Skylake ready, good-enough low power ATX PSU

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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gaidal
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:24 am

Skylake ready, good-enough low power ATX PSU

Post by gaidal » Thu Dec 10, 2015 2:09 pm

I built a new Skylake rig for a family member, initially reusing an old case with a 6 years old, crappy PSU: LiteOn PS-5221-06, 220W, TFX. I would like to replace this PSU and am considering a few different options.

First, there are currently some issues: with sleep states, such as spontaneous boot or wake; DVI signal often dies (but VGA is stable); and the DDR4 memory sometimes boots at 2133 instead of 2666 MHz (although that's probably because I set it to XMP instead of configuring manually). Not sure which of these a new PSU might fix, but I think it'd be best to upgrade it anyway.

Components are:
Asus Z170M-PLUS
Intel i5 6600
Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666 MHz
No discrete GPU
Samsung Evo 850 SSD
DVD-RW + card reader + couple of external HDDs (USB)

The new PSU shouldn't cost more than necessary and most options out there seem totally overkill. Corsair has some CX/VS models at 430 and 500W, but I'm not sure I like all the "budget", "value" and "entry level" used to describe them. I have good experiences from Seasonic G360 but it's a bit old, will it handle "Haswell" (Skylake) sleep states? Then there's Silverstone ST30SF which is confirmed to work, and I like Silverstone, but I probably shouldn't use SFX with an 80mm fan when ATX would also fit...
I guess I'm expecting to pay less for the same quality and quietness, since I only need 200-300W. All the Golds and Platinums mean nothing in that range anyway. But maybe that's not how it works?

Any suggestions?

quest_for_silence
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Location: ITALY

Re: Skylake ready, good-enough low power ATX PSU

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Dec 10, 2015 3:00 pm

gaidal wrote:I guess I'm expecting to pay less for the same quality and quietness, since I only need 200-300W.
You need far less than 200W, maybe 40W on average.
BTW, there isn't anything suitable in the ATX PSU market for that kind of draw.

CA_Steve
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Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Skylake ready, good-enough low power ATX PSU

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Dec 10, 2015 3:26 pm

Pretty much any modern PSU that generates the other DC voltages from the 12V line is Haswell+ compatible. So, the Seasonic G-360 would work.

gaidal
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:24 am

Re: Skylake ready, good-enough low power ATX PSU

Post by gaidal » Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:07 pm

Thanks, then I'll go for the Seasonic. It says in the review here that it has multiple ATX12V that combine into an EPS12V, too, so that's great.

gaidal
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:24 am

Re: Skylake ready, good-enough low power ATX PSU

Post by gaidal » Thu Dec 17, 2015 11:11 am

Back with report:
Went with Seasonic G360 and it has been running for a few days now. DVI signal has been stable since, and there are no more problems related to sleep mode or unwanted wake up - it works as expected.
Asus automatic overclocking is still black magic and sometimes says "Overclocking failure" at boot, even without XMP. It's always fixed by a reset. I'm sure I just need to tinker more in BIOS.

TL;DR: Went from a crappy brand PSU to a top brand, no more problems with DVI signal errors or low power states. The good PSU is several years older than the CPU/mobo and works flawlessly.

CA_Steve
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Location: St. Louis, MO

Re: Skylake ready, good-enough low power ATX PSU

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Dec 17, 2015 12:24 pm

Congrats!

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