I just got my 3870 in today and it actually works with my 350w psu. Even though its a low wattage it actually supplies the required amps. I haven't tried overclocking it yet, but I thought I'd post incase some people were wondering what kind of PSU they really need to run one of these. I haven't had enough time with it to really burn it in but I tried CoD4,HL: Lost Coast, and the Lost PLanet dx10 demo and it ran well.

I have:

Athlon X2 4400 (very slightly overclocked to run the ram at 400mhz, no voltage increase)
2 500gb hdd's one from seagate the other from samsung
1 dvd burner
1 sapphire 3870
Biostar TF7025-M2 motherboard

Here's a link to the PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817103012

that psu is a piece of crap

I don't know what the current rating on it is, but it seems to me that you're pushing it.

So long as its working, what does it matter?

LOL, thats great. Start praying now that in six months time when your PSU gives out that it doesn't take your shiny new video card with it. Assuming the 3870 is like the 2900 series, you are 100W and possibly 10amps to short.

Not at all 474
I have a 3850 running on my 380 Watt and it's been fine for a long time.
These cards simply don't need much power.

If you check the part number it is a rebbadged Fortron power supply. A tier 3 power supply.
Most Sparkle power supplys are rebadged Fortrons. but not all.

If there are going to be problems with the amount power available he is going to get a warning first. Windows should throw up a message about not enough power being supplied to the video card as this happened to me with my old 6600GT, if there isn't enough power the video card will simple run at lower speeds. I never heard of a PSU taking out a computer from overloading.

agreed.I've had my share of psu problems in the past.And every time a problem happened Windows recognized it and either rebooted or shut down completely. Not saying a meltdown couldn't happen, but it has not been my experience that it does happen.

I'm running an 8800GTX on a 430W PSU - absolutely no problems either.

I don't think you're overloading your system at the moment.
Your PSU actually looks decent for your hardware.
http://www.sparklepower.com/pdf/ATX-350PN.pdf
Your system is probably drawing less than 300 watts total under gaming load.
Keep us updated on how it goes with your GPU overclocking.

hmmm at 350W the card probably won't be able to perform as well under full load. It probably will stick to idling at 300 mhz core speed.

Surely idling at that speed is a great idea? Saving on both power and noise. Also what people seem to be forgetting is that these GPUs are made using a 55nm process, which makes them a lot more efficient (clock for clock) than other GPUs. So even if their clocks are higher it will still use similar amounts of power to an nVidia card. If i remember correctly the 8800GT is on 65nm and the GTX on 80nm, which is a fair amount larger than 55nm.

If you look at the tomshardware review you can see that a whole system including an HD3850 draws only 234W at load! According to the chart you can even use an 8800GTX on a 350 Watt PSU.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/1 [...] age18.html

I also have no idea where all this nonesense about a bad PSU taking out half a system with it. I've had about 3 PSU failures since i've been building PCs (10-15 years or so) and not one of them has ever damaged any components. All the other people i've talked to have said the same thing, that their PSU failing did not cause any collateral damage.

Ditto. As a computer tech, all I can say is cool you saved $50 or $60 dollars. You better keep thet money you saved cause your gonna need it if/when that thing blows out your entire system. I've seen them take out everything including IDE cables.

Its a gamble I wouldnt be willing to take. Just because it works dont mean its smart. The power supply is your systems heart. If your heart dont pump enough blood your brain wont get enough oxygen.

My CPU will run a 3.8 and soar over 70c. Do I run it simply because I can? No! I run it where it can run for a long period of time. 3.4.

Wow u are running a 3870 on a 12v rail. Not dual, one! And you only have like 12 amps. Worst then my Dell 305watt psu.

It looks to me like the sparkle 350w in question has a maximum of 25A available on two 12V rails.

That's pretty respectable for a 350w PSU...

I noticed the label matched those from FSP, I was pretty sure they are made by the same people. I know the 3870 is more power efficient then the 2900 series, but I do think they will overload that PSU at some point. Great for him if it works, but I'd replace it before something goes bad.

Care to explain dude? I heard that sparkle PSU's are some of the best.

While not pieces of crap, they aren't among the best either. I have no reason to doubt the tier 3 claim, thats about where I would put them. They aren't PCP&C or SeaSonic, but they aren't Apieva or kingwin either.

As I said, my issue with it is the lack of power. If this is the PSU from the last build, its already been put under some strain. Throw in a bunch more powerful things, and I'm not 100% certain that it will hold up.

Just because something doesn't immediately explode, that doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.

Doesn't mean it's doomed to fail either. But it's very likely that PSU is getting pushed past it's operational limits, in which case it won't last too long...

I actually intend to buy another PSU, as I didn't think it would even run on the 350 watt. I've been thinking about getting the antec earthwatts 500. Is that a good choice? I don't plan to ever use crossfire. How would I go about checking the total wattage of my system so I can see where its really at when I play games?