500 or 600 watt psu?

[Smartazz]

My best friend is building a rig with these specs:
AMD 64 FX60
Dual 7800GT's SLI
2 GB PC3200 RAM
some sli mobo
3 Hard Drives
2 Cd Drives
SB Xfi Xtreme music

What PSU would be good for this, a 500 or 600 watt psu.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

If you are going to max out everything else, might as well max out the PSU as well. What brand PSU are you looking at?

 

[Bobthelost]

500W would do it, but as fullmetal said you might as well max it out.

Usual suspects for brands: Seasonic, PCP&C, Enermax (liberty), Antec etc.

 

[Reapsy01]

A single 7800gt requires 26 A on 12v rail dunno what 2 would require but I would get a 600W PSU to be on the safe side.

 

[Bobthelost]

A single 7800gt requires 26 A on 12v rail dunno what 2 would require but I would get a 600W PSU to be on the safe side.

Like hell it does.

Yes! Your Graphics card draws a stunning 312W on it's own! That's even more than an FX-60, motheboard, 2gb of RAM, a DVDRW, couple of hard dives and a 1900XT!

For those of you who missed the sarcasm there, the poster above me is utterly wrong, it does not draw 26A on a sinlge rail, or even spread over two rails.

 

[bigKr33]

Originally posted by: Reapsy01
A single 7800gt requires 26 A on 12v rail dunno what 2 would require but I would get a 600W PSU to be on the safe side.

You don't need have 26A on the 12v, i'm running a bfg 7800gtx just fine at 18A on my seasonic.

I would actually recommend pc p&c 510watt, it has 34A per 12v rail.

 

[alimoalem]

i'd get the 600w..might as well if it's only like $40 more. why not get the 7800gtx or x1900xt?

 

[kiIIxthexIights]

i think the 500 wouldwork fine...

 

[Smartazz]

Can anyone recommend a good 500 watt psu for it, preferrably around $100.

 

[d3lt4]

fortron 500 watt. The purple one. : )

 

[mordantmonkey]

Originally posted by: d3lt4
fortron 500 watt. The purple one. : )

i thought it was blue?
but for $100 you could get the 600w fortron.
edit:nm it would be $120 after shipping...

 

[SparkyJJO]

wow if your friend has the money to blow on the FX60, then surely he can spend some more for a nice PSU

 

[w00t]

go with the seasonic s12 600W.

 

[JMoore]

Seasonic or Forton. And I'd go with the 600 Watt to be on the safe side. I mean look at how much he is spending already.....

 

[jimbob200521]

a good 500 watt psu should be able to handle just about anything most home users throw at it

 

[Reapsy01]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

A single 7800gt requires 26 A on 12v rail dunno what 2 would require but I would get a 600W PSU to be on the safe side.

Like hell it does.

Yes! Your Graphics card draws a stunning 312W on it's own! That's even more than an FX-60, motheboard, 2gb of RAM, a DVDRW, couple of hard dives and a 1900XT!

For those of you who missed the sarcasm there, the poster above me is utterly wrong, it does not draw 26A on a sinlge rail, or even spread over two rails.

I guess I didn't make myself clear because I'm lazy and prefer to type as little as possible. What I meant was a 7800gt in a pc with modern cpu hdd optical drive, mobo and some fans requires a psu with 26 A on the 12 v rail, not that *just* the gfx card draws 26 A.

I'm thinking it would be kind of pointless to know how much power *just* a graphics card would need as it would be kind of pointless to *just* power a graphics card without the other stuff that makes up a pc.

For some reason I thought people on here would know i meant that, silly me I guess.

 

[Bobthelost]

You're still wrong though. Because a 1900XT FX-60 and all the other gubbins doesn't draw 312W at full load in total, let alone from the 12V rail.

If we are to avoid confusion we must all be more clear in out posts.

Seasonic gets my vote, maybe the enermax liberty although i don't know the pricing.

 

[Reapsy01]

I think you'll find I am right. I just tried to power a new system that had a 7800gt with a 450w psu with 25A on the 12v rail and it didn't have enough power for the dvd drive to work.

This was an amd 3200+ , 7800gt, Asrock Dual sata2, 1 gig ram 1 hdd 1 case fan 1 dvd burner 1 cpu fan.

Then I saw according to the spec of the gfx card it needs 26A on 12 v rail.

Albatron's 7800GT System Requirement

1. A PCI Express-compliant motherboard
2. 128MB system RAM minimum
4. 50MB free hard disk space minimum
5. Operation system - Windows XP, Windows 2000
6.A minimum 400W system power supply (with 12V currect rating of 26A)
NOTE:Nvidia did not support Win9x,Winme,WinNT driver for Geforce 6 and Geforce 7 series

http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/it/vga/overview.asp?pro_id=151


Anyway so I put in an Enermax 535W psu and the problem with he DVD RW drive disappeared.

 

[Bobthelost]

What 450W PSU is that exactly?

You were of course running prime 95 and RTHDRBL to upp the load on the rails, because just running everything else at idle means that the rails won't be stressed at all, which means that either you've got a crap PSU or you're blaming it for something that's not it's fault.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Yeah, if he can afford an FX-60 and SLI, he should get one of those $300 OCZ phase change cooling units to take advantage of the unlocked multi. Oh, and get the Seasonic S12-600. It's very quiet and efficient.

 

[Reapsy01]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
What 450W PSU is that exactly?

You were of course running prime 95 and RTHDRBL to upp the load on the rails, because just running everything else at idle means that the rails won't be stressed at all, which means that either you've got a crap PSU or you're blaming it for something that's not it's fault.

So are you saying that you do not need 26A on the 12v rail to use a 7800GT ? Do you have anything to backup this claim ?

 

[Bobthelost]

Yes i'm saying that.

Common sense and reality should be a good start.

But hey, ignore my questions why don't you.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: Reapsy01
I think you'll find I am right. I just tried to power a new system that had a 7800gt with a 450w psu with 25A on the 12v rail and it didn't have enough power for the dvd drive to work.

This was an amd 3200+ , 7800gt, Asrock Dual sata2, 1 gig ram 1 hdd 1 case fan 1 dvd burner 1 cpu fan.

Then I saw according to the spec of the gfx card it needs 26A on 12 v rail.

Albatron's 7800GT System Requirement

1. A PCI Express-compliant motherboard
2. 128MB system RAM minimum
4. 50MB free hard disk space minimum
5. Operation system - Windows XP, Windows 2000
6.A minimum 400W system power supply (with 12V currect rating of 26A)
NOTE:Nvidia did not support Win9x,Winme,WinNT driver for Geforce 6 and Geforce 7 series

http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/it/vga/overview.asp?pro_id=151


Anyway so I put in an Enermax 535W psu and the problem with he DVD RW drive disappeared.

Sorry, but you're wrong. I recently built a similar system for a friend. S939 3700+, 7800GT, 2 gig RAM, 2 SATA drives running of a 380 watt Seasonic S12. I was going to power it off a 330 watt S12 I had or another build just to prove a point but we ran out of time.

 

[Smartazz]

Is seasonic really good, if so is this a good deal? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151024

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

It's only $100 without rebate at Case-mod.com.