350 watt psu will it cope for now ?

spellcaster · 12 Jul 2008 at 17:24

Hello I am buying bits for my new machine as i can afford them. so initially going to get the following.

Sapphire Ati Radeon HD 4850
gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 mobo
intel core 2 duo E840 lga775 wolfdale 3ghz
OCZ 4gb PC2-640c5 Dual channel vista gold memory

I know I will need a more powerful psu in the near future but will it be enough to fire up the above machine and to play some games?

p4radox · 12 Jul 2008 at 17:26

Depends what brand PSU it is. If it's a decent one it might well manage fine. IF it's a cheap one then it almost certainly won't.

jonislost · 12 Jul 2008 at 17:26

I don't think it can handle the 4850. Just done a quick google and people mention 450 watts is needed at least... What brand you got?

jak731 · 12 Jul 2008 at 17:28

personally i would not take the risk, you will most likely be running at close to your PSUs max load or even over. you also have to take into account the current on your 12V rails, the age of your PSU, the brand and model and any possible faults it could have.

get a new psu first i say and save yourself some possible greif

p4radox · 12 Jul 2008 at 17:32

Well for a comparison, Techpowerup used an almost identical system:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (Wolfdale, 6144 KB Cache)
Motherboard: Gigabyte P35C-DS3R Intel P35
Memory: 2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4
Harddisk: WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB
Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream 700W
Software: Windows XP SP2

And this is how power consumption looked:

And that's the absolute PEAK power. I'd be inclined to say that as long as it's a decent enough quality unit it'd be fine.

jonislost · 12 Jul 2008 at 17:34

p4radox said:
Well for a comparison, Techpowerup used an almost identical system:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.6 GHz (Wolfdale, 6144 KB Cache)
Motherboard: Gigabyte P35C-DS3R Intel P35
Memory: 2x 1024MB A.DATA DDR2 1066+ CL4
Harddisk: WD Raptor 740ADFD 74 GB
Power Supply: OCZ GameXStream 700W
Software: Windows XP SP2

And this is how power consumption looked:

And that's the absolute PEAK power. I'd be inclined to say that as long as it's a decent enough quality unit it'd be fine.

According to that He could run any graphics card including the GX2 though... Hang isn't that just measuring the wattage of the gfx alone. Not taking into account the CPU HD Ram etc?

sven256 · 12 Jul 2008 at 17:41

I would also believe that would be the gpu alone as the CPU would also be using 160 watts load at stock speeds according to other sites. So my guess you would be looking closer to 500 watt. That is including stuff like the hard drive DVD writer sound card etc.

p4radox · 12 Jul 2008 at 18:20

Well, it certainly says "system power consumption" on the graph. Try Anandtech instead:

As long as it's a good PSU I'd at least give it a try. A know for a fact that an Antec 380W unit will run a 4850 equipped system so a 350W may well do the job just as well.

PhoenixUK · 12 Jul 2008 at 18:26

sven256 said:
I would also believe that would be the gpu alone as the CPU would also be using 160 watts load at stock speeds according to other sites. So my guess you would be looking closer to 500 watt. That is including stuff like the hard drive DVD writer sound card etc.

Second that, maybe not 500 but he will need at least stable ~400 which means he will need a good brand 450-480PSU

DrBombcrater · 12 Jul 2008 at 19:19

If it's a good quality PSU that puts out at least 24A on its 12v rail(s) then you should be okay. I'm running an E2160 @ 3GHz, Radeon HD4870, 4GB of ram and 2 hard drives from a 380W Antec with no problems at all.

C64 · 13 Jul 2008 at 01:23

My corsair hx520 16 months old was brought to it's knees by a 4850 and bit the bullet.

spellcaster · 13 Jul 2008 at 14:09

Thanks for the replies everyone

I will set the system up when i buy the parts just to see it working. and take it from there.

Devil_Spawn · 13 Jul 2008 at 14:16

i wouldnt try it. just because the system only uses 200W, and the psu is 350W, it doesnt mean that anywhere near enough power will be able to go down the 12V rails, as lots will be dedicated to the mobo, and any other rails (inaccessable to where it is needed most)

also older psu's arent that efficient.

you may blow the psu which may take out the system.

lay-z-boy · 13 Jul 2008 at 14:23

C64 said:
My corsair hx520 16 months old was brought to it's knees by a 4850 and bit the bullet.

A bad unit. Mine drives two gtx's, 6 hdd's, a q6600 at 3.6 and all the stuff to go with it.

Devil_Spawn said:
also older psu's arent that efficient.

