What does amp amps mean???

[tomwaddle]

Lookin to move away from onboard video. Even though it appears to be working just fine at 1920x1080 on my tv, i'd like to free up some resources and get a video card.
Some video cards have a requirement:
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 26 Amp Amps.)
I am clueless what exactly they are asking for here. A link to my PSU is here
It does have a PCI E connector and the cards I am looking at are under the max load of my PSU.
So, please, how can I tell if my PSU will run a card with the above requirement?

 

[jerreece]

So the minimum recommended PSU is +12Volts @ 26 Amps. The second Amp I think it's a typo/redundancy. Your PSU specs show it has two 12 Volt rails, each with 14 & 15 Amp max output.

I'm not technical enough on PSUs to determine 100% if this will work. I suppose it depends on whether your single 6pin PCI-E power connector will draw from both 12Volt rails simultaneously. If it will, then you're okay as you'll have 29Amps total output.

Make sure the video card you're looking at only requires ONE 6-pin PCI-E power connector, because that's all you have. You won't be able to run a GTX 260 for example, which requires two 6-pin connectors. Nor will you be able to run more than one video card.

 

[pauldh]

What you need to look at is missing from that power supply label... the maximum combined +12V output (typically given in Watts). For the 12V rails, you would divide this by 12 to get the Amps. 384W / 12V = 29A.

Adding the two +12V rails often doesn't work. Two 17A rails could = 34A maximum combined, or something much lower.

According to this link 9anyway), your power supply is one actually rated at 29A.
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=205763


What video card and what are your system specs? This is very important as an overclocked Phenom X4 9950 with multiple HDD, optical drives, fans, and attached USB devices is a far more loaded system than a Pentium E5200, 1HDD, 1 Optical drive.

 

[tomwaddle]

Thanks for the info. I plan on just using the card for watching video and some Folding@Home. So, I think I'll be ok if I go with something in the Nvidia 9000 series. What do you guys think? Specs are below:

ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Dual-Core black edition OC'd to 3.0
2 x Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
Thermaltake LANBOX Lite Case
2 Hard drives and 1 DVD drive

 

[coozie7]

For those requirements there is no need for a powerful card, I would look at the 9400/9500 from Nvidia or the HD4550 from ATI.
They are all capable of fullscreen HD playback and none of them requires an extra power lead: The most power hungry draws less than 50 Watts at maximum load.

 

[jerreece]

If you're just planning to use your PC as a media center (music, movies, Blu-Ray, email, etc), I'd agree with Coozie7. But if you want to play any recent game titles, then you'll want something better for sure.

 

[tomwaddle]

Probably the only time the card would be stressed is when I fold with it. And, I wouldn't have it maxed out anyway (when folding).
Also, I am removing one of the hard drives and possibly the DVD drive. So, that'll mean less power draw and less heat produced in the case.
I am off to shop for a video card!