enermax 430 watt vs antec true power 380 watt

[Pelochas]

i need some opinions, the antec sonata case comes with a 380 watt power supply with serial ATA connectors ready on it. I have a enermax 430 watt with dual fans in my older case ( paid $100 about a year and half ago) , but no serial ATA. Is the 50 watts difference be something i need to move over to my new sonata case?

i have a amd 64 3400, gigabyte mobo, 512mb pc3200 ram, ati radeon 9800 prom 128 mb, SB audigy sound card, TV/FM tuner card, 2 - 160 gigs hard drives maxtor 7200 8mb buffer (U ATA 133, not SATA) , and a cd burner 40x, plus my new sonata case.

 

[Markfw]

Either is fine

 

[SithSolo1]

Use which ever one has more Amps on the 12V rail. That way you won't have to switch them out if you upgrade your video card later this year. I know the Antec has 18A on the 12V rail and I have the two-fan version of the same model thats in the Sonata. Of course the 380 is gonna be quieter if that matters to you.

 

[beverage]

Originally posted by: Pelochas
the antec sonata case comes with a 380 watt power supply with serial ATA connectors ready on it.

it does? mine sure didn't.

 

[hahher]

what's a minimum amps to look for on 12v rail?

 

[myocardia]

If you're ever going to try to overclock, the Antec TruePower will let you go much higher, and with more stability. If you think you might be wanting to spend $500 on the latest generation video card pretty soon, then you should use the Enermax. Enermax's: best for overclocking P4's (or anything else that requires prodigious amounts of 12v power), Antec's: best for overclocking AMD's. Both are the best psu's made, at what they do best (stable 5v power in ungodly amounts, or stable 12v power in huge amounts).

 

[Dman877]

The 380 is quiet and I like it but its lacking in molex connectors, theres no 4 molex line like in most psu's, instead it just has 2 lines with a molex and a sata plus the standard 2 lines of 2 molex/1 floppy. As to what the last guy said about ocing different procs, I don't buy it. Both psu's will be fine power-wise for anything in the next year or so, the new graphics cards aren't that much more demanding (6800U uses 20 watts more then a 5950) and I'm sure ATI will use less then nvidia anyway.

If you like quiet, the fan-only connectors on the antec are great. For noise on the psu itself, I have an enermax 431 watt from a few years ago and it is very quiet, almost a toss-up between it and the single fan antec I think.

 

[Pelochas]

I just bought my Sonata at Bestbuy after a pricematch with Frys. when i open it up, i say a newer version of power supply with a new sticker "Serial ATA plugs" and it sure does have two SATA plugs along with the regular molex plugs. That alone made me wonder if this was a better deal and something i might want to hold instead of replacing it with the Enermax.

I have a AMD 64 3400 and already im very happy with the speed. But will OC it just to see how far it will go. Got the Artic Cooler VGA Card for the radeon 9800 pro and a Zalman cooler for the AMD 64 3400. also got me a stick of 512mb Kingston HyperX pc4000 which is rated for 500mhz. The gigabyte GA-K8VNXP mobo is rated for 400 mhz but after analyzing the ram with sisoft sandra 2004 it had some info i like to share but cant remember all of it. basically it said something like (500 @ 3-3-3 , 466 @ 2.5-2.5-2.5 , and 400 @ 2-2-2). if thats is the case i may set my bios to do 2-2-2 on the ram and see what happens.

Thanks for all your opinions