Is 480W sufficient for new gaming cards?

[Cobykills]

Hi I currently have an Antec 480W purchased in February 2004. It performs tremendously well on my socket 939 system which enables me to leave my PC on 24 hours without any problems. I currently use the GeForce 6600GT.

In December I plan to uprade to something like the X1950XT (not SLI though). Will my 480W PSU be sufficient or do I need more power? I also potentially uprading to a Core Duo processor.

Also do you know how to link this post with my other post? So people can view another post which might be relevant to this (I know this quetion is non PSU related)

 

[Cobykills]

How do I check this rails and stuff? I just went to the website this is my PSU - http://www.antec.com/us/support_productInfo_details.php?ProdID=07481.

 

[Tyrvidar]

I have a 480w (too lazy to check the brand) with all of the listed specs of my signature. With 2 harddrives, 1 80 and 2x 120 mm fans and some other random crap. No issues with power.

 

[someguyy]

My Antec Neo480 (not NeoHE) has 18 amps on 12v1 and 15 on 12v2 if that is of any help.

Bought mine back in late 2k5.

 

[enforcer22]

I wouldnt trust it if you have alot of power sucking hardware in your computer even if hte rails are sufficient it just wont push the power. Just remember ATI is crossfire not sli and from what i have been reading not every board supports sli/crossfire or both at the same time. but since you dont plan on doing it then i wasted your time Tow major things to look at is the cpu and video card then hard drives then optical drives then of course fans. In order of power hogging. I think the video card is actualy before the cpu but you don want to underpower those at all so yeah 550watt better to have over head then to have just enough. Especialy with the card you want to buy. That thing sucks power like nothing else.

 

[Cobykills]

If I do have to get a new PSU. Then is generic PSU's ok? The reason I got Antec 3 years ago was that I was into overclocking that time.

Now I dont overclock anymore. Well I am going overseas to Malaysia in December and the only PSU's above 550W are branded. The cheapest of the 550W is CoolerMaster Real Power which is $400 (108USD), or 600W CoolerMaster Real Power which is $500 (136USD). Or I might be able to find a generic brand which cost 50USD.

What are your reccomendations. My new rig would be:

Core 2 Duo 6400
Socket 965P Motherboard
2GB Corsair Value Ram
X1900XT
Audigy 2 ZS
2*120GB SATA Harddisk
ThermalTake LanParty Casing (has 4 fans with a control panel)

PS: Could you go look at the specs of my old 480W Antec, I have an attachment in the previous post. I dont understand all this Volt, Amp stuff.

 

[enforcer22]

In most cases no gineric isnt good. You want to get something called true power so your actualy getting a 550watt PSU not one that says 550watt and really pushs something like 300watt The you get what you paid for law is relavent with almost everything.

 

[Cobykills]

My casing is blocking me from reading it? I dont intend to dismantle the PSU now, anyway these are the figures I obtained from the website. Dont know why the previous link didnt work here is the new one:

http://www.antec.com/specs/true480_spe.html

OUTPUT
----------- | Max Load---- | Min Load
+5V------ | 38A-------- | 0A
-5V------- | 0.5A-------- | 0A
+12V----- | 28A-------- | 0.8A
-12V------ | 10.A------- | 0A
+3.3V---- | 30A------- | 0A
+5V SB--- | 2A-------- | 0A

Does this mean I have only 1 rail? And its 28A... so this means its ok right coz you mentioned iether 2 rails with 16A or 1 rail with 26A (and it says I have 28A).

 

[rwaritsdario]

Junk post thank you very much.

 

[rwaritsdario]

Here's the real deal about their power draws. Sorry about my former post.

 

[Dahak]

That psu should be fine for that card.You just need to worry when you add lots of hardware or get a second vid card for sli or crossfire.Goodluck.

Dahak

AMD X2-4400+@2.4 S-939
EVGA NF4 SLI MB
2X7800GT IN SLI
2X1GIG DDR IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR 1280X1024
ACE 520WATT PSU
COOLERMASTER MINI R120

 

[rwaritsdario]

The marketing material included with the card claims NVIDIA requires at least a 450W power supply for a single GeForce 8800GTX, and 400W for the 8800GTS.

Sounds like the whole setup to me. But those are around the requirements for the actual highest end cards arent they?

 

[sailer]

The marketing material included with the card claims NVIDIA requires at least a 450W power supply for a single GeForce 8800GTX, and 400W for the 8800GTS.

Sounds like the whole setup to me. But those are around the requirements for the actual highest end cards arent they?

I've read a couple anouncements on the 8800GTX and 8800 GTs and I think that Mpilchfamily is right, thoe power draws are for the cards alone. One of the artilces I saw was recommending a 800 wt psu for a machine that used the top card. Sli combo's could reach 1000 wts. Looks like these things are going to drink power like it was water.

