What PSU to get for my new build?

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Hi all. the build is in my sig.
+ I have 2 DVD burners and a firebox interface

I've searched the forum. google etc. but didn't find too much updates information that is DAW-Oriented. So I wanted to know what PSU should I get for my system that will be reliable and silent and appropriate for a DAW.

Budge: ~50$
Power Needed: less than 350W(According to this calc: link)
Would I benefit from buying a 450 or 500 or more Power Supply? or the bigger, the noisier?

EDIT: Also, should I get a CPU fan? is it possible to get a cenet, quiet one for ~10$ ?

Thanks, ZBBZ.
Last edited by zoobooboozoo on Sat Feb 16, 2013 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
CPU: i5 3470
RAM: 2X4GB DDR 3 1600
Hard Drives: WD 1TB Black, 500GB Green, 160GB
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Sonar X2, Native Instruments Komplete, VSTs...
Audio Interface: PreSonus FireBox
Mics: Shure SM57 & KSM27
Casio CD-120 Digital Piano

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Please do NOT cheapskate on a PSU, it is the most important part of the computer. It is always best to have more than what that calculator says. 500W to make sure everything runs smoothly. CPU and graphics card are the biggest power drainers (especially if after some time you would want to try overclocking). Corsair, CoolerMaster, OCZ for the win.

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I was recommended corsair builder a few times. is it a good one?
is it quiet and appropriate for a daw?

What about seasonic or antec?

EDIT: Also, should I get a CPU fan? is it possible to get a cenet, quiet one for ~10$ ?
CPU: i5 3470
RAM: 2X4GB DDR 3 1600
Hard Drives: WD 1TB Black, 500GB Green, 160GB
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Sonar X2, Native Instruments Komplete, VSTs...
Audio Interface: PreSonus FireBox
Mics: Shure SM57 & KSM27
Casio CD-120 Digital Piano

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zoobooboozoo wrote:Would I benefit from buying a 450 or 500 or more Power Supply? or the bigger, the noisier?
Yes, up to a point. There are a couple of things to consider when looking at PSUs:

1. The effectiveness of the PSU to convert AC (mains) to DC (computer internal) current. Cheap PSUs use cheap parts and are less effective at this conversion. Better PSUs voluntarily have themselves tested to be rated. You can read about the ratings here. This effectively means you pay less for a cheap PSU with less effective conversion up front but end up paying more over time in your electrial bill.

2. The effectiveness of capacitors degrades over use (time). This means a PSU rated for 400w after a year can only put out (say) 390w and after two years put out around 370w. If you purchase exactly what you need today you'll be under powered later. This can result in strange crashes, hangs, or in extreme cases damaged hardware.

3. Expansion. If you decide to get a newer, more powerful video card or more hard drives your power envelope changes. This is true for a CPU upgrade or more RAM too. Even hanging more USB devices off the PC takes more power. If you are planning on using the computer for a while I'd recommend some wiggle room in your power requirements.

4. The power rating of a PSU isn't the amount of power it always outputs. Rather, it's the maximum amount of power the manufacture recommends drawing from the device. A 600W PSU only produces 600W if the devices attached to it are drawing that much power. You could use a 600W PSU in your setup just as well and the device would only produce 300-400W.

5. The fan size. You wanted quiet and in this case I'd highly recommend PSUs with 120mm fans only. The smaller, cheaper 80mm fans have to spin faster to move the same amount of air as a 120mm spinning slower. Faster spinning = more noise. The good news is 120mm fans are pretty much the norm these days. However, there are still very cheap PSUs that ship with 80mm fans.

Based on what you said above I'd recommend a good 430-450W PSU. You might have to stretch your budget a bit, but not by much. This one comes in under budget:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139026
(most of the bad reviews come from complaints about an expired rebate and not about the quality of the product itself)

A little over budget but I think worth it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817256061
I've had good luck with silverstone PSUs and the 500w gives you a nice amount of room to grow.

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Wow bmrzycki, that was insightful!

Most suggestions I got were for a Corsair Builder,
I just wanted to make sure it's quite enouogh for a DAW.

100W Wiggle room should be enouogh IYO ?

and alsom what about the cpu fan? should I get one? is ~10 enough for a good one?


thanks again.
CPU: i5 3470
RAM: 2X4GB DDR 3 1600
Hard Drives: WD 1TB Black, 500GB Green, 160GB
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Sonar X2, Native Instruments Komplete, VSTs...
Audio Interface: PreSonus FireBox
Mics: Shure SM57 & KSM27
Casio CD-120 Digital Piano

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zoobooboozoo wrote:Also, should I get a CPU fan? is it possible to get a cenet, quiet one for ~10$ ?
Certain CPU models say you violate the warranty if you do not use the included CPU fan. This includes using any aftermarket fans too. Check your documentation that came with your CPU if you are worried about warranty support.

