Am i pushing my power supply too far?

[TurtleCrusher]

Well after my overclock some people suggested it might be my psu that is holding me back. I wsn't so sure as people other than myself run more demanding systems on just 450W/500W corsair power supplies, and i though Antec was right up there.

So, The Antec Power Trio has three 12V rails each at 18amps, maximum output of all three rails is 42amps. Here is my system.

CPU: Intel Core2 Quad 8200 2.33Ghz @ 2.75 Ghz (393x7)
CPU Cooling: Arctic Freezer Pro 7
Motherboard: GIGABYTE EP45-DS3L ATX
Memory: 2x2 GB Patriot DDR2 800
Graphics: Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 512mb GDDR3
Power supply: Antec Power Trio 550w
Hard drives: 200GB Seagate Sata 1.5GB, Maxtor 80GB IDE
Sound: Soundblaster Audigy Gamer.

Could that be the cause of my instabilities after 2.8Ghz? Or am i motherboard limited on my overclock?

 

[yh125d]

Up your NB voltage and you should have no problem getting above 393 FSB

EDIT: And no, it's not lack of power

 

[OCNewbie]

You've got lots of power to spare with that PSU and that setup. You're fine in that regard.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I've been thinking about upgrading my GPU. Would adding in a 4830/4850 result in power problems?

I'm not too knowledgeable on power supplies. I pretty much picked it up because of the name.

 

[theAnimal]

You could run an HD4870 with that PSU.

 

[OCNewbie]

You could probably run any single GPU card out there with your PSU. Now SLI or Crossfire may limit you to 8800GT's or possibly 4850's, but for any single GPU card (non GTX 295 or 4870 X2) I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Hmm, so picking up a Nvidia GTX 260 isn't out of the question? I've been thinking about my next video card for a while. Since i finally OC'd my CPU i went back to have a huge GPU bottleneck in some games. It kept going back and forth. Here's my cycle of bottlenecks, over the past few years.

P4 2.26 / GF Ti 200 64MB
P4 2.26 / Radeon 9250se 32mb DDR
P4 2.8C HT / Radeon 9550se 64mb
Athlon 3500+ / GF 5500 256mb 128-bit
Athlon 3500+ / X1550 256mb 32-bit (Yes, powercolor came out with a 32-bit memory video card)
Athlon 3500+ / x1650 512mb 128-bit
Athlon X2 4200+ / x1650
Athlon X2 4200+ / 8800GTS 320mb
Athlon X2 4200+ / HD 3850 512mb
Q8200 2.75 / HD 3850 512mb.

So obviously i went right back to a GPU bottleneck. With all graphics down on dirt i get 160fps. At my native resolution and med-high i get 30fps with multiple cars and 45fps with solo races.

I'll be buying a new video card. Thanks.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I upgraded to a 4830 btw, and have no stability issues.

Just throwing it out there

 

[PianoMan]

Please see my main rig below. It draws 260W from the outlet (via Kill-A-Watt meter) while gaming. You'll be good with the GPU's you mentioned.

That said, I've got a PC P&C 750W Silencer still boxed up - waiting for that killer GPU upgrade... whenever that happens... :roll: