I know nothing about PSU's

[ToiletDuck]

I am in the process of getting a new system. Here are the specs.

Opteron 165
nVidia 7900GT
1gb(will be 2gb soon) of memory
2 Seagate 7200.9 SATAII
A dvd rom drive.
maybe a cd burner
7.1 channel sound card
DFI motherboard

I will be overclocking this thing. Strict gaming. As far as the case goes I could care less. Could be a beige box. I imagine I'll have to put a few fans in it. What would you recommend? The wattage calculator gave 322watts. Don't know how accurate that is though.

 

[big_tuna]

just to be safe i always like to go over those calculations of what is recommended.if you buy larger now it will be more future proof if you should upgrade later to new graphics card or something else in the future that will need more power.i like the antec brand myself and they can be had at good prices sometimes with rebates,they also have the sonata 2 case that comes with a 450 watts psu and the case with power supply is usually under $100 together.it should be fine for the setup you listed

 

[Mobius]

I would concentrate on boxes with excellent airflow, and I'd work as hard as possible to keep the fan RPMs down, and noise at the lowest possible level. Believe me, overclocking is cool and all, but the noise made by 11 fans in a box is enough to drive you insane in the long term.

Buy quiet components to begin with, and cool them with intelligence, rather than brute force and ignorance.

 

[pengwin]

like th eother said, good air flow etc.


Gigabyte 3d Aurora + Antec TruePower 480w or higher will be fine

 

[clue69less]

I am in the process of getting a new system. Here are the specs.

Opteron 165
nVidia 7900GT
1gb(will be 2gb soon) of memory
2 Seagate 7200.9 SATAII
A dvd rom drive.
maybe a cd burner
7.1 channel sound card
DFI motherboard

I will be overclocking this thing. Strict gaming. As far as the case goes I could care less. Could be a beige box. I imagine I'll have to put a few fans in it. What would you recommend? The wattage calculator gave 322watts. Don't know how accurate that is though.

You probably know that OC'ing increases the load on the PS, so if that's not incorporated into your wattage calculator, add 5% or so. If you're looking strictly for gameing and maybe want a CD burner, I wouldn't recommend two opticals. That's just more PS and heat load. Get a decent DVD burner and call it good. They are cheap these days.

WRT the size of the PS, I'd think 450 watts as a minimum. Newegg's still got the OCZ Modstream on sale:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104154

It's solid and a great deal at that price. The 7900Gt you're considering isn't a total current hog but be careful to not get a PS that's low on +12V current capacity. You might decide to upgrade the card or add a physics card - I'd rather spend a few more bucks up front and be covered.

If you don't mind the looks, you might consider this case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119098

It's also on sale now and breathes pretty well. I'd yank out the lower HD cage to improve airflow and put a nice quiet 12cm Quiex fan on back. I'm guessing you could add a blowhole fan pretty easily too. You might consider an aftermarket CPU heat sink fan and maybe even one for your GPU since you plan to OC.

 

[ToiletDuck]

Great info. Yea I know a thing or two about overclocking. I have a dual opteron system right now. Noise isn't the biggest issue. I use headsets to play.

 

[darklegionca]

i have a enermax liberty 400 W psu its awesome and its super quite it also has dual 12 v rails witch is a must nowadays