatively new brands i'm not going to dig out right now. All that from a variety of OEMs and on different platforms.

maybe they have parts with higher quality and higher output rating straight from factory.

Bingo. You make a PSU that wouldn't blow up in the conditions you rate it for and then you don't deal with multi-digit RMA percent, that's how you make a good PSU. Unless you buy a PSU second hand or some garbage-bin deal from AliExpress there will be absolutely no problem running a modern, well reviewed PSU for 100% load a few hours a day provided you don't keep it in a closet with no ventilation.

 

[sizzling]

To give a real world example you can compare to what I am running which is a 3700x with a Gigabyte 3080 Gaming OC on a Seasonic 650w Prime Ultra Platinum. This has been running since September and I also run a 360mm AIO, 8 led strips and another 3 fans on top of the AIO. Measuring at the wall which won’t pick up very brief spikes I saw a peak of 554w under stress testing and on average 450w while gaming.

NVidia’s own 750w recommendation is based on using a 10900k. However you must consider some other 3080’s will have higher power usage.

A high quality 750w would be ok but an 850w if not much more will give you more peace of mind for little extra investment.

 

[refillable]

Focus Plus? Is it not Focus GX? You'd likely have problems with the OCP tripping because it is known to do that.

 

[sizzling]

Focus Plus? Is it not Focus GX? You'd likely have problems with the OCP tripping because it is known to do that.

No, it’s not a Focus. It’s this https://www.scan.co.uk/products/650...-platinum-sli-crossfire-single-rail-54a-135mm

It’s been running since September with no issues. I have played with overclocking the gpu and I run PBO on the 3700x

 

[Stuffz121]

Focus Plus? Is it not Focus GX? You'd likely have problems with the OCP tripping because it is known to do that.

The PSU I was considering is the Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 850W, do the focus plus PSUs tend experience issues like that? If so is it something that can be avoided if I just upgrade to a higher wattage PSU?

 

[Stuffz121]

To give a real world example you can compare to what I am running which is a 3700x with a Gigabyte 3080 Gaming OC on a Seasonic 650w Prime Ultra Platinum. This has been running since September and I also run a 360mm AIO, 8 led strips and another 3 fans on top of the AIO. Measuring at the wall which won’t pick up very brief spikes I saw a peak of 554w under stress testing and on average 450w while gaming.

NVidia’s own 750w recommendation is based on using a 10900k. However you must consider some other 3080’s will have higher power usage.

A high quality 750w would be ok but an 850w if not much more will give you more peace of mind for little extra investment.

Thanks for the example, I think I feel more comfortable now with an 850 watt PSU. However I was thinking of getting a seasonic focus plus PSU but I just found out people seem to avoid those PSUs. A quick google search had me come across posts and announcements from Seasonic about their PSUs being too sensitive to being close to the limit of the PSU which ultimately makes the PSU turn itself off often? Any chance do you happen to know if this is something that was only affecting the older models and I should be ok?

 

[refillable]

The PSU I was considering is the Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 850W, do the focus plus PSUs tend experience issues like that? If so is it something that can be avoided if I just upgrade to a higher wattage PSU?

"Focus Plus" is actually an older series which is now updated to the Focus GX/PX series. The older ones have problems with its OCP with Ampere/Vega cards. The solution is to either get the Focus GX or get something else entirely different, not getting a higher wattage.

If you want recommendations you should state the budget and where you are from (preferably with a link to a local online store).

 

[Stuffz121]

Focus Plus" is actually an older series which is now updated to the Focus GX/PX series. The older ones have problems with its OCP with Ampere/Vega cards. The solution is to either get the Focus GX or get something else entirely different, not getting a higher wattage.

If you want recommendations you should state the budget and where you are from (preferably with a link to a local online store).

I see, thanks for elaborating. If I would need to get something different, I am thinking of one of the Seasonic Prime Platinum PSUs? I would hope those would work. I’d imagine they’re not the same line of PSU’s as the Seasonic Focus plus I think.

 

[Karadjgne]

Several grades higher. Like moving from Ford to Bentley.

Point is, unless you run an undersized psu, you'll never see 100% loads. Even if picking a perfect size, 650w output for a 650w potential draw. Simply because you'll never hit 100% on everything. That'd mean maxing out ram wattage, cpu wattage, gpu wattage, storage wattage, fans at max, rgb at max, everything 100%. Which never happens. On average, the best (worst) you'll ever do is @ 70% of potential maximum, so if you add up all the possible maximum wattage ratings and take @ 70% of that, that'll be the absolute minimum size psu needed.

