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Will my 500w PSU support my upgraded rig?

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  • Power Supplies
  • Support
  • Graphics Cards
  • Components
  • Product
Last response: in Components
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December 27, 2006 4:58:49 AM

Hey all,

I'm looking for some opinions. I'm getting ready to purchase a X1950 XT video card, and I want to make sure that my current 500w PSU can support the load. Here's the link to it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817148027

It's not a great unit, this I know. It does, however, have dual 12v rails, supplying 16A to 12v1 and 18A to 12v2. Will this be enough to adequately power the X1950 XT? Also, this PSU does not have a PCI-E connector, but I'm using an adapter for my current PCI-E video card (6800GT) without any apparent problems. Does this matter at all?

Below are my full system specs (in case they're needed):

P4 3.2 GHz (w/ HT)
X1950 XT (Proposed)
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 RAM
80GB Western Digital Serial ATA HDD (7200 RPM)
16x DVD-ROM

Thanks in advance for any help.

More about : 500w psu support upgraded rig

a b U Graphics card
December 27, 2006 10:34:11 AM

Go to:

http://extreme.outervision.com (Power supply calculator)

and add one Hard Disk, one optical drive, video card and CPU, use high end motherboard,
calculate Watts and divide by 12 to get amps. Add 2-4 amps for safety.

Compare to your power supply 12v rails.
Combined should not exceed requirements.

Max power output on 12v rails: look at box, subtract 3.3v + 5v maximum output from total
wattage of PSU and divide by 12 to get maximum amps on 12v rail. Should be higher than
requirements. That's why we add 2-4 amps.

See this PSU 101:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/PSU-101-ftopict...

Top Tier PSU:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10...

Exhaustive PSU review:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/xbit-labs-psu-r...
December 27, 2006 5:22:58 PM

Okay guys,

I just got off the phone with EVGA, BFGTech (for the 7950 GT power reqs) and Sapphire (for the 1950 XT), and all three are saying that my current PSU (500w, 16A on 12v1 and 18A on 12v2) will be more than enough to power their respective card.

This information directly contradicts everything I've been reading on these forums. Which begs the question: do you guys still think that I'll need to upgrade my PSU as well?
!