Hi,

Been slowly upgrading my system so now I'm not sure if I need a PSU upgrade or not. My current PSU is an Aerocool KCAS 500W. Need your advice. My setup:

i5 4460
Gigabyte z87-d3hp mobo
Asus Strix GTX 970
HyperX Savage 8gb 1600 RAM
Kingston V300 120GB SSD
3x 140mm pwm fans
1x 120mm pwm fan

Can I still use a 500W PSU? If I need to upgrade, what would be the recommended wattage?

Just to be safe, get a 600w psu

What would be a good recommendation for a 600w/650w PSU with a budget of RM300..

Seasonic S12II 620W about RM320 from lyn sellers, 5 yr warranty.

or FSP RAIDER 650W = RM249 (lyn) but better to get Seasonic.

This post has been edited by bluemind: Sep 16 2015, 07:01 PM

Up a bit, RM380 for a 600W Seasonic..

How about trensonic PSU? I seldom heard ppl use, but it is on market.

besides seasonic what else would be good? just so I have options...

Corsair

Suddenly some people know better than nVidia

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gp.../specifications

Minimum System Power Requirement (W) : 500w

I think that says enough.

In fact the power draw is so low than even a good 300w PSU could get away with it.

Need not upgrade.

Your PSU will work fine.

If you got spare money, better upgrade to quality PSUs like seasonic, cooler master v series etc.

Your parts not exactly cheap, you sure want to rely on cheap Aerocool PSU?

ur PSU is good

but is not a best choice to get upgrade to a better PSU
like wat i did when i upgrade to 580 i get a good PSU but now im 980 my PSU still good for this card
and bare in mind that new technology will always required lower wattages from time to time

It's not recommended to run a high-end card with an entry-level PSU.

Seasonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze RM299 or the M12II Evo Fully Modular at RM379.

Back to TS's question - does he need to upgrade? The answer is NO.

Should TS upgrade? There's no definite answer, if he has the budget then a better power supply is always the way to go BUT it is not a NEED.

Aerocool KCAS is pretty decent actually.

I've personally tested it on load far higher than what TS' rig can handle for hours, no issues.

Last time it's easy to say "high end card vs entry level PSU"

That's because 2 - 3 generations ago high-end card is like 220W - 250W and they're really killers.

Nowadays high-end cards are some 145 - to 170w. while low / mid end graphic card like say those from AMD drain more!

Case in point, an R9 380 is mid-range but draws some 200w!!!

A GTX 970 for example is considered towards high-end side and draws only 145, GTX 980 only 165w.

So end up now the best way to guide is not so much on high-end or low-end but rather what's the power draw like.

It is not only about what load it can handle, you need to look at protection circuitry it offers.

Not to mention some cheap PSU when burnt out it'll take out some mobos and GPUs.

PSU also doesn't stay constant when aging. After sometime (months or years) the part will degrade and won't be able to supply the needed power and current within ATX specifications.

Did you test the Aerocool PSU on different loads for it's jitter, voltage deviation etc?

Which means,if the card is in high-end range but doesn't eat a lot of power,it'll be fine to run with PSUs like Aerocool KCAS and FSP Hexa+ series? Alright.

I still think it's a good idea to go for a better PSU if there's budget for it.

This post has been edited by Minecrafter: Sep 17 2015, 04:06 PM

Stating GTX970 only uses 145 watts and GTX 980 only 165 watts is in the realm of dreams.

Come on you are a reviewer, you should've known Nvidia's TDP is grossly understated.

Well thanks for all your answers. I came here with similar sets of ideas/concepts in my head and you guys have confirmed it. It seems like this PSU thing can be quite a personal thing.

As long as I am powering a 500w PSU I should be good. But then again, whether I am comfortable running my rig at a minimum PSU requirement, I have to make that call myself.

I personally would like to have some headroom for anything and everything. Just so that I don't keep my stuff running at full load all the time (similar thinking as u guys who suggested me to upgrade to 600+W to be on the safe side).

Considering all your points, and based on goldfries' claim, I think I may keep this 500w for a little while longer I will upgrade, but maybe it is not the most critical thing right now.

Feel free to keep the discussion going though

Oh many more comments while I was writing that. Lol.

