Will my PSU cope?

Building Candy

Building Candy

Building Candy

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8 Nov 2006
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Im concidering moving to c2d from my xp2400 and a little concerned about whether my psu will be up to it. My current spec is:

xp2400
1.5gb ram
dvd/cdrw combi drive
geforce 6800 agp
80gb seagate

im running this off a SilenX Luxurae 400watt psu, now I have a really quiet pc and love this fanless psu, I dont really want to part with it unless i have to. Im looking at upgrading to:

E4300 (@3ghz or just under not too fussed)
DS3
2gb - OCZ 6400

But because of pci-e i'll need to change the graphics card. Obviously a 8800 is out of the question with this psu so I was thinking I could get away with ..... say... a 7600gt? and then in a year or so upgrade the psu and then to a 8800 at the same time. How does all this sound? what graphics card do you think I could get away with?
 
If it were just swapping the 6800 for a 7600GT then it wouldn't be a problem because the power requirements are pretty similar. However overclocking to 3ghz is likely to be a bit of a stretch for the PSU, remember that PSUs get less efficient with age. If you want a recommendation I'd go for a Corsair 520w which is very quiet and very well built. :)
 
Thanks for your guess work.

Ive just read in another thread the 6800 draws 55watts and the 7600gt 36watts, hardly similar. Also the c2d is 65watts, even if i overclock I cant see that getting to more than double, the xp2400 is rated at about 68watts (i think).
 
You could always run it through a PSU calculator, however bear in mind they are not always entirely accurate. Going on the information you have given I put in the system with a 7600GT and it comes to around 244w with the CPU overclocked to 3ghz. As I said before though PSUs do become less efficient over time, your 12V rail is also important here, if it is less than 20A I'd probably advise against re-using the PSU.

Incidentally according to the PSU calculator there is less than 5w difference between a 6800 (standard since you didn't specify GT or ultra) and a 7600GT. :)
 
Good calculator! im showing :

current xp2400 system - 256 watts
overclocked e4300 with 7600gt - 293 watts
overclocked e4300 with 7950gt - 318 watts

was looking at this card as its passive aswell, might see if I can run that instead, save me upgrading again in a year.
 
Really? Still no convinced. My P4 when overclocked is taking up 180w by itself.


Might try it out however:

P4 + 2x8800gtx= Severe CPU bottleneck.


Ill leave it til later. The 8800GTX is only so i can play games on my 2407wfp better than My 7900 gto could. It was a brilliant card, but it was slightly struggling at those resolutions with everything on max
 
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