Need a new PSU! Need help in picking one

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Dante13

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As the thread says I need a new PSU. Mainly because I'm going to need the extra wattage and amperage for my 3d card. My psu right now generates 330w. While the video card minimun is 300w. I've been getting weird black shaped textures since I installed the video card. Anyway, I've been looking for a new psu. So, here's what I have under the hood
CPU:Intel Pentium 4 2.5ghz
Mobo:L4S5MG+- SIS651 chipset
Memory: 512 MB DDR PC2100
HDD1: Western Digital 160GB HD
HDD2: Western Digital 80GB HD
Video: Geforce 6600LE
PSU: Generic PSU 330w
 
Generic's not helping...

What characteristics do you want?
- Noise level
- Price
- Power quality (Voltage drops, efficiency, interference, etc.)

A 450w-500w should be good in your case.

There are pretty good ones that are pretty good for almost everything like the Antec TruePower. (~ $100)

If you look for a 0dB PSU there's Antec Phantom. (In fact, it's the same as a TruePower if we're not talking about noise level)

A pretty good overall quality PSU could be a Fortron / FSP. There's the $60 Blue Storm I've looked at recently. It's efficient, under 23dB of noise (Your HDD is noisier), 380w and cheaper than TruePower.

If you have a generic case and would like to improve cooling, there's the Antec Sonata II ($120) which is coming with a nice Antec SmartPower 2 450W power supply, rack-mounted drives, 120mm fan.

Just advices. It depends on how much you're ready to pay and what you want. Tell what I asked for first, it's going to be more helpful.
 
when you get a quality brand PSU, you don't have to worry about high wattage (unless you're going to run SLI/CrossFire). in other words a 330w PSU would be fine if it wasn't a rubbish brand.

the wattage rating on a cheap PSU is a maximum under ideal conditons (a dust free, very cool room). also the amperage will be mostly on the 3 and 5 volt lines and not on the 12V line that modern systems need.

if you want to get a high wattage PSU, be my guest.... but most systems will not require any more than 350w
 
Well, it's less a concern and with good cooling, you can pull more power out of it.

but most systems will not require any more than 350w
Oh, that's why my Athlon XP Palomino 2000+ and GeForce 4 run rock stable with a generic 300w. (I suppose new systems need a lot more juice)
 
I'm having trouble with the textures of games. That's the reason for a change. I get black shapes in games and now my computer has been restarting.
 
It helps to know the following...

What characteristics do you want?
- Noise level
- Price
- Power quality (Voltage drops, efficiency, interference, etc.)

I'm having trouble with the textures of games. That's the reason for a change. I get black shapes in games and now my computer has been restarting.
Do you know if the capacitors on your motherboard are OK?

And what if you try to remove some devices to test if it works fine?
 
DragonMaster said:
what if you try to remove some devices to test if it works fine?
it is a generic PSU and needs to be replaced reguardless of whether or not it's the source of the problem
 
it is a generic PSU and needs to be replaced reguardless of whether or not it's the source of the problem

You should tell this to me more often! (Only 2 comps on every ones I had don't have generic PSUs)
 
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