These parts and 480w power?

[Doomulation]

It's safe to ask, even though I saw some resailers selling Athlon 64 X2 and Geforce 7800Gt with a 480w supply... is it feasible? Should one get more power for a supply to be on the safe side? These two are quite demanding I would imagine...
Perhaps I should mention it is this card: http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=256-P2-N517-AX

[Flash]

It depends on PSU quality. If PSU is real 480W ( for example Antec TruePower) then it's ok, i've used Wildcat Realizm 200 + 6xHDD w/ 450W PSU. But if it's 480w=300w crap like LinkWorld, LCT, JNC etc. - anything can happen, even smoke :D

[Doomulation]

Don't count on it - I shall have a 500 watt high-quality psu :)

[Flash]

Well, in that case you don't need nosmoke.sys driver from MS :D :D :D

[noals]

just passing by..

you can look here (http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp)
or here (http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/)

i maybe misunderstand this thread with my engrish, i dont know and i dont mind, im tired...

[Doomulation]

Cool! A calculator for calculating how much watt on average your system would drain. I got on average a 414 watt.
Thanks for the link. Very interesting!

[arnalion]

The overall watt is not the importent thing, you need to check (ehm lack of words ^^) how much power (A) the psu can deliver on the 12V rail. :P

[Doomulation]

I've learned that by now actually, and I have made sure that the PSU selected meets my demands.

[zAlbee]

ahem.


The overall watt is not the importent thing, you need to check (ehm lack of words ^^) how much current (A) the psu can deliver on the 12V rail. :P

[GCFreak]

What's a 12v rail?

[Doomulation]

The wires that stick out of the PSU are of different voltages. A PSU may have one or two wires that output 12V and those are important when buying a PSU.

[Flash]

What's a 12v rail?
Just a +12v line in other words. On modern motherboards for P4/A64 CPU VRM (voltage regulator module) is powered by 12v, high-end videocards have +12v connector too, and of course HDDs, FDDs and CD/DVD drives. +5v is important when you have 4+ PCI cards or lots of USB/FireWire devices connected.

[arnalion]

Yup... the three "main" rails are +3,3V +5V and +12V. Some of the best power supplies manufacturers are Tagan, Seasonic, Antec and Hiper. I would especially recommend Tagan and Seasonic. I must warn you for Q-tec power supplies (crappie shit :P), a 650W Q-tec delivers around 300W constantly (650W peak)

[t0rek]

high-end videocards have +12v connector too

Only the AGP ones, the PCI-E ones doesn't need it

[Doomulation]

There is also an PCI-Express connector I think... the latest cards like the Geforce 7800GT requires one of those. They cannot survive on the Pci express power alone.
One should always check the 12V rail, as it should at least pump out 24A or more. There could also be more than one 12V rail, so combine those amperes then!
Often (AFAIK), today's PSUs pump out more than enough A on the 5V rail for a system to survive, so you really shouldn't have to worry about it.
The total watt is the V * A of all the rails.

[arnalion]

Only the AGP ones, the PCI-E ones doesn't need it

Nope all new high-end PCI-e cards have a PCI-e connector which absolutely needs 12V. But there can be diffrences between the AGP and the PCI-e. 6600GT (if it's AGP) needs an extra contact for power, but the PCI-e version doesn't, and that's because PCI-e can give more power.

[Flash]

Yup... the three "main" rails are +3,3V +5V and +12V. Some of the best power supplies manufacturers are Tagan, Seasonic, Antec and Hiper. I would especially recommend Tagan and Seasonic.
Add Enermax and Zippy here.



I must warn you for Q-tec power supplies (crappie shit :P), a 650W Q-tec delivers around 300W constantly (650W peak)
There's alot of other PSUs, not power supply, but piece of shit units - LinkWorld, Gembird, GIT, LCT,JNC,Codegen (Super Power), etc. If you want to equip your computer with self-destruct device - buy one of these :D

[WhiteX]

There is a Brazilian solution that is working very well here, it is Kmex.
I did some testing with the multimeter and it performed very well.

[arnalion]

Add Enermax and Zippy here.


There's alot of other PSUs, not power supply, but piece of shit units - LinkWorld, Gembird, GIT, LCT,JNC,Codegen (Super Power), etc. If you want to equip your computer with self-destruct device - buy one of these :D

?
PSU = Power Supply Unit

[Eagle]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103455

This bad boy has everything. 350W with 26 amps on the 12v rail. Supports P4/AMD 64 12v 4 pin connector, SATA connectors, PCI-E Power connector, Motherboard Fan Speed Monitor support connector, Adjustable fan speed and best of all it has a 20 pin ATX power connecter and a snap on 4 pin connector for EATX (24 pin) boards like the ASUS A8N-E (another good product). Plus its quiet. You can't go wrong with this one, its compatible with damn near everything, made by a quality company, and has enough power output for most systems. This is probably the best PSU I've ever owned.

