IS this PSU powerful enough to handle my system?

[Aznguy1872]

So I'm looking at the Thermaltake TR2 500 W PSU for 50 dollars after rebate at Newegg. Well the system I have is:

AMD 3700 San Diego at 3700+ OC'd to 2.6 Ghz

1 GB (2 x512MB) of OCZ Gold Vx memory

8500 GT (decided to buy this because its so cheap)

A DVD rom drive

Hard Drive


The reason why I ask is because the 12V rail seems low to me, well I don't really know whats high or whats low. But heres the link to its specs. Can someone please help me out here? Thanks

Link

 

[jkresh]

that is low for the 12volt, and multiple 12volt rails can confuse the issue (ie it seems like it has 29amps on teh 12v or 348watts, but if add that to the 5v and 3v its about 580 so it probably cant actualy do the full 14 on 12v1 and 15 on 12v2). That being said for a singel core cpu with a 8500gt it should be more then enough (probably fine for an 8800gtx and dual core, though I doubt it could handle sli or a 2900xt and quad core).

 

[rise]

you won't need anything close to 500w, i'd personally get either a smaller (350-400w) quality psu from newegg or grab an enhance from ewiz. i don't know if you're planning on carrying this psu through an upgrade or not but as it stands, 500w is way overkill.

 

[Aznguy1872]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll try to look for the quality psu's. But for 40 dollars after rebate, thats pretty cheap already and this has decent quality.

 

[rise]

where are you seeing 40AR? your link is 79 plus frt. even at 40 i'd get a used psu over that.

 

[Aznguy1872]

Well it had a rebate for it, but now its gone. I guess I'll just have to look for another cheap one. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Aznguy1872]

I forgot that the motherboard that the psu will be powering is a DFI Lan Party SLI-DR, now with that being the motherboard, is this powersupply powerful enough? What abotu the 430 Watt version?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Aznguy1872
I forgot that the motherboard that the psu will be powering is a DFI Lan Party SLI-DR, now with that being the motherboard, is this powersupply powerful enough? What abotu the 430 Watt version?

Again, more than enough. You could probably run your system off a quality 250W unit. So that said, I would look for a quality PSU from 350-400W so you have ample room for a better video card in the future.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: jkresh
that is low for the 12volt, and multiple 12volt rails can confuse the issue (ie it seems like it has 29amps on teh 12v or 348watts, but if add that to the 5v and 3v its about 580 so it probably cant actualy do the full 14 on 12v1 and 15 on 12v2). That being said for a singel core cpu with a 8500gt it should be more then enough (probably fine for an 8800gtx and dual core, though I doubt it could handle sli or a 2900xt and quad core).

500W would be plenty for SLI Quad Core too.

Here's what I'm running on Acer's stock 300W PS:

Acer E700 (965 chipset) board
Intel Quad-Core Q6600 (quad 2.4) CPU
4 x 1GB DDR2/667 chips
4 x 500GB 3.5" HDDs
1 x 5.25" DVD +/- RW
1 x EVGA 8800GTS/320
1 x Hauppauge PVR-500 PCI Dual-tuner TV card
keyboard/mouse/USB remote controller for Logitec mouse
.... all on 300 watts.

 

[Aznguy1872]

Wow, thats insane that you're running that whole system on your 300w PSU. Yea I guess I should get a quality 400 Watt PSu instead then. K thanks for all the responses.

 

[Tboy012]

so what kind of a set-up would you need to have a 600-700W psu? your running all that only on 300, i dont see why people would ever buy anything over 600W even if they had watercooling... or am i wrong?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Tboy012
so what kind of a set-up would you need to have a 600-700W psu? your running all that only on 300, i dont see why people would ever buy anything over 600W even if they had watercooling... or am i wrong?

You're right, the people running those often don't need them.

Clever marketing by PSU manufacturers and rediculously overspecced power requirements from GFX card manufacturers have lead to a "It's a faster card it must take much more power". which isn't always true.

A 600W power supply might be good for someone looking to run 8800GTX's in SLI...but even that will have some headroom in it.

