Hail Fellow Duders of the PC forum.

Having been mostly out of the loop for the last few years (mostly due to being broke/"Self-employed") and more recently because I work as a Support Technician at Lefdal(Read DSGi), Performance hardware is a rarity in retail PC builds.

I was wondering what the general feeling is on the power consumption of modern gaming HW.

Take this build as an example:

MOBO: MSI Z77A-G45, Socket-1155

CPU: Intel® Core i7-3770 Processor

RAM: Kingston DDR3 HyperX 1600MHz 16GB

GPU: Gainward GeForce GTX 660Ti 2GB PhysX

HDD0: Intel® SSD 330 Series 120GB 2.5", 25nm

HDD1: Western Digital® Desktop Green 1TB

ODD: Sony Optiarc DVD±RW Writer, AD-5280S

PSU: Silver Power SP-SS500 500W PSU

Would that build work well(or at all) with just a 500W PSU?

PS. I have an 800W PSU to spare, so a unanimous NO! isn't a disaster ;)

@essi2: yeah thats not going to be a problem.

as you can see on the specs, the processor is rated at 77 watts. the grapics card at 150.

and the other parts dont use more than a couple dozen a pop.

http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/15750-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/15#pagehead

theres a test with a bit beefier system than the one you are planning on buying, as well as it being overclocked, and as you see, its just hitting up against 300 watts.

be aware that there's a big difference between a 500 watt psu and a 500 watt psu however.

make sure you are buying a decent one.

Thank you for your reply, the PSU I selected has alot of good user reviews atleast.

Only time will show if it's any good.

After you figure out what wattage you need with the PSU it's more about making sure that the manufacturer is reputable and that it's actually well built more than trying to increase the power. Having a reliable PSU is one of the most important things you can do when building your own custom PC, make sure that thing is a tank.

Buy a Corsair. You won't be dissapointed.

@essi2: The maximum consumption of modern hardware didn't change, what did drastically change is the consumption in idle states, such as even the largest AMD graphics card consumes 3W if you turn the monitor off. A good supply is thus increasingly more important.

Depending on how much you pay for electricity and how much your PC is running, a gold or platinum PSU is bound to recuperate the costs in 5 or so years, and you get a silent fan and more reliable parts as a bonus.

I'd buy this one. http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=757473

Thank you guys.

@Eurobum: Interesting, should the Silver Power PSU that comes with the build whimper out I'll fall back on my trusty Mist PSU. Thank you for the recommendation though.

I actually have almost the exact same build as you. I suggest going with at least an 800W. I myself got an Seasonic 850W Gold 80+ (a little expensive, but you get what you pay for), which allows for a little more flexibility if I want to upgrade or go SLI. Whatever you choose, make sure it's Gold 80+.

When I first built my current PC, I bought a 430W PSU with it. Which was fine for the time, until I found a good deal for a video card. Unfortunately, that card would sometimes draw more power than was available. So now I'm running a 600W PSU.

IMO, the only reason to get anything greater than 600W (now) is if you're running multiple video cards, if you're running bazillions of case fans, if you plan on having a bunch of hard drives reading and writing all at the same time, or any combination of those three.

In retrospect, I should've bought a 500W PSU when I built my PC a few years ago, and avoided this recent PSU upgrade.

I have fairly similar specs to you, with an i7 2700K on a P8Z68vlx motherboard, a GTX 670, 16 GB of (exactly the same) ram and 3 hard drives...all being powered by a 550W Antec psu.

I'm pretty happy with its stability (it allows me to work on 3 monitors and is also near silent which is a plus) but I think my next purchase at some point in the future is going to be a new beefier PSU just to be sure.

I actually have almost the exact same build as you. I suggest going with at least an 800W. I myself got an Seasonic 850W Gold 80+ (a little expensive, but you get what you pay for), which allows for a little more flexibility if I want to upgrade or go SLI. Whatever you choose, make sure it's Gold 80+.