350w enough for this system?

JTalbain

Senior member
Jan 17, 2005
279
0
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so in a few months i will be getting some parts off my brother as he upgrades to pci-e. my upgraded system will be as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 754, clawhammer)
ASUS K8N-E nforce3 motherboard
1 gig of ram (2 sticks of pc3200)
ATI Radeon 9800pro
1 80gb seagate drive
1 160gb seagate drive
SB Live 5.1 card
ATI TV wonder TV tuner
4 80mm case fans
1 120mm case fan
Vantec fan controller
1 Mitsumi floppy drive
1 BTC DVD drive
1 NEC 3540a DVD burner

This is my power supply. I bought it a while back based on the recommendations from Silent PC Review forums about its low noise. Weird thing tho is that all websites advertised it as 350w, yet the sticker on the side of the case says 325.4w.

The rails are as follows: 28A on the +3.3V, 35A on the +5v, and 15A on the +12V. The only thing that really has me worried is the 12v rail.

I also used the power supply calculator found here. Anyone know how accurate this is? At 80% PSU utilization i get 318w, but at 100% i get 352 watts which has me a lil worried.

Also, everything here is gonna be run at stock speeds for now. No oc'ing needed just yet.

Thanks in advance.
 

JBDan

Platinum Member
Dec 7, 2004
2,333
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I think it would power your system fine, BUT I am a "better safe then sorry" psu buyer. If it was a PCP&C/Fortron/Seasonic 350W I would say definitely yes. I would consider upgrading your psu since you are upgrading your rig. Its worth the extra $$ to get a quality unit and system stability.
 

Zepper

Elite Member
May 1, 2001
18,998
0
0
The great majority of systems (even high end ones) actually use only 250W or less, so yes a good brand 350W PSU with the power distributed properly among the rails can handle over 95% of the systems in use today. Older systems need a higher proportion of the power on the +5 rail while newer systems (like the one you're inheriting) need the proportion shifted to the +12 rail.
The Coolmax is an old design but it would probably still work. Look at the Zippy HG2-6350P or the Seasonic S12-330 or 380 for examples of the outputs of more modern designs.

.bh.