Is my power supply big enough?

[zachd]

I am running a Athlon XP 2500+(soon to be overclocked), ABIT NF7-S motherboard, Radeon 9500 Pro video card, WD1200JB hard drive, and a cd burner. All this is running on my old 300 Watt power supply. Is this enough power for all of this? If not, is it hurting performance(how much?)? Would it be worth it to spend $40 on a 400 Watt power supply?

 

[Carnivore]

If your not poor, and 40 Bucks won't hurt your wallet it is worth it.

 

[zachd]

Worth it in what way exactly? How much performance will I probably pick up? I am getting a 3DMark2001SE score of about 12100 and an Aquamark3 score of 29438. Are these around where I should be? Will the larger power supply raise the scores much? I need an answer quickly for reasons I won't bore you with.

 

[Parhelia]

no u will not see any improvement in performance at all, all u can see in upgrading ur power supply is more stability and more room for components. anyway, check ur bios to see the voltages given by ur power supply to the folowing 3.3V , 5V, and 12V.
if there is more than 5% difference between the voltage given, and the voltage needed, so u have to change it, becose it will do some damage to ur pc.

 

[endyen]

It's not so much what you gain, but what you could loose. As the voltage gets drawn down by demand, the components tend to draw more power, and work harder. Also an overworked psu can go into massive failure and take out major components. Why not invest the $40. as insurance.

 

[Crashman]

You can never have enough POWER! POWER!!! BWUAHAHAHAHAHA!

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[DCB_AU]

If you have a multimeter that measures at least 3 amps and "you know what your doing", connect it in series with your PS or better still, borrow/use a pair of TONG TESTERS.

You can check it either on the Primary side or Secondary side and refer to the name plate specs or use the formula A = W div by the V. (Remember supply side AC, secondary side DC.)

If the current draw is over 80% off rated, I suggest upgrading.

<font color=red>DCB</font color=red><font color=white>_</font color=white><font color=blue>AU</font color=blue>

 

[endyen]

It is kind of hard though to use a clampon ammeter while you are playing a game hard enough to stress the power usage of the graphics card and processor.

 

[DCB_AU]

Extend the cable/wire in question.

Nothing difficult about that.

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[endyen]

Nah, you just set it to peak hold.

 

[jrosenst]

You also want to get a quality Power supply, not just one that “says” there 400w. I would look at the psu reviews here and get one of the recommended ones. A quality psu is sadly the most overlooked component.

One of my rigs is one of those Shuttle mini jobs. It has a 3.2ghz 800fsb with a gig for DDR400 (two sticks), a DVD writer, and a Radion 9800XT pro video card. Only 1 ATA HD and no floppy (I was worried about heat). Anyway, it just has the dinky 250w psu that came with the case. Everything runs well and I never have crashes. I have to admit it’s like a little space heater and if it started failing in 8-10 months I wouldn’t be surprised, but the dinky psu seems to work fine.

Quality is more important than just the watts. I would take a Antec true power 320 (320W) psu over a 500 watt knock off any day.

Good luck to you.