Is my 330w good enough?

[SilentAssassin]

Ok I'm currently running a 330w power supply. I have an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ CPU and a Asus A7N8X Deluxe MB. My video card is only a Radeon 8500 so there is no extra connection needed for video for now. I also have One fan in the front of the case and one in the back. With all that it's been running fine. What I'm wondering though, is do you think there is enough juice left to put in a Radeon 9800 Pro and 2 more fans? Would my 330w still be enough or should I get a 420w?

 

[Corporate Thug]

quality over quantity, what brand?

 

[Namtaru]

IMO (as is a lot of other peoples)

Wattage is overrated.

I have a generic 200w pushing an athlon t-bird, DVD-ROM, 120GB Hard Drive, 3 80mm fans, and a pci sound card.

I would think that your 330 will be fine.

 

[SilentAssassin]

Thanks a lot. If I ever hit the limit how would I know? Would the pc just not start? Would it crash? I can monitor the value of the +12v, +5v, +3.3v, and VCore with my Asus probe and everything is fine right now.

 

[JokerF15]

Post the 'Amps' of the power supply here (for each 3.3v, 5.0v and 12v) and people can compare with other psu's they may have.

Many of these 'cheap' power supplies are actually very similar to 'expensive' power supplies, but it is hard to tell. There are certain brands, models etc that are EXACTLY the same. CWT-420's for example are very very similar to the Antec 430watt psu's. They are built by the same company, and are very close in built construction and quality. The 'generic' one is also about 50% cheaper.

-JokerF15

 

[SilentAssassin]

+12v: 12.48
+5v: 4.972
+3.3v: 3.28

 

[sep]

My Antec 300w is holding it's weight with 5-80mms, 2-CCL, 9800 Pro, DVD-R,CD-RW,2-HD(80gb,160gb),Audigy, 6-USB devices and a partridge in a pair tree. So I also would have to say Quality vs Quantity.

SilentAssassin-What's the manufacture and model of your powersupply?

The question you asked is a good one. How do I know my powersupply isn't enough for my system? Will it just not boot, data corruption, intermiting shutdowns, what?

Anyone-?

-JC

 

[FPSguy]

If the power supply isn't good enough the system either will not boot, or it will boot but then you will find it rebooting sometimes as power demands increase and the supply fails to keep up.

Here is a great article about what power supply you need for a given system.

Here is an online power supply calculator based on the article.

The total wattage of the power supply doesn't give you nearly enough information. You need to know how many amps it has on each rail (SilentAssassin: you did not post the amps -- you posted your Asus probe readings for each rail -- the amps will be marked on the power supply itself), and what the maximum load is on the 3V and 5V rails, and then the maximum load for all rails together.

I learned the hard way that you should pay attention to those people who tell you to buy a quality power supply and not skimp. Your system will suffer in stability, and ability to overclock, if you buy a cheap power supply.

Here is an AnandTech article reviewing the higher-end power supplies on the market today. If you don' t want to read it, just get an Antec "True" power supply with the wattage you need. They are more expensive, but they are a good safe buy.

 

[SilentAssassin]

+3.3v: 28a, +5v: 30a, +12v: 16a
Max 200w on +3.3v & +5v

 

[sep]

Ouch!


Recommended PSU: 450W (282W on +3.3v & +5v rails) for:
-1 x Motherboard without onboard devices
-6 x Fans (including PSU fans)
-6 x Memory (128MB DDR)
-1 x Graphic Card
-1 x with powerful 3D Accelerator
-1 x PCI Sound
-2 x HDD
-1 x CD-RW
-1 x DVD
-1 x Floppy
-6 x USB devices
-1 x FireWire
-CPU: Intel P4 (3.06B GHz 0.13 µm µPGA478 @ 1.550 V)