I'm hoping that the writer of that article mis-interpreted something and that you're right about the 450 wt psu being for the whole setup. Then again, ATI recommended at least 550 wt for my X1900 XTX. If the new cards do draw 800 wt or more, a lot us are going to be buying big, expensive psu's in the coming year.

 

[rwaritsdario]

Thank God SLI will always have that awful $/performance point it currently keeps.

 

[Cobykills]

800W is ludicrous! Nobody actually produces a PSU with that specs. Even if there is it will probably cost the same ammount as your processor!

Anyway

So i'll assume the worst here.

A64 3000+
x1950xtx
1 SATA HDD
1 DVD-RW

At close to full loads on each is pulling 263W witch means it's pulling 21.92A. So your PSU will be fine with the new video card. Even if we add 2 sticks of DDR RAM that only brings us up to 277W and 23A.

I think your good to go.

How about my new rig which is

6400 Core 2 Duo
X1950XTX
2X SATA HDD
2 X DVD Drives
2 X 1GB Ram
Audigy 2 ZS
Casing with 4 Fans and Control Panel

 

[Cobykills]

Thanks alot mpilchfamily and the rest of you guys. That will save me from buying a costly PSU, when I can use that money to buy other parts.

I guess buying that Antec 3 years ago was a good investment. Never once did it KO on me. Those generics KO'd my dad's PC a couple of times. One time it fried the motherboard.

Also now I know abit more about Watts & Amps.

 

[sailer]

Thank God SLI will always have that awful $/performance point it currently keeps.

Yeah. The way this sounds, SLI/Crossfire may find its death sentence, at least for anyone but the very rich or the fanatical gamer.

 

[kronos83]

if you are running non SLI your power supply should be fine. here are my system's specs and it runs 24/7 no problems
asus socket 939 asn32deluxe -sli
antec true power 480W (with the blue lights) bought in 2004 as well
amd athlon 64 4800 x2
2 SATA HDS(320 gig, 120 gig)
2 IDE (60gig, 200gig)
bfg 7900gtx
2gig OCZ titanium
lighton DVD burner w/lightscribe
plextor 52x burner
5 case fans, and it runs fine,

and the rails look fine underload with the monitoring software. so I would say that you probably arnt as hardware heavy as my comp is right now so it should be fine

 

[Cobykills]

Many buy there PC's from custom built companies and get SLI that way.

But you have to admit Alienware does look cool, although more expensive than making them yourself. I think when I am rich ill get my stuff from Alienware.

 

[rwaritsdario]

Cheaper? Woah thats a amazing. Actually theyre one of the cheapest but ive heard theyve got awful customer support and warranties, the complete opposite to ABS.
When Ill get rich ill spend so much in sophisticated cooling solutions that ill be earned a world class overclocking record. But definetly keep on building my own

 

[Morton]

Geforce 8800 GTX - 450W with 30A on 12V rail
Geforce 8800 GTS - 400W with 26A on 12V rail

http://www.pcwelt.de/news/hardware/video/61081/index2.html

 

[Morton]

Won't a 400-450W PSU be enough if it has two 12V rails with 14-18A in each?

 

[enforcer22]

Thank God SLI will always have that awful $/performance point it currently keeps.

Sucky part is once SLI is mature and everything gets coded for it correctly youll be seeing close to 100% gains in games if not 100% gains. it just sucks balls right now unless you play oblivion or fear since from what i have seen they have been optimised with SLI.

 

[rwaritsdario]

Thank God SLI will always have that awful $/performance point it currently keeps.

Sucky part is once SLI is mature and everything gets coded for it correctly youll be seeing close to 100% gains in games if not 100% gains. it just sucks balls right now unless you play oblivion or fear since from what i have seen they have been optimised with SLI.
I think for the enthuasiasts SLI will simply die instead of gaining ground. Simply because we OC and take the best $/performance, while the masses fall for the hype.

 

[enforcer22]

It died the first time becuase it really didnt do anything worthwild. Even though its new with coded games it does ALOT. enthusiest people will get SLI hell im going to get SLI once more games are coded for it. Actualy i should say im getting crossfire when more games are coded for dual GPU. since people like me are more concerned with frames and high resolutions/quality graphics then price/praformance. xfire SLI i think are going to stay for now until a new tech comes out to replace it. But like i said when it comes to oblivion and fear SLI actualy does something i think up to 80% increases other games its nominal. if tweaks in coding and hardware make it near 100% or close to thats not really hype its fact. Yes SLI Xfire right now is a huge waste of money unless you play those two games or games made on that engine constantly but how long has SLI been out? you always have to give a year or two of a tech being in hte main stream to saturate the market then software makers will fallow. Assuming the tech is sound.