Recommendations for a PSU needed please!

[RikuoAmero]

What Wattage PSU will I need with this configuration?

I'm building a gaming rig and the last thing I have to look for is the PSU, but I'm unsure as to what wattage I actually need. Here's the components I'll be using

Antec DF-85 Chassis ( 6x 120mm fans, + 2x 140mm top mounted fans)

Asus P8Z68 Deluxe Motherboard

Intel Core i7 2600K CPU

16GB (4 x 4GB) GSkill RipJaws X 1600MHz RAM (9,9,9,1.5v)

Corsair H80 Liquid CPU Cooler

120GB Solid State Drive for OS + Games

2 x 2TB Internal Hard Drives (One's a Western Digital Caviar, the others a Seagate Barracuda External USB I'll be taking out of its case)

LG Blu-Ray Burner

2 x MSI Geforce GTX 560 Ti "Hawk" GPUs

If I have room left on my motherboard, I'll add a Creative SB X-fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional sound card (and for the record, I have the exact same card in my current computer, and it's given me nothing but hugs and kisses ever since I got it)

What wattage PSU will I need with all of that? Any recommendations? I'd prefer to get a 80+ Gold or 80+Platinum, for efficiency.

[ZeroPenguins]

I say at least 700 Watts+, but of course you can probably run it with 650W as well but I did say go for ones that are over 700W. You don't need to get 80+ Platinum, Gold is virtually the same and a bit cheaper. Brands could be anything that isn't cheap, like antec, coolmaster, silverstone, cosair or whatever.

[† An IP BreAKDoWN]

I just ran this through a quick wishlist on newegg, the HDDs and the Blu-ray burner were also kinda vague, but I think I found similar ones. Looks like they're all compatible. I also ran this through a PSU calculator, since I have one that calculates amps along with watts, which is very important. It recommends 961 watt PSU with +3.3 @ 10.8 A, +5 @ 20.6 A, +12v @ 68.5 A. I ran this through with peak settings to give it more buffer, basic rule of thumb is to over compensate. So I'd get a 1000W PSU simply to make sure you NEVER under power your hardware. These I'd recommend as I have tested for compatibility OCZ ZX 1000W and the XFX P1-1000-BELX 1000W. If you plan on adding more graphic cards for a 3 way SLI I'd get a 1250W.

Also as a note I'd get MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II since you'll double the memory with a slight increase of price. And to SLI them you're going to be doing some serious gaming; what are you expecting to do with these graphics cards? Why dual monitor a 40" and a 26" monitor, that makes no sense to me at all. And are going to build this ASAP, or are you going to wait till a couple of months? If you wait I'd get the Ivy Bridge CPU. And you got the OS covered right?

[RikuoAmero]

I just ran this through a quick wishlist on newegg, the HDDs and the Blu-ray burner were also kinda vague, but I think I found similar ones. Looks like they're all compatible. I also ran this through a PSU calculator, since I have one that calculates amps along with watts, which is very important. It recommends 961 watt PSU with +3.3 @ 10.8 A, +5 @ 20.6 A, +12v @ 68.5 A. I ran this through with peak settings to give it more buffer, basic rule of thumb is to over compensate. So I'd get a 1000W PSU simply to make sure you NEVER under power your hardware. These I'd recommend as I have tested for compatibility OCZ ZX 1000W and the XFX P1-1000-BELX 1000W. If you plan on adding more graphic cards for a 3 way SLI I'd get a 1250W.

Also as a note I'd get MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II since you'll double the memory with a slight increase of price. And to SLI them you're going to be doing some serious gaming; what are you expecting to do with these graphics cards? Why dual monitor a 40" and a 26" monitor, that makes no sense to me at all. And are going to build this ASAP, or are you going to wait till a couple of months? If you wait I'd get the Ivy Bridge CPU. And you got the OS covered right?

Great help. I'm not getting the Twin Frozer II because the Hawk is factory overclocked to 950MHz, the Frozer is lower than that. 2 x 1GB frame buffer will be enough for me. As for the different sizes when dual monitoring, my setup is that the computer and the screens will be on the right side of my bed, with the 23 inch directly beside me, and the 40 inch at the foot. The 23 inch I use as a secondary display, so, while I'm gaming or watching video on the main 40 inch screen, the 23 inch I can use to keep an eye on Bittorent or have Facebook open or whatever. Although I don't think I'll be doing that anymore: I may end up using a laptop for web browsing, and keep the rig for when I want high end gaming.

Angelofdarkness, as for the wattage you said, something confuses me. I've been on the Nvidia website for the GTX 560 Ti (note that this is for the reference card, I couldn't find power information for the Hawk, even on MSI's website) and it says Maximum Graphics Card Power = 170W and maximum system power = 500W. So does it mean that when shopping for a PSU, since I'm using two cards, I have to have at least 500W for the rest of the system, then add 170 x 2 = 340W on top of that? All this time I've been looking to get 1200W PSU. So basically, the number I should be looking at is 800-900W? I don't need anything beyond that?

[zeriu]

You could most likely get away with a 600-650 watt but to be on the safe side. I would recommend a 700 or higher like Ang3lofDarkness says if you can spare the cash. Your always safer getting slightly higher then recommended just to be safe.

