Minimum power supply for Radeon 9500 Pro

[jtown]

I bought a Dell and it came with a wimpy 250W power supply. Am I going to be ok with a 9500 pro/sound card/cd writer/DVD Rom?

 

[nardvark]

is this a recent purchase? if it is, you should be fine.
Dell rates its power supplies very conservatively. Their relatively new (last couple years) 250W power supplies would be rated at 350W on a more standard scale.
Many dell users have been successful with upgrading to a 9500pro.
(also note that dell sells 9700 pros with some of their computers, and I do not believe they use different power supplies if you buy a different video card)
check out the dell forums if you want more re-assurance.

 

[ScrewFace]

I had a 230w power supply running 2 hard-drives, a CD/RW and a DVD-ROM no problem. Now I have a 300w just for peace of mind.

 

[silentScope]

I would recommend 350 W which is whati have.. and make sure its a good brand powersupply. I have learned from personal experience that it is very important to have a good PS, none of those 20$ ones that are included in the case.

 

[jtown]

what would happend if I ran out of juice? Possibly damage hardware? Will the computer just not boot up?

 

[Sarge1]

In my experience (with an R300 card) it will not boot at all. The fans spin, but it will not POST. Some others will boot and run, but with a corrupted display. But no damage to the computer. A larger PSU cures the problem. Just give it a try and if it doesn't work, then try it with another PSU.

 

[PowerEngineer]

I just picked up a retail 9500 Pro at CompUSA ($219-$20 rebate). The instructions recommend a 300W power supply, but I suspect that you can get away 250W (unless you have a lot of other hard drives, etc.).

 

[JMU1337]

Hell, for a few days I had an old 200w Gateway PS running my 2100+, 2 hard drives, cd-rw, dvd, soundcard, and gf2 ti.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: jtown
what would happend if I ran out of juice? Possibly damage hardware? Will the computer just not boot up?

either it wont boot at all or it will have stablity issues, either way your hardware will be fine. most people go overboad on powersuplies really, not that haveing more than enough hurts though.