Is this even possible?

A neighbor in my building claims to be running a AMD quad core processor and a geforce 9800 gx2 powered by a 300 watt power supply. Do you think that he is BSing, mistaken or could this power supply just be giving more juice than it's supposed to? He does say the system is very hot. To me that indicates a slight possibility that the power supply is supplying enough amps but is going to burn out soon.

He does say lots of strange things.

It might be just about possible if you choose a low power phenom and use a single low power harddrive and any way to save power. However, you're going to put a lot of strain on the PSU, and it probably won't last long. So he's a moron or mistaken. Or lying.

Anandtech measured 346 at the wall with an i7 965 & 9800GX2. That's less than 300W at the PSU.

running that setup on a 300W psu might be possible but not at all smart. Just like Chris Rock said, "you can drive a car with your feet, but it doesn't mean it's to be done!"

think of running your cars engine at its redline all the time, that's similar to what he's doing....

A single 9800GX2 uses 217.5 watts and 18.1 amps at load.

The source of the information is the Tom's Hardware article about video cards and power requirements. There is a link to the article on the home page.

A power supply such as the SeaSonic SS-300TFX 300W TFX12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply is rated at 36 amps.

Hmmmm......it seems quite possible depending on the rest of the components and the configuration.

i say the system would run. but running and running well aren't necessarily the same thing... for all you know, he might have just manged to get the system to turn on with that power supply and then got a new one because it obviously didn't work.

I had to check that out. The two 12V rails combine to give 252W. I'll have to look through some more info before I can even come near to understanding.

The source of the information is the Tom's Hardware article about video cards and power requirements. There is a link to the article on the home page. The power and amperage charts are on page six of the article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 122-6.html

I just checked to make sure I was looking at the results for the 9800 GX2 (2x512 MB). It's the third listing in the first chart.

Here's the Seasonic web page for the power supply:

http://www.seasonicusa.com/tfx.htm

It is showing two 12 volt rails at 18 amps each but nowhere does it state it has multiple rails. The psu's usually have one large 12 volt rail that is divided in "virtual rails". It appears to be an advertising gimmick. There have been numerous articles about the advertising hype. Seasonic also manufactures Corsair and PC Power & Cooling psu's. I know all of the Corsair units are one large 12 volt rail. I was just using the Seasonic psu as an example. It was the first 300 watt psu at newegg that I noticed.