I will soon be upgrading my rig to an AMD Phenom II X2 550 (80w) and possibly an ASUS GTX 260.
I currently own a cheapo Rosewill 500w power supply ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182044 ), and am worried it will simply not be enough to power the GTX. I see the 12v rails are only 16 and 15, giving a combined amperage of only 31, and the GTX supposedly requires 36.
However, I've heard that nVidia often exaggerates on the power demands of their cards, and I did read at least one case where someone with my exact same PSU used the GTX 260.
Essentially, I am on an extremely tight (college student) budget, and would like to get away with spending as little as possible... so I'm basically wondering: must I really upgrade PSUs? If I put the GTX on this PSU, is there any chance of damage?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
I currently own a cheapo Rosewill 500w power supply ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182044 ), and am worried it will simply not be enough to power the GTX. I see the 12v rails are only 16 and 15, giving a combined amperage of only 31, and the GTX supposedly requires 36.
However, I've heard that nVidia often exaggerates on the power demands of their cards, and I did read at least one case where someone with my exact same PSU used the GTX 260.
Essentially, I am on an extremely tight (college student) budget, and would like to get away with spending as little as possible... so I'm basically wondering: must I really upgrade PSUs? If I put the GTX on this PSU, is there any chance of damage?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.