Time to replace VX550?

[Reesh]

Hi all. Big fan of SPCR. I built my first real silent PC 3 years ago with a lot of the recommendations from this site.

Here is my dilemma. I recently decided to upgrade my video card because my old ATI Radeon 3850 couldn't keep up anymore. I bought a MSI N560GTX-ti OC twin Frozr card and I'm pretty happy with the performance and silence of the card. However, now my power supply is killing me, or more accurately killing my computer it seems. When gaming (Rift at Ultra settings) it seems like my VX fan spins up to max speed and sounds almost as loud as my vacuum cleaner. I've even had it shut down during a gaming session (room temperature around 80 degreees). I gave it a good cleaning with the compressed air can thinking perhaps it had gotten dusty, but it didn't seem to make much difference. After reading a couple of posts it seems that the VX is known to get noisy under load.

Here are my system Specs:

Gigabyte GAP35-ds3l motherboard
Core 2 duo 8400 slightly overclocked to 3.6ghz
Mushkin 2gbx2 1066Mhz ram
500mb Sata HDx2
MSI N560GTX-ti OC video card
Combo CD/DVD drive
3 120mm fans (1 CPU, 2 case)
3 usb devices
2 PCI cards

The question is do I send in the vx for a replacement or is this just normal for this unit? Should I just box away the VX and save it as an emergency power supply and upgrade? If I were to upgrade, I'd like to spend ~$150 on a reliable, quiet (even under heavy gaming conditions) PSU that will give me room to expand in the future (perhaps SLI). Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Reesh]

After surfing the forums and online, the Kingwin LZP-550 Platinum seems really enticing. Newegg has it for $150 which is only $10 more than the Seasonic X-650. Any experience with this PSU? And is 550W (overclocks to 650W) going to be good in say 3 years?

[jhhoffma]

What case do you have?

I wouldn't spend MORE for a Kingwin over a more powerful Seasonic...

550W should be more than adequate for anyone except the extreme SLI gamer, provided a high-quality PSU is chosen. However, before plunking down a bunch of cash on a new PSU, maybe you could consider a fan swap? I think that PSU has a 5-year warranty, but at this point you don't have much to lose.

[Reesh]

Thanks for the reply. I have an old Antec Sonata (the original model I believe). The PSU sits right above my Scythe Ninja CPU cooler which may be why the PSU is getting hot (funneling hot CPU air into the PSU). Regarding a fan swap, what worries me about the VX550 more than the noise is that it really seems to be straining under a moderate gaming load. The fact that the PSU even shut down during a gaming session (during a warm day) worries me. Perhaps I would be better off getting the x-650 just for that extra safety margin even though it probably is overkill.

Just the thought of the kingwin's fan not even starting up until 70% load seems so enticing though.

[Reesh]

Not to keep answering my own thread, but I just noticed that quietpc has the Enermax modu87+ 700 for 169 with $40 mail in rebate. Seems like a really good deal on a highly rated PSU. You guys think I should jump on this deal?

[Reesh]

After endless surfing the internet for the answer to life, universe and what PSU, I saw that the Seasonic X750 is back on sale at Newegg. 159-30 instant rebate was too good of a deal to pass up, so I jumped on the deal. Thanks SPCR.

[fumino]

ah. i just saw that deal via email. awesome deal eh?