Anything over that is headroom gravy.
350w for a 3080 tweaked.
300w for a pushed 10900k.
100w for everything else normally used in the pc.
Plus or minus.

That's 750w potential, 650w Absolute minimum. A 850w is gravy, 200w more than you could possibly use at any given time. Roughly. It'll also be roughly a 500w gaming draw, which lands you in the 50-70% load bracket, which is perfect.

 

[refillable]

I see, thanks for elaborating. If I would need to get something different, I am thinking of one of the Seasonic Prime Platinum PSUs? I would hope those would work. I’d imagine they’re not the same line of PSU’s as the Seasonic Focus plus I think.

I recall Jonnyguru saying that it has problems as well. You don't have to get a Seasonic if you can't get the Focus GX...

 

[jonnyguru]

I recall Jonnyguru saying that it has problems as well. You don't have to get a Seasonic if you can't get the Focus GX...

Right. The Seasonic is hit or miss based on their +12V sense circuit. If you already have it, it's worth a shot. Easy way to know if it's going to be a problem is to run Prime95 and Furmark at the same time. If you're PLANNING to build something with an 850W PSU, I would suggest something other than a Seasonic or Andyson based unit just to avoid potential problems.

 

[Stuffz121]

Right. The Seasonic is hit or miss based on their +12V sense circuit. If you already have it, it's worth a shot. Easy way to know if it's going to be a problem is to run Prime95 and Furmark at the same time. If you're PLANNING to build something with an 850W PSU, I would suggest something other than a Seasonic or Andyson based unit just to avoid potential problems.

Ya I am still planning out my build so I can still change things around thankfully. A friend of mine is planning in gifting his Seasonic Focus Plus 850W so that would be some money saved if it worked, but I am glad everyone here was helpful and brought up the potential issue that I may have with these older models.

I've seen some PC builds posted by people on pcpartpicker where they use Seasonic Focus Plus models with various RTX 3080s and seemingly none of them have any PSU issues so they must be hit or miss just as everyone seems to be telling me. Similarly, I do come across all kinds of reddit posts saying to avoid these older Seasonic PSUs. I think I will try out my friends PSU just to try it and if it doesnt work, well I guess I'll buy some EVGA PSU and hope that works. Gonna be a real pain if I need to wire everything twice but it is what it is I guess lol

 

[refillable]

Ya I am still planning out my build so I can still change things around thankfully. A friend of mine is planning in gifting his Seasonic Focus Plus 850W so that would be some money saved if it worked, but I am glad everyone here was helpful and brought up the potential issue that I may have with these older models.

I've seen some PC builds posted by people on pcpartpicker where they use Seasonic Focus Plus models with various RTX 3080s and seemingly none of them have any PSU issues so they must be hit or miss just as everyone seems to be telling me. Similarly, I do come across all kinds of reddit posts saying to avoid these older Seasonic PSUs. I think I will try out my friends PSU just to try it and if it doesnt work, well I guess I'll buy some EVGA PSU and hope that works. Gonna be a real pain if I need to wire everything twice but it is what it is I guess lol

That's not bad of an idea, it's always worth a shot if you are saving quite some money on it. If you're planning to get EVGA as Jonnyguru said, make sure it is not made by Andyson or Seasonic to prevent issues. Plus on top of that you don't have to get an EVGA, there are hundreds of other choices that you can have that won't cause troubles with the 3080.

 

[Juular]

I've seen some PC builds posted by people on pcpartpicker where they use Seasonic Focus Plus models with various RTX 3080s

Chances are these builds are utilizing new revision of Focus, i.e GX, it's just that PCPP doesn't discern between them or people just add a wrong version into their list. Although ASUS Thor 850W which OP originally was talking about should be based off the new revision.

 

[Juular]

well I guess I'll buy some EVGA PSU and hope that works.

Can't really recommend any currently produced EVGA PSU for RTX3080. Most of them we have zero reviews on and EVGA GA specifically has problems with RTX3080. Maybe only if you'll be able to grab an EVGA G3 but usually there are better or cheaper options from other manufacturers.