What a sweeping statement. :/

OP: as long as it's a reasonably good model it will be fine.

For the record, a 330w tagan powers my brothers x2 4400+ @ 2.75, x1900xtx oc'd and 3 hdd's.

Owenb · 13 Jul 2008 at 14:25

spellcaster said:
I will set the system up when i buy the parts just to see it working. and take it from there.

What brand is the PSU? And what is the amps are on the 12v rail? If it's a cheap brand PSU and could well take some of the parts with it.

gareth170 · 13 Jul 2008 at 14:37

Devil_Spawn said:
you may blow the psu which may take out the system.

if the psu as overload protection, it won't blow, it'll just cut off..

PhoenixUK · 13 Jul 2008 at 14:56

lay-z-boy said:
A bad unit. Mine drives two gtx's, 6 hdd's, a q6600 at 3.6 and all the stuff to go with it.

What a sweeping statement. :/

OP: as long as it's a reasonably good model it will be fine.

For the record, a 330w tagan powers my brothers x2 4400+ @ 2.75, x1900xtx oc'd and 3 hdd's.

I think he meant that they loose some power with time, which is true

.
2yr old PSU won't give out as much as same new one.

And as I said earlier the efficency on that 35 will be max 75-80%, which leaves him with just ~270w.

He can try to do it, but to be honest I wouldnt.

mmorpheus1 · 13 Jul 2008 at 15:01

With the HD4850 needing around 200w at load i would think your machine would throw you a blue screen or re-boot when gaming :eek:

best dig deep and get a new psu imo :rolleyes:

Mattus · 13 Jul 2008 at 20:42

Lots of misinformation here!

With the HD4850 needing around 200w at load i would think your machine would throw you a blue screen or re-boot when gaming

No way a HD4850 needs 200w at load. It's probably closer to 100w. The Anandtech graph below shows the total power consumption for an entire system with an HD4850 as 227w - so it should be OK on a decent 350w PSU, providing he doesn't have loads of hard drives or peripherals and he isn't overclocked too much.

And as I said earlier the efficency on that 35 will be max 75-80%, which leaves him with just ~270w.

It doesn't work that way! If you have a 330w PSU which is 75% efficient, it means that it can output 330w whilst drawing ~440w from the wall. 25% of the input power is wasted during the conversion, but the PSU can still give out 330w. (In reality the PSU's efficiency depends on the load - a PSU running close to its maximum output will be fairly inefficient.)

spellcaster, what make and model is the PSU? Look on the label to see how many amps it outputs at 12 volts. If it's a decent 350 then it should work OK, though I wouldn't overclock on it and I would change the PSU when you can, as it's always good to have some spare capacity.

If it's not made by a company with a decent reputation, I wouldn't try it. You're likely to have problems as unbranded PSUs tend to be over-rated, particularly looking at the 12-volt output. The worst case scenario is that it could blow and take your PC with it, as cheap PSUs tend not to have the protection against system damage that decent ones have.

The PSU's a component that's often overlooked - dodgy PSUs frequently lead to problems which are tricky to diagnose, where a decent PSU will give you peace of mind.

PhoenixUK · 13 Jul 2008 at 22:46

Mattus said:
Lots of misinformation here!

No way a HD4850 needs 200w at load. It's probably closer to 100w. The Anandtech graph below shows the total power consumption for an entire system with an HD4850 as 227w - so it should be OK on a decent 350w PSU, providing he doesn't have loads of hard drives or peripherals and he isn't overclocked too much.

It doesn't work that way! If you have a 330w PSU which is 75% efficient, it means that it can output 330w whilst drawing ~440w from the wall. 25% of the input power is wasted during the conversion, but the PSU can still give out 330w. (In reality the PSU's efficiency depends on the load - a PSU running close to its maximum output will be fairly inefficient.)

spellcaster, what make and model is the PSU? Look on the label to see how many amps it outputs at 12 volts. If it's a decent 350 then it should work OK, though I wouldn't overclock on it and I would change the PSU when you can, as it's always good to have some spare capacity.

If it's not made by a company with a decent reputation, I wouldn't try it. You're likely to have problems as unbranded PSUs tend to be over-rated, particularly looking at the 12-volt output. The worst case scenario is that it could blow and take your PC with it, as cheap PSUs tend not to have the protection against system damage that decent ones have.

The PSU's a component that's often overlooked - dodgy PSUs frequently lead to problems which are tricky to diagnose, where a decent PSU will give you peace of mind.

Yeh sorry messed there abit with something else

, my apologies.

Anyways as already been said, I wouldn't risk it unless it's a top brand PSU.