Hello, I recently updated my sever tower when my motherboard failed and I still have the original coolmax 550psu that is now 2 1/2 years old.
I have a ASUS p5Q motherboard now, a brand new 300 gig raptor Raid "c" drive with windows 7, a slave raid drive of 75 gigs (my old c drive which has vista on it) , and a sata drive of 150 gigs. I have connections for a 4th drive but thought I use those connections for a new video card.
Currently have a coolmax 550 psu, along with two fans at 120mm and another 140mm. My video card is
nivida GT8600 256memory with heat sink. I increased my memory from 4 gigs to 8 gigs all with heat sinks.
I just bought a BFG Tech Nivida GTX260 video card overclocked to 896mem.
When I bought the video card I was not thinking about power supply issues and currently do not have it installed. I'm not a hard core gamer but currently own Dirt 2 and need for Speed Shift.
I read on one web site that if you install the new video card and the psu is not strong enough the pc will shut down or recyle. On another website it said I might fried some internal components.
My psu is at the bottom in a separate metal slot over it and my video card and pci card are near the middle of the tower since I have to use a pcix16 express slot. My motherboard can handle sli and crossfire.
I think my machine is a bit fast right now for the old video card and want to understand pro's of just trying it out with current cpu and see what happens or do I need to upgrade power supply right away before trying out with connections that I have for a 4th drive with adapter wires that came with the new video card.
I normally turn off all my external drives when playing a racing game. I am using a thrustmaster forcefeed back that connected with a usb slot too.
The past couple of years I did not play many games but I have been using photoshop on a regular basis which should not be a factor for video card I have installed.
Someone mentioned on one website that TRX 750 PSU is one to consider. I have bought antec and cool max in the past. Don't know which is better, plus I need to take measurements to make sure the new psu fits in the metal slot cover over the current psu that is in the tower.
I have a ASUS p5Q motherboard now, a brand new 300 gig raptor Raid "c" drive with windows 7, a slave raid drive of 75 gigs (my old c drive which has vista on it) , and a sata drive of 150 gigs. I have connections for a 4th drive but thought I use those connections for a new video card.
Currently have a coolmax 550 psu, along with two fans at 120mm and another 140mm. My video card is
nivida GT8600 256memory with heat sink. I increased my memory from 4 gigs to 8 gigs all with heat sinks.
I just bought a BFG Tech Nivida GTX260 video card overclocked to 896mem.
When I bought the video card I was not thinking about power supply issues and currently do not have it installed. I'm not a hard core gamer but currently own Dirt 2 and need for Speed Shift.
I read on one web site that if you install the new video card and the psu is not strong enough the pc will shut down or recyle. On another website it said I might fried some internal components.
My psu is at the bottom in a separate metal slot over it and my video card and pci card are near the middle of the tower since I have to use a pcix16 express slot. My motherboard can handle sli and crossfire.
I think my machine is a bit fast right now for the old video card and want to understand pro's of just trying it out with current cpu and see what happens or do I need to upgrade power supply right away before trying out with connections that I have for a 4th drive with adapter wires that came with the new video card.
I normally turn off all my external drives when playing a racing game. I am using a thrustmaster forcefeed back that connected with a usb slot too.
The past couple of years I did not play many games but I have been using photoshop on a regular basis which should not be a factor for video card I have installed.
Someone mentioned on one website that TRX 750 PSU is one to consider. I have bought antec and cool max in the past. Don't know which is better, plus I need to take measurements to make sure the new psu fits in the metal slot cover over the current psu that is in the tower.