Is my PSU big enough?!

[FlyingHamster]

I just won a Sapphire 9800 non pro, and plan on flashing it with the 9800 pro bios. However, I plan on overclocking it too, using its stock cooling. The thing is, Is my Powmax 500 watt PSU enough to overclock it to its max? Or could I damage a lot of my parts? What is the max that these things usually overclock too, using stock cooling?

Right now I have my xp1700+ oc'ed at 2.2ghz, a 120gb hard drive, and one Lite on CD-RW hooked up on my NF7-S.

Do the "rails" or whatever matter on my psu. I dont really understand what these thing are or mean. Like sometimes I hear ppl talking about their "12v" or "5v" rail. Any explanation is appreciated..

Thanks in advance..

PS- I previously had a GF4 Ti4200, so do u recommend that I reformat my whole hard drive b4 putting in the new 9800 for best performance? Or is there an alternative??

 

[Schadenfroh]

:Q, your insane if a 500 watt is not enough

 

[modedepe]

A good 500w would be plenty, but from what I've heard powmax psu's are pretty poor quality, so I don't know if it would be ok. There are a few different rails on a psu--the 12v, 5v, and 3.3v. They each supply different voltages. The different components in a computer require different voltages. You won't need to reformat to install your new card, just make sure to use drivercleaner first to remove the nvidia drivers. You can get it here.

 

[FlyingHamster]

lol, ok.

next, wut drivers do u guys recommend for best performance? I hear these Omegas are good.. but I have no idea. which ones are most ppl getting the best 3dMark scores with?

I looked on Futuremark and a lot of ppl seem to using the "6.14.10.6360"s and "6.14.10.6368"s. what do u think of these? wut is the real name of those drivers?

 

[nRollo]

It's not the size of your psu, it's the way you use it.

 

[Soulkeeper]

are your voltage rails sagging ??
a lot of psu manufacturers tend to overemphasize the 12v rail and neglect the 3.3v and 5v
if they are too far out of spec then even a 500watt psu can be too little

btw I just got an antec 550 true control because my antec 480 wasn't doing the job

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
are your voltage rails sagging ??
a lot of psu manufacturers tend to overemphasize the 12v rail and neglect the 3.3v and 5v
if they are too far out of spec then even a 500watt psu can be too little

btw I just got an antec 550 true control because my antec 480 wasn't doing the job

What could you POSSIBLY be doing that an Antec 480w truepower couldnt handle, but a 550 could?

 

[JulesMaximus]

I've done a lot of research into this recently and here is what I found out. The 12V rail is what powers your hard drives, optical drives, floppy, case fans (that aren't connected to the motherboard) etc. You need to look at the Amps on each rail to determine if it will adequately supply the power needed for your system. You also need to realize that the 500W rating of your power supply is a combined total of the wattage on all the rails. Watts=Voltage x Amps. Look at the label on the power supply itself. It will tell you how many Amps each rail supplies and you simply multiply that by the Voltage on that rail and you have your Wattage. A typical 350W power supply will range from 15A to 20A on the 12V rail (brand a might be 15A and brand b might be 20A) which equates to anywhere from 180W to 240W. Now you can see how one 350W power supply might not be enough for some systems but another of the same Wattage would be perfectly adequate.

There are detailed articles available online that can explain it in more detail if you search around.

To answer your question though, a 500W power supply should be plenty. Just take a look at the Amps on each rail to determine if you have enough power there to do what you need. Always give yourself a little extra also, 80% of maximum is a fairly good rule of thumb.

Unless you were running a multi-drive RAID array with multiple optical drives you are probably not going to max out a power supply with more than 20A on the 12V rail. A hard drive typically draws around 2.5Amps and a typical optical drive around 1.5 Amps. Case fans are really low at around .25Amps each.

 

[JulesMaximus]

BTW-The Antec True Power 480W power supply only puts out 22A on the 12V rail which equates to 264W (which is more than adequate for most systems). I've seen some 500W power supplies that put out 30A or more on the 12V rail.

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
BTW-The Antec True Power 480W power supply only puts out 22A on the 12V rail which equates to 264W (which is more than adequate for most systems). I've seen some 500W power supplies that put out 30A or more on the 12V rail.

However your missing the point of the Truepower powersupplies. The antec will deliver more power to the rail that needs, so there is no real split

 

[SickBeast]

About the omegas: don't bother, they don't do much if anything. The latest driver releases from ATi have been excellent.

 

[FlyingHamster]

So do u guys recommend that I reformat when going from my old Ti4200 to my new 9800np? What would u do?

And when I install the nforce 2.45 drivers, doesnt it try to install some nvidia display driver? wut should I do?

 

[Johnbear007]

Driver Cleaner

Go here to get the driver cleaner. Uninstall your drivers THEN use the cleaner to clean them out, then uninstall the card, reinstall the new one and you should be good to go.

Its your best bet short of a reformat

 

[FlyingHamster]

so exactly wut steps do u recommend I follow when using driver cleaner?

 

[Johnbear007]

Originally posted by: FlyingHamster
so exactly wut steps do u recommend I follow when using driver cleaner?

1. Uninstall your drivers. When it prompts you to reboot say no
2. Use driver cleaner, select whatever driver company you have on there (ATI, Nvidia) and then click CLEAN
3. After it is done cleaning, shut down your computer, install your new card reboot
4. install your new drivers for your new card

 

[fibes]

I have a Visiontek 9500 Pro (which is powered by the psu) on a 350W PSU with five 12v case fans. My system runs fine. I plan to flash the BIOS and overclock my 9500 Pro in the near future, and have no worries doing it.