Will my 380W power be enough?

[kalaperse]

Hey.

I'm going to upgrade my old system,
Antec sonata piano black 380W
Abit NF7-S motherboard
AMD AthlonXP 2500+ Barton
2x 256 Mt, 333 MHz DDR
Radeon 9600 Pro,
and I was thinking about buying an Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 motherboard, an Intel Dual Core E2140 1.6GHz tray processor and a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro cooler. Also, 2x1Gb DDR2 memory. I'm also thinking about overclocking the processor to about 2,5... so I was wondering if my current power is enough for all this?
Thanks a lot for answering.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Personally man, I would get a new PSU. Myself, I had a 400 watt Ultra X-connect PSU when I built my new rig, and reused it. About a month later I started having mobo problems, and voltage drops on the PSU. Ended up RMAing the board and getting a new PSU.

 

[trevorblain]

Ditto grad's suggestion. especially if you plan on overclocking, you will need a steady supply of power. more power will also be appreciated later should you decide to upgrade that video card. You can have my old 9800 pro if you don't mind driving to Wisconsin to pick it up .

 

[kalaperse]

Ditto grad's suggestion. especially if you plan on overclocking, you will need a steady supply of power. more power will also be appreciated later should you decide to upgrade that video card. You can have my old 9800 pro if you don't mind driving to Wisconsin to pick it up .

Haha, it will be a long drive from Finland...
What PSU would you guys suggest? Closer to 500w? Or is 450W enough? Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

From what I am seeing lately, seems like the amps on the 12+ volt rail are the most important thing. Check around the forums, there are links to a page that will tell you the best ones to get.

 

[tlmck]

Actually if that is a newer Sonata case with an Earthwatts PSU, you should be fine. If it is one of the older Smart Power or even True Power models, then yes I would upgrade to a newer Earthwatts 380. They are good steady supplies.

If you wanted to upgrade the video to one of the new high end cards, i would go with the 430 or even 500w models.

 

[jaguarskx]

The Antec 380w PSU will be fine. An overclocked E2140 @2.5 should consume about 60w of power. That's less than what the Athlon XP 2500+ consumes.

You can even drop in a 8600GTS and you'll still be good.

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

Hey.

I'm going to upgrade my old system,
Antec sonata piano black 380W
Abit NF7-S motherboard
AMD AthlonXP 2500+ Barton
2x 256 Mt, 333 MHz DDR
Radeon 9600 Pro,
and I was thinking about buying an Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 motherboard, an Intel Dual Core E2140 1.6GHz tray processor and a Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro cooler. Also, 2x1Gb DDR2 memory. I'm also thinking about overclocking the processor to about 2,5... so I was wondering if my current power is enough for all this?
Thanks a lot for answering.

poor board you can get a better amd cpu / board for the same price.

aslo the pci-e slot may only run at x4 speed.

 

[nukemaster]

Ran the sonata PSU with a e6600 + X1900XT(similar power use to a 8800GTS) Did not have any problems, since you look like your going to keep your 9600 your more then good to go.

 

[Gravemind123]

The board is fine, it is also the only DDR1 and DDR2 board with both PCI-E and AGP out there for core2duos and quads. It's a great step-up board for upgrading, and it can get a decent small overclock out of CPU. The power supply should be fine, as your AthlonXP draws more power then the E2140, even when overclocked. The cooler is a great budget overclocking solution also.

 

[Naw-yi]

find out for your self here:

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

from my experience theres been no need to have a psu of over 450 watts, unless your running more than 1 video card and more than 1 monitor. these are usually the most power hungry and then theirs 10,000 rpm hds, have 1 installed? try the site and see.

 

[kalaperse]

Wow, you guys have been really helpful. I have heard that if the PSU isn't powerful enough, it can damage the motherboard if it breaks. Is this true? I have seriously considered buying an OCZ StealthXStream 500W PSUhttp://www.ocztechnology.com/products/power_management/ocz_500w_stealthxstream_power_supply, but do you think that it's a little over the top? It could be good considering future updates since I can get it for about 50 euros. Ay new suggestions welcome though.

 

[nukemaster]

Well i have tested that psu's overload protection

8800GTX was just a little too much....it ran for a while then just shut it self off.....i mark that as a good thing(since it did just what its supposed to do...)....

 

[tlmck]

Wow, you guys have been really helpful. I have heard that if the PSU isn't powerful enough, it can damage the motherboard if it breaks. Is this true? I have seriously considered buying an OCZ StealthXStream 500W PSUhttp://www.ocztechnology.com/products/power_management/ocz_500w_stealthxstream_power_supply, but do you think that it's a little over the top? It could be good considering future updates since I can get it for about 50 euros. Ay new suggestions welcome though.

The OCZ is a good unit also.