How much power is recommended here?

[hardcodder]

I'm putting together a X2 3800+, a Gigabyte M55Plus-S3G, 2gb ram, 1 IDE & 1 sata2 drive, a souncard (with front panel). I don't intent on overclocking or gaming. Stability is the issue.

What is the minimum i should go for with a PSU?
i have a Tagan 330w PSU already. Should i use it?

If that PSU is ok for now, then:

In the future i will add a couple more sata2 Hdds.

I will be using the onboard VGA for now. If i have to use a separate Graphics card it will be a 6200 with silent cooling.

Will it still be enough?

 

[mkaibear]

If it's a decent PSU it will probably be alright, especially with only onboard VGA.

Emphasis on the probably and the alright...

To be certain it will work well I'd suggest getting a more powerful one.

 

[nilepez]

If it's a decent PSU it will probably be alright, especially with only onboard VGA.

Emphasis on the probably and the alright...

To be certain it will work well I'd suggest getting a more powerful one.

Assuming this PSU is relatively new, and has decent 12v rails, not only will it work well, he'll never use even 50% of it's output.

OP, if you were to run both your CPUs at a full load using, for example, 2 instances of SuperPI, you'd still be well under 200W.

My best advice to you is ignore anything you read here and go to www.silentpcreview.com where the goal is silence not the epenus advice you get on virtually every H/W site. Whether it's hear or anand or hardocp, you'll generally be advised to buy a PSU far larger than you need.

How much larger? Lemme put it this way, any decent modern PSU that's 300W could not only run your current system, it could do so with virtually any video card on the market today (this is doubly true since you don't play games and thus the video card will never draw much power).

 

[Dahak]

Well I believe that for future hardware upgrades,I recommend going with a 400watt or higher psu.only because as time goes on and hardware increases in capacity(like hard drives),they also use more power.If you can upgrade the psu now,you might as well as it will save you from doing it later.however the psu you do have will work for now.have fun.

Dahak

EVGA VF4 SLI MB
X2 4400+@2.4
2 7800GT'S IN SLI MODE
2X1GIG DDR400 MEMORY IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
520WATT PSU
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR
3DMARK05:11,582

 

[nilepez]

Well I believe that for future hardware upgrades,I recommend going with a 400watt or higher psu.only because as time goes on and hardware increases in capacity(like hard drives),they also use more power.If you can upgrade the psu now,you might as well as it will save you from doing it later.however the psu you do have will work for now.have fun.

But why? A PSU Upgrade is painless. What upgrade is he likely to make that will require more than 330w of power?

Is he going to add 10 hard drives, which if he staggered drive spin-up STILL wouldn't draw 300 watts (assuming modern drives that are using 10-11 watts)

This guys current set up is likely drawing no more than 90 watts of power from the wall at idle and maybe 150W with 100% CPU useage, which equates to, respectively, about 72W and 120W of actual output by the PSU. He's got 200w headroom. There's not a prayer that a non-gamer is EVER going to add 200w of extra hardware to this system. And frankly, aside from SLI, he's unlikely to ever need more than this PSU even if he added a $300.00 video card (see some of the system pulls that Anandtech has shown....they're generally no more than 100w from the wall for a single GPU). Yes, that'd be pushing it on this GPU if games use 100% of both cores, but that's not an issue, because he's using it for games.

The only reason to upgrade the PSU is if it has exceptionally weak 12v rails, he want's a quieter PSU or a more efficient PSU.

www.silentpcreview.com Dont delay, read their PSU Fundementals and Recommendations today.

 

[Kenyada]

Tagan makes a great 480W (U22) that will give you plenty of headroom, as your system grows. With PSUs, I've found that it's better to err on the side of more power rather than adequate power.

 

[jaguarskx]

I'm putting together a X2 3800+, a Gigabyte M55Plus-S3G, 2gb ram, 1 IDE & 1 sata2 drive, a souncard (with front panel). I don't intent on overclocking or gaming. Stability is the issue.

What is the minimum i should go for with a PSU?
i have a Tagan 330w PSU already. Should i use it?

If that PSU is ok for now, then:

In the future i will add a couple more sata2 Hdds.

I will be using the onboard VGA for now. If i have to use a separate Graphics card it will be a 6200 with silent cooling.

Will it still be enough?

The Tagan 330 can provide 18 amps on the single 12v rail, or 216w.

I estimate your max power consumtion on the 12v rail will be as follows:

Athlon X2 3800+...............................60w CPU power consumption chart.
GeForce 6600...................................28w (Click here for power consumption. - The 6200 isn't listed.
4 350GB Hard Drives.........................88w (22w x 4; Hard drives also draws additional power from the 5v rails.)
RAM..................................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v rail)
Motherboard.......................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v/5v rails)
PCI Sound Card..................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v/5v rails)
DVD Drive.........................................14w
3 120mm Case Fans...........................15w

Total max power consumption.............205w (On the 12v rail - 100% load)

The 205w estimate assumes every single component is running at their max which is unlikely to happen.