Power draw is not everything, most low end or bad PSU can supply power it states just fine, the problem is such PSU are almost always a time bomb, sure it may work well under load, but you never know when its going to just kaboom your rig. Aerocool's KCAS series are one of these offenders, cheap capacitors in the PSU, mostly Chinese with a few Taiwanese ones.

Also, where did you get the 145 and 165 W number? The TDP? It seems like you don't even understand what TDP means, TDP is a measurement of heat output, it is by no mean the actual power draw of the component. The 980 alone draws more than 180 W underload according to various benchmarks.

Also, it is meaning less to compare TDP from different manufacturers as both of them have different method of measuring it, for AMD, the TDP stated on their spec sheet are often more of it's TDP limit, which mean heat output under heavy load (100%), while Nvidia/Intel measures TDP using average heat output, which is more towards normal average usage (roughly 80% - 85% load to simulate typical "power user" usage), of course one is always going to be higher unless it is so good that it's heat output limit can beat another's average heat output.

Edit: I did not say OP's PC could not run with an Aerocool KCAS, he can, and it will probably run well, until it booms, which is, depends on his luck, some lucky ones may have his crap PSU lasts for years, but I personally would not risk it especially a good PSU is only about RM 300, and that's only a fraction of the total PC price. He can run his rig with a 450 watt PSU even, but a good one, power draw is not a main concern here.

This post has been edited by Killmeplsok: Sep 17 2015, 05:27 PM

Grossly understated?

Not until grossly, and certainly not enough to throw their recommend PSU wattage off.

Anyway I've personally measured the Nvidia GPU power consumption.

Dude, did I mentioned TDP?

See the site, http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gp.../specifications - did it mention TDP?

No, we're talking actual power draw.

Correct but my guess is you're just claiming Aerocool KCAS is bad just because you have uncertainty towards it. I don't blame you, I did so too until I tested it.

You can check out my test on the KCAS.

http://www.goldfries.com/hardware-reviews/...-supply-review/

NOTE that I didn't recommend it at the end because there are other PSUs that of similar range that are better quality.

I don't test on different load, I test on as high a load as I can push and monitor 12V rail fluctuations.

For the KCAS 700w model I had it with me for a while, didn't have higher load system that time so ran the R9 280X for a week or 2 on it. Full load. Didn't crumble.

You got it backwards.
AMD has gone off the rails further compared to Intel/Nvidia when publishing the tdp. Power consumption is close enough to the tdp for our discussion.
AMD's bulldozer/piledriver have problems staying within the tdp, so some motherboard models had to add functionality to power throttle the cpus which shouldn't ordinarily happen.
The recent Nano isn't a 175W (tdp) but measures around 210W while Nvidia cards have measured close to their specs or below the stated tdp.

I don't know what to say...because that's exactly where Nvidia puts their TDP. The number you see there, that's not power draw, even though they uses the phrase "Graphic Card Power", neither AMD nor Nvidia has released any info about the power draw of any of their cards, not officially anyway, although you could always assume the maximum power limit (adjusting voltage) of most high end cards by counting the power connector they use.

On what basis you say they put TDP?

I've personally measured Nvidia card power draw, it's not far off you know.

That's Nvidia reference spec, manufacturers have their cards with overclocked speed usually will drain a bit more power in order to attain stability.

Correct on that part about the power connector they use, that's why you see cards like GALAX GTX 980 HOF using 2x 8pin PCI-E connector so on such cards you know the theoretical max power draw would be around 375w, that card was made for OCers to push it to the limits.

Nvidia reference GTX 980 should be around 165W as stated on their site.

I have an ASUS GTX 980 Poseidon with me now,

It draws about 200w on Furmark test, that one pushes the power draw higher than usual.

On benchmarks like Unigine Heaven the power draw comes to about 180w, which is around 10% higher than the rated power draw which is not uncommon, after all it's an overclocked unit.

Search for what Nvidia call product whitepaper, this is where they use proper technical terms as this is what they need to present to OEMs or huge business, at least that's what I got when I asked them about what GPU power means, although even that sheet is not entirely accurate (such as perf per watt compare to kepler) according to that guy who pass me the documents being a friend of his, we ended up ditching 980s in favor of quadros.

Edit: Sheet, not sheep.

This post has been edited by Killmeplsok: Sep 18 2015, 03:47 PM

Seasonic hydance 600w is 199 I think. Works fine for me