Power Supplies

[duomaxwell]

hello everyone,

I'm new to techspot, and it's one of my favorit sites now!

anyways here is the problem:
after some advice from some of the techspot smart guys, my power supply is bad and needs to be replaced. The brand is a easy choice, becasue of all the links provided by everyone here at techspot. however my next question is how many watts do i need? what info is needed?
basic info:

i have => a vid card, 1gig of ram, 1 hard drive, 1 dvd drive, 3 1/2 floppy, ethernet card, 3 large fans about 5", 2 small fans about 3 1/2" , on and off switches for each group of fans 4 switches total, some extra usb ports connected with the mobo.

 

[fastco]

Based on what specs you gave you need a 300 watt power supply. If you plan on adding devices a bigger PSU would be even better.

 

[duomaxwell]

I do plan on building another pc at some point in time, (and i'll probably transfer my powersupply from the pc to my new one). So there is no telling what crazy stuff i will add on to my new pc. I guess the question i really need to ask is what amount of power do each device take to run? is there a performance difference if i have a lower wattage psu? or should i just over kill it with some crazy high wattage but still resonably priced psu?

 

[fastco]

A good 400-450 watt power supply will be more than enough and a decent UPS is also important to prevent spikes.

http://www-facilities.stanford.edu/tsg/ups_guidelines.html

 

[KingCody]

use a PSU calculator to find your educated/estimated needs, but generally speaking if it's a quality PSU, then 350w or higher would be fine.

here is a couple of good guides to PSU needs as well as good models and bad models.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

You might find this Psu wattage calculator useful. Add a further 30% to whatever figure it gives you for headroom.

Regards Howard

 

[duomaxwell]

thanx guys! just the info i needed

 

[wolfram]

Just make sure to get a good, quality PSU from a respectable manufacturer. Especially avoid Powmax :hotbounce :hotouch:

make sure it has at least 24A on the 12V rail o rails, in order to use a good graphics card, without making the PSU cry....