Buddy, trust us, get a quality power supply from a well known company. Try names like these:
Enermax
Antec
OCZ
PC Power and Cooling
Fortron
Tagan
Seasonic
You do NOT want to cheap out on the power supply - going with a low quality one could fry your whole system or leave you with a ton of stability issues. This is quoted from an article that was making the round a while ago, and it's 100% accurate:
POWER SHMOWER
or How PSU Power Ratings Mean Almost Nothing
A frustrating fact about PSUs is that there does not appear to be a stringent or regulated standard for reporting, advertising and labeling rated power. This is despite the existence of standards like ATX2.03 or Intel ATX12V.
There are well-established standards for measuring and rating HDD capacity, an engine's horsepower, or the heat generated by a furnace... but not one for how much power a PSU can deliver. There are so many cases of people with "450W" PSUs having power stability issues running a system that can't possoibly draw more than 150W. And "300W" units that keep running where the "450W" units are faltering.
It's not just about bad PSUs vs better ones. It's a dumb situation caused by uncontrolled marketing competition. Real regulation would bring PSUs out of snake oil territory and into a more sensible consumer-friendly terrain.
There are many ways PSU makers fudge to make their units seem more powerful.
1) Out and out lying. You add up the power on all the lines in many PSUs and they fall short of the rated power by 10, 20 30W or even more.
There are more sophisticated ways:
2) Limit the AC input voltage to a very narrow tolerance. The best PSUs are able to deliver their rated power given a decent range of AC input power, say 90~130V for a 120V unit. It's much more demanding to produce 300W w/90VAC input than with 120VAC, so what some PSU makers will detail in their tech specs (usually not in their consumer brochures) is to specify 115-120VAC for input power. A PSU specified this way will not deliver full power if the AC voltage sags, if there is a brown-out. Surely it causes instability more often than a PSU rated to deliver full power with 90-130VAC.
3) Specify a low operating temperature for rated output. This is quite common, but again not often seen in consumer brochures, but rather tech spec sheets provided usually only on demand by engineers or corp buyers. A typical PSU operating temp statement is somthing like this:
0ºC ~25ºC for full rating of load, decrease to zero Watts O/P at 70ºC
Examine what that says. Full power (let's say 400W) is available when the unit is at 0ºC ~25ºC. Hmmm. Think about this.
Have you ever felt air blown out of a PSU in a PC running absolutely full tilt (which it would have to do to get anywhere near 400W output) that felt cool to the fingers? 25ºC airflow would feel exactly that: Cool, given that normal body temperature is 37 °C.
So this PSU cannot deliver full rated power when its temperature goes over 25ºC. OK, what happens to the max power output capacity above that temp? It decreases gradually so that by the time the PSU temp reaches 70ºC, the PSU cannot deliver any power at all. So if you assume that this power drop as temp rises is linear, then max power capacity will drop by ~9W for every degree over 25ºC.
Now having examined as many PSUs as I have over the last 2~3 years, I have to say there's not a single PSU in ANY PC I have ever used or examined that would not measure at least 30~35ºC almost anywhere inside the PSU under almost any kind of load. And if/when it is pushed, 45ºC is nothing at all, especially for or near hot running components like voltage regulators.
So let's say 40ºC is a fairly typical temp inside a PSU. This 400W rated unit would actually be able to deliver a max of just 220W at that temp. Hmmm. Interesting, isn't it? At 50ºC, the available power would drop to just 130W. No wonder some PSUs have 3 fans each capable of 50 cfm!!
Here's a simple fact: Really high quality PSUs are actually rated for full power output at as high as 40ºC. The trick is get a hold of the spec sheets that tell such information so you can compare apples to apples. Or ask.
The bottom line? Shell out the $70 - $100 for a quality power supply. It's more than worth the money.
If you want an inexpensive and very good PSU, go with this one:
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...tion=17-104-123&depa=0
It's an A GPB Power supply made by Athenapower, and it's stacked to the brim. Over 60A on the 5v rail, which is excellent, and 28A on the 12v rail, which should be more than enough.
For under $60, you can't beat that PSU. You'll not the user review at that page by Anandtech's own FastEddie - he clued me into this PSU, and I'm tempted to replace my Enermax with it, even though my Enermax is plenty powerful for my system.
