How much power supply

[GDog]

Will a Sparkle 300w be enough for this setup?
Athlon 1000mghz
Pioneer 16x DVD
TDK Velo 8/4/32
Maxtor 7200drive
Maxtor 5400 drive
Visiontek GF3 Ti 500
HP Printer

 

[Fun Guy]

This is really something you are going to have to do for yourself. Anyone who tells you 'yes' or 'no' without knowing every single spec is making something up.

However, this is not as difficult as it may seem. Power (watts) equals current (amps) times voltage. All you have to do is find the specs for your power supply and then add up the numbers for your devices.

Now there is one more caveat - the power supplied is different for each 'rail' (or specific voltage) available in the power supply. The 300W is a total figure for all rails - +5, +3, +12, -12, etc, so keep this in mind when adding up numbers, you will have to find the specs for your PS and see how much is devoted to each rail.

For example, I am building an Athlon XP machine in a microATX case where the biggest power supply available is 200W. Crazy, you say? Well, I talked this over with the engineer of the power supply and we decided that 200W was actually more than enough. Here's why.

The 1900+ draws 34.7 amps (I) average and 38.9 amps max (this CPU info is available from AMD and Intel web sites). The core voltage (Vcc) of the Athlon XP is 1.75v. So, the power requirement just for the processor alone is (rounding up) 40A x 1.75v = 70W.

Now, we need to know that the Athlon core runs off the +5v rail of the power supply, and that the combined output for the +3v and +5v rails is 130W. As you can see, there is more than enough available for the CPU.

Now all I really need to do is add up the other stuff and I can see that I am in good shape with the 200W PS. Good luck to you.

 

[FlippyBoy]

fun guy's answer was right on target. but if you're feeling lazy, i can tell you that yes, 300 watts will supply adequate power to all your components.

 

[John]

With the hardware you listed, a quality 300w psu will be adequate.

 

[GDog]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input

 

[Rahminator]

Yes, 300W will be more than plenty. You could prolly run it with 250W fine, but 300W won't hurt and you will be set for future expansion.

 

[veryape]

The 300 should be enough. It really depends on the quality of the manufacturer, and Sparkle has a pretty good rep.

I have been running my Classic Athlon 650 on a 250 watt Deer power supply for 2years now without so much as a hiccup. And that's with a DVD, CD, 2 hard drives and everything else that goes into a setup these days.

I would go with at least a 300 though because not only would it be a safe bet with what you want to run on it but when you need to upgrade you shouldn't have to upgrade the power supply. It might save you 30 or 40 bucks. Get the biggest one you can afford. That is your best bet, but 300 should be sufficient, even if I personally would go with a 350.