New power box or mid power GPU?

[DaemonForce]

It's no mystery to anyone here that I run my systems well beyond EOL and typically only replace parts as they fail.
While this is fine for general turn-key operation, it turns troubleshooting into a nightmare as I struggle to diagnose this and that.
I am at a crossroads with upgrades which goes against that usual 2/3 step process and need recommendation on a new power supply.
This should be a single purchase and lasts multiple years/loadouts as I experiment with a mix of enterprise and enthusiast hardware.

At the moment I'm operating a single RX 580 GPU and considering giving the 7900XT another try (if not something newer).
This is after AMD, ASUS, PowerColor and Newegg support all missed there's a 62A floor to operate the card and I don't meet that.

My RX580 only needs a single 6-pin to power on, which is why I can swap it into the rack for quick testing. The 7900XT requires 2x8-pin.
Ironically I had to look up the full specs and rating on PowerColor's site just to confirm the real minimum, which is how I found out.
The entire reason I locked in on this product in the first place is an easy check of 750W minimum, which I still use for this system.
Welp, time to change that.

I do a lot of enthusiast overclocking and sometimes bizarre cooling experiments that tread lightly into AHOC territory minus refrigeration.
So I'm currently interested in two products that stand out, both made by a co called Super Flower: A 850W and 1200W unit.
Those rating charts look like this:

Aside from the mess of fully modular pinouts and excessive PCI-E 8-pin options that I'm likely never going to use, 70-99A output sounds great.
There may be a slim chance I switch up to a Liquid Devil that calls for using three full 8-pins but I don't know how that future goes at the moment.
We've seen GeForce cards push well beyond 400W and earlier rumors mentioned 600W as possible for 5000 series, probably engineering samples.
Still, we always somehow get here. I don't foresee another ARES III or Devil 13 situation happening where I go for that but I should be ready to test.
I could ignore everything and pick up a 7800XT or 4070 but they are the bare the minimum to carry my workloads and I need something that works.

So what do?

 

[Ruru]

When you can get a SF Leadex Platinum 1200W with such low price, I'd grab it instantly without even thinking twice. Hella lot of headroom in the future for upgrading and overclocking.

 

[DaemonForce]

Yeah I was filtering through the options and the 1200W unit looks future proof.
These boxes have a decade warranty, which I'm not worried about.
The Antec 750 carried me this far from 2009/2010 or whenever it first appeared.
I don't believe I'll be picking up any 400W+ cards in the near to mid future, so that's why 850W is on the table.
By the time that happens these cards could be asking 78A or something that edges out the 850W. Pain. (´・ω・`)

I'm not too worried about overclocking headroom for the GPU since I usually underclock but I do feed more power into other parts.
I will probably main a full size server tower chassis until the day I die, so again not worried about switching stuff into other cases.
The most I have to worry about is losing track of cables and my solution to that is just keeping them in the product box until needed.
There's a lot of people complaining about DOA units which doesn't really instill confidence but I can deal with the RMA dance.

 

[DR4G00N]

When you can get a SF Leadex Platinum 1200W with such low price, I'd grab it instantly without even thinking twice. Hella lot of headroom in the future for upgrading and overclocking.

Absolutely, it's an excellent choice of a PSU.

My Evga 1300 G2, which has the same internals has been going strong for 10 years of near everyday use.

 

[Lost_Troll]

I am running a Sapphire Pulse OC'd with a AM5 7700 OC'd as well with a Seasonic 750 SFX supply without issue. The same card was in a system with 12900K that was overclocked and ran fine with a EVGA 850 SFX supply, and this was pulling just over 700W at times.

So as long as you have two PCI x 8 connectors, you should be fine, but if you want to get another supply, Newegg has the Super Flower 850 and 1000W on sale with free fans.

Super Flower Leadex V Platinum PRO White 850W

Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000W 80+ Platinum

I would not look at anything over 1000 watts innless you are over clocking the snot out of your system, otherwise it is just a waste of money.

