Hey guys, i am thinking about buying a computer that is really good but i want to know how much power i would need to use it. the specs are: Motherboard - AMD 790FX, CPU - AMD Phenom 2.5GHz Black Edition, Video Card - ATI 4870 HD, Cooling - ASUS Silent Knight II CPU Cooler, 500W PSU w/ case. I have tried to keep the specs close to the AMD Spider Platform.I was just wondering if i need more power to run it.The budget is about $1200-$1300, and so far it comes to about $1100 (I am building it myself). Any suggestions for improvement on the computer would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

go with 9950 2.6ghz and buy msi motherboard and video card they are cheaper and good brand

I found this review of a motherboard earlier today. Read this before you think about powering your new components with a cheap PSU.

"I bought a Rosewill power supply, first one had a bad capacitor, and ended up frying the first gigabyte mobo with it when I booted it up. RMA'd both, and had it happen again when the new stuff came in. The board seemed highly sensitive to power fluctuations from my second Rosewill RV600V2 power supply. I guess it could be a great board if my two different PS from Rosewill hadn't blown the thing up. The second PS ran, but pushed out some real bad inconsistent power. I can only return it for yet another replacement with newegg, which I'm not going to do. So i'm out the $230 the mobo and PS cost me, plus another $40 in shipping or so."

Don't buy a case with power supply, buy a seperate PSU. You don't need a lot of power so 500w would be fine but you should be looking at something like this or this or this

Jonny Guru has had some reports about the failure rate on the Enermax Liberty. Good PSUs, but he mentioned it in his forums. Corsair/Silverstone/PC power and cooling are better bets

try silverstone power supply from 560 - 650 watts range (Strider series). They're one of the best psu in the market today.

Here is a useful link for PSU quality (guidance only):
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=108088

I personally prefer "modular" PSUs. In this respect the Ultra X3 series cannot be beaten with Corsair coming a close second.

For non-modular PC Power & Cooling are the champs!! I have an old ~800 Watt SSI model running my server (dual Opteron) just now and it has given me very little grief over the years!!

I have had bundled PSU (case+PSU) blow up on me before. Luckly I had a good brand of MB (Gigabyte) and the explosion only took out a RAM stick... Never again!! OK well I did use another no-name brand PSU with a cheap motherboard. Now the board cannot pass RAM tests without failures even with a decent Enermax PSU... Learn from my mistakes - I don't!!

Bob

Check out this frequently updated top-PSU page: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article699-page1.html

I'm going for a Corsair PSU (they use Seasonic's technology). Véry good ones.

Awesome info thanks for the help everyone.