HOWTO: Select a power supply for your system

How to select a proper power supply for your system​

The first thing you need to figure out how much power you system will use.

I think http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html is a good power supply calculator.

There is others online but I use this one from newegg as it seems to be good. You can also try http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp I suggest these two.

Here is my recommendations on a power supply:

Light load pc such as web browsing with onboard video and a dual core 65watt cpu with one hard drive and optical drive 300-350 watts.

Higher end pc as above but with a PCI Express video card such as a 9600gt that requires PCI Express Connectors around 400 watts and little above depending on the video card.

High end pc such as a quad core CPU with a video card such as a GTX 275
600-700 watts

Extreme PCI such as a SLI gtx 295 or ATI 5970 in corssfire
900-1000 watts.

Of course your power rating may change on your pc if you run different video cards a different cpu etc. These are just my general guidelines.

Another thing to consider is how many amps are on the 12+ rail and if it has more then one 12+ rail. I suggest a single 12+ rail as you get all that power to your components as were with a multiple 12+ rail setup a part may not get enough amps to run correctly or at all.

12+ rail provides power to your video card, hard drives, fans, optical drives and some others.

PSU Quality and brands​

You may look around and see a 630 Watt psu for only 25 dollars and you think really good deal I think I"m going to do go with it as it's a good deal. Many people don't realize that your PSU is one of the most important parts of your computer as it provides power to all your components.

If cheap out on this and buy a low quality PSU it can cause problems down the road or even blow up and damage your pc components.

Here is my list of some good reputable power supply brands:

Corsair (I own a TX750w psu and it's awesome)
OCZ (Own a OCZ500SXS Works very well to)
Thermaltake
Antec (Have friends all the time say they are awesome)
Zalman

Here is some supply brands to say away from to due to low quality:

Rosewill
Sunbeam
Logisys
Hipro (Had one die on me after a year in a HP pc)
Bestec (Same failed and died)
Hec
No brand power supplies.
Very low priced power supplies for high wattage and specs.

I hope you find this useful and this is a work in progress. Maybe this can be a sticky and maybe I will write some more howto's :-D

 

Great write-up! Did I inspire this in some small way? :-D

 

I have an Antec 750watt and it is great.

Just one thing i would add to pslovers script is when looking at PSUs the first thing you should notice when you pick it up it should be heavy, stay away from lightweight units.

 

I would tend to agree with you, BILLMCC66, on this one: heavy PSUs usually result in a reliable product. However, it should ALSO be taken into consideration with the brand/manufacturer. I've had a heavy FOXCONN PSU, but, if you know about them, they are probably one of the worst, if not the worst, PSU manufacturers.

 

I have to agree as well.

I think there should be a section in the forum just for HOWTO's and stuff like this.

 

A 9600gt doesn't need alot of power. That PSU you have only has 20 amps total of power of only 20 amps. Your system is a low end so it works for you.

At times you need a big PSU. You cant run a gtx 275 or a good video card and cpu setup with a PSU like this.

I can tell you that Cheap o stuff does not work better or last longer.

 

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp is much more precise than the newegg calculator since it recognizes a greater variety of components.