PSU for my setup?

[JSD13]

Hello all,

I just put together a new PC and Im reusing a few components from my previous one, and Im wondering if you think my PSU will be sufficient.

Here is the setup:


AMD Phenom II X3 720
ASUS M4A78T
Radeon HD 4850 512 MB
Radeon 450 (For 3rd monitor)
4 GB DDR3 RAM
120GB IDE HD (From old PC)
500 GB SATA HD
Pioneer DVD Burner
5 120mm Case Fans
Antec 300


The PSU is a 550W Antec TruePower 2.0 from my old system.

What do you think? If its no good can anyone recommend an alternative? Also, what do you guys think of this system as a performer and moderate gaming machine? I got it all shipped for $650 (not including the HDDs which I already had)
Thanks

 

[stonebattle]

I would think your setup should run less than 80% of your power supply's rating, so it should work. If the power supply is over 5 years old you may want to consider a new one.
Check to see if the power supply you have has short circuit and overvoltage protection on all outputs. If not, replace it with one that does.

 

[JSD13]

I would think your setup should run less than 80% of your power supply's rating, so it should work. If the power supply is over 5 years old you may want to consider a new one.
Check to see if the power supply you have has short circuit and overvoltage protection on all outputs. If not, replace it with one that does.

Only thing that worries me is it has 2 12v Rails @ 19amps.

Supposedly the 4850 uses 280W @ full load. Unfortunately my knowledge is limited here so I dont know if thats OK or not.

 

[tecmo34]

Your PSU should be good enough to run your system but I would recommend upgrading to at least a 650watt or 750watt PSU. If you decide to do so, I would recommend either a Corsair or PC Power&Cooling PSU.

Without knowing about your HD's, you might be better off upgrading to a WD Black or Seagate 7200.12 series hard drive. Both hard drive families are very fast and you should see mark improvement over an older 5400 SATA HD or IDE HD.

Your system should perform nicely as a moderate gaming system and if down the road you upgrade the GPU... it'll perform even better. The Phenom II X3 720 is a great CPU for the price and performs very well in gaming and OC's good too.

 

[jsc]

Only thing that worries me is it has 2 12v Rails @ 19amps.

Supposedly the 4850 uses 280W @ full load. Unfortunately my knowledge is limited here so I dont know if thats OK or not.

A 4850 needs about 110 watts. Although it seems a little low, the 280 watt figure may be the total watts for a "typical" system.

 

[JSD13]

Your PSU should be good enough to run your system but I would recommend upgrading to at least a 650watt or 750watt PSU. If you decide to do so, I would recommend either a Corsair or PC Power&Cooling PSU.

Without knowing about your HD's, you might be better off upgrading to a WD Black or Seagate 7200.12 series hard drive. Both hard drive families are very fast and you should see mark improvement over an older 5400 SATA HD or IDE HD.

Your system should perform nicely as a moderate gaming system and if down the road you upgrade the GPU... it'll perform even better. The Phenom II X3 720 is a great CPU for the price and performs very well in gaming and OC's good too.

You think its worth it to just say screw it and spring for the $75 Corsair 650w single 12v rail?

The HDs Im using are a WD1200JB IDE drive from like ~2003 (Its a 120GB that I just install the OS, and any programs on) Then I have a WD 5000AACS 500 GB SATA drive that I use for all my storage of movies, music, and everything else.

I like to have one drive (or partition) JUST for the OS and installed programs so that I can format it every few months and do a fresh install. Is that IDE drive a bottleneck? They are both 7300 RPM I believe.

 

[hefox]

Your Antec is ok. Is nothing to worry about for now.

 

[gkay09]

The OS on the IDE is not a good choice...Your PC's performance would be crippled...
That SATA 500GB would noticeable faster than that IDE drive...
And always OS should be on the faster drive...

 

[JSD13]

Your Antec is ok. Is nothing to worry about for now.

How can I make sure to separate the power amongst the 12v rails?

 

[JSD13]

The OS on the IDE is not a good choice...Your PC's performance would be crippled...
That SATA 500GB would noticeable faster than that IDE drive...
And always OS should be on the faster drive...

Well I cant install it on the 500GB now, because I have all of my data on it and cant do a clean sweep. Should I just grab a new SATA drive (smallest possible) then run the OS on that?
Newegg has a 320GB SATA for around 50 bucks, and a 160 GB for about $40

 

[gkay09]

That is a good idea...

 

[hefox]

How can I make sure to separate the power amongst the 12v rails?

I'm sorry but I don't understand your question.

 

[WR2]

How can I make sure to separate the power amongst the 12v rails?

Not necessary for you to do anything.

Since your TruePower2 doesn't have any PCI-e power connectors for the newer video cards you'll want to make sure any 4850 video card you choose has a molex to PCI-e adapter in the accessory pack. Some video card now have SATA to PCI-e power connectors which would probably work for you.

 

[JSD13]

Not necessary for you to do anything.

Since your TruePower2 doesn't have any PCI-e power connectors for the newer video cards you'll want to make sure any 4850 video card you choose has a molex to PCI-e adapter in the accessory pack. Some video card now have SATA to PCI-e power connectors which would probably work for you.

my psu has 2 6 pin PCI e hookups. Is this not the right one?

 

[WR2]

Is this your PSU? TruePower II 550

It looks like the Antec site is showing a different PSU connectors under the TruePower II 550 connectors link.

 

[JSD13]

Is this your PSU? TruePower II 550

It looks like the Antec site is showing a different PSU connectors under the TruePower II 550 connectors link.

That looks like it. That link says it has PCI-e

 

[WR2]

Which are missing off the Connector chat which I checked.

 

[JSD13]

Which are missing off the Connector chat which I checked.

So I should be good then right?

 

[JSD13]

Would this WD SATA 160GB be a worthwhile improvement over my current WD1200JB for the OS to run on?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075

 

[marco324]

Would this WD SATA 160GB be a worthwhile improvement over my current WD1200JB for the OS to run on?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136075

So I should be good then right?

not really necessary but this is a better drive 16mb cache free shipping 500gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145215

 

[JSD13]

not really necessary but this is a better drive 16mb cache free shipping 500gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145215

Don't think I need that much space for a os install. Are there other 16mb alternatives?

I guess for 50 bucks you can't really go wrong though. Think I'll notice a diffference with either of these 2 compared with my IDE drive?

 

[marco324]

sata cables are thinner there both 7200 rpm drives sata will be a little better throuput maybe easier on cpu if you game i think some games
will only install on the c:\ drive but yea the price is pretty good can
always find something to throw on it dvd movies music ?
oops and if it's a 1 platter higher density drive like the western digital 500gb black it will access faster cache helps
alot and if your going to raid them will be the real benifit of sata 2

 

[JSD13]

sata cables are thinner there both 7200 rpm drives sata will be a little better throuput maybe easier on cpu if you game i think some games
will only install on the c:\ drive but yea the price is pretty good can
always find something to throw on it dvd movies music ?
oops and if it's a 1 platter higher density drive like the western digital 500gb black it will access faster cache helps
alot and if your going to raid them will be the real benifit of sata 2

Well the reason I dont like to put music/movies/etc on my c: drive is because I like to be able to format every few months without losing it all.

Ill probly just get something SATA 16mb cache. I dont know anything about RAID or the benefits.

 

[marco324]

you can partition it just an idea

 

[JSD13]

I ordered the Hitachi, thanks man.

One last PSU question. My case has 4 120mm fans and on 140mm fan. The manual for my PSU says use a max of 3 fans. Think this will be an issue?