Hi Sorry to ask another PSU question but i'm still not sure to buy. After problems with my i7 920 new build my PSU gose pop. What would you recommend to run: i7 920 6gig Memory 3 Hard drives ati 5850 I dont plan to go crossfire but am intrested in overclocking and a newer card at a later date. Budget about £60, can spend abit more maybe Thanks for your help
For £60 that's quite a tight budget for a quality power supply. However, I have an Antec TruePower 550W (TP-550) that runs a core i5-2500k, 4GB DDR3, an SSD and a HDD, and a HD5870. No problems at all, retails for £60 at scan, £70+ elsewhere.
by newer card if you mean something like a 6970 or a gtx 580 or even 680, a 550w-650w should be fine with a little bit of headroom for anything else. as above, you really want a quality psu, id up your budget to that £90. then your psu won't go pop again.. this would be a fair choice. linky You could also try the antec earthwatts series. They are pretty efficient and also good value
I disagree slightly with j4mi3, you can get a good PSU for less than £90. The Antec ones mentioned above are very good. There's also the second hand market, which is always a good source of high quality stuff at cheap prices. I currently have a Corsair PSU in the marketplace which meets all of your criteria. Bit of shameful self advertising but it was more to show that given the budget, second hand may be the way to go.
Get a 2nd user Corsair HX series PSU or look around for a Seasonic PSU. For your use you should be OK with a 620W to 650W, possibly a bit lower into the 500W range might suffice. A one or two year old Corsair HX650 should be within your scope, top class, wont let you down plus long warranty from Corsair, I think it's either 6 years warranty or 7 years warranty with these. Itchy Rim
I got a quad rail Be Quiet! 550 or 600W or something PSU almost new off eBay for just £37 including postage. The second hand/barely used market is a great place to look. If you want bargains keep an eye out for brands that are less well known but still produce quality products (Be Quiet for instance).
You can get a few of the lower-end Corsair units for that price. I've still got a Corsair Builder 600W in the cupboard, that still goes strong whenever I need to test a machine, and it's only worth something like £30 now.
says who? and what does he need that makes that unit not capable? that is a very solid unit that will do the job nicely... edit: probably should expound on that...the wattage is more than enough, even for upgrades, oc's, and capacitor aging...it is a reliable unit. while not up to the levels of the hx or ax (obviously), it's still corsair, and they have the best qc standards out there...making it more than "reliable" enough for 95% of the pc users out there
The lower end Corsair units aren't built by Seasonic so aren't as reliable in that sense due to Seasonic's excellent reputation. Other than that I can't think of much.
He wants a newer card at a later date. IIRC the builder series comes with like a single 8pin PCIE connector? Hardly sufficient to someone upgrading from a HD5850 IMO. Also I read reports that some rails may fall below the ATX spec in terms of output, but I havent tested them myself so cannot confirm that. They are also single rail but that may not mean too much. Edit: Just checked, and it seems the 600W version does have two PCI-E connectors! apologies
I'd advise going for a second hand (I've heard the market place here is quite good, though I still need another 4 posts to actually see it ), or one of the Antec ones suggested...
correct, but the oem still conforms to corsairs qc standards, and in the end, that's what separates corsair from, say, XFX. Ever wondered why Seasonic built XFX unit's aren't as great as very similar spec corsair units that are also built by seasonic? in reality, cwt can build a unit just as awesome as seasonic for anyone else...but how much does that company want to pay for that unit? that's where the quality of the unit eventually gets lowered. that's the problem when giving advice while relying on memory, it doesn't do the op a heck of a lot of good when ur wrong...the higher wattage units like the one referred to here have 2 x pci-e... as far as rails not hitting spec in terms of output, haven't seen that anywhere...it's a group-regulated design, so that may be what you heard...crossload tests give group units a little trouble in terms of "hitting spec", but that's nothing we need to worry about.. as noted by someone else, single rail is preferable...and most "multi-rail" units are single rail as well...
Low spec corsair units do not have such strigent qc. I have bought 2 for different machines, and have overall been massively unimpressed with them. I always get antec now for cheapish psu's. I find on the cheap corsair's all the plugs are really bad, and prone to breaking. Call me heavy handed or whatever, but I have built hundreds of machines, and, this has only ever happened with cheap corsairs!
I paid just under £60 for my Corsair TX650 about a year and a half ago. Been rock solid so far (touches wood) and has been put through its paces with Xfired 4870s, multiple HDDs and a decent OC (was pulling just short of 500W from the wall !) as well as a ton of other combinations. It is an excellent choice (IMO) for single card set-ups but not so good for multiple card set-ups as it only has 2 PCI-E connectors. They should be available for under £50 second hand or should be available at a decent price on ebay . At that price you are probably going to be better off looking for a high-quality non-modular unit rather than a lesser quality modular unit.
