700w PSU enough for my System?

100% agreed. I have always had PSUs that provided more power than I would need, for a couple of reason, future proofing being a primary one. I don't need anywhere near 1050 right now with my curently listed hardware, but I also don't want to have to buy a new PSU just to upgrade my video card down the road.

My last rig, core i7 965 EE on an X58 motherboard and a couple SSDs plus a few mechanical drives, was using a ThermalTake Black Widow 850W Gold PSU - obvious overkill. But if I had not built this new rig, and instead bought a nice high powered (well, high power consuming lol) GPU from the current generation, the 500W recommendation for when I built the rig would have gone out the window.

I try to go for gold or high, but found a good deal on the platinum I have - I figure that, with my system not sleeping, thus being on 24/7 barring reboots and the occasional powering off, I was better off with slightly better efficiency ratings for not much difference in price, as you noted.

I'm another one who leave the PC on 24/7/365, just switch off the Monitor at night , so the overpowered PSU runs cooler for the same load as the specified one.

I also try to fit server rated HDD spinners, as I run with the drive shutdown timer either off or set to an extended time - it an acceptable cost increase for higher reliability and faster access

Last updated just a month ago.

barman58 said:

I'm another one who leave the PC on 24/7/365, just switch off the Monitor at night , so the overpowered PSU runs cooler for the same load as the specified one.

I also try to fit server rated HDD spinners, as I run with the drive shutdown timer either off or set to an extended time - it an acceptable cost increase for higher reliability and faster access

Click to expand...

Indeed. no timeouts for spinners here, either, and I let Windows put my monitors in standby, but still pretty much the same thing.

If I didn't have my spinners in here, I might let the NVMes power down, because they could use the cooling off period, and the response time is phenomenally better than anything from previous generations. When I finally replace those spinners, you can bet I'll re-implement the HD power down feature and test if my NVMes actually do get cooled off or not.

Ach, I am very sensitive to sound - I need it quiet to think and I can't take the constant noise of HDD, especially enterprise ones. So I have 3.5 TB of nvme and SSD in the case. I have my 12+ TB of spinners in an external array that are usually off, on which I keep archived data (raw photo images, user data) and backups. I have the timeout for HDD set to 5 minutes. I used to have my spinners in the case with a 5-15 minute spindown time, but I have found the Windows power plan HDD spindown time fairly unreliable over the years, so moved my HDD to external enclosures that I can easily turn on and off so I don't have to hear them. Doing routine things, my computer is silent now.

I do put my computer to sleep after 15 minutes or so of idle. I do have scheduled task wake it at 3am to do backups, virus scans, etc., then put it back to sleep.

barman58 said:

I'm another one who leave the PC on 24/7/365, just switch off the Monitor at night , so the overpowered PSU runs cooler for the same load as the specified one.

I also try to fit server rated HDD spinners, as I run with the drive shutdown timer either off or set to an extended time - it an acceptable cost increase for higher reliability and faster access

Click to expand...

There has always been the great debate on power off to 24-7. Each arguing that one is as good as the other. Some months I power down at night and some months, I just let the monitors shut off. Whichever,I have never changed one off my power supplies except for one Antec I had 10 year or plus that had bad capacitors. I worked in a large pharmacy warehouse and there was dust and work 24-7. Computers rarely had issues and they weren't all top of the line. We were using AS400. Man those computers took a beating.

geneo said:

Ach, I am very sensitive to sound - I need it quiet to think and I can't take the constant noise of HDD, especially enterprise ones. So I have 3.5 TB of nvme and SSD in the case. I have my 12+ TB of spinners in an external array that are usually off, on which I keep archived data (raw photo images, user data) and backups. I have the timeout for HDD set to 5 minutes. I used to have my spinners in the case with a 5-15 minute spindown time, but I have found the Windows power plan HDD spindown time fairly unreliable over the years, so moved my HDD to external enclosures that I can easily turn on and off so I don't have to hear them. Doing routine things, my computer is silent now.

I do put my computer to sleep after 15 minutes or so of idle. I do have scheduled task wake it at 3am to do backups, virus scans, etc., then put it back to sleep.

Click to expand...

Since I also use my PC as a an audiophile system I too demand a quiet system and also have no spinner drives in the system.

My case only has 3 system fans - 2 front 200mm fans, one rear 140mm fan. The AIO cooler has two 140mm fans. Since I don't overclock I'm able to run the fans at an RPM that keeps fan noise near inaudible. My EVGA Super Nova G2 1000 watt power supply has an "Eco" mode switch that keeps the fan off unless the PS is pushed which never happens. For that reason sometimes I turn off Eco mode just to run the fan to keep the bearings lubed.

Also the front of my case has a full mesh panel that helps with air flow and temps. The only time the system gets loud (and hot) is during gaming sessions due to the GPU fans ramping up.

I also mostly keep my system powered on 24/7/365, just letting it go into sleep mode when not in use. I only shut down once in a while, mainly for maintenance or just resetting the OS.

Anyway, getting back to the OP's question - unless you're running multiple GPU's a 700watt PS should be plenty. I also echo others in getting a quality name brand power supply. Never ever skimp on a power supply. Nothing good will come of it.

Good luck :)