Which power supply?

[kingduh]

Hi guys, I am going to start building my first pc from scratch soon and I forgot about the power supply. I don't know if I can just use an old power supply from any old pc or if I need a new one to accomodate the new components I'm buying. Below is what I will be building the PC with. I may be upgrading the CPU down the line to a quad core or better so the power supply would need to be good enough to handle future upgrades.

Can anyone recommend a good power supply for this setup or at least tell me what kind of specs I should be looking for.


Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor

RAM: (qty 2) of Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory Model 991599

Harddrive: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

Harddrive 2: (qty 2) Raided 120 GB generic SATA Maxtor drives


Thanks!

 

[HansVonOhain]

Do you have a graphics card? if so which one?

So far, i think you can get away with 300 watter.

 

[hunter315]

We need to know what type of GPU will be used in it to make a recommendation, however a good 550W PSU like the Corsair 550VX or Antec TP-550 will handle any single GPU solution, for crossfire or SLI a good 750W PSU is needed for 2 high end cards.

If you havent bought stuff yet, drop the raptor, the Samsung F3 provides better sequential performance than the raptor does for wayyy less.

 

[millwright]

Yep, the graphics card is a big part of the formular.

Stick with brand name power supplies.
I like Enermax, Corsair, OCZ, Antec FSP mostly.

 

[kingduh]

Do you have a graphics card? if so which one?

So far, i think you can get away with 300 watter.

im using an old graphics card, nvidia with I think 128mb on board, its about 5 years old. However that may be upgraded in the next year or two.

 

[woozyM]

The main device eating up power is the graphic card. Since you are using an old graphic card you can get away with 300W Power Supply Unit.

Yes you may use an old power supply. The only concern is that it doesn't fit in your new system. You need to double check the mobo, pc case to see if the odl PSU is compatible.

However, if you ever decided to upgrade the graphic card (since 5 yrs is pretty old) you should consider a higher and newer PSU.

Most system will need at least 300W up to 400W
450W = the basic gamer minimum requirement (IMO)
500W = for most medium graph card
600W+ = for most higher end card
700W+ = premium card, sli, crossfire, OC'ing