Athlon MP - Minimum Power Supply?

[TheCorm]

What would you say minimum and recommended for the following system:

MS-K7D Master Motherboard
2xAthlon MP 1500+
4x256mb PC2100 DDR ECC Registered Memory
SiS 8mb Graphics
Adaptec ATA100 Raid Card
2x60GB Maxtor D740X Hard Drives (7200rpm)
52x CD-ROM

Cheers,

Corm

 

[Adul]

you can get by with a 250 watt sparkle PS. I know i have just fine on two systems. Or you could opt for a 300 watt and leave some padding.

 

[TheCorm]

Marvellous, I thought people would be saying 350w min and 400w recommended....Well, I spy a nice 2 fan 350w! should leave an excellent bit of room.

Corm

 

[ripthesystem]

I'd say 250->300 for that setup.. the rig in my sig(hey I rhyme!) has a lot more than that on it and I run a 320W Enermax Whisper with ZERO problems...

as long as it's a quality PSU you should be fine

ripthesystem

 

[CubicZirconia]

as long as it's a quality PSU you should be fine

Even if its not "quality" chances are it will still work.

 

[gplanet]

Use these figures to determine what kind of PSU you will need.

These figures are approximate, and are worst-case when the components are drawing 100% current that they can.


Motherboard 25W
AGP/PCI card 9W
Stick of RAM 9W
Hard Drive 28W
CD-ROM 15W
Floppy 5W
Fan 2W
CPU (Varies) 100W

Since these are MAXIMUM current, it's unlikely you'll ever hit this amount. So multiply your total by 80% to get the PS you should use.


250W

 

[TheCorm]

The PSU I am looking at is a fairly standard one, the thing I like about it is that it has a fan at the back and one by the CPU sucking air out of the case. I have it in my XP system and it seems fine but it is OEM so i'm not sure of the manufacturer.

There is a Sparkle one I could get but it's more expensive and only has a single fan at the back....what do you reckon?

Edit: Excellent approximate numbers gplanet. cheers.

 

[bozo1]

Yea and whatever....

Just play with what AMD suggested/recommend before they stopped doing that - You need a PS that can provide 30A on the 5V line, and > 180W combined on the 5V and 3.3V rails combined. (And the suggestion is for a single CPU system, not dual.)

What the 12V line can do is basically a joke - many supplies 'claim' to do 400W or above... whoo hoo - they do that because what they can supposedly do on the 12V line which basically means NADA.

In my opinion, being a SMP person unlike the other people who responded to your post, you should look for a quality PS, > 300-watts - Antec, Enermax, Sparkle.

 

[Alphazero]

For a dual AMD set-up, you may be able to get by with 300W, but I think 350 is a safe minimum.

 

[Adul]

DOH, i miss the part out on it being a dual CPU setup.

Yes you want something like a 350 watt power supply for that setup. Quality one for sure.

 

[TheCorm]

Well I have ordered the generic 350W now, I also have a 250W that comes in the full tower case but i'm guessing that won't be enough....if it doesn't work then I will get something more powerful.

What is the liklihood of fried system when it comes to power supplies? This PSU is designed for Palomino/P4 systems.

Corm

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: bozo1
Yea and whatever....

Just play with what AMD suggested/recommend before they stopped doing that - You need a PS that can provide 30A on the 5V line, and > 180W combined on the 5V and 3.3V rails combined. (And the suggestion is for a single CPU system, not dual.)

What the 12V line can do is basically a joke - many supplies 'claim' to do 400W or above... whoo hoo - they do that because what they can supposedly do on the 12V line which basically means NADA.

In my opinion, being a SMP person unlike the other people who responded to your post, you should look for a quality PS, > 300-watts - Antec, Enermax, Sparkle.

Listen to this man.

 

[mastertech01]

I havent seen many get by with less than an Antec 400W for dual processors. The AMD recommened supply for Certification on boards like the Thunder is 460. The 5V rail seems to be the limiting factor. Ive seen 400+ watt Enermax fail to boot or have stability problems. Your boards manufacturer should post the minimum power needed.