[Doomulation]

When using top of the notch stuff like many HDs, a good CPU and a top of the line GFX card, a more powerful PSU is recommended. I would recommend at least 450W for new systems.
Having said that, here is a site with lots of information on PSUs as well as recommended ones:
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=136602

[TerraPhantm]

OCZ also makes great PSUs. The OCZ PowerStream 520W is what I have, and under full load, the 12v rail only drops about .01v. It has 33A on the 12v rail, and is enough for almost any system except for a dual core with dual X1900XTXs.

[Eagle]

When using top of the notch stuff like many HDs, a good CPU and a top of the line GFX card, a more powerful PSU is recommended. I would recommend at least 450W for new systems.
Having said that, here is a site with lots of information on PSUs as well as recommended ones:
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=136602


I would tend to disagree. People put to much value on wattage of the power supply, when in fact thats not what you should be looking at. Take that one I listed for example. It runs my computer which is sligtly lower than top of the line. It powers a Athlon 64, 250 GB SATA, IDE DVD burner, PCI-E graphics, and 3 chasis fans. And thats just the devices that plug directly into it. And its only 350W. I don't have it overclocked but there is nothing I see in my monitoring programs that tell me I couldn't. Furthermore I could probably add another hard drive and another optical drive and still have no problems.

[arnalion]

It's possible to run an Amd 64 3200+, 6800GT, 1024MB ram etc on a 300W psu

EDIT: I would buy a stronger psu then OCZ PowerStream 520W to 2 X1900XTX. Tagan 480W with 30A on the 12V rail was to weak to be able to run an Amd 64 3700+, 2048MB ram (2 sticks), 1 harddrive (sata II), double 7800GT's if i overklocked the cpu a bit. Overklocked the cpu 500MHz and got 2000 points lower in 3DMark05 :P. X1900XTX needs more power than 7800GT so...

[Doomulation]

I would tend to disagree. People put to much value on wattage of the power supply, when in fact thats not what you should be looking at. Take that one I listed for example. It runs my computer which is sligtly lower than top of the line. It powers a Athlon 64, 250 GB SATA, IDE DVD burner, PCI-E graphics, and 3 chasis fans. And thats just the devices that plug directly into it. And its only 350W. I don't have it overclocked but there is nothing I see in my monitoring programs that tell me I couldn't. Furthermore I could probably add another hard drive and another optical drive and still have no problems.
But if you think about the future, it might still be a good idea.
The eVGA Geforce 7800GT OC for example, it is recommended that you have at least a 450W supply.
And what if you mix that card with an athlon 64 x2 3800+ with 2 or 3 SATA and alternatively an IDE, plus 4 512 mb memory modules and a lot of external accessories feeding of the USB power plusat least one or two PCI cards, at least one of them a TV card, as well as at least one or two fans (120mm or 80mm) fans in your case?
Take a look at the wattage calculator posted earlier. This amounts to around ~420W according to the calculator, and one must not forget that they only state the average, and cannot be 100% exact.
The 12V rail should output a pretty hefty amount of ampere, and this is why I recommend a higher wattage PSU.

[revl8er]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817167009

I ordered this one when my psu burnt out again. I just hope it lasts this time.

[Doomulation]

When getting a PSU, "you get what you pay for."
Don't get a PSU because it has 500W, instead check how much voltage there is on each rail. Plus, many high-end, or quality PSUs if you will, contain overload protection. In short, it means your PSU won't burn out if something goes wrong.
Try to get one of those. I had one PSU which was high quality but I couldn't really find it outside sweden after a quick google search. Shame.

[Flash]

?
PSU = Power Supply Unit
You don't get a joke :) Antec True, Enermax, Tagan, Zippy are Power Supply Units.
LinkWorld, Gembird etc. - piece of shit units, because of very special design - "remove parts until it stops working, then put back last part and put our brand new PSU into mass production" No overload protection at all, cheap capacitors etc.

[arnalion]

I didn't quite understand this line "There's alot of other PSUs, not power supply, but piece of shit units".
So you ment that the other "piece of shit units" weren't power supplies or what? ^^

[revl8er]

Well I don't know too much about checking those, but I checked the reviews on this one and so far it had good reviews. Besides, I didn't have that much money to spend, and I was originally going for a 450w psu which was the same as this one, but the site I was trying to order from was rejecting my card.

[Doomulation]

You get what you pay for. Don't buy a crap PSU - but a good one that will last you.

[revl8er]

Well this is the first psu I have ever bought, the other ones I had came with my case.

[Doomulation]

Don't buy a case with a PSU - buy one without and grab yourself a PSU yourself and you will gaurantee it is a quality one.

[revl8er]

Well not necessarily, I've seen people actually use the stock psu from their case and not have a problem with it. I personally had a raidmax case with a 420w psu for over 2 years with no problems.

[Doomulation]

Of course, so have I, but you probably won't get a quality PSU and these days it is getting quite important to make sure it is a good PSU that can deliver good current on the right rails.

[revl8er]

Yeah, and if you are going to rely on a psu + case combo, make sure you get a good brand case, cause like you said you get what you paid for. The cases I was talking about were made by Raidmax and they were great.