[SOLVED] What Wattage PSU do I need for my build (and futureproofing)

[will2power]

I am putting together a new PC after 13 years and decided on the i5 13500 and a B760 Tomahawk MB (it is on sale for some reason in a store and almost same as cheaper boards)

At present I am going with

Intel i5 13500
Mag B760 Tomahawk
32 GB Ram
A M.2 for storage (undecided)
A back up storage for archives (undecided, possibly 6GB SATA HDD)
No graphics card atm but in future will be buying, prob not for few years though.

I checked the Power Supply Calculators with various Graphics cards from a RTX 3060 to GTX 1660 as I had to enter something in Graphics and the onboard graphics were not there.

I am not sure at present whether I need fans, will save discussion for Cases forum.

With the RTX 3060 the power supply recommended was 650W and without, with a cheap card it was Recommending a 550W (was actually calculated at 340W!)

I understand that in future I will update graphics, and may need to add fans, cooling etc.

I am thinking about a 750W power supply to "futureproof" the system.

I know nothing about modern systems except what I have learnt here over last few weeks, would 750W be recommended? I noticed that the PSUs have certification, Bronze, Silver, Gold. Was curious what it meant but have feeling I need to get "Gold" to be safe?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[bill001g]

Almost everything is gold rated now days even power supplies from low end companies. It is a power efficiency number it does not actually tell you if the power supply is quality. I would not buy anything less than gold.


I am not so sure I would spend a lot today hoping to avoid spending money in the future. At the rate they are going in 2 or 3 years a low end video card might want 1000 watts.
You never know maybe they come out with even a newer power connector. Power supplies are just start to come out that support the 16 pin used on high end video cards without using adapters.

If you were going to get a video card in 6 months it might be easier but if you are going to use the GPU onboard the CPU for a couple years it tends to be almost impossible to predict.

I would go with something that will get you by for now with the assumption that you will factor in the the cost of a new power supply when you finally buy a video card.

Maybe someone else can recommend a exact model of a quality power supply that is 500 watts or less. These lower priced units tend to be more tricky to find quality ones.

 

[will2power]

Almost everything is gold rated now days even power supplies from low end companies. It is a power efficiency number it does not actually tell you if the power supply is quality. I would not buy anything less than gold.


I am not so sure I would spend a lot today hoping to avoid spending money in the future. At the rate they are going in 2 or 3 years a low end video card might want 1000 watts.
You never know maybe they come out with even a newer power connector. Power supplies are just start to come out that support the 16 pin used on high end video cards without using adapters.

If you were going to get a video card in 6 months it might be easier but if you are going to use the GPU onboard the CPU for a couple years it tends to be almost impossible to predict.

I would go with something that will get you by for now with the assumption that you will factor in the the cost of a new power supply when you finally buy a video card.

Maybe someone else can recommend a exact model of a quality power supply that is 500 watts or less. These lower priced units tend to be more tricky to find quality ones.

Thanks. I am thinking 500W or 550W will be cheap enough I can upgrade in a few years. Like you said maybe 1000W will be normal in future. My 13 year old PC I built has I think a 450W power supply and I was edging on safer end at the time. If I buy a 750W at double the price then find it is not good enough for a GPU in future just money wasted.