Will my current PSU will be enough?

Inf3rnal

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Jul 15, 2009
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Hello!

I'm upgrading my PC shortly and was wondering will my PSU be enough to power new components.

My current system:
AMD Athlon 64 4000+,
2GB DDR 400 ram,
nForce 4 mobo,
Asus GeForce 8800 GTS 640,
Creative X-Fi sound card,
some cheap 300W PSU,
and a couple of SATA drives...

And I want to change:
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ —> Core i7 860 (AMD TDP is 89W, i7 860 is 95 W)
2GB DDR 400 —> 4GB DDR3 1333/1600 (DDR3 is more energy efficient right?)
nForce4 —> Gigabyte 55 UD3

The problem is I really want that i7 860 (instead of Core i5 750), but in that case I can't afford new PSU (unfortunately waiting is not an option). If my math is right new hardware should run just fine untill Iam able to upgdate PSU? In worst case scenario I could unplug one of my hard drives and/or sound card :) What do you think?
 

andy5174

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Enough? No way! It's far less than enough. You need at least a decent 550W PSU, such as the Corsair TX550. Corsair TX650/HX650 instead for extreme OC.
 

andy5174

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400W Minimum for 8800GTS which require a "80 plus" 500W(=400/0.8) PSU. In addition, he needs a few more watts as he has lots of HDDs in it.
 

Inf3rnal

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So the new hardware will require much more power than my current setup? Does CPU TDP means nothing?
 

andy5174

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TDP = Thermal Design Power, which is the max tolerance of the CPU. You should never over power it unless you want to cook it. BTW, 300W is not enough even for your current setup if your gfx runs at its max potential. Guess you never play games that will max out your gfx!
 

Inf3rnal

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I do play some games. But my CPU bottlenecks GPU...
 

enayet_redeemer

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You must upgrade your PSU along with CPU, RAM and Mainboard. A 450Watt PSU with 80+ rating will do. I don't know how you ran your PC with a 300Watts PSU and 8800GTS card. :ange:
 

shubham1401

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Probably that card was not working on its full potential...