how much power do i need?

[jcromano]

Hi,
I'm planning to build my own system for the first time, and I'm wondering how big a power supply I need. Can anyone give me an estimate?

ABIT IC7-G
P4 2.8C
2 512MB sticks of PC3500 memory
2 Seagate SATA hard drives, probably in raid 0
Samsung CDRW/DVD drive
PowerColor ATI 9800 Pro 128GB
Floppy drive
I haven't decided on speakers yet, but there will be some, probably a set of 5.1 compatible ones.

I'm thinking of overclocking the FSB by 10% or so, and the Vcore and Vdimm voltages may need to be adjusted upward slightly. I've also read somewhere that the PowerColor 9800 card comes slightly overclocked already.

Can someone offer an estimate of how much power the rig above would need? Also, I'd like to hear opinions on a decent case (for less than $40 without the PSU, preferably).

Thanks,
Jim

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by jcromano on 06/13/03 09:50 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[kinetic_tw]

430-450W seems appropriate. More wouldnt hurt.

 

[ltj311]

Really? That much? Currently I'm looking at getting something similar to jcromano. Except only one Sata 7200rpm and 2 CD/DVD drives.

I'm currently planning to get a Fortron 400w PSU. Is this safely enough or borderline?

 

[Stain]

Fortron rates their PSUs at 70% so that "400w" is 490w MAX.

You could get by with a 350w Fortron which is really 440w MAX.

 

[ltj311]

So it being 490w Max is what matters and not the 400w is says on the box?

 

[Stain]

Well if you wanted to compare Fortron to another brand. Basically a "400w" Fortron is on par with Antec True 480w.

A good PSU (Fortron, Enermax, Antec, etc) can actually run over its MAX power, while a crap one can't even reach what they claim.

To my knowledge Fortron is the only PSU company that rates at 70% power (I don't know why), others are rated at max.

 

[ltj311]

Awesome. Thanks for the knowledge.