| vivster said: re more than enough to have the system running at full power. You can take 550W to be on the safe side but more will be thrown out money and your PSU will run less efficent at idle performance. |
Normally this is true, but the R9 280/280x/290 are very power-hungry. They can get as high as 280 Watts consumption. If his CPU wasn't also power-hungry he could likely get by with 500W, but his CPU has benchmarked to max at about 160W. That can be up to 420-440W usage for the CPU+ GPU alone. Considering that many of the average 500W rated PSU's really run around 450W, I wouldn't risk it. Heck, I have a Pentium G3258 (max watt consumption about 70 w) and an 280x, and was a bit worried that my 500W PSU wasn't enough. There are some good deals on 550W-600W PSU's though. I bought my 500W PSU for $40 and got a $20 rebate, which went to my Pokemon Alpha Sapphire purchase. The 600W version was only $15 more.
