Antec BP430 enough?

[birthdaymonkey]

My instinct is "yes," but I thought I'd ask for second opinions...

I'm helping a friend put together a super budget gaming rig using some used parts. He'll need a case and PSU, and I'm thinking of the Antec 300 + BP430 PSU combo on newegg.ca right now for $90 (it has free shipping, which is a big deal in Canada, as case shipping is usually an extra $20-30).

Relevant specs:

Phenom II X4 940, slight OC to 3.4GHz (1.4v), hyper 212+
EVGA GTX 260 Superclocked
7200 rpm hard drive
fans, etc.

Figuring 150 for the OCed CPU and 200 for the GPU (with maybe an extra 20 for miscellaneous extras), 430 seems like it would be sufficient.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Yep, it'll be fine. Bonus is that the BP430 is 80+ even though Antec doesn't actively market it as such.

 

[Termie]

I actually think you're cutting it close. If today's review of the PII X4 980 at Hardware Canucks is to be believed, power consumption can get pretty high with that class of components: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...x4-980-black-edition-processor-review-14.html

Your overclocked/overvolted 940 will likely use about the same amount of power as a 980, if not more, and the GTX260 uses about 40w less at load than the GTX280 used in Hardware Canuck's review (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2619/9). So you can assume you'll be just under 400w load. I wouldn't run that on a 430w PSU.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Hardware Canucks thoroughly tested the power requirements of the GTX 260 Superclocked under a variety of loads in a 2009 article. This was their test system:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9770 @ 3.852Ghz
Memory: G.Skill 2x 2GB DDR2-1000 @ 1052Mhz DDR
Motherboard: ASUS P5E Deluxe X48
Disk Drive: Pioneer DVD Writer
Hard Drive: Hitachi Deskstar 320GB SATAII
Fans: 2X Yate Loon 120mm @ 1200RPM
Power Supply: Corsair HX1000W
Monitor: Samsung 305T 30” widescreen LCD
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1

The QX9770 is a 136W TDP CPU, and they overclocked it. I.e. I think it's a fair comparison in terms of power consumption compared to the OP's OC'd X4 940 - this particular Intel chip probably pulls a bit more juice than an X4 940.

You can see here that the highest power consumption score was 343W in Dead Space at 2560x1600.

While I agree with Termie that you're not leaving much headroom, I reaffirm that you should be fine.

 

[Termie]

After looking at Giganto's article and a few others that include GTX260 power consumption (e.g., http://www.anandtech.com/show/3809/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-the-200-king/17), I'm going to back off my original suggestion a bit. I think the system will work. You'll probably duck in under 350w at load. That's still quite a bit to run on a 430w power supply, but it's worth a try if you already have the PSU. If you don't yet have the PSU, I'd probably recommend a 500w unit for a bit more cushion.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Thanks for weighing in, guys. I'll be ordering parts next week, and I'll keep my eye out for other deals that might get him a slightly beefier power supply. If I can't find anything, the 430 looks like it'll do in a pinch. Thanks for the useful links.