Guidline for power supply ratings?

[NORAD]

Is there a guidline or reference for selecting the power supply of a pc?
I'm looking at a Pent4 2ghz system that manufacture rates @ 250watts.
Or does the total usage/application of system need to be taken in account to figure out power supply requirement?
Thanks-

[vibe666]

not sure about intel, but AMD have something similar on their site, but as intel and AMD have very different PSU requirements it's not going to be of much use to you, but for anyone else interested it's here at: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_869_1039^1053,00.html

:D

[vibe666]

for some reason the whole URL wasn't registered in the last post.

you'll have to copy/paste it into your browser.

[[shawn@localhost /home]#]

lemme give it a shot :D

THIS IS MY TEST LINK (http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors...30_182_869_1039^1053,00.html)

**** it didnt work

[vibe666]

nope. nothing seems to work. maybe someone who knows about these things might know why, but i'm not that clever.

anyway, go to www.amd.com then go0 to the link at the bottom of the page titled 'AMD Athlon™ Configuration Info'. then on the right of the next page there is a link titled 'Athlon™ Recommended Power Supplies'. its in there.

long winded way of doing it but that way it'll work.

[Vit]

NORAD,

You should take in account total power usage by all your hardware when selecting PSU. I already asked in another thread if anyone knows about PSU configurator (the tool that would allow me to enter all hardware I have and give me minimum power required for my hardware) somewhere on the Internet. But I got no response to this question.

[NORAD]

Vit, sounds exactly what im in need of also.Maybe we should check the archives here @ SysOpt? NORAD:)

[rangeral]

Here's an excerpt that makes some sense:

How to tell a power supply's real wattage?
Many cutomers emailed us asking this question. It is difficult to tell by looking or reading the labels. To be accurate, you will
need an instrument to measure it. Roughly, you might be able to tell by the weight. