Advice on wattage

[johnbr]

Hello

I wish to upgrade my CPU and I am trying to work out if my PSU will have enough juice for it. It is a 500w unbranded one and I used http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine to calculate my PSU Wattage and it gave me 380w.

I thought I'd run it by here to double check if 380w sounds about right for my components.

ASUS M2NPV-MX Motherboard
AMD Athlon 3200+ UPGRADING to AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
2.0 GB DDR2 533mhz Value Ram
Radeon x1950 Pro
IDE 7200 Hard drive
Sata Hard drive
1 x CDR Drive
1 x DVD Drive
Floppy drive
USB Mouse
M-Audio Audiophile PCI sound card

Cheers for any insight

 

[nowayout99]

Yep, 500w is more than enough for that setup. Even though we don't know any specifics about the PSU, you're probably fine.

General rule of thumb, you only really need to start thinking about something higher than 500w if you use more than one graphics card.

 

[MarcVenice]

Well, general rule of thumb is never to assume anything about PSU's either, just by judging from their 'CLAIMED' wattage output. His unbranded unit might be heavy on the 3.3/5v rails, and might lack severely on the 12v rail. The unit might actually only be able to put out 300w of power. Not long ago they did a small roundup of older, cheap, or noname PSU's, that claimed to be able to put out 300-400w of power. Often they would collapse at HALF the load they should be able to put out though.

 

[johnbr]

I just opened up my PC and I think my PSU is better than I thought.

It is an EZ Cool 500w.

Does this make things better or worse...?

 

[MarcVenice]

I can't find any substantial information on that PSU. I see it mentioned in 1 sentence wit seasonic, but I think that's fake, but I might be wrong. If EZ cool were seasonic OEM made PSU's, it would be all over the place. It would be better if you showed us the label with the output wattages on each rail. My gutfeeling says it's a crappy PSU, but you are not running an extremely demanding PC either. I've ran a rig on a no name psu as well, but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[DSF]

You should be fine.

If it doesn't work, it's not because 500W is too little, it's because your PSU is a piece of crap.

 

[johnbr]

Ok I've taken the label off the PSU and got it here so I can read it properly.

Here is the info:

Super Silent AZ cool ATX-500 JSP 500W
AC Input: 230V ~ .5A,50Hz

Colour DC Max Output

Orange +3.3VDC 30A
Red +5VDC 32A
White -5V 0.5A
Yellow +12VDC 36A
Blue -12VDC 0.8A
Purple +5VSB 3.0A
Green PS-ON Remote
Black COM Return
Gray POK PG

Sorry for making this so complicated and appreciate all the advice here

 

[MarcVenice]

36a on the 12v rail looks good. It should be able to run your proposed rig just fine. I still can't say anything about the qaulity of your PSU though.