Help selecting a PSU

Ultra isn't a great brand. Go with corsair or antec this time in whatever wattage you can afford. The corsair 600w should have about 40 amps on the 12v rail.

Thanks o1ldie,

Do you think I need more wattage of just better quality. Concerned about the herky jerky of the screens.

Why don't you call Ultra since they have a lifetime warranty on their PSUs?

Never going to be able ti find a receipt to make that happen.

Better quality.

One of my systems has an OC'd Q9550, 4 GB RAM, a GTX260, a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard, 3 hard drives and an optical, and a Soundblaster card all powered by a Corsair 750TX.

Running 3 instances of Prime95 to load the CPU and 3DMark06 to load the GPU, it pulls 375 watts from the wall as measured by my Kill-a-Watt meter. Figuring 80% efficiency, the system pulls 300 watts from the PSU.

So a good 550 - 600 watt PSU will be more than adequate.

Well if you need a new on go XFX or Antec; Corsair is overpriced.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... 80+ Modular.

I still recommend antec or corsair with a single large 12v rail. Avoid raidmax or thermaltake unless you know who made the particular model.

Good thing Antec doesn't make single rail PSUs...

A single GeForce GTX 260 graphics card system should have a power supply with a minimum combined +12 Volt rail(s) current rating of 36 Amps or greater.

Your Ultra 600w PSU's +12 Volt rail current is a few amps below the minimum recommended 36 Amps.

A bad PSU won't cause bad graphics, I think.

Think I am going to go with this one



Seems like it might be good if I ever upgrade also. Any thoughts?

Antec contracts out the manufacturing of all of their power supplies to the following OEMs : CWT, Delta Electronics, Enhance Electronics, FSP and Seasonic.

The Antec Neo Eco series made by the OEM Seasonic all have a single +12 Volt rail.

The Antec High Current Gamer series models HCG-400, HCG-520, HCG-520M Blue and HCG-620 made by Seasonic also have a single +12 Volt rail.

The Antec Tru Power and Smart Power series made by CWT, recently discontinued, all have a single +12 Volt rail.

not sure why url didn't work

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=17-371-048

It's a Seasonic built Antec,with more power than you need, you'd have a hard time finding anyone who would say no to it, there are less expensive options;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Still Seasonic built, a little more power and modular

I would suggest using an Antec PSU. I have an Antec and I love it, its small, quiet, and powerful. For the wattage I would say anywhere form 600 to 800 (800 if you ever choose to upgrade things or overclock)

The Antec version seems more heavily built? Don't know if I am reading into this. If built by Seasonic I wonder what the real difference is between Antec version and Seasonic. The only think I notices was the Seasonic had a 5 year warenty vs Antecs 3 year.

^Some antec's are built by seasonic and loosely based on their designs, but use different components. For the lower end Antecs cheaper capacitors are used, some units only use 85C cheapo caps which wont last as long as the 105C japanese caps. read some reviews from hardwaresecrets and jonnyguru.

I just acquired a used silverstone 750w fully modular. Not a bad ps; a little noisy at startup, but quickly quiets down with the smartfan settings in the bios. It has 60 amps on the 12v rail, and the modular cables are very long. I got this one for $55 off craigslist.

Herky-jerky graphics aren't caused by PSU problems. Make sure you're using current drivers, and the latest version of Flash. Your graphics card should be powerful enough. What CPU? An old 805D might be struggling, whereas an e8400 or Core i3 should have no trouble at all. Check for background processes consuming CPU resources.

Could even be a poor internet connection or insufficient internet bandwidth when streaming Hulu.

At this point the puter won't even boot up--while watching HULU and playing a FB game it just conked out. Both Hulu and the FB game were herky jerky--and if I went full size on the FB game the screen where I was watching HULU would lock, but the sound still played on.

I might be able to use a old power supply to check it--would have to pull the graphics card out due to not having the PCI-E plugs