Hey guys,
I've been lurking on this forum for quite a while now, its such an entertaining read. I decided to create an account in order to ask a question about PSUs, i have searched and i can't really find any good answers.
At the moment, i'm running a P4 3.2mhz socket 478 CPU, with a X1950 AGP 512 GPU ... The 6800GT that i used to run managed to kill the first 500w PSU it had in it
After my system went a little wrong again and my old 6800GT commited suicide, i bought an old X1950 AGP. In the ATI Catalyst Control Centre that it installed, there was an option in the overclocking section that automatically tests your system (i forget what it was called) ... after pressing this, it then blew up my 650w PSU too!
Now, i was starting to get a little peed off at this point and seeing as i'd just bought the X1950 i went onto ebay and did a Buy It Now on the biggest wattage PSU i could find ... which was an unbranded 1000w PSU lol. I know its too much for my system but i wasn't taking any chances...
This is now running fine and holds the system nicely, but now that i've finally got the money together i've gone out and bought the following:
PowerColor HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache CPU
Asus P5Q-E P45 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel
Antec 900 Case
Now heres the question!
I started reading up on PSUs last night and started to get the impression that the wattage on a PSU isn't as important as the voltage on the rails?
I'm not sure about any of the tech specs on my PSU at the moment until i pull it out and have a look, but i'm thinking seeing as its a bit of cheap one will it run all the hardware i've just bought (including extras such as 2 IDE HDs, 5x 120mm fans, 1x 200mm and a CD DVD RW)?
Can someone explain (in simple terms) what makes a good PSU in terms of wattage and rails?
I would also like to know if theres any chance of it blowing up any of my new shiney peices of kit if its unstable? (i read something about 80% being stable?)
Also, would pressing that dreaded button in the CCC blow anything up again, or was it just because of my original crap PSU?
It would be very much appreciated (and probably would help others as simple as myself in the future) if someone would explain this too me. I'm a programmer so have absolutely no concept of voltage, current, wattage or hardware in general
Thanks guys!
I've been lurking on this forum for quite a while now, its such an entertaining read. I decided to create an account in order to ask a question about PSUs, i have searched and i can't really find any good answers.
At the moment, i'm running a P4 3.2mhz socket 478 CPU, with a X1950 AGP 512 GPU ... The 6800GT that i used to run managed to kill the first 500w PSU it had in it
After my system went a little wrong again and my old 6800GT commited suicide, i bought an old X1950 AGP. In the ATI Catalyst Control Centre that it installed, there was an option in the overclocking section that automatically tests your system (i forget what it was called) ... after pressing this, it then blew up my 650w PSU too!
Now, i was starting to get a little peed off at this point and seeing as i'd just bought the X1950 i went onto ebay and did a Buy It Now on the biggest wattage PSU i could find ... which was an unbranded 1000w PSU lol. I know its too much for my system but i wasn't taking any chances...
This is now running fine and holds the system nicely, but now that i've finally got the money together i've gone out and bought the following:
PowerColor HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache CPU
Asus P5Q-E P45 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel
Antec 900 Case
Now heres the question!
I started reading up on PSUs last night and started to get the impression that the wattage on a PSU isn't as important as the voltage on the rails?
I'm not sure about any of the tech specs on my PSU at the moment until i pull it out and have a look, but i'm thinking seeing as its a bit of cheap one will it run all the hardware i've just bought (including extras such as 2 IDE HDs, 5x 120mm fans, 1x 200mm and a CD DVD RW)?
Can someone explain (in simple terms) what makes a good PSU in terms of wattage and rails?
I would also like to know if theres any chance of it blowing up any of my new shiney peices of kit if its unstable? (i read something about 80% being stable?)
Also, would pressing that dreaded button in the CCC blow anything up again, or was it just because of my original crap PSU?
It would be very much appreciated (and probably would help others as simple as myself in the future) if someone would explain this too me. I'm a programmer so have absolutely no concept of voltage, current, wattage or hardware in general
Thanks guys!
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