 

[TheCorm]

I think the power supply has it's ratings printed on it so I will check them out, I guess I will have to get something better if it doesn't look like it will be man enough for the job. I will check out MSI's site to see if it does mention PSU requirements but I don't think it does. I do tend to find that many enthusiasts here put in higher PSU's for overclocking and for all the fans & stuff in the case when I have seen AMD Athlon XP 2000+ systems with DVD, CD-RW, high speed hard drive etc and running a 250W PSU. Obviously I think more is better but I have seen lower output ones working fine.

Corm

 

[TheCorm]

I have got an Aopen case through with a 300W power supply....is it gonna be enough?....here are the outputs:

+3.3V = 28A
+5V = 30A
+12V = 15A
+5VSB = 2A
+5V = 0.3A
+12V = 0.8A
+3.3V & +5V = 180W
Max Output Power: 300W (+3.3V & +5V & +12V = 280W)

Everything meets the Recommended Spec for the motherboard apart from tghe +5V which is 35A. But....Other than this PC being a Dual MP, everything else is very basic, 2 hard drives, a few fans and a CD-ROM drive...that's about it.

What do you reckon?....if I try it and it isn't enough will it just not work or is it highly likely to do damage?

Cheers,

Corm

 

[DaFinn]

I'm running a dual XP1800+ setup with the MSI K7D Master-L board.

MSI K7D Master-L
2x XP1800+
2x256 Mb PC2100 cas2
TNT1 16Mb (Viper V550)
Adaptec 19160 SCSI card
IBM 36LZX 18,3 GT
Intel Pro 100+ NIC (in addition to onboard NIC)

I have enermax 300W PSU, and with this config its working just fine. This thing is working 24/7 as a Firewall/ Internet gateway in my office.

 

[mastertech01]

I think the worst it will do is not boot. I recommended the Antec because it was a proven solution for me, and many others I know with the Tyan dually boards. Of course you have to realize on average usage I might be powering 2 15K SCSI drives, 4 CD drives, A GF3, 3 scsi controllers, sound, networks, ram, and all them coolers you need with a dual Athlon system and SCSI drives all off that one PSU. If you were just running a very light load like DaFinn, you may be OK. I just wanted to give you a ONE TIME purchase of a PSU, rather than to find the Enermax didnt fit the bill and have to fork out again for the Antec.

 

[Titan]

Hi All, I also am planning on building dual AthlonXP system, and just getting the older Tyan s2460 board, which needs 30A on the +5v line. I was wondering where this 180w combined on the 3.3 and 5 quote came frome, I couldn't find it anywhere online. Anyway, Amamax screwed me and sent me the "better" power supply, a PowerMagic 450W instead of the generic 400W I wanted whihc offered 36A on +5v and 26A on +3.3, as oposed to the label on the one I just got which says 30A for each of them but a max power of 125W for both, which basically means they are shared. It's been quite a hassle getting a good cheap PSU for this board, should I just buclke down and buy a 60 dollar one?

Originally posted by: bozo1
Yea and whatever....

Just play with what AMD suggested/recommend before they stopped doing that - You need a PS that can provide 30A on the 5V line, and > 180W combined on the 5V and 3.3V rails combined. (And the suggestion is for a single CPU system, not dual.)

What the 12V line can do is basically a joke - many supplies 'claim' to do 400W or above... whoo hoo - they do that because what they can supposedly do on the 12V line which basically means NADA.

In my opinion, being a SMP person unlike the other people who responded to your post, you should look for a quality PS, > 300-watts - Antec, Enermax, Sparkle.

 

[bozo1]

I was wondering where this 180w combined on the 3.3 and 5 quote came frome, I couldn't find it anywhere online.

The 180W deal came from AMD's recommended powersupply page for XP1600+ processors and faster before they redid it and stopped recommending specific powersupplies.

which says 30A for each of them but a max power of 125W for both, which basically means they are shared.

Pretty much all supplies share except the new Antec True Power series which doesn't.

 

[TheCorm]

Thanks for all your help guys!!!

Have just finished building the system....it's running suuuuuperb on the Aopen 300W. Temps are great, fans all over the shop and am just in the process of setting up the Raid 1.

My first dual cpu + raid system...i'm so proud

Cheers,

Corm