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would a 300 watt power supply be big enough for this computer

T

thejackal1

Senior member
I am building a new computer and was wondering if a 300w power supply in the the antec sx830 would be big enough for this system

Epox 8kha+
amd xp1800
52x cdrom
cdrw
maxtor 60GB hard drive
floppy drive
geforce 4 ti 4200
4 case fans
 
That should be OK. I have a full tower with 2 HDDs, DVD, LS-120, Firewire PCI card to CD/RW; and USB 2 to a hub, a scanner, and a media reader/writer; all DIMM slots full; Radeon 8500, etc. All on 300 watts. 🙂 (ANTEC)
 
as long as its a quality psu, i think u will be fine. if u got a cheapy psu... may the force be with u.
 
wow, I think that would really be pushing the limits of 300W, and I've always figured that the higher watt power supplies are built with higher quality components, since they have to deliver more juice, but maybe I'm wrong. But if others have experience to the contrary, then go with their experience over my theory. 🙂
 


<< as long as its a quality psu, i think u will be fine. if u got a cheapy psu... may the force be with u. >>

 
I think that's if it's a quality PSU you'll be alright. Do people even know how much power is needed from the PSU or are everybody just thinking "bigger is better"? I don't know how many watts that would draw myself, but there doesn't seem to be any real knowledege about how PSU's work and how much watt you need.
 
Maybe this will shed some knowledge on this discussion: http://www.howstuffworks.com/power-supply3.htm

Bear in mind too that most technical documents will tell you power consumption, especially on drives (hard drives, DVD, etc).

The bigger is better theory, at least for me, has more to do with quality components than actual capacity.
 
do the math

Find out how much watts your psu puts out on a 5v rail

Find out the total power consumption of your components

Subtract top from bottom, if difference is 0 or negative, psu isn't enough
 


<< wow, I think that would really be pushing the limits of 300W >>


KevinMU1, check my rig for the undeniable power of the Antec 300W 😉
 
Provided its a high quality PS (ie Antec, Enermax, etc), you'll prolly manage, but thats definately pushing the limits.
 
"Provided its a high quality PS (ie Antec, Enermax, etc), you'll prolly manage, but thats definately pushing the limits."

The second system on my rigs page is running Seti 24/7 on a 300W PS. People don't seem to realize just how little is required to run a system. Crack open a prebuilt system, there are Athlon/P4 systems often running on PS's as low as 245W or so.
 
soyo dragon plus
xp 1700 overclocked to 1800
2 sticks of ddr 256mb ram
radeon 8500
floppy-cant recall when i alast used it
dvd drive
liteon 24x cdrw
wd 80gb drive
19 inch 900 nf monitor
case antec 103b 300W

no problem with this set up. although I have often wondered if it is the power supply holding back my overclocking since my temps are mid 40's at full load.

If you plan to overclock get a more powerful psu (quality)to take it out of the equation

peace
 
Prebuilts also tend to use cheaper components and aren't going to be decked out with the latest of everything plus 89 cooling fans, and sometimes they even have integrated components, which will draw less power than card-based peripherals (video, sound, NIC).
 
i have an antec 300w running this setup.........ecs k7s5a, xp 1700+, yamaha 20x10x40 cdrw, 52x cdrom, 30gb 7200rpm WD HD, 256mb crucial CL2 pc133 sdram, radeon 8500, sound blaster live value, NIC, internal dsl modem.....and things are good
 
300 watts? No Problem!

Check out this article at Extremetech


Gateway and Compaq offered their premier desktop systems fully loaded with only 200 watt ps!
E.g. CPU Athlon XP 2100+, or P4 2.4 gig
Vid Card Nvidia Ti 4600
DVD ram or rom,
DVD rom, or CD rom
WD 7200 RPM 120 gig hdd etc

edit:

Here's a quote from the article:

The real downside of the Presario is the power supply--it's a somewhat anemic 200W supply. However, we
encountered no issues that could be attributed to inadequate power delivery, even with the power-hungry
GeForce4 and Athlon XP2100+. Since you can't muck around with the system clock or voltage settings, the
power supply is adequate to the task.
So 300 watts from a reputable company like Antek should definitely be all right.

If you like, like fatbaby said, do the math yourself.

Well, that's just my 2 cents
 
Here's another fairly well-equipped system on 300w:

AthlonMP 1600+
KR7A-RAID
256mb PC2100
2 Maxtor 5400rpm 80giggers in Raid-0
SB Live! Value
ATI TV-Wonder
10/100 Nic
GeForce3 Ti200 (overclocked)
HP9500 12x10x40 CDRW
NEC 12x/40x DVD
Umax Astra 2100u scanner USB
Creative Nomad II USB

All on a Fortron Source 300w power supply. Never a problem or hiccup. (knocks on wood)
 
300watt psus are getting pretty standard on home-built systems now so unless you're worried about the consumption of all those components, just go with the 300watt quality supply, like one from Antec, Sparkle, Enermax, or PC Power & Cooling.
 
As long as it's a good PSU 300W will be fine- no problemo.
My Rig(in my sig) is run off an Enermax Whisper 300W I don't max it out at all.

ripthesystem
 
Isn't there a way that you can measure the wattage being used by an electronic device? That would really settle this debate quickly. 🙂
 
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