Power Supplies

Ok, I have a question seems that I get multiple answers on this on other WWW pages, and since Tomshardware to me is dependable I am going to ask here.
Here is my delima, I bought a 850w psu from Apower and it crashed on me after 6 months. I need to know what is the watts I really need, on EVGA www page it says I need a 500w min for my graphics card, but other people says otherwise. Here is my current rig

Giabyte MA74GM-S2 MB
AMD PHENOM X3 8650 CPU
EVGA NVDIA 260 GRAPHICS CARD
2 DDR2 PC6400 4 GIG MEMORY CHIPS
5 STANDARD SATA HDS
2 IDE HDS
3 SMALL FANS FOR CASE
LIGHTS GOING AROUND FRONT OF CASE
3 USB'S BUT THEY 2 ARE SELF POWERED

I do not overclock. I know people say you get what you paid for, so I am not looking at a corsair or OZX PSU. what is the min wattage I would need, I am not planning on adding more hds, I am actuallt planing on buying a 2tb to replace 3 hds. Thanks for your time

Aaron Hart

/agreed I am *not* a believer in skimping on the PSU. They're not that expensive to begin with, and a bad or marginal one can cause endless headaches.

Corsair, OCZ, PC Power and Cooling...

In your wattage range, and less than $100:

OCZ - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341001 $80, less $20 mail in rebate.

Corsair: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139004 $90, less $10 maikjl in rebate (highly recommended)

The general rule of thumb is a high quality 500 to 550 watt power supply with sufficient current (amps) on the 12 volt rail(s) can easily power a system with any single video card made. A high quality 700 to 750 watt power supply with sufficient current (amps) on the 12 volt rail(s) can power a system with two video cards operating in dual mode. There are some exceptions such as the ATI Radeon HD 5XXX series card which are a little more energy efficient.

Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, and Seasonic are some of brands with a reputation for high quality. They consistently earn high marks in technical reviews. They are stable, reliable, and come with a 5 year warranty. Lately we've been seeing other brands offering some high quality power supplies.

Depends what you are powering with it.

One more question.

I have this thread open.
What kind of PSU do I need to buy so it has the 8 pin connector that the Gigabyte mobos use?

One example would be the high quality Corsair VX550:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139004

It has a 4+4 pin connector which can be used either as a 4 pin or an 8 pin motherboard connection. They've got both types covered.