I just got me a new 7600GT. I've clean installed the drivers a couple of times and I've tried both the regular nVidia drivers and the Omega drivers. Both give me artifacts in Team Fortress 2 and both freeze in WoW. I originally thought it was due to the power supply as I am running 3 HDs + 1 optical + 3 PCI devices. I've unplugged two of the HDs so now I'm down to 1HD + 1 optical + 3 PCI. The artifacts SEEM to be fewer in TF2 but they're definitely still there. I have a Fortron 400W PSU:
http://www.fsp-group.com.tw/englis [...] &proid=136
Video card:
http://www.evga.com/products/moreI [...] A8-N559-TR

And...I just realized the amps on the two +12V rail is 14A each which is 4A less than what EVGA recommends so I'm guessing it's because of this?

Can anyone recommend a budget PSU that will support my old setup of 3 HDs + 1 optical + 3 PCI devices?

Edit: I used to run the same setup but with a Radeon 9800PRO and, strangely enough, according to this thread:
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums [...] c=7&t=9354
My old 9800PRO requires more power than the 7600GT? This whole PSU deal is confusing.

Edit: I'm looking at some thermaltake PSUs...many of the cheaper ones have good amperage on the +12V rails. Are these PSUs reliable?
Another one that I can definitely afford is the 500W OCZ StealthXStream. According to the website there are two +12V rails each providing 18A which is the requirement for the 7600GT. Is this PSU good enough? reliable?

Stay faaar away from thermaltake, go with antec, corsair, roswell, better known power supplies, also try taking out all your ram and insert one stick and see if your artifacts are still happening or not, it might just be a bad stick of ram. 400 watts seems a little weak to me, but we dont know what processor your running, so post a reply and give us the specs to your comp .

nono, not rosewill. i just used it for 3 months, it is burnt, took my onboard, sound, my mobo, does not reconize, USB devices, trying to refund it, and get fixed my board
its performance series, RP 550-2 550W for 70$, it has 5 star, on newegg (about 300users) but mine sucked

Aww, that's what I thought lol. I guess no cheap-o thermaltake for me. I doubt it's the RAM as I was just running fine with my 9800PRO (albeit at pretty low frame rates) then I swapped to the 7600GT and the artifacts began. My specs...here comes the embarrassing part:

P4 2.66Ghz (Northwood 533Mhz FSB)
2x512MB PC2700

And as I mentioned in the OP I had 3 HDs + 1 optical + 3 PCI devices. Taking out 2 HDs seemed to have reduced the amount of artifacting. Unfortunately Newegg is unavailable to us here in Canada. My local store has a pretty decent variety of PSUs though so it's all good.

Here are a few options I'm considering:

http://www.corsair.com/products/vx.aspx (Both watt models have single 12V rail...will the amperage be enough?)
http://www.corsair.com/products/hx.aspx (3 rails @ 18A each)

http://www.ocztechnology.com/produ [...] wer_supply (500W Two 12V rails, each@18A)
http://www.ocztechnology.com/drive [...] _chart.jpg (600W, 4 rails @ 18A...overkill?)
My local store also lists a StealthXStream 600W even though its not on OCZ's website...

http://www.antec.com/us/productDet [...] odID=27430 (Also considering the 500W version, both have 2 rails @ 17A which is just below the 18A recommended for my video card)
http://www.antec.com/us/productDet [...] odID=23430 (430W, 3rails@16A)
http://www.antec.com/us/productDet [...] odID=23650 (650W, 3rails@19A..probably overkill for my system)

I've never heard of these guys but I'm gonna link it up anyways...are these any good?
http://www.mushkin.com/doc/product [...] hp-550.asp (550W, 2 rails @ 20A each)
http://www.mushkin.com/doc/product [...] -580ap.asp (580W, 4rails @ 20A each)

I'm leaning more towards the 430W-500W PSUs as they're generally cheaper and I think they should be enough. Sorry...it's a lot of links but I thank everyone for their help and I'll be grateful as I'm on a pretty tight budget and just want a little WoW/TF2/whatever goodness during my study breaks .

Edit: last but not least some seasonic goodness
http://www.seasonicusa.com/S12II.htm (the 500W model, 2 rails @ 17A each)

Unless you're upgrading anytime soon, get an Antec Earthwatts 380w or 430w.

Yea? The +12V rails are only 17A each while my card recommends 18A. Will it be alright if shared with an HD?

LOL, your card will at most draw 20-40w. Those recommendations are as useful as a pile of turd.

I figured as much...but I can't think of any other reason for the sudden appearance of artifacts. The RAM shouldn't have gone bad just like that. My current PSU is a Fortron 400W supply with two +12V rails each @ 14A.

If you have a 400 watt power supply now, going with a 380w or a 430w is not going to do it for ya. Might as well just keep what you have now. And its possible your p4 is bottlenecking your card and thats why you are seeing articfacts. But i would definetly upgrade to 500 watts or so, future proof yourself, if you decide to go with a new build next year, uneless your running some crazy insane setup, this power suppy will slide right into your new build, and you will have saved yourself some money.

If you get artifacts, it's usually either the graphics card that's defective or the actual voltage of the 12v rail.

That's what I was thinking too...get the 500W and use it in a future rig. I used to run TF2 with this processor and got playable framerates (20-30s)..can this really cause artifacts?

jbj190: I can run Warcraft 3 just fine...WoW boots without artifacts but freezes up my whole system. So probably my PSU?

Check it using speedfan or any other program that can read system voltages.

Well the +12V on speedfan is reading 11.49V. +3.3V reads 3.30V. +5V reads 5.03V. That +12V seems sketchy to me lol

Another idea also, drag that card out of your comp, go find a friend with a comp u can use, pop it in and see if your getting artifacts on your friends comp, if you are rma that biotch, if not let us know.

lol blacksci...that's an idea...but it's a heck of a lot of time which will be hard to come by for me how do those voltages look though? the +12V rail seems a tad low no?