[RikuoAmero]

Well, I've shopped around and it looks like this is a VERY good PSU.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-zx-series-1250w-power-supply.html

It's a real 80+ Gold, I checked the certification website, it's more wattage than I need, plenty of cables and fully modular. Plus its cheap, compared to other similar wattage PSUs (€190 on dabs.ie, and other 1200+W go into the 200-300 euro range).

God I'm glad that that's over. Seriously, the power supply was the one thing that I've been researching the longest ever since I started all this. I've already picked out graphics and sound cards, so no more late night researching! God, all that made me feel like I was back in school!

[ZeroPenguins]

Angelofdarkness, as for the wattage you said, something confuses me. I've been on the Nvidia website for the GTX 560 Ti (note that this is for the reference card, I couldn't find power information for the Hawk, even on MSI's website) and it says Maximum Graphics Card Power = 170W and maximum system power = 500W. So does it mean that when shopping for a PSU, since I'm using two cards, I have to have at least 500W for the rest of the system, then add 170 x 2 = 340W on top of that? All this time I've been looking to get 1200W PSU. So basically, the number I should be looking at is 800-900W? I don't need anything beyond that?

What I suggested were the bare minimum, I would grab a 850W to be on the safe side (never letting your PSU go under 100% load, but leaving about a 20%-30% headroom and 850W will give you that headroom) and for extra upgrades. But I did say anything over 1000W is overkill. Lol there are many people who thinks bigger PSU are better, like some people get two 1000W PSU for their rig with only two 480s for example which is ridiculous. And no you don't add on top, 500W is the recommended wattage for a single GPU in a whole rig, it would actually even run on 450W PSU believe me or not (got a friend that did that and works fine) because that rig would be draining down 300-400W on when under load. What BreAKDoWN suggested is ideal for a PSU to reach its peak efficiency for a 80 plus which is around 50% load on the PSU when the computer is on 100% load, but you will be losing quite a bit of money in electricity bills when you idle, since the load isn't near 50% so the efficiency is lowered, but of course it always be at least 80% if you idle at 20% of the PSU load. This is what i mean:

Well, I've shopped around and it looks like this is a VERY good PSU.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-zx-series-1250w-power-supply.html

It's a real 80+ Gold, I checked the certification website, it's more wattage than I need, plenty of cables and fully modular. Plus its cheap, compared to other similar wattage PSUs (€190 on dabs.ie, and other 1200+W go into the 200-300 euro range).

God I'm glad that that's over. Seriously, the power supply was the one thing that I've been researching the longest ever since I started all this. I've already picked out graphics and sound cards, so no more late night researching! God, all that made me feel like I was back in school!

Honestly I find getting that PSU a waste of money, but if you got the cash then go ahead but keep in mind what I said before about the electricity because you never be around 10% load when you idle, I believe the higher the wattage the more you lose in efficiency rating.

[† An IP BreAKDoWN]

I'll just leave this here as to help you decide better: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp. I bought the pro version as I was worried about amperage (if anyone needs me to I can check amperage for you too). And I set the settings at all max like I said before, as to make sure you NEVER under power the system. You should probably stick to the 1000W as to preserve money, you can even add another hard drive and still have head room. However the 1250W would be ideal if you plan on getting a three way SLI. But that would be way overkill.

[ZeroPenguins]

That site is load of crap, says my computer needs a 840W minimum and recommend is 890W. Now that is just crazy I'm running on a 550W PSU and it has been working fine even with all my upgrades. My specs/extra stuff are Intel i7 920 overclock at 3.33GHz with vcore of 1.275V, a ATi HD 4870, 3 WD HDD, 2 DVD burners, 4 USB devices, 1 Firewire. If you ask me that site is crazy, my computer went under load for over 24 hours and haven't crashed once even with my GPU running at 100%.

[† An IP BreAKDoWN]

That site is load of crap, says my computer needs a 840W minimum and recommend is 890W. Now that is just crazy I'm running on a 550W PSU and it has been working fine even with all my upgrades. My specs/extra stuff are Intel i7 920 overclock at 3.33GHz with vcore of 1.275V, a ATi HD 4870, 3 WD HDD, 2 DVD burners, 4 USB devices, 1 Firewire. If you ask me that site is crazy, my computer went under load for over 24 hours and haven't crashed once even with my GPU running at 100%.

It purposely does over hang, and takes into account that over time the PSU will degrade and will lose wattage. This is meant to show you than in 10 years (that a bit of an exaggeration) from now if you are still at whatever specs you set it at you hardware will not be under powered.

[ZeroPenguins]

It purposely does over hang, and takes into account that over time the PSU will degrade and will lose wattage. This is meant to show you than in 10 years (that a bit of an exaggeration) from now if you are still at whatever specs you set it at you hardware will not be under powered.

Yes that is true but I won't be keeping my rig for that long, planning on upgrading my computer again soon. I think that site is overkill, most people don't keep that PSU for that long.

[† An IP BreAKDoWN]

You would use it if you were building for a friend that doesn't use computers . There is also a newegg calculator but is not a detailed and doesn't have an overclocking calculator. It also gives people a place to start as far if they know nothing about PSUs.

[ZeroPenguins]

You would use it if you were building for a friend that doesn't use computers . There is also a newegg calculator but is not a detailed and doesn't have an overclocking calculator. It also gives people a place to start as far if they know nothing about PSUs.

Yeah, but generally speaking if you were building a computer and buying parts from a computer store they recommend you a PSU. For me I just went with bare minimum to save cash, since I was on a tight budget when building.