GTS 250/375W PSU (Pic Included)

[RKuken]

Hello,

I have been running GTS 250 1gb XFX on a DELL XPS 410 PSU(375Watts)
My question is, am I safe here? The card runs fine(I only play dota2 and HoN) and the games run smooth. Please take a look at the snap of my PSU and suggest accordingly if I should stay at this setup.

Image backup: http://imgur.com/F6tyYi1


My specs are, Dell XPS 410 machine with,
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 / 2.4 GHz
4x1tb SATA hard drives, 1x2tb hard drive
2gb ddrII RAM

 

[Soulkeeper]

I had that same video card.
I believe it pulled somewhere around 115W from the 12v rail
I'd say it's not fine longterm but ...

If it's stable you could run it, just note that you'll basically be at 100% load anytime you play a game.

you can sum up the power usage of your system components if you search around a bit, I got the power usage charts from a few years back but it'd take me awhile to locate them.

 

[RKuken]

Thanks for the reply.
I did calculate the power usage using PSUCalc (http://psucalc.net/) and with my Core2Duo/GTS250 with 5 SATA drives, it came out to 365watts.
I didn't put too much faith into that as these programs give you a general idea/ballpark.

I have the option to buy ThermalTake 530W PSU but I want to make sure first, this current one is not sufficient to do the job. That's why I'm getting a few opinions.

Thanks

 

[Soulkeeper]

deleted

 

[theAnimal]

I did calculate the power usage using PSUCalc (http://psucalc.net/) and with my Core2Duo/GTS250 with 5 SATA drives, it came out to 365watts.
I didn't put too much faith into that as these programs give you a general idea/ballpark.

PSU calculators give you recommended PSU wattage, not power usage.

 

[lehtv]

Thanks for the reply.
I did calculate the power usage using PSUCalc (http://psucalc.net/) and with my Core2Duo/GTS250 with 5 SATA drives, it came out to 365watts.
I didn't put too much faith into that as these programs give you a general idea/ballpark.

That particular tool is crap though, it actually recommends units with a bit too low capacity since it doesn't take the number of required PCIe connectors into account. I put my specs into it and it gave me 450W as the recommended wattage. The vast majority of the units it recommended had only one PCIe connector so they would not be sufficient to power my HD7950 without resorting to the use of adapter cables.

I have the option to buy ThermalTake 530W PSU but I want to make sure first, this current one is not sufficient to do the job. That's why I'm getting a few opinions.

I would personally not buy Thermaltake, it's not that good. Can you say where it is you're buying from?

thermaltake is very low quality, use at your own risk, I have one from a core2 duo system that has 4 failed capacitors in it. It ultimately damaged a motherboard I had.

That's not only an unfounded generalization but also a bit harsh. Thermaltake's units are not very low quality, they're not Diablotek. Thermaltake units are mostly mediocre, and they have some outstanding units as well. Many of their units have a lengthy warranty.

 

[Soulkeeper]

deleted

 

[lehtv]

Whether a PSU brand as a whole is "very low quality" is not a question of opinion, I'm afraid. There are objective metrics to determine that.

I never claimed they were a quality brand. There's a large gap between very low quality and quality, and Thermaltake as a whole is somewhere in between.

they are usually the cheapest.

That is just factually wrong. Plenty of expensive TT units out there.

 

[Soulkeeper]

well, i'm sorry I hurt your feelings.
I'm not "factually wrong" "unfounded" or "harsh"

You can have the thread pal good luck.

 

[lehtv]

well, i'm sorry I hurt your feelings.

Don't be silly.

I'm not "factually wrong" "unfounded" or "harsh"

Yes you are. See here for a review database: http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page680.htm

Some observations: Thermaltake Toughpowers are reviewed good to excellent and built by relatively reputable manufacturers like CWT and FSP. They comprise more than a third of all of Thermaltake's units.

The same manufacturers build a lot of the cheaper units as well, and based on the track record of those manufacturers, their cheaper units are, on average, mediocre at worst. Some of their cheap units are built by HEC which is often quite bad, but can make good units as well (take EVGA's Bronze units, for instance). It's probably one of those bad HEC's you had the displeasure of using, but that doesn't mean you can in any way draw a generalisation that all Thermaltake units are very low quality; fact is, they are not.

 

[Soulkeeper]

deleted

 

[RKuken]

I appreciate it, Soulkeeper, lehtv. I can make an informed decision thanks to some of your respective input.

Sometimes the company that makes an appliance is reputable but a bad personal experience can lead to alienated affiliation.
And vice versa of course. An El'cheapo product working a long time without any hassles.
Either way it does come down to how you feel about something.

I suppose the bottom line is, "I can stay with this setup but a recommended advice would be to upgrade?"

Thanks again

 

[lehtv]

I think you'll be OK with that Dell unit. It has a maximum +12V rail capacity of 30A (or 360W), your setup should use about 200W-250W. But since specs are just specs, and there's no guarantee of how well it actually performs at loads higher than the the stock configuration... If it were me, I would swap the unit for a better (not necessarily higher wattage) one the second it starts acting up.

 

[Deders]

Should be fine as it is, you can use Vsync and Triple Buffering to limit the frames per second that your PSU creates to the refresh rate of your monitor and therefore the power used.

You may need D3DOverrider to enable Vsync properly if you find it locks into any other fps other than 60 (presuming your monitor is 60Hz) as the Nvidia CPL Triple buffering doesn't work as well. It used to work on my 9800GTX+ SLI setup but not sure about single cards.

You might run into problems if you start overclocking your CPU, depending on CPU/GPU usage at the time. It should just switch off if there isn't enough power.