Power supply

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Steve

If I put a 3200+ Athlon XP and a Radeon 9800Pro into my current PC I need to
upgrade my 250watt PSU, what do I need, 400Watt?

Thanks,
Steve
 
Steve said:
If I put a 3200+ Athlon XP and a Radeon 9800Pro into my current PC I
need to upgrade my 250watt PSU, what do I need, 400Watt?

Thanks,
Steve
Click to expand...

Oh and is it worth spending extra for a brand name PSU?
 
Steve said:
Oh and is it worth spending extra for a brand name PSU?
Click to expand...


For your first question, it depends on what you have for components and
fans, etc., you have in your system. However, with only a 250W power
supply, it's almost certain that you should upgrade it if you upgrade to a
9800 Pro.

For your second question, I would strongly recommend that you stick to
brand name power supplies. Personally, I'm using an Enermax with
excellent results (431W) and it's about three years old now. I have no
system instability and none of my components have ever been damaged.
 
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

I think that the above might be simplified a little too much, but it may be
helpful.

(Guessing at the number of drives you have, I get about 350W for a 3200 +
system with a 9800 non-XT.)

The following is an ancient article (from January, 2000), but you may find
it interesting in a general sense:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1128&p=1

(It shows that for the original Athlons, a good 300W supply gave better
reliability than a poor 400W supply.)

Antec supplies still seem to be highly regarded, although they are not
inexpensive. I'm currently using a 420W supply from Thermaltake, which I
bought a few months ago for less than $50US. Its fan is the quietest one in
my system, even though it's not adjustable.

I don't have the experience to recommend strongly for (or against) any
particular make. The only PS that I've ever had fail in service was on my
first PC clone, a Dell Dimension XPS P133c bought in the autumn of 1995.
Fortunately, the PS didn't self-destruct until well after I'd already handed
the machine down to my nephew. (A lot of people like to hate Dell, but the
main weakness I've seen in their systems is weak power supplies. The problem
was compounded because Dell used nonstandard wiring, so it wasn't easy to
swap in an industry-standard PS. I don't know if Dell still uses the dreaded
separate 3.3V connector.)

HTH.

Address altered. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
Steve wrote:



Oh and is it worth spending extra for a brand name PSU?
Click to expand...
Yes, a no-name shoddy 500W PSU that you get for cheap will cause you a
ton of problems compared to a quality 400W PSU.
I've got an Antec True Power 430W PSU to go with my AthlonXP @ 2220 MHz
and 9800 Pro, got it for $70 a year and a half ago. Well worth it.

--
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

- Inigo Montoya
Steve [Inglo]
HES PORN
 
You can get a good idea of the PSU rating needed for your proposed system here
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

You should look to getting a good brand name rather than 'any PSU with a big number against it'.
Although a high power rating is important, perhaps a bigger issue with modern, high frequency
hardware is how well the PSU can absorb noise.

A lot of the noise generated by the computer can find its way back into the system with cheap
brands, so you may have +400W, but the voltages will be all over the place because there is no noise
filtering.

HTH

S
 
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