Finding the Right Power Supply

[Johnny Barber]

I've poked around the forums some, and for sure there are many people asking if their power supply is correct.
I'm more looking for some general kind of answers. I read the system building articles here on Tom's, and I am a bit puzzled by some of them. After reading this,
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/home-theater-pc-half-height-radeon-hd-5750,2804.html
I looked online to see if the power added up. I checked out the build with the 160-watt psu, and according to a couple of power calculators, these parts need much more power.
How do they make these builds, when according to the psu calculators, they will be underpowered?
Is there a program that can give me more accurate estimates?

 

[hunter315]

What power supply calculators did you use and did you set the capacitor aging on them? The newegg calculator grossly over estimates(~30%), and using any capacitor aging above 10% will lead to gross over inflation as well.

As for that article, you could run that system on that 160W unit assuming its got the power in the right places, the GPU doesnt pull much power at all, between the CPU and GPU they probably pull about 100W, leaving about 50W for the rest of the system depending on the ratings of the unit which would be fine for a HDD, an ODD, and a couple fans.

 

[Johnny Barber]

Best answer selected by johnny barber.
nThank you very much hunter, this is the exact information I was seeking.