Power Supply

[ZoomZoom71]

Well, after dumping my 3.5" Floppy Drive, I now have 3 HDD's in my PC: 30GB boot part, a 160GB drive , and now this 320GB drive. So, I think I should upgrade my power supply. I might be right at the limit w/ a 300 watter, and I'm "hearing" my power supply even more now. So, what size should I get? 400w? 500w? I don't intend to do much more inside my PC, so I don't want to go overkill on the wattage (unless I should). What brands are recommended? Antec? Ultra? Others?

[Jon Liu]

I'd recommend Antec. They've never given me problems. As for the wattage, you don't need to go overkill. The only thing you would want more wattage for is if you were using a monstrous graphics card and were going to overclock both your CPU and GPU as well as tweak the memory settings.

You would want extra stability and it's not so much even directly related ot the wattage. I don't think it's something you necessarily need to worry about.

500Watts is probably very safe number, but you'd probably still be able to get by on 400W without any worries.

[Wood Ghost]

Nother vote for Antec, I have 80 GB boot 3 250's & 1 300. Plus a video editing card been using a 450 for couple years no problems.

[CamDawg]

Hey E. I have an Ultra Xfinity 600 Watt PS that I bought in October. I opened the box to take it out and install it in the computer I was building. Unfortunately, the PS was too big for the case, it's never even been powered on. It goes for $80 + shipping at Tiger Direct. If you're interested, I'll sell it to you for $50 plus shipping. It's this model: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...638&CatId=1483

[ZoomZoom71]

600w? That seems a bit much. It's probably safe to assume I'd never need another PS after that, huh? Sell me on the Ultra. Why that brand over the Antec?

[Woundup]

Zoom I think you would be fine with a 400 watt Antec. I think even a 500 watt is an overkill.

[ZoomZoom71]

OK, I'll check out the Antec.

[D_Litch]

Most high-end gaming PCs have 600w(maybe less). I have a 500w Antec that I bought for gaming last year(before my motherboard and graphics card both crapped out).

This is one like I have.

[Woundup]

I agree D-Litch , but Zoom never said he was rebuilding his pc into a high end gaming machine. From what I get out of his post he just wants to make sure his power supply is sufficient to run his pc with his new additions.

Is that correct Zoom?

[D_Litch]

I know, a 500w ps won't work for gaming anymore anyway. I use the 500w for everyday computing.

[lovekeiiy]

I would check to see the power comsumption ratings of the equipment you have now and see if you're starving your equipment. They system may be noiser just because you have more stuff in it.

Since your stuff is working, and performing fine, just a bit noiser, I think you're ok now. You should sit in my office. I have at least three computers running all the time. You should hear the noise when I have all four desktops, two laptops and the 360 and PS3 going, LOL; I won't mentions anything about the heat generated. Let's just say my dad likes to open the window, LOL.

[CamDawg]

I don't really have much to sell you on it over an Antec; Antec's are good power supplies. It was cheaper than an Antec at the time I bought it, so I went with it. It's supposed to be quite and it has a pretty neat flexible cabling system that makes it easier to route and manage the cables.

My only recommendation is to make sure that you have a good sense of the current (and immediate future) draw for your system. Also remember that the PSU doesn't draw the rated amount of power at all times; it only draws the amount of power that your system needs. So if you have a 500 watt psu, it may draw 400 watts while your system is being used to play a game and 100 watts while it is in standby. Hopefully that makes sense. For actual power draw, here's a decent thing to go by (but with a couple of changes):
http://www.francisshanahan.com/detail.aspx?cid=543

The exceptions woul dbe for a couple of ites:
Dual Core CPUs: Intel Core Duo 2 can draw as much as 180 W; AMD X2s draw more than Intel (as much as 200 W).
DVD burners draw more power than DVD ROM drives when burning; I've seen up to 40 W as an estimate.
HDD: High performance HDDs draw a bit more than the 25 W.
For Graphics cards, SLI draw up to 250 W (depending on what chipset). I've seen measurements for non-SLI graphics solutions peaking anywhere from 80W - 160 W, so you may want to consider a little higher than the 100 W used in the link. If you're using a graphics card that is a couple of years old and wasn't a top of the line performance one, you should be OK with the 100 W esitmate.

[ZoomZoom71]

This is a home-grown PC I started w/ back in '98-99, and upgraded the MB/CPU back in '03. The PS was replaced at about the same time, as I think the old one burned up. I've added the 2 add'l HDD's since then.

Here's my current system setup:

Midtower PC case w/ Fan
P4 - 2.0ghz
512mb RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 256MB AGP 4x (the card goes up to 8x, but my board only does 4x, I think)
PCI TV Tuner card (non-HD, analog)
Wired NIC
Sound Blaster Live sound card
30GB main drive
160 GB storage HDD
320 GB storage HDD
USB peripherals: approx 4
Sony DVD-RW drive

[ZoomZoom71]

Fry's has this 500w PS for $20, after rebate.

[D_Litch]

The Basiqs are nice. They only have 1 years warranties though, all other Antec PSs have 3-year warranties.

$20 is a hell of a deal either way.

[ZoomZoom71]

Here's something interesting: 80 Plus.

I'm not much of a tree hugger (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I am interested in cutting my monthly costs. We've switched many of our light fixtures over to the CFL (compact flourescent) bulbs. Cost savings for each bulb can be up to $4 per year (12 bulbs = $4/month savings). So, I'm gonna look at some of the 80 Plus Certified power supplies, too. At a glance, they're at least 10% higher on the efficiency scale than some of the "regular" PS's, which are ringing in at 70-75% efficient.

[ZoomZoom71]

Oh, and FWIW, this PC runs all the time.