 

[RobberBaron]

Exactly what I wanted to see! I have a 520w OCZ in my rig and I wanted to upgrade the Video card, but the illusion that I need a monster psu is nagging me. Is there anyway to (with software) clock the amount of power your components are using?

 

[Aznguy1872]

Yea i was just thinking the same. So even 500 watts is enough to run a quad core and lets say a 8800 gtx then? or even fewer watts? Its just crazy how somany people I see from their rig that have at least 600 watt psu's. I always think I need the same, but I guess not.

 

[Aznguy1872]

Sorry for double post, but I just saw this hot deal on Newegg for the Antec Truepower 650 watt for 90 dollars after rebate, for anyone that is interested, here's the link.

Link

Oh btw, it has triple 12v rails, not sure if its that useful, but is the new technology these days.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: jkresh
that is low for the 12volt, and multiple 12volt rails can confuse the issue (ie it seems like it has 29amps on teh 12v or 348watts, but if add that to the 5v and 3v its about 580 so it probably cant actualy do the full 14 on 12v1 and 15 on 12v2). That being said for a singel core cpu with a 8500gt it should be more then enough (probably fine for an 8800gtx and dual core, though I doubt it could handle sli or a 2900xt and quad core).

500W would be plenty for SLI Quad Core too.

Here's what I'm running on Acer's stock 300W PS:

Acer E700 (965 chipset) board
Intel Quad-Core Q6600 (quad 2.4) CPU
4 x 1GB DDR2/667 chips
4 x 500GB 3.5" HDDs
1 x 5.25" DVD +/- RW
1 x EVGA 8800GTS/320
1 x Hauppauge PVR-500 PCI Dual-tuner TV card
keyboard/mouse/USB remote controller for Logitec mouse
.... all on 300 watts.

Wow how long have you been running this system on the 300 watt power supply please ?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Aznguy1872
Yea i was just thinking the same. So even 500 watts is enough to run a quad core and lets say a 8800 gtx then? or even fewer watts? Its just crazy how somany people I see from their rig that have at least 600 watt psu's. I always think I need the same, but I guess not.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...00w-psu-roundup_2.html

Namely:
And finally, to measure power consumption of a typical home PC we assembled a system with a Core 2 Duo X6800 (running at its default clock rate) and with one GeForce 8800 GTX. This PC was easily powered by a 420W PSU from HEC Group and our measurements showed that it consumed only 280W under 3DMark06. This is not a big number, considering that 300W PSUs are currently regarded as low-wattage products.

 

[John]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: jkresh
that is low for the 12volt, and multiple 12volt rails can confuse the issue (ie it seems like it has 29amps on teh 12v or 348watts, but if add that to the 5v and 3v its about 580 so it probably cant actualy do the full 14 on 12v1 and 15 on 12v2). That being said for a singel core cpu with a 8500gt it should be more then enough (probably fine for an 8800gtx and dual core, though I doubt it could handle sli or a 2900xt and quad core).

500W would be plenty for SLI Quad Core too.

Here's what I'm running on Acer's stock 300W PS:

Acer E700 (965 chipset) board
Intel Quad-Core Q6600 (quad 2.4) CPU
4 x 1GB DDR2/667 chips
4 x 500GB 3.5" HDDs
1 x 5.25" DVD +/- RW
1 x EVGA 8800GTS/320
1 x Hauppauge PVR-500 PCI Dual-tuner TV card
keyboard/mouse/USB remote controller for Logitec mouse
.... all on 300 watts.

Wow how long have you been running this system on the 300 watt power supply please ?

Considering the fact it's pulling at least 260W under a full gaming/TAT load that's an @ 87% load on the psu. I've seen Lite-On and FSP in those Acer Desktops. What's the UL on your psu?

 

[John]

I have an Acer ASE380 in my shop that most likely has the same psu that's in dclive's system.

LiteOn PS-6301-08A
12V1 10A
12V2 13A
Combined 12V 20A (240W)
300W max DC Output @ 25C & 270W @ 50C