Desktop PSU price roundup

Hardware

May 27, 2013

In this article we take a look at prices for power supplies across various online retailers in the country.

People often over-spec their power supplies in their computers. You can get away with 300W for a quad-core system with 16GB RAM, an SSD, an HDD, and a discrete GPU powered off the motherboard. Systems with AMD’s A-series processors typically draw around 130W. We just don’t need that much power for basic computing.

But as a MyGaming reader, you probably aren’t doing basic computing. You’re adding in powerful discrete graphics, more and more hard drive space, and you’re overclocking on top of that. Making the right decision for your power supply is crucial.

We’ll help you along with a nifty price table along with a short and quick guide to your PSU requirements.

The table below shows the various power supplies available from local retailers. The lowest prices are highlighted in Bold. If a product is listed as “Sold Out”, “Contact for availability”, or is out of stock, that price does not make it into the table.

Power Supply	Rebeltech	Wootware	Ikonix	Titan-Ice	Takealot
Gigabyte PoweRock AX 300W	332		370
Corsair VS350 350W		430	392	419
Corsair CX430W	459	504	497	529	549
Corsair VS550 550W	516	597	545	570
Cooler Master M420 420W	603
Be Quiet! Pure Power CM430W	651			749
XFX Core Pro 550W	663	749	701		754
Cooler Master Silent M2 420W	711	755	714	749
Be Quiet! Pure Power CM530W	792			879
Corsair CX500M 500W	805	856	809	850
Antec EA Platinum 450W	840	893		879
Be Quiet! Pure Power CM630W	888		897	999
Corsair GS600 600W	872	983	929	979	1199
XFX Core Pro 650W	905
Corsair CX750M 750W	1073	1141	1078	1129	1498
Antec EA Platinum 650W	1082	1290		1129
Be Quiet! Straight Power 580W	1082
Corsair GS800 800W	1263	1486	1456	1529
Corsair HX650 Gold 650W	1320	1445	1416
Be Quiet! Dark Power CM650W	1564		1569
Thermaltake Evo Blue 750W	1565		1749		1909
Cooler Master Silent Pro M850W	1785	1831	1793	1879
Antec High Current Pro 750W	1807			1879
Thermaltake Evo Blue 850W			2000		2182
Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W	2197	2253	2207	2349	1976
Corsair HX1050 Gold 1050W	2526	2578	2548	2649
Corsair AX860i 860W	2755	2946	2913	2999
Cooler Master Silent 1300W	2778	2824	2791	2749
Be Quiet! Dark Power 1200W	2894		2549	3190
Corsair AX1200i 1200W	3593	3929	3844	3999	3550

For the most part, we have a decent selection of products and there seems to be plenty of stock to go around. The retailer with the least selection for the brands shown here is Takealot, but bear in mind that they do other brands as well – namely Raidmax and Seasonic, both of which couldn’t be fitted in here because of the sheer size of the table. Once again, Rebeltech wins on pricing, although other retailers may be cheaper once shipping costs are taken into account.

Talking about the individual choices here will take a lot of time, so I’ll let you decide which one’s perfect for your rig. All of these power supplies have reviews available online, with the exception of the Gigabyte PoweRock and the Corsair VS350, because they’re still new and not available all around the world.

Figuring out which power supply you need is best done when you’ve settled on a build and have as list of components. You can then use one of the many Power Calculators available online to give you a ballpark figure to work on. For example, a AMD FX-8350 at stock speeds with two Radeon HD7970 graphics cards, four SATA hard drives, a sound card, a USB mouse and keyboard, a DVD drive, four DDR3 memory modules and five fans would be best suited to a 800W power supply – and that includes some overclocking headroom as well. The real power use would likely hover around 620W.

Nvidia GTX Titan Triple SLI

Going lower, though, lets take the Intel cookie-cutter build – a Intel Core i5-3570K, the same amount of peripherals, the same amount of memory and hard drives along with a Geforce GTX660 Ti is recommended a 600W power supply. However, that’s a lot higher than the real consumption, which will likely hover around 350W. Most 550W power supplies with the proper connectors can deal with that load adequately. Even a good 450W unit would be capable so long as it had the right connectors.

Today its no longer necessary to fork out for a 1000W power supply unless you’re already planning on running three Nvidia Titans along with a highly overclocked Core i7-3930K (and by then you can afford the electricity to power it, too!). The majority of gamers will be better served by the 400 – 800W range depending on their setup and whether they employ multiple graphics cards or not.

That’s where your sweet spot is.