[Solved] 5850 psu requirments

hello all
heres my current pc setup.

MSI PSU 460W 2 12v rails that total 33amps
gigabyte M61P-S3
AMD athlon ii 630
2GB DDR2 kingston low profile ram
PNY 8800gt
500gb HDD
NZXT classic alpha series

ive got a birthday coming up and id like to know if my current setup will run an ati 5850. Assuming that prizes go down with the introduction of the gtx 470 and 480 id like to avoid buying a new PSU but if its inevitable i'll still buy one.

Sapphire recommends at least a 500 watt psu, but you can probably get away with it if the psu you have isnt very old (since psu's lose their some of their wattage over time).

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] -X/28.html

under extreme stress test load the 5850 consumes 150W, under heavy gaming only 108W. so you're good to go.
your psu had almost 400W on the 12V rail when it was new, and it shouldn't have lost too many if it's only 1.5 years old.

Best answer selected by mx2138.

Do the PSU specs state 33A combined on the 12V rails, or two rails totalling 33A? (16+17?)
You can't assume that both rails can be run at the max rating unless a combined figure is stated.
If you can determine which rail is not being used for anything else you may be OK but I would expect a 460W PSU to struggle at load and run hot.

hmm that's a bit vague, in the worst case it only has 325W on the 12V.....

what's the rest of the system like? If there aren't any powerhoggs it could still be enough.

thou I'm off to bed, laters....