Are people going crazy with power supplies?

bluemax

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2000
7,182
0
0
How much is *really* needed?? I hear people on hear freaking out that 235w isn't enough, go get 300w and 400w. Yeesh... I was running a Duron 700 @ 800 with 4 IDE drives and a Geforce1 DDR on a 235w no problem at all!

Bearing that in mind, how much do you REALLY need? And in a slim, attractive system - is even 150w enough to drive a Duron and 3 drives with imbedded video?

I imagine it would, but can someone confirm 100% either way before I go purchase anything? :Q
 

bluemax

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2000
7,182
0
0
I see noone is willing to admit you don't NEED a 10,000 watt power supply, and you can get by quite nicely at 200+. So how about 150w?
 

Noriaki

Lifer
Jun 3, 2000
13,640
1
71
Yes we are, getting very over zealous with power supplies.


But a 150watt is unlikely to work.

I believe the recommended is 135watts supplied on the +3.3/+5 combied rail, and that would leave only 15Watts for 12V (or roughly 1.25Amps) which probably isn't enough to drive much...so it's unlikely you'd get a 150watt with that balance.
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
Well even good quality PSUs are cheap and buying a higher rated PSU makes some sense, you have power left over for the future so don`t need to buy another one for awhile,also the added stability of a good quality higher rated PSU.

I treat my PSU like my harddrive always get more then you need, it will come in handy oneday.

:)
 

Jex

Senior member
Apr 4, 2001
588
0
0
With all these high end systems, do we really need 512 MB RAM? Or 1.7 GHz processors? Will we really fill 120 GB of HDD space? Maybe, maybe not. But as long as we're all spending good money to get these sweet systems, and going a little overboard on these other components "just to be sure", then why not spend the extra $50-100 on a 450W power supply?

If you do, then you'll never ask the question, "Am I getting enough power?" :)
 

bluemax

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2000
7,182
0
0
True, but some cases only ship with little power supplies. Pity I couldn't just get them seperately... I'm beginning to think of dumping the MicroATX desktop idea anyways.
 

Renob

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,596
1
81
Bluemax you now were I can get one of those 10,000 wat PSU your talking about???
 

Budman

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
10,980
0
0
Why dont they start designing motherboards & stuff that can just plug on the 120V house current?

It would be much easier that way. :)

Just have a case with a little circut breaker inside like houses & connect all your stuff to that,now that would be great.:)
 

PG

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
3,426
44
91
I have a little micro ATX case with a 145W PS. Here is what I have in it:

i810 Micro ATX MB - onboard sound and video
633 Celeron
256 MB ram
2 HD's - both Western Digital, one 13 GB, one 7.5 GB
DVD drive
Acer 12X10X32 ReWriter
TNT M64 PCI w/32 MB memory
H+ DVD decoder card
10/100 PCI NIC

I know that I'm pushing it, but I haven't had any trouble so far. I could upgrade, but I might need to upgrage the whole case. That's a pain in the rear, so I've been putting it off.

 

bluemax

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2000
7,182
0
0
My setup would be very similar, but only one hard drive, and a duron processor.
I'm getting the feeling 150w won't be a big deal, or is it?

what could happen with an inadequate power supply? Anyone know?
 

MichaelD

Lifer
Jan 16, 2001
31,528
3
76
Budman,

What a schweet idea! How cool would that be? Lessee here. The average AC outlet in a home/apartment supplies 115volts at 15 amps current at 60Hz. Gee, I don't think 6 case fans and a SCSI RAID 5 would be a problem, right? :D
 

Belegost

Golden Member
Feb 20, 2001
1,807
19
81
Ummm you'd run into a serious problem very fast there: alternating current. Computers are designed around binary, using ON/OFF as the two digits needed; direct current is used for computers since it provides a one way current flow that can be turned on and off easily. Alternating current presents a problem, you now have to deal with current that flows in both directions, changing direction 60 times/second. (in the US) No longer can you easily determine ON/OFF states.

As for the PSU question: I would be surprised if you couldn't get away with 150 watts, but it would be damn close, and the quality of the PSU would be critical.
 

kylef

Golden Member
Jan 25, 2000
1,430
0
0
It's all a matter of designing to specs. For instance, the new Tyan Thunder K7 requires a 460-watt PSU according to Tyan's website. While you might be able to get away with something less than that, apparently Tyan has determined that in order for their board to work according to spec (which implies max CPU speed, max current to all interfaces, etc), the 300 watt PSUs can't supply enough current anymore. This is not particularly surprising, since at max power dissipation, the Athlons can dissipate upwards of 70 watts. That means with two, we're already nearing 150 watts. And that's just for the CPUs! When you add a new GeForce3, a couple 10,000 RPM hard drives, a DVD-ROM, etc, you can see where the larger PSUs are becoming necessary.

But this is new only to the PC side of the industry; Alpha workstations have used 400 watt and 500 watt power supplies for a while now (their CPU's hit the 80W mark a while back).