What will happen if the Amps on the 12V rail are too small?

what the title says, I've recently bought an AMD X6 1055T, but i'mnot sure my PSU will be able to run it. It's a 600W Storm with 24A in the 12V rail.
What is the worst case scenario and the most likely scenario if i were to replace it now?

i currently have an AMD Athlon 7850 Dual Core
GTX460
2 sticks of 2 GB ram, DDR2
one 500GB HDD (1080 RPM i think)
on a GA M720 US3 mobo.

also have one external fan and 4 LED lights.

Thanks in advance for any help

Hi

Your PSU can EASILY run that system including the 1055T.... NO CHANGE NEEDED...

All the best Brett

consider this: MAXIMUM COMBINED 12v rail amperage times 12 is basically your power wattage.

12*24= 288w. Your PSU looks more like a 300w PSU than a 600w

nope you measure the amps off the 12 v rail/s only. if it has 2 or more rails, you will combine the output so if you have 1 12v rail putting out 24a and a second rail putting out 20a you add the 2 together to get 44a and times that by 12... at lest thats the method i was shown.
the storm 600w has 2 rails rated at 16 and 18 amps respectively. which is a pretty poor. combined maximum of 34a. so 32a x12 = 408w max its likely it wont even reach that b4 it fails though. because when manufacturers over play the watts by so much, it normaly means the psu is pants.

First of all, I am not picking on you, I would just like to see correct information being posted.
You were shown the wrong method, it's very seldom that the rails add up to the total output , one example is on the label I provided in another thread.
The only sure way of knowing the combined 12v output is having the wattage available to it on the label.

Okay, sorry to sound like some attention seeking child, but i have asked the same question three times now without an answer.

What will happen if the total load exceeds the amount a psu can take?

will it cause damage to my components? if so, in what way?

Choster, if your PSU output is inadequate, you simply may get random looking reset/reboots - if you are lucky. If you are unlucky, you will get a catastrophic failure, "catastrophic" defined as "bursting into smoke and flames". If that happens, it may take out other computer components with it.

24 amps is pitiful for a 600 watt PSU. A good modern 600 watt PSU should put out around 45 amps. Your PSU looks like an old design dressed up with a few modern cables. The give-away is the really heavy (by today's standards) 5 volt output.

I do not think you have enough power. A GTX460 needs about 12 amps (a bit less for a 768 kB model, a little more for a 1 GB model). Figure about 10 amps for your CPU and you are close to the limit and you haven't added drives and fans yet.

You will need a better PSU.

Yes, a poor PSU can cause direct damage to your computer components without having to burst into flames and magic smoke.

What could happen to your system is that your GTX 460 over time will degrade to the point that the game flickers regularly, freezes the game under any significant load, and eventually dies.

The motherboard electrical components will degrade by trying to give correct voltages to each of your components (if it doesn’t give adequate voltage, it damages the correspondent components), eventually it will random reboot regularly or won’t boot up anymore.

Since your motherboard is working more under stress, your CPU won’t be able to overclock as high or be as stable as when it was new.

Your hard drive may become corrupted from the random boots.

I recommend to get a high quality reputable PSU. It is better than having to RMA each component, paying shipping, and still have the same issues. JonnyGuru gives very good reviews on PSUs. A 500w 40amp PSU would be more than enough for your system.