 

[Bill_Bright]

If you are looking for the longest future proofing, I agree with Ruru and going for the 1200 would be your best bet - if the price is right. But make no mistake, 850W is still a big supply.

It is a mistake when trying to account for the unknowns of the future to say you are "likely never going to use" something.

Also, do note that 80 Plus certifications do NOT indicate or ensure quality or reliability. That is, there is NOTHING to suggest a "Platinum" or "Titanium" PSU will output cleaner, more stable, or more reliable power than a "Gold" or even "Bronze" PSU. All the Platinum or Titanium really get you is a couple points better efficiency - at, typically, a higher purchase price. And it can take years to make up that higher cost in energy savings.

This is why I generally recommend "Gold" supplies, unless you find a Platinum at a really good price. I personally would never by a Titanium.

That said, Super Flower has an excellent reputation for quality supplies. Hard to go wrong there.

***

BTW,

It's no mystery to anyone here that I run my systems well beyond EOL

Umm, nothing personal but you are just one out of nearly 130,000 members here. Many have been here 10, 15 even 20+ years. You've been here less than a year and have less than 575 posts out of more than 5 million.

My 13,000 plus posts is but a small fraction compared to some.

My comments are not meant as criticisms. I'm just pointing out an observation.

So, sorry, but you probably should not expect that everyone here, or anyone here, would know how long you routinely keep your components.

****

 

[DaemonForce]

I am running a Sapphire Pulse OC'd with a AM5 7700 OC'd as well with a Seasonic 750 SFX supply without issue. The same card was in a system with 12900K that was overclocked and ran fine with a EVGA 850 SFX supply, and this was pulling just over 700W at times.

So as long as you have two PCI x 8 connectors, you should be fine, but if you want to get another supply, Newegg has the Super Flower 850 and 1000W on sale with free fans.

Yeah uh what do your rails look like?

This is the part that got me good. I might pick up another Hellhound or go Sapphire Pulse just because the Nitro is a huge vanity purchase and it's not like anybody cares about how this looks even with my clear panel but I like strong and quiet. I can probably run two full size 8-pin connections from the 750W and that's what it takes to POST. I cannot reasonably expect this to work. I might have been receiving a bunch of DOA cards, as unlikely as that sounds and I might not have. We don't know and there's no way to find out because I was attempting to power these on with a 6+8 connection and that just isn't enough to power it from a 25A rated 12V rail. This doesn't include other components and overhead in the system and thankfully doesn't need to because there are no other devices that are anything close. I run a CPU, max memory, a pump at half speed, some low speed fans and a big honkin chonkin GPU that pulls well over 200% all of these at any moment. So even with dual 8-pin coming from this box, there's just not enough power to go around.

I would not look at anything over 1000 watts innless you are over clocking the snot out of your system, otherwise it is just a waste of money.

The 1000W definitely looks less ideal but the 1200W is nestled right in that territory between high discount and completely ridiculous. The 850W probably has more than enough overhead for what I'm doing but I want more opinions on these. This is interesting.

 

[Ruru]

The 1000W definitely looks less ideal but the 1200W is nestled right in that territory between high discount and completely ridiculous. The 850W probably has more than enough overhead for what I'm doing but I want more opinions on these. This is interesting.

There's only 40USD difference. Normally that difference between the same lineup's 850W and 1200W models is significant. You'd also get pretty much the best efficiency out of that 1200W model in typical usage.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

The 1200W is definitely a good supply, but it is a bit dated now. I don't remember how 7900XT fares, but when the 3090's launched all the PSU companies had to come out with new designs to compensate for the current spikes. If that continues to be the direction of GPUs, I'd want to make sure any new supply I'm buying is after that market shift.

That said, I would look strongly at the following:
FSP Hydro Ti Pro 1000W
Super Flower Leadex VII XP PRO 1000W 80+ Platinum

 

[Lost_Troll]

Yeah uh what do your rails look like?

The rails on both supplies never went under 12.0 volts, and this was checked with Hardware Info and with a Volt-Ohm meter.

