how much power is my system using?

For gods sake man he doesn't need 30 amps to run a e6400 and 7600gt, that would run on 20 amps easy (probably even on 16 to 18). Just as an FYI, I ran a X2 4800+ OC'D to 2.8ghz (more power hungry than any c2d), two (2) 7800GTX, 3 hdd's and two optical drives on a 34amp 12v rail. SO AGAIN HE DOES NOT NEED 30 AMPS!!

The 400w is probably fine as I doubt that system will require more than 250w with everything running at 100% all at the same time.

If its a no-name PSU, then definitly upgrade. 500W-550W should be fine for a while, unless you plan on doing SLI. If you are, anything above 600W should be fine, especially since your GPU isin't too power intensive.

Rule of thumb is to buy a power supply which will support your system at full load at only 70-80% of the maximum wattage that your PSU would deliver. Also, the more efficent the power supply, the more money you will save in the long run as it would take less AC power to convert to DC.

500W - 550W. Antec True Power or similar.

Here's my estimate of your power consumption. All Rails means total power comsumption:


Component.....................All Rails............12v Rail
E6400 (@2.7GHz)................60......................60 CPU Power Consumption (Burn Section)
7600 gt ko..........................42......................42 Assume slightly faster than XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX Edition.
Motherboard.......................45......................20 *
RAM (2 Sticks).....................24........................0 (Draws power from 3.3v rail)
500GB Hard Drive...............40......................35 (5w drawn from 5v rail for the reading/writing heads)
DVD Burner.........................18......................18
Floppy..................................5........................0 (I'm sure it's lower, but whatever.)
3 120mm Fans (full speed)..16.......................16

Total Power.......................250...................191

Total Amps Used................30 **..................16

* 20w on the 12v rail is a bit high but whatever. Most power drawn from 3.3v and 5v rails.

** Very rough estimate based on amps on the 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails.

When looking at a PSU, the two most important things to look at are:

1. Good Brandname. There are lots of PSU companies out there. But I think the good ones are Antec, Enermax, Fortron Source, PC Power & Cooling, Silverstone, and my personal favorite, Seasonic.

2. Amperage on the 12v rail(s). I estimate you will only need 16 amps on the 12v rails to run your system. If you intend on adding any more components then you need to make sure you have more amps. As long as the amps on the 12v rail is enough, you do not need to worry about the amps on the 3.3v and 5v rails because most of the power is drawn from the 12v rails.

i copied the sticker on my power supply but i have no idea how to reads it.
+3.3V: 22A
+5V: 21A
+12V: 10A
+12V: 15A
-12V: 0.3A
er...so do i just add up all the 12v ones? i have a thermaltake power supply by the way

You can't just add them up but you probably have something like 22 amps combined, thermaltake is a decent maker so I'd stick with it until you need something better.

Why pay for something now when you don't need it?

Ok, the 7600gt uses at most 100w, more like 50w but lets say 100w for the sake of argument, (my 7800GTX only uses 80w) so 100w/12v = 8.3amps.

Can you please explain to me where you are getting 18amps from? 18amps x 12v = 216w... where in the world would you find a video card that uses 216w of power by itself?

The typical 7600GT requires about 36w of power. That works out to 3 amps.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/xfx-7600...

Ok, now I understand where you are coming from.... the reason they recommend that amount of power is because they are looking at your entire system. They recommend 18amps on 12v rail and 350w for YOUR SYSTEM, not for the video card alone. Same is true for the 24amps and 400w.

the components with the most draw on a psu are the video card, cpu, motherboard, hdd and optical drives (in order of power usage). If you look at jaguarskx's post you'll see that he comes up with 16amps on 12v and 250w total... therefore the 18amps on 12v and 350w recommended on that newegg page meet the requirements...

im gonna stick with this power supply for now (im out of cash anyway). once i get enough money though, ill definately upgrade. im planning on doing an sli later anyway.

I think that's a good decision. When you go SLI you'll probably want around 600w unless you water cool then going to 700w+ is probably a good idea.

haha. these new computers use sooo much energy. my dad is going to go crazy when he sees the power supply's label. "700WATTS!!!!!". he wouldn't pay for a portable air conditioner when it was 110 degrees because it used 500 watts. oh well.

Check out this site:

http://journeysystems.com/power_supply_calculator.php