PSU and Video Cards

[Tiger89]

I am buying an X850XT only $140. I was looking at a case that came with a 430watt PSU. Do you think i should buy a larger PSU or will this be ok for the Video card i am wanting?

 

[darkstar782]

I'd be very wary of a PSU that comes with a case, alot of the time they cant even achieve the power output they are rated for.

However, the x850 isnt the most demanding card in the world, but its hard to say without knowing your other components, CPU + overclock (if any), number of HDDs etc etc.

The other thing is the age, alot of older PSUs have massive +5v Rails, and tiny +12v rails, which are useless for modern systems. This is why the wattage doesnt tell the whole story!

 

[nilepez]

I am buying an X850XT only $140. I was looking at a case that came with a 430watt PSU. Do you think i should buy a larger PSU or will this be ok for the Video card i am wanting?

The answer is it depends how good/bad the PSU in your case is. Up until the rig I bought last year, I ran my computers on PSUs that came in with my various cases. One was an Inwin 500 case with what I believe was a POS 300w PSU, but from 1998 up through today it's powered various systems without any problem, but its too old (not enough amps on 12v) to work with more modern systems.

I'd put the system together and monitor it via software and if you have one, check the lines with a multimeter. If it doesn't work, any decent 300w PSU (fortron, sparkle, TGI Flower have inexpensive quality PSUs) with decent 12v rails (15a or better) will work.

Most single core CPU/GPU combos will never use 200w.

as always, take a look at www.silentpcreview.com and read their PSU guide.

 

[Tiger89]

iam buying a thermaltake case with a 430 watt psu. I will have 2 SATA hard drives. 2 IDE DVDRW's and a Core 2 DUO 6400. SHould i just buy a 550Watt psu to be safe?

 

[sirheck]

well if the psu is the tt tr2 430 watt
it is a good low end psu but you are running
extra hdds and cd/dvdroms.

so it will probably work but i would think about
an upgrade a.s.a.p

 

[Lowell]

..."I'd put the system together and monitor it via software" and if you have one, check the lines with a multimeter. If it doesn't work, any decent 300w PSU (fortron, sparkle, TGI Flower have inexpensive quality PSUs) with decent 12v rails (15a or better) will work. etc...

Hi, Can I ask, what software do you prefer, and what things are you monitoring? Thanks!

 

[neocristi]

buy a better PSU

 

[doolittle]

The TR2 430w has a single +12v @ 18A

Your power calc:

eXtreme PSU calc[/url]"]System Type: Single Processor
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2130 MHz Allendale
CPU Utilization (TDP): 100% TDP

RAM: 2 Sticks DDR2 SDRAM
Video Card: ATI Radeon X850 XT
Video Type: Single Card

SATA HDD: 2 HDDs

DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive: 2 Drives

Fans
Regular: 1 Fan 80mm; 1 Fan 120mm;

Motherboard, keyboard and mouse: Yes

PSU Utilization: 100 %

Total: 270 Watts

© 2004 - 2006 OuterVision.com and it's licensors. All rights reserved.

The +12v demand (according to the calc)

e6400 - 65w (5.42A)
x850xt - 69w (5.75A)
hdd(ea) - 13w (1.1A)
dvdrw(ea) - 25w (2.1A)
fans - 7w (0.6A)

17.6A total, looks like a close shave yes?

But also consider "real world" usage and measurements. If you don't burn DVDs at the same time you can cut that in half so it's 15.5A max and the E6400 has been measured at 50w (4.2A) so it's down to 14.3A. Remove a dvdrw it is below 14. It may work just fine.

Alternatively you can just get a case / psu combo that is within spec like these:

COOLER MASTER Centurion RC-531 $47 shipped @ amazon
SPARKLE ATX-400PN-B204 ATX 12V 2.0 400W $42 shipped @ ewiz
($89 total, not bad)

Antec Sonata II w/ SP-450 $103 shipped @ chiefvalue (if you don't mine the rash of smartpower series deaths as of late)