How much power?

[WhiteKnight]

So, I find the consensus on these boards is that general users with 1+ ghz t-birds are fine with 300W. In fact, 300W is more than enough. My question is this: When do you need 400W+ or even 600W+? Is that only for people who are running multiple peltiers and such? I'm building a new system and I'm planning on getting the 350W Enermax, but I notice that the 430W is only $20 more. Is it worth it? Will I ever need it?

 

[Shooters]

I have.....

1.2@1.33GHz Tbird
3.5" floppy
100MB internal Zip Drive
Asus CD-ROM
Toshiba 16x DVD
TDK 12x10x32 CDRW
SB Live! Live Drive IR
IBM 60GXP hard drive
Elsa Geforce2 Ultra
3 PCI cards
60mm high speed Delta fan
5x80mm case fans
2x92mm case fans

all running on a 350 watt Enermax Whisper PS without any problems

 

[WhiteKnight]

^

 

[Shmorq]

Probably for multi-processors and for people that have a LOT of hard drives. I don't know of any other components that take up as much power as those 2 devices. Maybe the video card as well, but most people only have 1 of these.

 

[tontod]

I'm running a 1 ghz thunderbird @ 1.33 ghz, 2 hard drives, a burner, dvd drive, vid card, nic, sound, scsi cards. I have some generic 300W power supply, it seems to be running fine.

 

[julianf]

go with the 450W... it's nice to have alot of power...

 

[MichaelD]

300W is plenty for the average system. My rig is similar to Shooters' rig and I've no probs either. There is a difference though B/T a generic and a brand-name PS. The diff is in the quality of the build and the parts that are used. While a no-name PS may work fine for a long time, no-names really are a crapshoot. You either get a good or a bad one. If you stick with Antec, Enermax and other big-name companies, you're almost guaranteed to have no probs.

The bigger PS are for those running a big RAID array, SCSI drives, multi-processor systems, etc. But a bigger PS does give you more headroom. Meaning that it has to do less work to provide the same amount of power and has more "elbow room" in which to do so. HOpe this helps.

 

[MplsBob]

>> When do you need 400W+ or even 600W+?

Planning on doing some arc welding?

 

[bluemax]

My wife just looked at me funny as I burst into laughter!

 

[GTaudiophile]

I have,

PII-450@450
440BX mobo
2x128MB PC100 SDRAM
10.2GB Quantum 5400rpm ATA33 IDE HD
27.2GB Maxtor 7200rpm ATA33 IDE HD
Toshiba 2x IDE DVD-ROM
Plextor 16/10/40A IDE DVD-ROM
ATI Radeon 32DDR
Creative Dxr3 PCI DVD Decoder
Creative SB Live! Mp3+ PCI soundcard
STB TV/FM PCI Tuner
3Com PCI NIC
1xCase fan

All this runs perfectly on a 200W power supply.