Will running a card on a 3 Amp lower than required psu matter?

more info about my psu:
http://support.gateway.com/s/POWER/6506087R/6506087Rsp2...

OEM PSU's are usually under-rated, install it and run some burn in tests and see how it goes.

You'll be fine. It seems a little odd to write "My Antec 550 Neo runs it easily." on a box for a graphics card.

no it was from a newegg reviewer I got that quote. And what are burn-in-tests?

And aren't OEM psu's usually underrated with the amount of watts they have not amps?

and some more output info about my power supply:
http://support.gateway.com/s/POWER/6506087R/6506087Rsp2...

I'm having problems with mine. My PSU is 500 W with 12V rails @ 18 amps and suppedly my Gforce 7800 GT vid card needs 12V@20 amps. Randomly while playing games I crash or my computer just turns of and reboots. The heat in the case isn't a problem, and i've played games on different operating systems (wow under Suse linux AND MS Winblows XP) and get the same results.

Stress tests on ram and cpu come up clean as a whistle, and temps are usually 35 C under load (I have a lot of fans. ) My MB is a Gigabyte P35-DQ6 R.1 and this problem has been going on for months. I am pretty sure it's the power supply, but it only goes wonky when I stress out the video card.

P.S. Nvidia sucks, I'll never buy from them again. They're no help..

So how long can you paly before your computer starts acting funny? Also, are there any diagnostic video tests I can take once I get the card to see if it can handle fulls tress?

well when i got a 9800GX2 and put it in my system, the way i powered it gave it 36A instead of 40A which is required and my fan stopped working, so i put it in my other pc and powered it correctly (giving it full 40A and more, 60A psu) the fan works great.

How do you power it with less Amps isnt it automatic? ANd was it still playable/usable without a working fan?

there was NO WAY it was playable, the idle temps were 120C for gpu1 and 117C for gpu2. i have a 750 watt psu with 4 +12v rails with 60A rated/total and 2 six-pin connectors and i used one of these,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

that hooks up by putting it on one six pin turning it into 2 six pins or into one 8 pin and six pin. so i put that on 1 six-pin then plugged it into the 9800GX2. each psu six-pin only uses 2 of the 4 +12v rails ( 2 rails per pci-e six-pin) and the rails have 18A on them so 2 rails only have 36A therefore under powering the 9800GX2 by 4A, which caused the fan to not work.

The thing is, when I tried forcing a 3870 onto my low profile system, nothing booted up on my computer screen but the fan still worked. ANd that was on a 15 Amps 300 watt psu. SO the fan I doubt will be a problem with the 9500 gt.

Also, xxcoop42xx, did you have 36A out of required 40A total or were 40 required for each card and you only had 36 for each card?

i had 36A out of the total 40A needed to run a 9800GX2. but after i plugged in the six-pin and my other six-pin with 8-pin converter it worked fine because all 4 +12v rails were there and giving the GX2 40A. i only had 1 GX2. so using both of my psu's six-pins (one with a 8-pin converter) it worked like new. but before i only used 1 of the psu six-pins with a y-split making it a 8-pin and 6-pin ( only using 2 +12v rails which = 36A = no fan) i hope im not confusing you and making you think this is your problem. this is a way different problem then what your having.

so do you think the 9500gt would play on 15 amps? Maybe because your card was so powerful the 4 amps made a bigger difference than it would on a 9500 gt?

actually I wrote the original specs wrong.

The output is +12V15A and -12V15A

whats the difference between the plus and negative sign rails? DO you combine them to form 15.8 AMps?

no thats BS.. my 9600GT was recommended 26 12v amps or something and i got it running on 16... with an oc'd CPU.

I am missing around one to two amps when I take this test of my system (how many amps it uses) for the 9600gt:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/secure/psucalculator...

they dont even list the 9400gt or the 9500gt and the 8600 gt is a 50 watt required system so I cant base my assumptions off that so Im really struggling mentally now. I used the $1.99 paid version of that calculator cause it shows Amp output on the current system. But I am not exactly even sure if my computer has a Manchester or Toledo processor. I already disconnected a 56k modem from it I am that paranoid for the extra point of an amp (although Im not even sure the modem uses it) and am already thinking of disconnecting the media card reader. Here are my specs:
http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/1009484/1009484sp3.sh...

I also dont know what exact type of fan it uses to put into that calculator.

can you guys imagine what kind of **** luck I have??? THe one card I bought out of all the choices for low profile cards isnt listed on the extreme psu test thing. It isnt even part of the options. And instead of a SATA harddrive that is listed I have a SATA2 so I dont even know how many more amps or . of an amp it takes.