PSU question

[Majestic]

Hey guys, I think I messed up and I need to find out

I ordered new parts for the computer I'm building and they arrived today. I realized that I got a 400 W PSU, and I'm wondering if this is going to be enough for my system. I got a Ahtlon X2 4600+, and a Geforce 7950 GT KO. On the video card's box it shows the minimum recommended requirement for PSU as 450 W, I'm wondering if I can squeak by with what I have or if I should get a new PSU.

[Robert]

I have a BFG 7950GT but its only 256MB, it doesn't take nearly that much power, I used a 400W power supply for a while and recently upgraded to 650W for the fact I plan on doing SLI soon

[Majestic]

Yeah my 7950 GT KO is 512, wondering if it would need more power.

[Calina]

i got a 650 watt PSU for my comp

running BFG 7950 GT OC 512MB myself(great card if u cant aford a 8800 get this!!)
core 2 duo 6600 @2.40GHz


should always go with at least the min requirments on PSU i went low on my last comp and ran into restarting and crashing issues till i upgraded PSU

this time i learned my lession just went with a 650 to be safe

[Majestic]

Thanks for the input, looks like I'm gonna have to get a higher capacity PSU.

[sekaran]

My Corsair 520HX runs my 8800GTS/[email protected]/2DVDRW/3HD system great. It gets really favorable reviews as well. Was about $90 after MIR for me.

[Devek]

You really can't go wrong with a nice and strong power supply.. but watts ratings can be kind of misleading..

There is usually a chart on the box that shows how many amps it puts out on each rail. I usually stack my machines full of hard drives so I pay attention to how many amps are on the 12V rail when I am shopping

[Calina]

You really can't go wrong with a nice and strong power supply.. but watts ratings can be kind of misleading..

There is usually a chart on the box that shows how many amps it puts out on each rail. I usually stack my machines full of hard drives so I pay attention to how many amps are on the 12V rail when I am shopping

just wondering is there a max amount of hard drives u can stick in a comp?

or just limited on how many open SATA ports i got?

i got 4 spaces for hard drives in my case 1 used i have a second old IDE drive stuck in there with a converter so dont fit right so its just sitting in the case next to hard drive rack

can i stick 3 more hard drives in the open slots on the rack in there and if i do should i get more fans or better fans?

idk how hot its ganna get in there but i know my Gfx card runnin at 55c fairly sure i saw somewhere the dc2 6600's run at like 30 or 40c thats all gatta add up right?

if i go with watercooling for the prossor and gfx card will it acculy cool it down more or just make it silent sound from comp dont realy matter to me iam used to the sound now and iam warring headphones most of the day

so would it be worth the extra cash and get me more proformance or water cooling is realy just to make comp silent?

[Devek]

just wondering is there a max amount of hard drives u can stick in a comp?

or just limited on how many open SATA ports i got?

You are limited by the sata ports and your case.

i got 4 spaces for hard drives in my case 1 used i have a second old IDE drive stuck in there with a converter so dont fit right so its just sitting in the case next to hard drive rack

can i stick 3 more hard drives in the open slots on the rack in there and if i do should i get more fans or better fans?

I am a big fan of price/performance.

If the motherboard supports sata raid get 4 250gig sata 2 drives and pop them in there with raid 0 or 5. This costs you like $400 right now which is pretty neat when you think about it(years ago the thought of a terabyte of storage used to give me a hardon, having it for cheap in every machine i build is fucking awesome) . Ditch your other IDE drive because it is worthless.

idk how hot its ganna get in there but i know my Gfx card runnin at 55c fairly sure i saw somewhere the dc2 6600's run at like 30 or 40c thats all gatta add up right?

if i go with watercooling for the prossor and gfx card will it acculy cool it down more or just make it silent sound from comp dont realy matter to me iam used to the sound now and iam warring headphones most of the day

so would it be worth the extra cash and get me more proformance or water cooling is realy just to make comp silent?

You can make your machine practically silent without water cooling. Just use the largest size fans you can. Big(120mm) fans moving slowly move more air than small fans moving quickly and they make almost no noise. Modern core 2 processors do not make a lot of heat compared to what we are used to so water cooling would be pointless since the default fan that come with them is adequate and silent.

The only downside is your graphics card may or may not have an annoying fan. It is up to you if you wanna water cool your graphics card or shop around. Usually when I am playing games I have my headphones on and that is the only time the fan on my GPU spins anyway.

Most of the components in your case can handle pretty high temperatures so don't freak out if it is a little warm in there. The only thing you wanna be paranoid about is your hard drive array, it costs like $8 to buy a 120m fan to mount on the front of your case to blow directly on them and considering it is the difference between a drive that lasts months or a drive that lasts years I often find myself wondering why these are not in every case by default.

