A 25% buffer for cap degradation over time is not 'playing it safe'? From the article you linked:FuzzySquirrel wrote:I know it was under full load...that's why I linked it. It also has its idle usage too.
Also 750w would be fine for a Single GPU/i7 rig, and I'm pretty sure he knows that 750 would be enough right now, but he's thinking ahead. What if he decides he wants another 480 later? 750 would not cut it then.
Power - Temp - Sound - NVIDIA Fermi - GTX 470 - GTX 480 - GTX 480 SLI Review | [H]ard|OCP
Again. 600w under full load (unlikely to see but it could easily use 400-500w under normal circumstances)
and Psyrus if you read a little further down the page they did an Average Power Consumption in a games benchmark. In which it still averaged over 350w.
There's a difference between Overkill and playing it Safe.
So a 522W load with GTX480 SLI, which means the 80+Gold rated Seasonic X750 would have about a ~30% wattage buffer at *peak* load. I know people won't listen to me even though I present the facts, but I thought I might as well throw them out there because I'm not sleepy yetFor all of the system wattages shown on this page, you can multiply by .87 to find out what the load on the PSU is rather than at the wall.
Obviously fan load is also a factor which is the one redeeming factor of 'overwatting' one's system, such that most PSUs won't have to spin up their fan much at <50% utilization.. but honestly with 120mm 'quiet' fans on high quality PSUs, I think the noise made by a GTX480 SLI setup will be way higher than that of your PSU
