Rig Specs:
Lian Li PC-7B
2x ATi 5870 (Or whatever high-end nextgen cards)
i7 920 @ 4Ghz-ish
6GB (3x2GB) DDR3
OCZ Vertex
X58 Mobo w/ ICH10R
BluRay drive
I'm trying to keep it relatively quiet, and cool. I know the video cards are going to be noisy as heck, but I want/need the power. Recommendations to quiet 'em down a bit, though... Those would be welcome as well.
My requirements for the PSU:
-Must be enough to power the system above with ease.
-Must be fully modular - Not just partially.
-I'd like it to be black, but I can powdercoat the PSU enclosure if needed.
-I don't want any of those ridiculous LEDs.
Recomend a PSU for gaming rig?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee, Devonavar
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TeeJayHoward
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2009 8:51 am
- Location: Colorado
Re: Recomend a PSU for gaming rig?
Why fully modular? You'll use a lot of cables with your config so modularity is somehow useless.TeeJayHoward wrote:-Must be fully modular - Not just partially.
Unfortunately I have no idea how much power those card we'll need so for now I have no idea what PSU you need.
In what resolution do you play?
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TeeJayHoward
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2009 8:51 am
- Location: Colorado
Re: Recomend a PSU for gaming rig?
1920x1200, 16xAA, 16xAF, and all settings cranked up.burebista wrote:Why fully modular? You'll use a lot of cables with your config so modularity is somehow useless.TeeJayHoward wrote:-Must be fully modular - Not just partially.
Unfortunately I have no idea how much power those card we'll need so for now I have no idea what PSU you need.
In what resolution do you play?
Fully modular makes it a lot easier on me when I create my own, custom-length cables. It's a pain to hide the extra wire, not to mention changing out the ends for ones of the right color, re-wrapping, etc.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139004
Check out that PSU. Its only 50 bucks after MIR. (that is a STEAL) I swear by corsair as a psu maker, and this will be more than enough power output for your system. Dont be sucked into buying a 700+W psu. You will never need that much power. Dont believe me? pick up a "kill-a-watt" and see for yourself.
If you wanna go a little higher end..check out this guy:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139002
IMO the cost/performance ratio starts to slip at this powersupply, and only goes downhill from here.
EDIT: that first link is a DEAL OF THE DAY. They are pretty much giving it away at that price, but its only that cheap for a day I guess...
Check out that PSU. Its only 50 bucks after MIR. (that is a STEAL) I swear by corsair as a psu maker, and this will be more than enough power output for your system. Dont be sucked into buying a 700+W psu. You will never need that much power. Dont believe me? pick up a "kill-a-watt" and see for yourself.
If you wanna go a little higher end..check out this guy:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139002
IMO the cost/performance ratio starts to slip at this powersupply, and only goes downhill from here.
EDIT: that first link is a DEAL OF THE DAY. They are pretty much giving it away at that price, but its only that cheap for a day I guess...
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TeeJayHoward
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2009 8:51 am
- Location: Colorado
Unfortunately, neither of those are fully modular. And I doubt 550W would be enough - Modern overclocked i7s are drawing 500+W right now. Can't imagine what it'll be like with the next-gen graphics cards in the mix.RoGuE wrote:
Check out that PSU. Its only 50 bucks after MIR. (that is a STEAL) I swear by corsair as a psu maker, and this will be more than enough power output for your system. Dont be sucked into buying a 700+W psu. You will never need that much power. Dont believe me? pick up a "kill-a-watt" and see for yourself.
IMO the cost/performance ratio starts to slip at this powersupply, and only goes downhill from here.
EDIT: that first link is a DEAL OF THE DAY. They are pretty much giving it away at that price, but its only that cheap for a day I guess...
See..Although I can see you are serious about making this a performance rig, I would step back a sec and think about what you are actually talking about here..
If you are planning to OC your proccessor to 4+ghz speeds, and see over 400W of power consumption, you have another thing coming if you think you can make this a silent PC. This is spcr after all.
When I recomended those PSU's, I assumed you were going to introduce a mild overclock, in which case the CPU wouldn't draw any more than 150W max load. In that case, the next gen cards and all your periphs would add maybe another 250-300W max load, leaving you at a comfortable 450W max load.
All I can say is good luck silencing a processor that's dissapating half a kilowatt of energy. Liquid cooling will almost certainly be in order if you plan to do that..
Again I will say, that I think you, along with many many gamers in the market today, are grossly overestimating how much power it takes to high performance game. If done smart, you wont need a kilowatt PSU.
and like i said, pick up a "kill-a-watt" unit and see for yourself..but dont forget to factor in PSU losses
If you are planning to OC your proccessor to 4+ghz speeds, and see over 400W of power consumption, you have another thing coming if you think you can make this a silent PC. This is spcr after all.
When I recomended those PSU's, I assumed you were going to introduce a mild overclock, in which case the CPU wouldn't draw any more than 150W max load. In that case, the next gen cards and all your periphs would add maybe another 250-300W max load, leaving you at a comfortable 450W max load.
All I can say is good luck silencing a processor that's dissapating half a kilowatt of energy. Liquid cooling will almost certainly be in order if you plan to do that..
