250W or 300W?

[Corduroy00]

I'm planning on building two different systems, a P3 and P4, but both will have a DVD-ROM, CD-RW, 3.5" disk drive, Zip drive, and a single IDE hard drive. Will 250W be enough power for each system, or do I need to have 300W of power for each of them? In the future, how do I determine how much power I will need? Thanks.

 

[Quaggoth]

Just to give you an idea....

I run a Duron 750@981 (Duron's/Tbird's are known for being very power hungry)
CD/R, DVD, Onboard IDE RAID, GF2MX, SBLive, Intel NIC, 6 HDD's, 5 80mm Fans, 4 40mm fans, and a 60mm fan. All on a 300W Antec PSU. I think with what you are running, a good 250 should be fine. I have no idea how to determine how much you will need, but I say the more the merrier (I got the 300 with the case though and figure when I need more I'll get a 460). I honestly thought that this PSU would fry after a short period after I put the 4 drive array in.

 

[Supradude]

well, PSU's not that pricey anymore, so why not be safe and go 300W, if you only draw what you need so its not like 300W will waste more power...

 

[Corduroy00]

Thanks for the info!