In Depth PSU Guide: Please Read.

[Oreo]

New Builders guide Only


This section is regularly fillled up with PSU Questions, my aim is to make a PSU Guide, that will be updated and accurate and helpfull to newcomers of the PC building world.

First off the simple stuff:

Cheep generic PSU's are fine on a normal system, but as soon as you in invest in a fairly modern GPU and CPU you will need to upgrade from the usual £5/$10 Generic one.
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Buying the right power rateing is a must, if you dont have enough power your new build may fail to boot, or the PSU will blow up because it doesnt supply the Watts that the internal components are useing
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Heres the important part:

Here are some common PC parts that new builds may have, i will only list the CPU and GPU combination takeing into account the the PC will likely have one DVD/CD Drive, and One Sata drive with 2 Gigs of ram and all the other stuff.

Intel Cure 2 Duo E6400 and Below CPU's: with the following Graphics Cards.

ATI Radeon X1650 Series
ATI Radeon X1800 Series
ATI Radeon X1950 Series

Nvidia Geforce 7600 Series
Nvidia Geforce 7800 Series
Nvidia Geforce 7900 Series

All these will run on PSU of around 400W and Above, you should choose 450W to be safe. You DO NOT need 550W+ PSU's like people say. Fact.
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The following CPU's with the Above GPU's:

Intel Quad Core's
Intel Extreme Processors

They will probably also run on 430W, but i wouldn't, 450W to 500W is strongly advised
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Intel E6400 and Below CPU's with the following GPU's

Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB
Nvidia 8800GTS 640MB
ATI Radeon X1950XTX (some people say these use similar power to X1950Pro/XT, some disagree, like me)


These will run on 450W minimum, I would advise purchasing a 500W PSU or above though.
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The following CPU's with the Above GPU's: (Nvidia 8series, XTX's)

Intel Quad Core's
Intel Extreme Processors

I would recomend at least 470W Again, probably use around 520W or above
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Intel E6400 CPU's and Below with the following Watt eating GPU's

Nvidia Geforce 8800GTX
Nvidia Geforce 8800Ultra
ATI X2900XT
ATI X2900Pro
ATI X2900XTX (estimate)

I would recomend a bare minimum of 500W PSU, but you should be scared if you choose it. Please use a 530W or 550W or above PSU Ideally 580+.
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The following CPU's with the Above GPU's:

Intel Quad Core's
Intel Extreme Processors

Probably a 500W PSU Again, but do you want to be even more scared, i dont think so. 550W + recomended.
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Now on to the good brands and Models.

The good brands ( i can think of )are as follows:

Seasonic
Hiper
Corsair
Thermaltake
Coolermaster
Antec
Enermax
Tagan
OCZ
Zalman

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If your going crossfire or SLI with your PSU, make sure they are SLI Certified, or Crossfire Certified. I would reccomend adding on At very least another 100- 150Watt PSU for going SLI or Crossfire, another 80 - 130 Watt for Two CPU's.
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This is just my own general guide, it may not be right, it is just my own preferance and idea from experience, i will try to regularly update this. I take no liability if this guide screws your PC Up, please confirm your choice with Several members first.
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It seems some of you want Cooling and Amperage to be listed here... i'll give it a shot.

Amperage is important, but most of the time you will be ok, so i won't say to much:

The most important part is the 12V Rails as these supply GPU's CPU's etc etc with power.

Faster more powerfull graphics cards will want to pull more amperage (watts) through the 12V rail, this is fine but you must make sure that the 12V rail on your PSU has enough Amps for your CPU and GPU, many new PSU's now have several 12V Rail. I would like to see at least 18Amps on a 12V rail for most graphics cards and cpu's, 22Amps for the higher powered ones and 36amps for computers running SLI. Generally the better your BPU is, the more amps you want running on your 12V rails, especially if you have more fans. there are also 3.3V and 5V rails, but these are less important as they power lower power devices.

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PC Cooling is also important - especially if you intend on Overclocking your Vital Components. Many of you will be buying Intels Core 2 Duo range, the overclocking super chips.

Overclock a E6300 for example past 2.4Ghz from 1.8Ghz, and your gona want an Aftermarket cooler, i will talk brands a bit later.


However cooling for the GPU and CPU isnt the main thing, its the airflow through your pc, its a common mistake that More fans is better, it can be, but not always. Airflow through your PC must be good, its this that keeps your entire pc cool, Its useless haveing your CPU at 15 degreees C, to find your Hard Drives and GPU are sweltering because the heat caused by the cpu is falling on to them, and staying there.

One 12CM Intake Fan at the bottom front of the PC case, and one Exhaust fan at the top rear is a good idea if possible, the cool air blows underneeth thecomponents, rising and cooling them, and at the top the warm air gets sucked out. There are many good air flow solutions though, but some cases are nasty for good airflow.

Liquid Cooling is a godsend, you can call the majority of your vital components with just a Waterblock/fridge and Pump, useually as good as Top air cooling or better.
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Now for the brands: for the best i would tend to stick to the following:

Zalman
Acrtic Cooling
Thermalright

They are the creme de la crop of CPU and VGA (GPU) coolers, stick to these and your overclocked components will remain mighty cool, however on more extreme systems it may also be worth investing in Ram cooling, north bridge and southbridge cooling.

Things to look out fore: Copper pipes, copper provides the best heat absorption/ dispursion rate, until you reach expensive metals, if your purchasing a fin based design, try and see wether the bottom few fins point down onto the Vcores near the CPU slots, thse get mighty hot.

Thermal paste is good, increases performance of your cooler, try and get Arctic Silver 5.

Some cases now have extendable CPU Ducts, be sure to use this as it means hot air isnt blasted into your case, but rather out of it.

Thanks and i hope this helps.
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Another small thing about PSU's they have peak power rateings, around 30Watt above there normal rateing,try to make sure you are not calculateing with this in mind, this can only be used very breifly.

[Deadpixel]

Nice guide but you forgot Pc Power and Cooling!

[SirCyber]

nother what, 5-10 watts/ fan, amperage differences (important for the higher end GPU's) other cooling options, and as a general rule for myself, 30-50 watts above your system sheer wattage power, room to grow and not squeeze. otherwise, looks clear, tho some of your minimums are quite frankly scary as ****

[Oreo]

I do say that though... the point is they would run it. I see the PC orders from my mums job... they work but they scare me like **** aswell. I upped a few of them up by 10 or 20 watts anyway.

This is a PSU guide for beginners !, not a cooling guide either.

Please PM some mods, if it was refined a little its worth stickying, stop all them 'PSU Ok ?' threads.


Thanks Alot Apokalipse for putting in the Tutorials section

[SirCyber]

hope you get it stickied, it would help alot. I misinterprited what you were saying in the first post, this is just for GPU/CPU help. expand it some, add in the rest of the system, and you've got the basic package. mobo, cpu, gpu, ram(I know it's tiny but someone might ask something about ram, you never know), how to check fans and or lighting for power consumption, and of course, the 10-20 watts overage

[vernong1992]

nice guide... but you should add PC power and cooling to the good brands and change OCZ to good except for gamexstream

[SamPNE]

There's nothing wrong with GameXStream, the ripple is well within the threshold.

[vernong1992]

Originally Posted by SamPNE

There's nothing wrong with GameXStream, the ripple is well within the threshold.

but still very risky... would you risk your new system??

[DawnOfDoom]

Ultra is a "decent" PSU their not as good as say a coolermaster or enermax but still their "decent"

[nagasama]

lol i just like trotters note where your sig should be...
sig hammer lmao