PSU recomendations. PSU Calculators misleading.

I checked newegg. The smallest Corsair they have is a 400 watt unit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139008

It has a 30 amp 12 volt rail. That is certainly good enough. Figure that a 350 watt Corsair would have about a 25 amp 12 volt output. That's a little close for my taste.

My SWAG (scientific wild assed guess) for your power consumption:

CPU - OC'd: 8 amps @ 12 volts = 96 watts
GPU - 9 amps @ 12 volts = 108 watts
HD - figure 1 amp at 5 volts & 1 amp at 12 volts (labels will say a little less) = 17 watts
DVD - 1.5 amps @ 5 volt & 2amps @ 12 volts = 30 watts
2GB RAM - 3 amps @ 3.3 volts = 10 watts
MB - 3 amps @ 5 volts & 1 amp @ 12 volts = 27 watts
Fans - 1 amp at 12 volts = 12 watts

I get about 280 watts. Keeping in mind that I rounded upward in a couple of places, the eXtreme power calculator pretty closely agrees with me.

Video card manufacturers always overestimate power needs. For one reason, they cannot assume that you are going to select a good PSU. They have to assume that some people are going to select something like the Rosewill's.

I prefer to operate my power supplies at between 50% and 70% capacity. Your system would load a 350 watt PSU at about 80% of capacity. That's well within specs and the specified 80% efficiency, but as I said, I would prefer a 400 - 450 watt PSU.

And, yes, Corsairs are top bracket PSU's throughout the whole line.

thanks a lot for the info. I'll go for a Corsair 400.