As long as you buy a good power supply within the range that you think you are going to load with the plained hardware you are going to use with it, you should have no issues, it's when you go off the rails and start to OC is when you can have some real bad issues. I would plain out your upgrade path and then figure how large a power supply you will need, this might save you money for other parts you want to upgrade, like your CPU or RAM.

Have to looked at the Outer Vision Power Supply Calculator? It's pretty good at giving you an average estimate for your power load on your build. In my case, I put in my l planed hardware and then set a slight over clock on the CPU and graphics card and then add another 100 watts to what it reamended.

 

[DaemonForce]

The 1200W is definitely a good supply, but it is a bit dated now. I don't remember how 7900XT fares, but when the 3090's launched all the PSU companies had to come out with new designs to compensate for the current spikes.

I think they were scrambling to compensate for more than transient spikes.
In fact if you search those two words, you still get results about 3090s and their EXPLODING VRMs.
I'm not about to touch that at any price. I don't care how much pressure comes from people. Not even for the content.
Luckily I'm not looking for a power box that has that stupid ass 12VHPWR connector. One less problem to worry about.

I'm not looking to spend ~$200ish on a consumer power supply and not moving off of newegg for complicated reasons.
That Leadex VII looks great but I'm not fond of those weird proprietary "universal" connectors.
I already know I won't find any more cables for them the moment I ask.
The FSP looks like a colossal headache. That thing isn't gonna help unless I go nVidia and I don't see a rating anywhere.

The rails on both supplies never went under 12.0 volts, and this was checked with Hardware Info and with a Volt-Ohm meter.

You're not paying attention. Rail voltage doesn't matter here. My voltages have been fine. The current is too low to switch to modern cards.
I'm not getting blue screens and driver failures. I get NO POST and NO DEVICE DETECTION. I can run 185W to one but not 300W to the other.
That was my revolving door of various VGA errors. A G2 box would have prevented this.

It should be no surprise to anyone that has recently built a computer with ALL NEW components but I haven't done that in ~15yrs.
The last time I needed to buy a power supply, my Pentium 4 would routinely lunch them after a few months. I have lost $$$$ to these things.
Then one day I built an AMD system and ALL of that sudden death shit just stopped. No more pops or magic smoke ever since. Wild to think about.
Good thing we didn't have PCI-E on those P4 boards. Would have been the most common way to nuke every component in the system.

If you guys are concerned about dated designs, what do you choose in comparison and why? The 850 and 1200 are at a good price and look great.
So it's a little strange that the age of it already seems to be one guy's concern when my main 750 has already been aged out by low power.

Have to looked at the Outer Vision Power Supply Calculator? It's pretty good at giving you an average estimate for your power load on your build. In my case, I put in my l planed hardware and then set a slight over clock on the CPU and graphics card and then add another 100 watts to what it reamended.

No and I don't rely on these metrics for making purchase decisions. I usually pick a box with appropriate connections and good wattage overhead and call it a day. How do I know what that is?
Max CPU wattage + Max accelerator wattage + The combined output power of the previous power supply that blew up in the system = That's my box.
So the entire time I've been escalating power ratings based on a shitshow Pentium 4 assembly that should have gone straight into the trash.
Here's some estimates. RX 580 and adding an M.2 vs switching out the 3600 for a 5900X and switching out the RX 580 for the 7900XT.

What does it suggest? This thing:

62.5A rail? Checks out. These calculators are a waste of time but a way to make the compass stop wildly spinning.

 

[Lost_Troll]

You're not paying attention.

I am paying attention and giving you the information on my single 12V rail supply. What you are missing from the equation, is your supply is a split rail on the 12V outputs. So, you have two or three rails going to the mother board and one or two rails are going to the VGA card, this is why you cannot POST or it does not see the video card as one or two of the split rails do not have the load capacity at 14 AMPS (56/4=14 AMPS). Also, the issue you are having is the reason why I stay away from cheaper supplies that have multiple 12V rails, as they cannot supply high wattage components and are more prone to noise.

