How many watts do you need to run this

[Moonbeam]

Soyo dragon +, AMD 1900, Plextor 24X CDRW, Pioneer 16X, DVD with Hollywood card, 3 maxtor 60G 7200 drives, Pal 8045 with Panaflow low noise and maybe two cse fans. Am considering the new Enermax fca, I think, at 350, or 430 watts, or the pcpower and cooling silencer at 400W but a gut wrenching $168. The 350 is like $80 range. Is it enough power? The 430W cost is getting enough up there to say what the hey to the $168 tag on the rather impressively speced silencer, not that I fully understand the relevance of the specs.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

I would say atleast 350... you might want to error on the side of caution and go for more.

 

[Moonbeam]

Just how close to the line would you say I am. I'm trying to avoid being tempted to spend $168.

Also is your electric bill gonna change depending on which one or are they similarly efficient enough to approximately just supply what's needed?

 

[htmlmasterdave]

The larger ones will use more electricty period... you would be fairly close to the line i think... maybe in the 300W region.

 

[CdnMade]

IMO i think that a 300 will suffice thats all i ever use and have never run into power issues on any systems i build. Hell i even used a 250 on a p4 1.5 last week cause i ran out of 300's. I think that most of the BIG PS issues here are just people wanting to get bigger for the sake of bigger.

 

[veryape]

Anything over 350 is overkill as long as it's a good power supply. That is unless you are running a large raid setup, and twenty fans.

 

[Moonbeam]

I suspect that among most here bigger is better, but I got a 300 watt in the machine I'm posting from without all those other goodies and maybe because it's a thunderbird 1.4 in a ECS K7S5A and an older Sparkle, I do get some wierd stuff hapening. Failure occassioanlly to boot, etc, so I'm a bit paranoid about power issues.

 

[WDCentral]

CdnMade is exactly right and I'm sick of people on this forum overreccomending power supplies just to be on the "super safe side", they just reccomend the highest stuff out there and its crazy.

Just my thought,
Ben

 

[CAMS]

WDCentral

Actually people who recommend power supplies on there wattage alone are giving bad advice.

 

[Duvie]

I like 350watt sparkles in most all 1.2ghz plus systems I build...they deliver the juice and rails hold well...

You can find them for 55 bucks around the net....I think 350 will be fine

I have ran on my 350...

1.4tbird
ecs mobo
(2) 256mb sticks of ddr
3 hdds 40gig,45gig,15gig
1 16x48x dvd-rom
1 12x10x32x cd-rw
2 usb devices
1 fdd
1 zip drive
(2) 80mm case fans
(1) 120mm case fan

no issues such as freezes or restarts...boots 100 percent of the time unless I am playing with coing the fsb and go past 146.6 with cpucool...

 

[JohnnyPC]

<< CdnMade is exactly right and I'm sick of people on this forum overreccomending power supplies just to be on the "super safe side", they just reccomend the highest stuff out there and its crazy. >>



Amen Brother! I just replied to a post about guy that was going to add "a little bit bigger fan" and wanted to know if he should go from a 300 to a 350...get real...if your system is that much on the edge with a 300, you'd know about it waaaay before you add that power sucker of a fan

the guy right before mentioned that it's not just the wattage...righto newbies. Ever why AMD and Intel onyl reccomend certain models of PS??? It's because a quality 300 or even 250 for that matter could out-do a "chinese no-name" 400 7 days a week.

For once and for all your system probably draws waaaaay less power than you think it does. C'mon 350 or 400 watts for even a mack daddy system is bordering on overkill. How about this for a rule of thumb...if you add that latest high performance fan and hit the power button and nothing happens, then yes, you were on the edge and you can get that 350 watt PS you're lusting after.

System will only draw the power they need and if they don't have it....they turn off...

 

[Duvie]

I agree quality is the main issue...I had a 250 no name (at least I couldn't figure it out) power my 1.1ghz tbird with about all the goodies above because a 350 watt heroichi couldn't handle it (lights flashing and random restarts, like a frekkin circus)

That same 250 was in my p2 300 and my amd k6-2 400...great workhorse...

for me 350 watt sparkle is not that much more then the 300watt sparkle and I feel I can run any current and upcoming cpu in the future...I am set for quite awhile I feel

 

[limsandy]

300 watts is enough.