460W: overkill?

[crsgardner]

I've heard a lot of recommendations for Enermax, so I checked out their selection on Newegg. I'm not a big fan of the blue power supplies, but this one looks ok.

Only problem: it looks way overkill (and expensive) for what I'm building. The machine will have a fairly standard Athlon 64 board, 3200+ chip, ATI Radeon 9800, one SATA HD drive and one IDE DVD burner. A little power hungry, but certainly not 460W.

Can anyone recommend a similar power supply that maybe isn't as powerful (or as expensive)? I'd like to have one with SATA connections available.

 

[mechBgon]

You could look at the Antec TruePowers, which have SATA plugs. If you hadn't noticed, the next-generation upper-end video cards are very power-hungry and nVidia recommends a 480W PSU for the GeForceFX 6800, which has over 200 million transistors and requires two 4-pin auxiliary power leads. Considering how long a good PSU will last, what seems like overkill today may not end up being overkill forever. I wonder what the SFF makers are going to do in response to the GF6800 and R420...

 

[Sokratz]

SFF = BLEH!

and that's how i really feel.

 

[EngenZerO]

ANTEC True550

ANTEC BABY!!! Mine just came in yesterday,

 

[crsgardner]

Is Antec considered better than Enermax (I know -- it's like asking someone what the best music is)?

Chris

 

[Tiamat]

Antec, Enermax... I have had both PSUs. None of them have failed, and they both have given me steady voltage lines. Wattage isnt everything, you need to look at the individual 12V and 5V rails to see what you really are getting. I have the Antec TrueBlue 480 and it is great. The TrueBlue 350 which i put in my girlfriends box works great as well (she has ATI 7500, 2HDD, 2Optical,TbredA).

Hope this helps...

 

[sumrtym]

The R420 needs only one power connector, and ATI has stated publicly that it will work fine in SFF cases (no where near as power hungry as the new Nvidia offering).

 

[Biggerhammer]

Originally posted by: EngenZerO
ANTEC True550

ANTEC BABY!!! Mine just came in yesterday,

I've had one running for months now. I like it. And, as was said before, it's overkill now but these things don't dry up and blow away like the non-name gbrands do. I expect it to be around when 550 is considered minimal.

 

[WA261]

Can never have to much power

 

[cvb]

I got the TP 550 today and it seems to run fine. However, I'm reading very low voltages

11.3
4.8
2.9
1.5

However, I don't have any stability issues (yet?). 2.9 vs 3.3 seems especially low. What do you guys think?

Athlon 64 3400 (205 FSB for now), 2xRaptor SATA, 1xIDE, 1xCDROM, ATI 9700

 

[tmod]

My TrueBlue 480 just came in today.

 

[ColossusX]

Even the True430 from antec

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-908&depa=1

$66+$6. Have several of those.

Of course, I splurged on my main system and got a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 Deluxe!

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

I had a 300W power supply and then a few months ago bought a RADEON 9700pro. I then bought a 350W supply (antec true blue) and have had some interesting problems with my computer since. I think the problems are my IBM "Deathstar" HDD's (2.5 years old now), but the issues started as soon as I installed the new card and PSU, so who knows.

The point of this rambling is that for my next computer (I'll be building around X-mas, but I'm already anticipating and planning for it), I'll be going way overboard on the supply just to make sure that it doesn't become an issue.

Two I am considering are:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-159-016&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-163-105&depa=1

Currently I like the Coolmax one better, since it is less expensive and has the fan speed control, but we'll see what else is out there in a few more months. Anyone have any thoughts about Coolmax?

-D'oh!

 

[howdyduty]

With OC'ing and highend vid card, better to go with strong 400w plus PS. Let us know what you end up building.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I got myself a 550W enermax and I'm very happy with it. It has SATA power cables too. It's probably overkill but I bought it more for the quality. I also many a fan half of which are lighted so it might not be as overkilled as I think.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: EngenZerO
ANTEC True550

ANTEC BABY!!! Mine just came in yesterday,

Mine just melted down and destroyed my motherboard and itself.

It doesn't seem as robust as it claims to be.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: ColossusX
Even the True430 from antec

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-908&depa=1

$66+$6. Have several of those.

Of course, I splurged on my main system and got a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 Deluxe!

Mine blew up

In answer to the original post I have all that stuff you mentioned and an extra hdd on a 300w seasonic. Yep lots here seem to have 500w big mean psu's but in my opinion you dont need one that big, anything quality will do.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: crsgardner
Is Antec considered better than Enermax (I know -- it's like asking someone what the best music is)?

Chris

I too have had both, none ever failed, but the Antec's started out and stayed quieter than the enermax's.

I'm also very happy with my current 350W Fortron (120mm fan....super quiet) it pushes a basic system 9700 pro, 2500+ 1 hard drive, 2 optical drives, tones of firewire and usb devices. without a problem, if I ever added a raid array I'd likely step up to a 400W.