What power supply?

[pirateclem]

Building with the following so far:

Asus P5N-T Deluxe
E8500
PNY 9600 GSO OC X2 SLI
4G Corsair low latency 1066 DIMM's 2x2G
Seagate Baracuda 750G SATAII
Seagate Baracuda 750G SATAII second
CD/DVD TBD
Floppy multidrive

How much power? I read somewhere that 1000W is suggested if you run two decent video cards in SLI but, my last system only had a 400W and it did just fine with a 2.66Ghz, 7800, 2 hard drives and 2 dvd roms. 1000W sure sounds like overkill. Any idea how to calculate power usage? I cannot find power requirements in the specs of any equipment I have purchased online. If you did buy a power supply, what manufacturer and why? I am trying to build a really nice but bang for the buck system.

 

[delluser1]

A good quality 500 watt power supply will run that system.
If you plan on running a couple of decent cards, 750 or 850 would be the ticket.

 

[Silverion77]

1) budget? This really determines what quality u can get for the wattage
2) Modular or not? Does the less wire clutter matter to you, or do you want to pay extra modular?

3) I would say you can go with a 550W easily. Main manufacturers I'd recommend are Corsair, Seasonic and the new Antec Truepower "New" look promising

 

[pirateclem]

A good quality 500 watt power supply will run that system.
If you plan on running a couple of decent cards, 750 or 850 would be the ticket.

Yeah I have two 9600 GSO OC 768M DDR3 cards coming for this system. I was thinking 500W until I started reading about power needs for SLI.

The vendor states I need 12V at 26A on the rails for one of these cards. What about 2?

Also, I plan on upgrading to a quad core in the future to extend the life of the board after games can actually make use of the quad and not waste all that power. Want to have the power available that I will need.

 

[delluser1]

Two 9600 GSO's will use less juice than my single GTX 260, most review sites would reccomend 550 watts and 36 amps, but you would be fine with a 500 watt 34 amp Antec EA 500 for the specs you listed, and you can find them for $43;
http://www.pcboost.com/store/viewitem.asp?IDProduct=13928

 

[pirateclem]

found a corsair 750W on newegg for $90. Seemed like a pretty good deal and this should give me plenty of room for expansion to a quad and two new video cards in about two years. Plus my mobo has raid 5 and I am thinking about 3 500G seagates for the primary OS/Game partitions. Thanks for the input.

 

[Kraynor]

That corsair will work perfectly. Corsair PSUs are great, have really good warranties, and will continue to perform well after the warranty expires. Good call.