It also takes into consideration 4 large hard drives, and a faster Geforce 6600 video card. Assuming the CPU is being maxed out and you are reading/writing on two drives, I estimate the power consumption will be 175w.

Your Tagan 330 should be fine, even with two more SATA Hard Drives.

 

[Dahak]

alright.point taken.I've just always believed it is better to be safe than sorry that's all.forget the upgrade for now.
and thanks for the info.I actually didn't know exact power consumption for some of that hardware.learn something new every day.grinzzz.

Dahak

EVGA VF4 SLI MB
X2 4400+@2.4
2 7800GT'S IN SLI MODE
2X1GIG DDR400 MEMORY IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
520WATT PSU
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR
3DMARK05:11,582

 

[hardcodder]

I'm putting together a X2 3800+, a Gigabyte M55Plus-S3G, 2gb ram, 1 IDE & 1 sata2 drive, a souncard (with front panel). I don't intent on overclocking or gaming. Stability is the issue.

What is the minimum i should go for with a PSU?
i have a Tagan 330w PSU already. Should i use it?

If that PSU is ok for now, then:

In the future i will add a couple more sata2 Hdds.

I will be using the onboard VGA for now. If i have to use a separate Graphics card it will be a 6200 with silent cooling.

Will it still be enough?

The Tagan 330 can provide 18 amps on the single 12v rail, or 216w.

I estimate your max power consumtion on the 12v rail will be as follows:

Athlon X2 3800+...............................60w CPU power consumption chart.
GeForce 6600...................................28w (Click here for power consumption. - The 6200 isn't listed.
4 350GB Hard Drives.........................88w (22w x 4; Hard drives also draws additional power from the 5v rails.)
RAM..................................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v rail)
Motherboard.......................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v/5v rails)
PCI Sound Card..................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v/5v rails)
DVD Drive.........................................14w
3 120mm Case Fans...........................15w

Total max power consumption.............205w (On the 12v rail - 100% load)

The 205w estimate assumes every single component is running at their max which is unlikely to happen.

It also takes into consideration 4 large hard drives, and a faster Geforce 6600 video card. Assuming the CPU is being maxed out and you are reading/writing on two drives, I estimate the power consumption will be 175w.

Your Tagan 330 should be fine, even with two more SATA Hard Drives.

Thank you so much, you've been VERY helpful!

The cpu will be Athlon 64 3500+ (AM2) which is 48w instead.

What this setup will be used for is mainly audio applications. So, i have to take into consideration that the CPU and 2 Hdd's (1 IDE WD 320gb and 1 Sata2 WD 320Gb 16mb) will get to be at full load at some point. From what you say, this PSU is more than enough for that. Eventually i will add 1 or 2 more Sata2 HDD's. Even if i do, with all 4 at full load (based on your estimation) the PSU will be fine

Now, your post made me think:
Ocassionaly, I DO enjoy games and since you added the 6600 it makes me wonder if i could add something like a 7600gs or gt... :?: (No overclocking, default settings).
In that scenario, only the CPU, 7600gs (or gt) and one HDD (the IDE) can be put to full load.

Will i be safe? Should i do it?

 

[hardcodder]

As a sidenote:

i see many new PSU's have two 12V rail feeds (around 16 each - some go to 20)

What is the purpose of those?

Are they better than a PSU that has one 12V of anywhere from 22 to 28A?
And if so, why?

 

[mkaibear]

Yes.

First, they tend to add up to a greater A.

Second, the independant rails mean that they're more likely to maintain a stable 12V if something comes and starts draining a load of power.

 

[nilepez]

As a sidenote:

i see many new PSU's have two 12V rail feeds (around 16 each - some go to 20)

What is the purpose of those?

Are they better than a PSU that has one 12V of anywhere from 22 to 28A?
And if so, why?

Edit:
after rereading the PSU guide on
silentpcreview I realized I was in error. The reason for 2 rails was because Intel's ATX 2.0 spec specifies that you should have no more than 240VA on a single line. Thus, if you want more than 20 amps, you need 2 rails. However, this has apparently been removed from the spec.

There's much more to this than I feel like writing. Just read this page and you'll know more than you ever wanted to know.



But it's a moot point. Virtually all new, quality PSUs come with at least 2 12v rails.

 

[NeonDeon]

PCI Sound Card..................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v/5v rails)

Just checking, but are you sure about that? It must be an older card not to use any watts.

 

[luckyspeech]

PCI Sound Card..................................0w (Power is drawn from 3.3v/5v rails)

Just checking, but are you sure about that? It must be an older card not to use any watts.

His estimate was for the 12v rail only not overall power consumption.