[sekaran]

IDE drives aren't totally useless.. I have 3 IDE drives from my old system that I tossed into a USB enclosure that gives me an extra 500GB or so of space.

[Calina]

just wondering is there a max amount of hard drives u can stick in a comp?

or just limited on how many open SATA ports i got?

You are limited by the sata ports and your case.

i got 4 spaces for hard drives in my case 1 used i have a second old IDE drive stuck in there with a converter so dont fit right so its just sitting in the case next to hard drive rack

can i stick 3 more hard drives in the open slots on the rack in there and if i do should i get more fans or better fans?

I am a big fan of price/performance.

If the motherboard supports sata raid get 4 250gig sata 2 drives and pop them in there with raid 0 or 5. This costs you like $400 right now which is pretty neat when you think about it(years ago the thought of a terabyte of storage used to give me a hardon, having it for cheap in every machine i build is fucking awesome) . Ditch your other IDE drive because it is worthless.

idk how hot its ganna get in there but i know my Gfx card runnin at 55c fairly sure i saw somewhere the dc2 6600's run at like 30 or 40c thats all gatta add up right?

if i go with watercooling for the prossor and gfx card will it acculy cool it down more or just make it silent sound from comp dont realy matter to me iam used to the sound now and iam warring headphones most of the day

so would it be worth the extra cash and get me more proformance or water cooling is realy just to make comp silent?

You can make your machine practically silent without water cooling. Just use the largest size fans you can. Big(120mm) fans moving slowly move more air than small fans moving quickly and they make almost no noise. Modern core 2 processors do not make a lot of heat compared to what we are used to so water cooling would be pointless since the default fan that come with them is adequate and silent.

The only downside is your graphics card may or may not have an annoying fan. It is up to you if you wanna water cool your graphics card or shop around. Usually when I am playing games I have my headphones on and that is the only time the fan on my GPU spins anyway.

Most of the components in your case can handle pretty high temperatures so don't freak out if it is a little warm in there. The only thing you wanna be paranoid about is your hard drive array, it costs like $8 to buy a 120m fan to mount on the front of your case to blow directly on them and considering it is the difference between a drive that lasts months or a drive that lasts years I often find myself wondering why these are not in every case by default.

thz for the info right now the IDE drive is just from an old comp i stuck it in to store my videos its 111gigs and full of TV shows and movies lol

my gfx is a BFG 7950 gt oc 512mb(<3 it^^) the fan on it is realy noisy but iam used to it if i had a way i can prolly even slow it down befor i got it i read the reveiw on guru3d for it saw somthing about its core high threshold befor it auto shuts down its 130c i dout ill ever get it tht high as it is runs ab out 55c-62c depending on what iam doin normaly all i do is dual or triple box in FFXI and listen to music or movies in backround while azrues running pretty much 24/7 dling stuff^^

yesterday was mu B-day got lots of cash so iam ganna buy more hard drives for now i wanna get at least a terabyte of space and i will be taking out the IDE drive cuase its whats be cuasing my probs it over heats in my case

also looking to get a new case for my comp cuase this 1 has no place i can stick a fan in the front i had gotten a HP pavilion d4650y for christmas and the case is rather large but power botton is right infront of the HD's

what case would u recomend? and would i even be able to trancfer that MB i heard somewhere a while back pre made comps from like HP and dell places like that the MB's are custom to the cases

next comp i get in a year or 2 ganna build it myself would prolly end up cheaper in long run spent 1,250 for this comp and then 1500 in upgrades since i got it so far iam sure i could have even put a nice SLI comp together for that /sigh

[GSDragoon]

You really can't go wrong with a nice and strong power supply.. but watts ratings can be kind of misleading..

There is usually a chart on the box that shows how many amps it puts out on each rail. I usually stack my machines full of hard drives so I pay attention to how many amps are on the 12V rail when I am shopping

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=779582

Watts don't mean jack!

amps on the 12+ volt matter the most.

[Zigma]

watts are as good as who makes the psu.

I remember buying like a 600 watt PSU from pricewatch for 12 bucks. I was like, YEAH! 600 watts, 12 bucks, fuck yea nigga.

2 days later... That shit blew...... Got myself an Antec Tru430 watt PSU for $100. Best PSU I ever got and really one of the best investments.

Even though its just 430 watts, it's still a good quality psu and I can see myself running a SLI with it and NP. Its that reliable.

[Remedia]

You really can't go wrong with a nice and strong power supply.. but watts ratings can be kind of misleading..

There is usually a chart on the box that shows how many amps it puts out on each rail. I usually stack my machines full of hard drives so I pay attention to how many amps are on the 12V rail when I am shopping

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=779582

Watts don't mean jack!

amps on the 12+ volt matter the most.

That, and also how well the wattage holds up under heat conditions due to loss.