Boring question about power supplies!

Brunsathon9000 · 2 Jan 2010 at 16:24

Hiya

I'm a bit of a PC novice so bare with me, I might get some stuff completely wrong

I currently have an ASRock ion 330 which just didn't have enough beef for my liking- so I decided to sell it on ebay and upgrade to a small form factor pc. I was tempted to buy barebones and build it myself but my last experience with building a pc was nightmarish- so i'd rather spend the extra few bob and have it pre-built.

Anyways on to the question- i was looking at the "Verso Avenger" on the OC site...
( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-195-OK&groupid=43&catid=1446&subcat= )
which seemed to be relatively cheap. I'd use this primarily for a bit of gaming, so I thought i'd add the 4850 card as well. The only thing is, the case only has a 300w power supply- would this be enough? I did a bit of research (IE. I googl'd) and read contrasting things- some sites said I'd need at least a 450w power supply where as others say it only uses around 120w at peak!?
Does anyone have any experience with this card or case and can comment? Would it be wiser to look at an alternative card maybe that has lower power consumption or maybe even get a 450w psu for the case?

Any help is appreciated! Again apologies if I'm a bit clueless

Cheers

Ducky Spud · 2 Jan 2010 at 19:56

You should be fine, the 4850 isnt a massively power hungry card so shouldnt create any problems. Also, OCUK wouldnt be offering the 4850 as an option if there wasnt going to be enough power to run it!

Brunsathon9000 · 2 Jan 2010 at 21:34

Ducky Spud said:
You should be fine, the 4850 isnt a massively power hungry card so shouldnt create any problems. Also, OCUK wouldnt be offering the 4850 as an option if there wasnt going to be enough power to run it!

Cheers for the reply! Yeah I was thinking that they wouldn't offer it if the psu wasn't adequate enough
I just get a tad concerned! I see some sites that says the power consumption is in the mid 200's on load ( http://techreport.com/articles.x/14967/10 )
and others that say it's around 150! ( http://mark.zoomcities.com/images/gfx/GFXpowerchartby3d.png )

What the bloody hell am I supposed to believe!
Just another quick couple of q's- would it perhaps be wiser to go for a 4670? I don't NEED massive amounts of gaming power, just something I can use to play a bit of quake and ut. It's a tad cheaper than the 4850 but having said that, i would rather have a 4850

.
Also, what would actually happen if the card/cpu requires more power than the psu can deliver? Will my pc just crash or will there be some huge horrid explosion!?
Sorry if I seem a tad pedantic about this stuff but a large chunk of my student loan is going on a pc so don't wanna f' it up

Cheers for any help again!

*EDIT*
i am a complete and utter numpty, and i should learn to read. the sites that said anything over 200watt on load for power consumption was talking about the whole system.
will be buying this next week then

! ta nehoo

Raikiri · 3 Jan 2010 at 03:21

That first link is 236w for the entire system, the second is 115w peak load for just the card, it'll be fine.

Edit: I should learn to read your edit

Brunsathon9000 · 4 Jan 2010 at 16:30

opted for a 4670 in the end

Ducky Spud · 4 Jan 2010 at 22:52

Ordered then? Let us know if its all good for you.

Bet you upgrade the graphics eventually anyway

Several times Ive had cards that are perfectly fine for me, but for some reason I upgrade them anyway, just because Ive got the urge to

Brunsathon9000 · 5 Jan 2010 at 15:56

Ducky Spud said:
Ordered then? Let us know if its all good for you.

Bet you upgrade the graphics eventually anyway Several times Ive had cards that are perfectly fine for me, but for some reason I upgrade them anyway, just because Ive got the urge to

yep! arriving next monday when i get back to uni

aye i'll be upgrading the psu and more likely than not the gpu as well in a few months

just curious, is the fact that i can't use more than 4gb of ram (IE 2x2 gb sticks) down to the actual motherboard itself or is it possible that there'd be a bios/mobo chipset update or something that'd let me use 2x4gb sticks?
cheers again