Help me pick a power supply?

[Grimwell]

I have this and it's time to buy the power supply and get it rolling (one paycheck at a time and all that).

I don't have two cards for SLI use right now, but I'd like to buy a power supply that is ready to go for it so I don't have to buy a second one in the future.

Given that the last time I purchased a power supply you didn't have to worry about how many watts it held, is anyone willing to give some advice on what to pick up? I'd like to balance quality and price out nicely and not stick it to my budget. I'm not an extreme gamer, I don't need an extreme power supply 

[Tarami]

What cards are you considering linking? Certain series are spectacular power hogs.

Been a while since I looked into specifics, but a 700-750 W modular (the cables are detachable, it does wonders for keeping interior clutter to a minimum) PSU should be enough. Other than that I've found that it's pretty much irrelevant what exact brand you get as long as it's fairly known. I tend to buy Chieftec personally.

[MythicJason]

Antec and Corsair both tend to rate pretty high. Best bet would be to poke around Newegg a bit, check them out.

And as Tarami mentioned, getting a modular one is pretty nice. Easier to work with and keeps things clean.

[Hayduke]

I use a Corsair 520HX with modular cables.  I've heard some Antecs are good, and I've used them in the past but my last one was too loud.  And PC Power & Cooling (though I don't know if they're still called that since OCZ bought them).  Jonnyguru's not a bad site for psu reviews.

[Grimwell]

You guys assume too much.

Knowing which brands are good is helpful; knowing which models will even work with my board is more so.

Yes, I'm that out of it.

[Trippy]

We still need to know which GPU you think you might want to pair up.

[Morfiend]

Corsair modular. I will never buy anything else. Their power levels are rock solid, and the modular gives great cable management.
Corsair PSUs on Newegg. Not all are modular.

You probably want a 750 or 850 to be safe. If you dont plan to run SLi then you could probably get by with a 620.

Power supply calculator.

[schild]

Corsair modular. I will never buy anything else. Their power levels are rock solid, and the modular gives great cable management.
Corsair PSUs on Newegg. Not all are modular.

You probably want a 750 or 850 to be safe. If you dont plan to run SLi then you could probably get by with a 620.

Power supply calculator.

As I found out buying a power supply, the good Corsairs are just rebranded Seasonics. May as well just go to the source.

[Grimwell]

We still need to know which GPU you think you might want to pair up.

Oh, it came in a package with an AMD Phenom 9500 which tells me that's not the fastest thing the board can support but it is one of the cheaper Phenom's that they can bundle for a fair price.

After I'm done buying other parts, I'm going to loop back and purchase the most powerful chip the board can support.

....and now that I read again (damn it's getting late I guess), you meant GPU not CPU.

Same story really. It supports NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI and I'm going to max it out when the budget affords. Until the budget says "Yes" I'm going on-board; but I'm to the point in life where when I commit the money, I'm going to just hit the top of what the board can support (probably after it's yesterday's news) and then never have to think about an upgrade again.

So assume the GPU is going to suck power.

[Tale]

Knowing which brands are good is helpful; knowing which models will even work with my board is more so.

Yes, I'm that out of it.

Best PSU I've ever had was an Antec. I wasn't expecting to notice a difference, but it added stability to my PC. In my experience, with a cheap PSU your system will hang more often.

Re SLI - I'm still convinced that avoiding SLI and upgrading a single card is the most sensible option unless you're happy to spend the money. People wrongly think SLI will add lifespan to their machine, but SLI just gives better framerates when your card technology is current. When your card technology ages, you still need to upgrade for new features as with a single card, and there are diminishing returns from two old-generation cards over one old-generation card. So if you can cope with 80fps from a single card where SLI would give you 120fps, it seems unnecessary to add to your power bills and PSU cost. When you upgrade to your next single card, you find it does 180fps in that old game anyway.

Edit:

and I'm going to max it out when the budget affords.

As I suspected, I don't think you should be looking at SLI. Because by the time "the budget affords", you'll probably be better off buying a new single card with the money than adding another old card for a diminished return from SLI. YMMV.

[Trippy]

Same story really. It supports NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI and I'm going to max it out when the budget affords. Until the budget says "Yes" I'm going on-board; but I'm to the point in life where when I commit the money, I'm going to just hit the top of what the board can support (probably after it's yesterday's news) and then never have to think about an upgrade again.

So assume the GPU is going to suck power.

Okay then go here:

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

and take a look at the certified power supplies for the GPUs you might be interested in. This will give you a general idea what sort of Wattage you'll need for an SLI setup. You don't, of course, have to get a certified power supply as long as what you pick puts out enough Amps on the 12V line(s) (figuring that out will take additional research).

[Xerapis]

Anything less would be uncivilized

[MythicJason]

Anything less would be uncivilized

At 234.00 I will remain an uncivilized heathen.

Tale brings up some good points on SLI, and given your upgrade plans you probably will be better off with a single card solution. And back when I was looking at doing crossfire it looked like there were problems getting it to run well with two monitors (same with SLI). That was a few years back though so maybe they have fixed the issues.

[Hawkbit]

Some people like to tinker.  As long as you have some patience and don't mind if things don't work properly for a bit, then it's OK.  But nearly everyone I've talked to that went SLI put up with weird problems getting it to work.  It's a LOT of extra time, money and effort for ~20% increase in performance. 

Imo, skip SLI. 

Didn't know Corsair PSUs were rebranded Seasonics though.  I've been 100% happy with my Corsair 620.  I'll likely go Corsair again in the future.  Might be able to keep the 620 on my next build though, maybe.

[Sky]

I don't like SLI, either. I favor getting the best single-card solution on the market at the time. My 8800GTX is still a great card even after an unbelievably long tech cycle of 2-1/2 years.

[SnakeCharmer]

At your resolution (13xx x 7xx?), it should carry you for a while.  It is a sweet card, though. 

That said, I've never had any issues with my SLI (8800GTS G92's) set up, though.  It's always worked flawlessly without any tinkering.

[Hoax]

People should really go Seasonic, the only reason that Corsairs are good are because Seasonic is making them.  But yeah as a result they are solid, esp the modular ones.

[Trippy]

Not all Corsairs are made by Seasonic. Some are made by CWT. You'll need to Google on those terms to figure out which is which though cause it's not obvious and people disagree over which ones are made by whom.

[Flood]

A second vote for SeaSonic PSU's.  Also agree that, generally speaking, SLI / Crossfire can be a bit of a hassle - considering the performance that can be had from a single GPU these days.  There are some really good "mid-range" cards to be had in the 95-120ish bracket.

Anyway i have had THIS PSU for about three years now in two different rigs and never had a lick of trouble.  It's quiet too.