I'd have to plug this into a wattage calculator, but I seriously doubt you're ever running all 3 HDDs at maximum RPMs at the same time and SSDs eat up very, very little power. The graphics card can eat up a lot, yeah, but that much?

See how the model of everything is stated (such as "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti" rather than "1GB NVidia GPU") apart from the PSU? It could be any old low-quality rubbish.

Taken from the official Nvidia spec sheet on the 560Ti :

Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 99 C
Graphics Card Power (W) 170 W
Minimum Recommended System Power (W) 500 W
Supplementary Power Connectors Two 6-pin

So you want to be looking at 500 Watt bare minimum so 600 Watt sounds reasonable by the time you get everything else in to your box

Gaming computers (like all specialist computers) are overpriced. If you want to buy a computer with more than office work in mind then your best bet is building it yourself or at least buying the parts and getting someone else to do the assembling.

That HP rig is typical in that it includes a lot of crap you don't need. For instance, why would you want a reduced functionality Office when you can download a fully functional Libre Office for free? I'd also recommend the 560 ti over the 550.

Erm ... hard drives require about 15W per drive, and SSDs require next to nothing. High-performance graphics cards _do_ require good PSUs, but (a) 750W is still much more than currently popular builds need, and (b) the ability to maintain high power on certain voltage rails is more important than the total max wattage.

Curious question: Are you serious? No offense, but if you state that 750W are "normal" for nowadays computers, and (when asked what you need those for) answer with hard drives of all things, it makes me wonder ...

Not necessarily, but to me a big deal about PC gaming is about benchmarking. If I wouldn't have any sort of interest in in running games at their maximum settings, I could just as well stick with consoles (which isn't wrong by any means).

But if grog004 is only intending to play "serious GOG games" I'd guess he'd be fine with almost any computer configuration. Except if he wants to play Witcher 2 then. =P

Well, the visual difference between no antialiasing at all and 4xAA is much greater than between 8xAA and 16xAA. You don't have to run games at their absolutely maximum settings to achieve noticeably better graphical performance than the consoles can do, not to mention high-res textures.

I'm not saying your wrong but I would like to add to the equation that you could run a config like that on 400 watt if it had enough on the 12 volt rails. they tend to use ball park figures to make the math easier for non techs who generally wouldn't have a clue about what amps are.

PS seems Psyringe partly beat me to it but anyway.

Yes normal high end machines nowdays use 750W PSU. Look around the web and you'll see my point.
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2
I just prefer to have more power...than have not enough power ;)

Normal high end computer =/= normal computer.

Looks to me like a serious case of "stick a Gamer Approved label on it and it will sell for whatever price you ask".

Yeah I agree, I posted that up just so the OP had an idea of where they need to be looking with regards to PSU, if you go to low you can get crashes when system is running to full performance. Personally I always like to go a bit higher to try and cover me for my next upgrade hence why I have 750 Watt, not forgetting my VGA is GTX 570 and I have 3 SATA devices, gives me a bit of headroom.

A big part of it is actually getting a high quality PSU, that is a must regardless so you get a steady flow of power that wont spike and drop. Dont just buy any old cheap thing. You get something decent enough in quality then something like a 450 - 500 Watt would be enough.

I'm not sure I do. You criticized that the presented build had "only" a 600W PSU, and claimed that "The normal PSU for nowdays computer is 750+W. Everything less is weak".

You're now saying that "normal high end machines" use 750W. While this isn't wrong, it's irrelevant to the discussion since (a) 600W are enough for the presented build, (b) 600W should be enough for pretty much all builds in that price range (it's hard to fit a graphics card that actually needs a 600W PSU into a 1000$ total budget), (c) the graphics card in the build uses comparatively little power, so criticizing the PSU total wattage makes no sense unless you say the graphics card should be switched out too, which you didn't, and (d) any 750W PSU added to the presented build would probably just add a second 12V rail which nothing in the build comes even close to be needing. Hence, I still don't understand your reasoning in this thread.

Side note: The PSU in the presented build probably isn't a good one, but it's not the max wattage that's the problem, 600W is perfectly okay for that build, it could go with much less if a decent PSU were used.

While this isn't a bad approach (skimping on the PSU is generally a bad idea), it will lead to bad decisions if you look only at the total wattage. People who focus on the total wattage often end up getting an inferior PSU that has power spikes/drops, doesn't perform reliable under peak wattage, or doesn't deliver enough power on the relevant voltage rails. In short: Paying attention to the PSU _is_ a good idea, but if you do it, you really have to look at the details. Paying attention to the PSU and _only_ focusing on total wattage may do more harm than good.

I seen lots of normalish computers selling over $1000 :)