Power Supply $$$ ???

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Have a decent 420w PSU for my box, more than ennough tbh. 500-650w with proper amperage on the 12v rail/rails is what id recomend for high end rigs with overclocking, anything more is simply not needed.

It doe's no good to have a carberator of a Corvette and a fuel pump of a Chevette to feed it.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

It doe's no good to have a carberator of a Corvette and a fuel pump of a Chevette to feed it.

Well, concidering that in this case the fuel pump is more than powerul ennough to quench the thirst of the engine having an even more powerful fuel pump is either for "bling bling, look at me big numbahs" or just simply unnessesary. That 750 psu you ahve for your rig could power another just like it without even breaking a sweat, actualy im fairly sure my rig is more power hungry than yours.

[FIREWALL]

My 750w will go into my next more with the times as some members have pointed out computer. pci-e 8800gtx X 2 duo core cpu and all the other bells and whistles that require POWER.

Anything less and your hanging on for dear life and doomed for a KABOOM

I agree whole heartedly it might be a little overkill and I say might NOW

But I'm also thinking about the future. And 400w ain't even going to turn it on.

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

My 750w will go into my next more with the times as some members have pointed out computer. pci-e 8800gtx X 2 duo core cpu and all the other bells and whistles that require POWER.

Anything less and your hanging on for dear life and doomed for a KABOOM

I agree whole heartedly it might be a little overkill and I say might NOW

But I'm also thinking about the future. And 400w ain't even going to turn it on.

I would very confidently stick a single 8800gtx into my current rig without reducing my overclock of my dual core cpu (its a 60% overclock and 0.1v overvolt), not in sli though becuse then my PSU would be near or slightly over its limits, id want to have at least a decent 550W for that, gives more than ennough of a safety margin.

[FIREWALL]

Well Folks We've rung 20 posts about the pro's and con's about Big and small power supplies and small usb refrigerators.

And still haven't come to any common agreement.

I think we should ALL be proud of ourselves.

Especially about the usb reefer.:rotfl:

[Blacklight]

Ironically my 400 watt power supply burned out yesterday (literally... with smoke ! )

Luckily, I just happen to have a PC junkyard in my basement and I found another identical 400 watter ! All I had to do was pop the power supply open and vaccume out all the spiders, webs and dust that it had gotten from being in the basement.

Those are some MEAN, SCARRY looking capacitors on those power supply circut boards ! I bet they could give you a good jolt even with the power off.

[GlobalExplorer]

I am actually considering one of the the new NVIDIA 9600's, not a 8800. According to the first reviews, the 9600 performance is ~80% of the 8800, but the price is about 100€/150USD less.

Add to this the fact that I am playing mostly simulations, which are mostly CPU bound, and that I usually upgrade my video adapter after 2-3 years.

But the most important thing about the 9600 is efficience. Some numbers:

Temperatures idle / full load
9600: 40C / 64C
8800: 58C / 90C

Power draw idle / full load
9600: 178W / 236W
8800: 191W / 270W

Source : http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...ZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

[antikristuseke]

Looking at that even a decent 350W psu would do the job, but id still stick to my original recomendation of arround 550W with decent aperage on 12v rail/rails

Originally Posted by Blacklight

Ironically my 400 watt power supply burned out yesterday (literally... with smoke ! )

Have had two 400W psus die on myself, but thats because they were ****tyly build overrated crap from Codegen. Codegen and ColorsIT are the worst PSU's i have ever come across and a total of 7 have died on me and 2 close friends. Avoid those like the plague.

[Task Force]

Im useing a BFG 650 w powersupply, seems to be doing well. http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr650wpsu.aspx (and here is bfgs info page on it.)

Im also useing a 8800gts with 640mb. that is overclocked to 550MHz, and a Intel E 8400 3.0ghz. Ive had no issues with this powersupply. not super loud ither.

[Arclight]

Nice case of point; that BFG has 38Amps while a 520Watt Corsair has 40Amps. You'd think that the 650Watt PSU is per definition "better", but it's not.

Not saying it's a bad PSU, just that there's more to it than Watts. A PSU that delivers little Amps will still crap out in "hardcore" systems. Another thing is the Corsair has 1 rail; all 40 Amps are available to the whole system. The BFG has dual rails, meaning the available Amps are distributed. Not a bad thing, but it does make it more likely to overload one of them (not gonna happen with 38Amps total, so no worries).

Yes you may have used one of these brands for years without problems but bear in mind that no PSU lasts forever. Some PSU's die gracefully, quietly and alone while others commit murder, arson and suicide in that order.

In practice only certain dual rail units have much risk of exceeding an individual rails' limits. A PSU with three or more 12V rails will have much lower currents across its' rails then a dual rail PSU powering the same system. However a PSU with two 18A-20A rails that puts the CPU connector/s on one rail and all of the other connectors on the other rail can easily overload that other rail with dual graphics cards or a single very high wattage card like the GTX 295. But since PSU's with two 18A-20A rails naturally top out at around 550W most users will recognize to begin with that the PSU is too small for such a high end system.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=287485

Nice read.;

It is true that marketing folks have told us that multiple +12V rails provides "cleaner and more stable voltages", but this is usually a falsehood. Quite frankly, they use this explaination because "offers stability and cleaner power" sounds much more palletable than "won't necessarily catch fire".