A 650W PSU will power any single graphics card build. Even a 600W should be enough for the GTX 670.

Before I would've bought a future proof PSU, but today PC-components uses less and less power so the picture looks a little different.

 

750W or 850W will be overkill for this build.

 

Sorry to disagree Joachim. I'd be interested in hearing other opinions...

Yes me too since im the buyer here ^_^

This calculator will give you a general idea, but I wouldn't use it as a reference.

 

I don't have any first hand experience with this, sorry, but it is what I've learned from reading many threads like this.

650W is more than adequate for just about any build an FSXer could dream up, assuming one buys a quality unit. The factor that is truly important is the +12V rail delivery. If you go with an Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge and OC the snot out of it, you'll draw something like 250-300W extra at the wall running Intel Burn Test. Your CPU will *NEVER* draw this much power during normal use, not even close. Cut that number in half for a realistic workload power usage figure. A high end graphics card nowadays will draw up to 180-300W (depending on the model) under something like Furmark or Unigine Heaven. Unlike the aforementioned CPU power draw figure, graphics card power draw figures are fairly accurate so you can reasonably expect to pull down say 150-200W at full load on something like a GTX 680. Other system components are pretty negligible, drawing somewhere in the range of 20-30W (unless you have numerous mechanical drives and lots of fans installed). So let's say 150W CPU + 150W GPU (assuming real world full load scenario) + 30W for the rest of your system components = 330W.

 

A 650W PSU that can actually deliver somewhere close to its quoted wattage rating over the +12V rail can *easily* handle such a load.

 

What about those 300W GPUs then? The math still works there too. 300W + 150W + 30W = 480W.

 

I run a 760W PC Power & Cooling Silencer in my machine, 62A +12V rail = 744W. More than enough for all but Quad SLI, which is pointless IMHO, particularly for FSX.

Hmmm okay so my main concerns here are deciding on the Power Supply which of course increases the price somewhat and the type of RAM....

I would always run with too much power than too little or just enough

Yes. Always good to have some overhead. I got a 500W that I'm pushing more than I like. I'm gonna buy a new one as soon as possible.

I'm also going to uprade to Intel and i5 or i7, and if I can swing it, a GTX670. The thing is that if I'm uprading to this new system that will destroy what I'm at now, the wattage will drop.

But a 650W wil be well inside the comfort zone for this build.

 

Regarding memory, IMO just buy low profile, relatively cheap 1600Mhz or 1866Mhz RAM. You don't need heatspreaders and they can be a big headache when installing CPU fans.