Is my 300 watt PSU enough for this modest video card?

[jasonic7654]

Howdy,

I'm about to build my first PC based on an AMC Athlon XP 2600+. Although not a gamer, I picked up a Sapphire Radeon 9600SE card to help insure quality video on my system. The PSU that came with my Antec case is rated at 300 watts. My question is whether the 300 watt PSU is ample to support this modest video card plus about 2-3 USB peripheral devices, or should I go with more? If more, any recommendations on a good PSU?

Thanks for any advice

 

[L00PY]

It should be fine. That GPU has a fairly low draw too. That you're already starting with an Antec PSU (albeit a 300W one) helps. Go ahead and build your system with what you've already got. If you run into issues down the road when you're stress testing, you might want to consider a beefier PSU, but there's no glaringly obvious reason why that shouldn't work with what you've described so far.

 

[CraigRT]

I wouldn't worry 🙂

 

[imported_marcosv]

How old is your Antec PS? I had an old Antec 350 that came with a two year old case. It wasn't as effecient as newer supplies. Ditto on the Antec True 550 I bought around the same time. It's been replaced by a Neo Power which in turn was replaced by a PC P&C 510.

In the end, I think you'll be fine as long as you don't add a lot of hard drives to your system.

My Antec 350W couldn't handle an Athlon XP 2600+, 1 GB memory, 1 optical drive, and four hard drives (oldest being two years old). My clue was when a drive or two weren't recognized at bootup and/or a hard drive suddently going off line as the system got hot or put under stress.


- Marcos