I personally prefer aftermarket CPU coolers. They tend to be more effective and run quieter than the stock fans. If you do decide to purchase one, do NOT skimp on price. The last thing you want is a fried CPU. :)

I recommend the Hyper 212. Check to make sure your computer case has clearance though, it's pretty tall. I never overclock my computers and with this CPU heatsink and a quiet PSU my computer is very quiet when on. It'll cost you more than $10 but I don't think is prohibitively expensive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835103099

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Definitely use a good CPU cooler. Check out Coolermaster, Scythe, Zalman.


As for PSU, I would definitely purchase at least 500W PSU if I were you. Try to get a modular PSU, they are a bit more expensive, but the benefit is that you can take out the cables that you're not using at the moment, making the internals of PC casing less crowded, which provides better airflow, which enhances cooling.

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zoobooboozoo wrote:I was recommended corsair builder a few times. is it a good one?
is it quiet and appropriate for a daw?

What about seasonic or antec?

EDIT: Also, should I get a CPU fan? is it possible to get a cenet, quiet one for ~10$ ?
Get the Seasonic M12 MKII

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... ageSize=20

You won't get any cooler better than the Intel stock one for that price. In fact fit the stock one and and see if your happy with it, shouldn't be an issue unless you want to overclock... and if you wish to overclock its going to cost you a lot more than $10 to do so.

The Hiper 212 mentioned above, it's a good cooler for gaming rigs but I personally find it too noisy myself for audio systems and not really much of a step up from the stock at stock clocks.

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Im really digging my PC Power and Cooling Silencer Mk III series PSU. Modular, which is a big plus imo, but the downside is the ones near your price range dont appear to have the fan switch, like the new 750 + ones have. Basically its a two way switch, one setting keeps the fan running (its pretty quiet, cant hear it over my front case fan), and the other setting keeps the fan off until heat or workload reaches 50%.

Ive been a fan of this brand for a few builds now. Never had any issues, and its nice to see a 7 year warranty.

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PC P&C are AWESOME PSUs! I have one in my desktop.


They are under OCZ now.

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EvilDragon wrote:PC P&C are AWESOME PSUs! I have one in my desktop.


They are under OCZ now.
Yeah, i had seen the OCZ/PCPC junction after placing my order, and having no first hand experience with OCZ, i was worried to see how the quality would be. I can say the quality level is as expected from previous models. Cloth bagged PSU, and another zipper bag for the extra cables, was the icing of the cake.

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OCZ were excellent PSUs even before PC P&C merged with them.

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I've had one Antec PSU fail on me in nearly 15 years of building PCs. They are awesome.

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tehlord wrote:I've had one Antec PSU fail on me in nearly 15 years of building PCs. They are awesome.
The PSU's that were coming in the Sonata II cases were junk though. I had 3 of those and they all had problems, usually within a year. But even some of the better one's out there have issues too. I had gotten a Cooler Master M700, and it just made my whole DAW very unstable, high DPC spikes, etc. Literally, I'd pop back in my old 550W PSU, and it was back to being stable. I did get another one a year later for a different build, and it's been fine. It was just a bum PSU.

If you care about your machine at all, I would never go cheap on the PSU.

Devon
Simple music philosophy - Those who can, make music. Those who can't, make excuses.
Read my VST reviews at Traxmusic!

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I have a 400w Corsair in mine.

Three hard drives. Cpu cooler. Four fans. Nice red light glow.
Gfx card with fan on board.

And a chip overclocked to 3.6GHz from 2.6 (i5-750).


No problems at all. Works perfectly.

It is true what people say about quality over quantity. Then again I suppose it is true that you want a PSU that has a bit of 'headroom', that is to have more on supply than you use on demand, and obviously for future expansions like another drive etc...

I might be pushing it to add much more, but I think I could get away with another drive fairly easily. I've never tested it - don't even know how to test it - there is probably a program that tells you your total power consumption at any given moment. I've probably got something like that on one of my plethora of Overclocking tools, but I don't remember now.

Anyway seems to work fine.

Out of curiosity, what would be the symptoms of a PSU going rogue on you, I mean, apart from the computer shutting down with smoke coming out of the back? What would be the pre-cursor to that?

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