PSU wattage advice needed

pieman109 · 29 Oct 2006 at 19:35

I've got to put a new psu in a mate's pc. Hes got 3 x IDE H/ds (160gig, 200gig 250gig) the 250gig one being fed from a raid card,2 x cdrom drives, plus 2 x fans etc. Hes got a 400w generic psu in there atm, but I'm dubious about the quality to say the least. I was thinking in terms of summat like a tagan 430w jobbie with 28a on the +12v rails.
Wadya reckon?

Joe42 · 29 Oct 2006 at 20:13

Hard disks and cd drives are negligible. Its the gpu and cpu that take the power.
Need gpu and cpu info to know what sort of power is required.

Mr-White · 29 Oct 2006 at 20:27

the most power is drawn when it boots and under full load. the majority of power is drawn from the CPU and gfx hence why these both power down when under low usage. unless he has 2 CPUs and 2 gfx cards a 400W should be enough.

MW

Joe42 · 29 Oct 2006 at 20:33

Theres a pretty big power difference between a low end sempron with integrated graphics and an overclocked Pentium D with an X1900 XT.
Like 200w difference.
A 400w psu would be a waste of money with the former and a little on the low side for the latter.

Mr-White · 29 Oct 2006 at 21:48

most new single CPU and single gfx systems peak about 200-250w and yet no one would put a 300w PSU in it, everyone over specs the PSU

MW

barros · 29 Oct 2006 at 21:59

Sorry, posted in the wrong section my bad