PSU Blew up, recommended UPS'?

[DemerzelSG]

Last night my Antec 550W Truepower PSU died in a beautiful shower of sparks and smoke, so now I'm crossing my fingers, hoping at least SOME of my system components are still intact. While I work on the RMA process, thought I'd drop a line here and get some opinions.

First of all... should I dump the Antec and go with Enermax... or maybe another brand name?

Second... I've decided I don't ever want this to happen again, so I want to purchase a UPS. I've been looking over APC's selection, and am leaning towards their "Smart-UPS" line. However, their ratings are a little confusing for me.

I figure since the difference between their lowest and highest version of "Smart-UPS" is ~$50 USD, I'd just go ahead and get the 700VA version. Questions... do I need that much power? I *definitely* want AVR, as the wiring/grid in my house/area is extraordinarily crappy.

I eventually plan to have a 3.0Ghz chip, RAID 0 (2 HDs), 3 monitors, 3 graphics cards (1 AGP, 2 PCI), and lots of fans. Will 700VA cover that kind of setup for a decent amount of time? Will a lesser VA do the job? I'm kinda lost in the UPS area, any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

2.4Ghz P4 800Mhz FSB, H/T
Abit IS7 Mobo i865
1GB PC3500 DC DDR (Corsair)
(2) 36GB RAPTOR SATA HD in RAID 0
ATi Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB
SoundBlaster Audigy 2
WinXP

 

[kinetic_tw]

How is getting a UPS going to prevent further PSU failure? Do you know what it was that caused you Antec to fail? Did you receive a power surge or something that blew it up? The Antec True Power series is historically VERY reliable and non-problematic. I'd definately look into replacing it with one of the same. Alternatively, you could look at a Fortron FSP-450, which outputs over 500W at peak.