PSU question with new graphics card

uk.james.baker · 5 Apr 2007 at 18:07

Hi

I have a Shuttle SS31T bare bone system with a 250W shuttle PSU. I hear they are quite efficient (apparently a 400W Shuttle PSU is about as good as a 650W normal PSU?) The card I am looking at, a Sapphire ATI X1950 Pro 256mb has a recommended PSU of 450W so my question is will the card be okay to run on this?

I've only got a 3Ghz P4 and 1 GB of DDR2 RAM also, so there isn't much pressure on the PSU from any of these. Also the card I have now (ATI X1600 XT) has a recommended PSU of 350W and that has run no problem since I've had it.

TIA

j.baker

kmistry · 5 Apr 2007 at 18:16

Tbh with you I think that you may be pushing it a little, depends on the rails of your PSU check those as it will give you a better indication of the wattage

I have heard though that people have been running x1950s with a shuttle PSU though they were using 450w ones...

Kiz

uk.james.baker · 5 Apr 2007 at 18:34

Thanks for the reply. I expected a reply like that to be honest. I think it is possible to get a 400W for it, its not easy though as its a Nano BTX form factor I believe. This is the information from the Shuttle site.

Power supply unit
250 Watt PS3 Switching Power Supply with on/off switch and 9cm cooling fan
Voltage switch for 115/230V AC input voltage
Active PFC: Power-Factor-Correction with active components
connectors: 20+4 pin BTX, 4 pin ATX12V
EMI Certified: FCC, CE, CCC
Safety Certified: UL, TÜV, CB, CCC, CSA, NEMKO
Power cord: region specific

Unfortunately there is nothing about rails there.

How feasible is it to run a larger sized (physical size) out of the case? A 400W shuttle PSU is really expensive compared to an ATX you see.

Thanks

semi-pro waster · 5 Apr 2007 at 19:32

You could try it as Shuttle PSUs are pretty good but I'd check the rails first to see if they are stable.

I'd imagine that you can use an 'ordinary' PSU outside the case without a problem as it is the same as replacing any other PSU although it will look untidy. All you would have to do is to make sure that you connect all the PSU leads correctly.

uk.james.baker · 6 Apr 2007 at 12:36

Where would I go about finding the rails? There is nothing on the PSU itself to say anything about it at all :confused:

kmistry · 6 Apr 2007 at 13:15

There is usually a sticker on the side and it will say 5V rail, 12V rail etc and will have some info about the amp-age...It's usually in a little table

uk.james.baker · 6 Apr 2007 at 13:29

Found it on another site as I think the sticker is on top of the PSU, which I cannot see!

The combined 12V is 17.3A and the card is recommended at 30A. But in the review apparently Shuttle PSUs 'can take whatever hardware is thrown at them.'

Any ideas?

semi-pro waster · 6 Apr 2007 at 14:46

I wouldn't be entirely happy with 17A (you don't combine the positive and negative rails) when it should be 30A but you could always try it and see, the X1950pro isn't the most demanding of cards and since the PSUs are well built if it doesn't work all that should happen is it would shut down because of a lack of power. Try running something like Speedfan to tell you how stable the rails are, it isn't exact but normally is close enough to be useful.