Again I will say, that I think you, along with many many gamers in the market today, are grossly overestimating how much power it takes to high performance game. If done smart, you wont need a kilowatt PSU.
and like i said, pick up a "kill-a-watt" unit and see for yourself..but dont forget to factor in PSU losses
The fully modular requirement for the PSU would restrict choice to the Ultra X3 range, including the X3 800w reviewed here http://www.ocia.net/reviews/ultrax3800/page1.shtml.
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Wilhelm-Tell
- Posts: 169
- Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 9:24 am
- Location: Earth
Yes, but it's not fully modular. If the OP really wants 1000w+ there is this one http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=2496 which is fully modular, and with an appropriate price tag. I like the way it is described as 'Energy Efficient'.
Power consumption of overclocked Core i7s particularly 4Ghz+ can be high, but it is difficult to establish how high. The highest AC figure I have seen is for 4.4Ghz on a Core i7 920 with 2 AMD 4870 X2s in Crossfire mode. This figure was 915w on a Corsair HX1000, and would represent about 730w DC from the PSU assuming 80% efficiency.
The main issue I suspect is that as Crossfire (and SLI) boards proliferate, the next logical upgrade having built a Core i7 system is to add another graphics card. This reinforces the idea of fitting a bigger PSU to allow for this, which makes a choice of 800-900w more logical than it might seem.
Power consumption of overclocked Core i7s particularly 4Ghz+ can be high, but it is difficult to establish how high. The highest AC figure I have seen is for 4.4Ghz on a Core i7 920 with 2 AMD 4870 X2s in Crossfire mode. This figure was 915w on a Corsair HX1000, and would represent about 730w DC from the PSU assuming 80% efficiency.
The main issue I suspect is that as Crossfire (and SLI) boards proliferate, the next logical upgrade having built a Core i7 system is to add another graphics card. This reinforces the idea of fitting a bigger PSU to allow for this, which makes a choice of 800-900w more logical than it might seem.
I think another reason why people buy massively over-specced PSU's even for CF or SLI rigs is that once you buy 2 reasonably high end graphics cards, you often need 4 x PCI-E connectors.
While in practice a CF system may draw <600W at load (see for example this review with an OC'd i7 920 and 4890 in CF, albeit with 3dMarks as 'load' testing), AFAIK most 600W PSUs typically do not have 4 x PCI-E connectors.
So unless you buy some molex to PCI-E adaptors (admittedly I don't know enough about PSUs to say how good an idea using these adapters is
), then you seem to have to step up to a 750W or 850W PSU to get 4 x PCI-E connectors (and seemingly a 1Kw unit for 6 x PCI-E).
Just thought I'd throw that in the mix.
With that in mind, the the SPCR-reviewed Seasonic M12D-850W could be the PSU you're looking for.
Unless you go with the Ultra X3 lodestar linked to, it is about as modular as you're going to find while also being pretty quiet to boot. Any PSU noise at >400W loads is likely to be drowned out by the graphics cards and/or whatever game you might be playing to get loads that high.
While in practice a CF system may draw <600W at load (see for example this review with an OC'd i7 920 and 4890 in CF, albeit with 3dMarks as 'load' testing), AFAIK most 600W PSUs typically do not have 4 x PCI-E connectors.
So unless you buy some molex to PCI-E adaptors (admittedly I don't know enough about PSUs to say how good an idea using these adapters is
), then you seem to have to step up to a 750W or 850W PSU to get 4 x PCI-E connectors (and seemingly a 1Kw unit for 6 x PCI-E). Just thought I'd throw that in the mix.
With that in mind, the the SPCR-reviewed Seasonic M12D-850W could be the PSU you're looking for.
Unless you go with the Ultra X3 lodestar linked to, it is about as modular as you're going to find while also being pretty quiet to boot. Any PSU noise at >400W loads is likely to be drowned out by the graphics cards and/or whatever game you might be playing to get loads that high.
I would recommend Antec CP-850 (but only works on 3 Antec cases), i own it and can say probably the cheapest/powerfull/silent psu i have owned, there are good reviews about it,
jonnyGuru Antec CP-850 850W
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... y&reid=142
silentpcreview Antec CP-850: Unique PSU with Top Performance
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article971-page1.html
If already own the LianLi or dead set on it, then another great new psu out there is Corsair HX850, although much more expensive than the Antec.
jonnyGuru Corsair HX850 850W
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... y&reid=153
Neither is fully modular, but the none modular cables of the Corsair are always used (24pin, 8pin and PCIe cables), so you wont need to hide them or have them laying around, the rest are modular. The antec has more cables none modular, but i only had to hide 1, and wasn't a big deal.
jonnyGuru Antec CP-850 850W
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... y&reid=142
silentpcreview Antec CP-850: Unique PSU with Top Performance
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article971-page1.html
If already own the LianLi or dead set on it, then another great new psu out there is Corsair HX850, although much more expensive than the Antec.
jonnyGuru Corsair HX850 850W
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... y&reid=153
Neither is fully modular, but the none modular cables of the Corsair are always used (24pin, 8pin and PCIe cables), so you wont need to hide them or have them laying around, the rest are modular. The antec has more cables none modular, but i only had to hide 1, and wasn't a big deal.