If you want to run a 7900XT or even a 4070, you will need to upgrade your supply to a more modern single rail supply for stability and robustness.

Here is the link to the 750 Seasonic SGX supply I have in my AM5 7700 with a Sapphier Pulse 900XT: Link 750 SGX It is a single 12V @ 62 AMPS and runs the system just fine.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

The transients and spikes are a completely separate issue than the 3090 vrm issues (well, mostly...one situation is a new "normal" from gpu companies pushing more and more power, the other was shoddy vrm design they tried to continue using from old platforms on the new gpus that needed better designs).

The point on the new spec is not the connector, but the excursion handling and how that's going to continue to be helpful as gpus get more powerful. I suggested it because of the longevity you said you use parts. If you get a 1200w older design, it's probably not an issue if you never buy a top-sku gpu, but 7900XTX or 3090/4090 level power draws and I wouldn't buy something that isn't atx 3.0/pcie 5.0 rated. I know you have 7900xt, but I did think it was possible you wanted to upgrade in the next 10-15 years on the same PSU and didn't want to suggest something that can just do what you need today.

On the SF, yes I've had the same concerns about their universal connectors, but some people love them. They were the OEM for some of the best supplies EVGA ever sold so I always look at them.

As for new connector, you can use the cable that just has that on the psu end. Unfortunately, those connectors are not going away, so we may as well get used to them if we want to continue to buy new hardware. The major issues with them have been sorted and while I'd love it if they went with something more robust, I don't get to choose these things.

As for the FSP specifically, I haven't used a supply they've sold directly (they've oem'd for EVGA and others before though), that supply is currently the highest rated in that power range on Hwbusters (the Super Flower one I referenced did really well too).

I personally have a be quiet! Straight Power 12 1200W that has been great for me and still has a good bang/buck price. The be quiet! Dark Power 13 has reviewed really well, but I've seen one person online have multiple bad ones so that becomes concerning for me. The Seasonic Vertex line has some great specs, and I tend to trust that company, but the performance isn't as good as some others according to reviews. Corsair used to be one of the top choices for folks too and I just haven't heard about their newer supplies enough to comment.

 

[DaemonForce]

Okay how important are the new ATX 3.1 certs and everything? I might have something better here.

Super Flower Leadex III ATX 3.1 850W​

Probably the smartest pick under 1000W and options that weird 2x6 connector, if it's any benefit. Do I need it?
I haven't had functionality/stability issues with the 750W, so it's not like I'm escalating over PSUs blowing up.
850W looks like a fair enough step with 70.8A/850W maximum for my usual overclocking. I don't need to go crazy.

Can you guys offer ANY reason to go higher? My picks lean super heavy on Radeon and I might test some Tesla cards but leaning no.
The 8-pin EPS sees action long before the 2x6 unless I pick up a 4070/5070 and I just don't think that's gonna happen.
This is a primary workstation I load with ONE power hungry x16/x8 accelerator, a modest x8 network card and tons of USBs.
Am I missing something important?

 

[Lost_Troll]

Can you guys offer ANY reason to go higher?

I cannot, but if you plain on running the fastest Intel CPU OC'd with a 4090 or 5090 GPU, then I would tell to go with a 1200 watt supply. But like most of us, I highly doubt you will, so I would stick with the 850 watt supply and use the money saved for another upgrade. It will power everything you have listed and still handle most if not all upgrades you plain in the future.

Probably the smartest pick under 1000W and options that weird 2x6 connector, if it's any benefit. Do I need it?

Yes, the 2x6 high power connector is only used for now on Invidia GPU cards for the 12V input, but at some point, all of the video card manufactures will move to this connector once they get it figured out. So, getting a supply with the port and cable is a wise option if it fits with in your budget. My self, I bought the SF Pro 850 listed in my earlier post and will get an adapter cable down the read when I need it.

 

[Bobaganoosh]

Couldn't find a review for it specifically, but if it's an updated version of the tried and tested Leadex III to meet the new specs it's probably a great supply.