OT: Is 500W enough?? or should I look higher?

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/4/2006, 3:49 PM
getting some background on components for a new PC and I'm still not sure what kind of power requirements I'm gonna be running at.

Looking at a SATA II Raid array, 64x2 4200+ Dual Core Proc. , decent graphics card for GeForce 6800 PCIe card.

Anyway - I'm not sure what other info is vital for powersupply, I would guess those are the major things, only planning on one DVD drive for now.

Dave

Comments

busterkeaton wrote on 4/4/2006, 4:23 PM
search for 400w on this board, I believe someone recently said that is adequate for a new PC with the AMD chip. I had the same question.

500 is probably good to go, also it give you some extra headroom.

My understanding is that it's like a home stereo. You probably will never crank your stereo amp all the way up to maximum, but the fact it can go that high means it will provide distortion free power at normal levels. So if you go with 500w your power supply will not be struggling to do normal work.
JJKizak wrote on 4/4/2006, 4:31 PM
I Have been using two 300's in parrallel for about 5 years now. With the new 7800 video cards in SLI configuration you might need 800 to 1000 watts and liquid cooling. I had one 7800 card that drew as much power as my motherboard and created more heat. You probably will not need over 400 watts unless Vegas starts to utilize the video card as a rendering aid. By then we may have liquid nitrogen coolers en mass.

JJK
jrazz wrote on 4/4/2006, 4:49 PM
I wouldn't go for a 400 watt- I had a 400 watt PS in my system (3200+ 64bit AMD AthlonXP Proc; 2 gigs of ram; 5700 nVidia 256mb agp card; Gigabyte MOBO; 4 EIDE HD's; 2 SATA HD's; 1 DVD burner; 6 PCI cards; 2 monitors; 3 Ex. firewire HD's; 3 Ex. USB devices) and it would often choke- I upgraded to a 500 Watt PS with removable cords (I highly recommend) and have had no problems since... maybe I was just trying to run too much stuff :)

j razz
riredale wrote on 4/4/2006, 5:27 PM
Try this.
craftech wrote on 4/4/2006, 6:35 PM
Dave,

Please skip the bogus PS ratings and read this first. You'll be glad you did.

John
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/4/2006, 7:16 PM
hmm, I'm guessing that I'll be working with a 450 or higher. very usefull link - I was unable to find any dual core procs in there - but it was pretty helpfull. I'll prolly go with the 500 I have in mind.

NE - way.

Thx guys.

Dave
craftech wrote on 4/4/2006, 8:25 PM
Fortron Source has been my favorite for many years. The FSP series that is. Unlike companies like Antec, they have never had periods of inferior capacitors frying their units, etc.

John
Tech Diver wrote on 4/5/2006, 5:39 AM
Be sure you get a REGULATED power supply. The cheap ones are not.