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Is 350 watt psu enough for all this?

S

simsalabim24

Senior member
Hello,

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Is 350watts enough to run a AMD A64 2800+ CPU, Chaintech VNF3-250 MB, 2x512mb 400mhz memory, 128mb Nvidia Geforce 6800 NU Leadtek AH400 Video Card, Sound Blaster Live Sound Card, Logitech Optical Mouse, Logitech Keyboard (not fancy), CDRW Drive.
 
yup, ratings are as shady as speaker ratings. 350watts at what? 30c? for how long? 5 seconds? lol😉 and of course theres efficiency..cheap ones tend to eat electricity. don't cheap out on your psu, at worst things won't start up because theres no power...or, voltages go out of spec the other way and you get burnt components😉 pennywise/pound foolish. go seasonic, you wont' go wrong, it tops the recent custom pc's extensive tests, one of the few to actually pass everything. and its quiet and efficient. seasonic actualy makes their stuff, so they know what they are doing.
 
Well here is the deal I use to have a 430 watt Antec quite cool psu and it just went out on me basically it was given to me without anything about 3 years ago.

Anyway I went to Best buy to replace it with the one out of the only two brands they carry, antec and dynex, so I bought the new Antech Truepower 2.0 12V 430watt psu 89.99. Got it home and installed it, wouldnt power up the comp. Come to find out that the 4 pin adaptor does not match the female adaptor on my mb Chaintech VNF3-250 so basically its not making a connection. So I go back to best buy and the only thing they have are these new 2.0 power supplys that are supposed to be backwards compatible wiht the 20 pin connectors and seperate 4 pin connectors instead of the new single 24 pin connections. They do have a 350 watt dynex psu that has the old style connections and would probably work, but Im not sure if its enough wattage for all my hardware, hense my questioning here.
 
Oh and I buy from the store because it is easier for me to just go into the store and exchange the item if its defective as opposed to dealing with the mail system, and also I live in Michigan and all we have is Compusa, Bestbuy, Circuit city and some local independent people with dumb return policies. I went to compusa and all they had for psu's were compusa brand psu's.
 
Sure, that PSU will power it....but for how long? nVidia cards suck power, and the MINIMUM reccomended for the 6800 would a 350 watt PSU.

If you EVER plan to OC the card, then it is not enough. The real question that you should ask yourself is why do I want to save 45 dollars now and spend 150 dollars later to replace the damaged vid card and HDD when the PSU goes out? PSU MTBF are rated at a percentage of maximum output at a set duty cycle. Few, if any are rated higher than 80 percent load and 24 hours duty cycle. The life of the PSU is shortened if worked higher than it's rated limit.

Secondly, many PSU manufacturer lie like used car salesmen and car stereo manufacturers when they rate their PSUs. A certain popular PSU manufacturer has failed several tests on several different websites lately. The performance on these tests bears out what many enthusiasts have been saying for awhile about this PSU manufacturers performance. Read the specs carefully, and go for the ones that rate at longer duty cycles, higher temps, and higher loads.

 
Definitely. I have a FSP 350w powering my rig (see rig link below) and comparable specs, including the 6800nu. No problems at all (I had it running Folding@Home for 7 straight days once).
 
Comparing FSP to Antec is a terrible idea. Fortron specs are rated for 40c while Antec generally rates at 30c. PC Power & Cooling, Zippy, and Seasonic rate at 50c.
 
I never said I was trying to skimp, I basically have no choice for some reason the Antec TruePower II series connectors are not compatible with my motherboard, specifically the 4 pin connectors are not the same shape as the 4 pin female connectors on the motherboard.

Does this make sense? That is all bestbuy carries other then the dynex and they only have the 350 watt model in this brand. Just thinking that this would be an option? Is it possible to run the motherboard without connectecting that 4 pin connecter and just connect the 20 pin part?

Thanks.
 
No, that's a terrible Idea. If your board has a 4-pin P4 connector it probably requires use of it.

If you want a quality PSU, buying it locally is out of the question.
 
All modern PSUs have the 4-pin square P4-12V connector. If it won't plug in, then you aren't trying the correct way - they go in easily the correct way. You DO NOT USE the extra 4 pins from the 20+4- pin ATX connector, you use the SEPARATE square connector with 2 yellow and 2 black wires. I'm pretty tempted to say ---- Duuuuh... go to http://www.mechbgon.com and read his PC builder's guide. Do not pass GO, do not collect... I can see the proper connector on the TP II 430 in the pix on Newegg.

Oh, and a very good PSU like the 330 or 380 watt seasonics would likely power that just fine. May not do it with a generic.

.bh.
 
Originally posted by: maluckey
Sure, that PSU will power it....but for how long? nVidia cards suck power, and the MINIMUM reccomended for the 6800 would a 350 watt PSU.
Click to expand...

the minimum recommended is because of $15 "350 watt" power supplies, not because a 300 watt quality power supply couldn't handle it. i doubt that system draws more than 200 watts at peak. and that's wall draw. anandtech's FX-55 system with that big 600 W powerstream is probably 75% or less efficient, so internal draw is about 150 watts.
 
Originally posted by: maluckey
...
Secondly, many PSU manufacturer lie like used car salesmen and car stereo manufacturers when they rate their PSUs. A certain popular PSU manufacturer has failed several tests on several different websites lately. The performance on these tests bears out what many enthusiasts have been saying for awhile about this PSU manufacturers performance. Read the specs carefully, and go for the ones that rate at longer duty cycles, higher temps, and higher loads.
Click to expand...

Now, which certain popular manufacturer would this be? I haven't been up-to-date with my PC components. Surely you don't work for the company and will get fired, and that's why you're concealing their identity.
 
No, that's not it.

I have learned that Seat of the Pants raters, and Fanboys will not listen to reason regardless of the proof. Openly challenge someone like that, and they set their "Idiot resolve" dial to "high" setting and all logic other than loyalty flies out the window. It's far better for people of that ilk to believe that they learned it for themselves. By my not mentioning a name, nobody is insulted and maybe the curious will do some research into the matter.

The brand to which I am referring has failed me several times over the years, with two different model lines. The money spent replacing fried components was not what I had in mind when I bought the highly praised units.
 
if you get a newer supply with a strong 12 v rail according to silentpcreview that should be fine.

a generic crappy 350 watt would be bad tho.
 
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