Will a 6600GT require me to upgrade my power supply?

[BigNate]

Hey folks, need some advice here. First, here are my system specs:

P4 3.0ghz
1gb pc3200 ram
120gb WD drive
40gb WD drive
16x stock dvd-rom
Ricoh dvd+r burner
ATI Radeon 9600 video card
SB Audigy2 ZS
350 watt powersupply

And that's pretty much it except for a few USB cables for iPod and Creative Nomad use sometimes. Now, I've did some research and can't seem to find a straight answer on what level of wattage I need in my system. Right now it seems to be humming along just fine. However, I plan on upgrading my craptacular video card as soon as 6600gt AGP cards are on the market.

If I do this, will it require me to upgrade my powersupply, or not? Can someone either educate me on this? I appreciate any assistance, thanks!

Nathan

 

[kamranziadar]

I don;t think so. It will be fine.

 

[naruto1988]

depends. if it's a good quality PSU like enermax or antec, your system should be fine. IMO, it seems a bit pushing it to the edge.

 

[Marsumane]

Originally posted by: naruto1988
depends. if it's a good quality PSU like enermax or antec, your system should be fine. IMO, it seems a bit pushing it to the edge.

Notice he put 6600GT and not 6800UE. The 6600GT's require about as much power as the card u already have. Ull be fine.

 

[BW86]

well what kind of psu is it..if its a brand name 350w you'll be fine.

 

[imported_Kram]

There are several Shuttle XPC owners who are running the 6800GT with a 250W SilentX PSU, and this seems to work fine for them.

Here's a thread on an SFF forum that goes into a little more detail.

Short answer - as others have indicated, most likely not.

From what I can gather, the power supply is one of the most underrated components of a system. A low quality power supply can introduce instability. It's worth going for a reputable brand.

 

[Haps]

Originally posted by: Kram
From what I can gather, the power supply is one of the most underrated components of a system. A low quality power supply can introduce instability. It's worth going for a reputable brand.

But if you are not having stability problems then you don't need a bigger power supply right? Having a bigger PSU does not affect actually card performance.