So, I just upgraded my PC, I bought a used GTX 970 from a friend dirt cheap, specifically this one. Performance-wise it's absolutely fine for my needs but I'm getting hard resets quite often. I'm pretty sure the problem is that my PSU is too weak as it has only 450W max wattage and 550W are recommended by the manufacturer. So, no PC gaming for me until I get a new one, I guess.

Anyway, it's been more than ten years since I've bought a PSU individually and looking at the stuff available online now I'm a bit lost. Some of the manufacturers are completely new to me and I'm not sure if PSUs below a certain price or from a certain manufacturer have to be avoided at all costs. I'm also curious if there's some stuff to look out for. All I know is that I need at least 550W and that the card connects to 6 pin + 8 pin.

So, any advice?

Edit: Link fixed.

From online shops in Poland? From a walk-in shop in Poland? Name some shops and I can look in them for good value for money.

Corsair's cheapest are a bit too low quality imho.

Seasonic M12II-620 620W or Seasonic Focus Plus Gold - 650W

EVGA Supernova G2 or G3, 80+ Gold, 650-750W, 7-10 years warranty

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=429

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=500

Find sonething that looks like might be a good deal? Check here: http://www.jonnyguru.com/index.php

Ah, I see someone else already linked to JonnyGuru...

Seasonic is my go to brand for PSU. I've heard the new prime series is worth a look.

If you won't SLI in the future, you don't need to go over 550W. The new series from Seasonic called Prime Ultra made a 550W PSU for cases like yours because until now there weren't "premium" PSUs at such low wattage. The Gold one should be exactly what you are looking for. It will be enough even if you add a 1080ti/Vega in the future. Did I mention 12 year guarantee? It won't come cheap, though.

Btw if you google psu calculator, you can go to some pages to calculate recommended wattage for your components, but these calculators usually overestimate your usage.

I can't tell you what wattage is best, I tend to go a bit above what I need just in case I need to add a few more drives or something. What I would say is that modular PSU's are great, only having cables your actually using in the machine makes get in an out of the box so much easier.

Like nightcrawler, I tend to go with a little bit of overkill so I can add more components later without worrying about power. I highly recommend looking at Jonnyguru's site and choosing a PSU that's well reviewed there. Don't cheap out on the PSU: you'll regret it sooner or later if you do.

I always go a little over the limit on my builds, I use a corsair ax850i for my build running a 1080ti and 1800x oc with soundcard added and I know that gives me plenty of room left for power I can use in the future. I always recommend going a little over what is really required for builds so later on you can take advantage of it.

I say a 750 or 700 is really good to stick with.

DO NOT GO WITH CORSAIR CX Series they are really bad quality for longevity use. Anything hx to AX and EVGA ones as well as Seasonic and Coolermaster are great psu's to go with.

Any recent Seasonic fully modular PSU would be good.
Keep in mind that PSUs are the most efficient at half of their rated wattage.
So add up the wattage of your components and double that, or at least make it like x1.8

Short version:
While a decent 500W PSU would provide 480W it is not designed for that; it will be hot and it will require constant cooling at the highest setting of its fans... you don't want that to happen.
Wasted electricity, lots of noise, extra heat in your PC case affecting other components as well that will require better cooling.

The minimum you should go for is 80Plus Gold these days, if you can afford it, especially with a 970.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus

A gold PSU will get you 90% efficiency at 50% load (wattage).
So as an example, a 700W gold PSU at 350W load will actually need to draw 389W (350x100/90) power; the additional wattage above the 350W is lost during the transformation (e.g. heat).
A bronze PSU will require 411W for the same task.
If you can afford a titanium rated PSU that will use 372W or less - these tend to perform better, than their rating is - at least the Sesonic ones do.
These numbers are for 115V, 230V efficiency tends to be a few percentage better.

Note, that it's a common belief that the higher wattage means higher power draw. That's not the case; your PSU will only ever draw what is needed to power your currently active components, and by selecting the right wattage you should select the ideal 50% load efficiency for your system.

If you are willing to pay for it go for semi-passive cooled Seasonic PSUs; check the tech spec on the product pages.
Those only ever need cooling when the wattage required is over the ideal (about half) wattage.
The lower wattage models may also be completely passive from the higher end PSUs.

Semi-modular versus fully modular:

As there are some cables that every computer must have, the only reason for those to be modular (and lose a slight bit of efficiency due to that) is so you can switch them for cables that are of a better length, if you need shorter or longer, or flat instead of round.

I'll just copy & paste what I said in an older post.


There are only a few PSU manufacturers left. The only ones you can trust without reading some reviews first, are Seasonic and Super Flower.

Basically all the popular brands like Corsair, Cooler Master, EVGA, NZXT, Thermaltake have their top models made by Seasonic or Super Flower, and the cheaper models made by let's say lower quality manufacturers, like FSP (Fortron), Sirtech, HEC, CWT (Channel Well Tech), Andyson. These too can have good models, but only the expensive ones, usually above $100.

There are a few other manufacturers, I think Delta Electronics and Enhance Electronics were good too, Flextronics maybe, but I don't know if they are in the business anymore.

Anyone interested in more should check these links: PSU Tier List, PSU Review Database, JonnyGURU - very good reviews here.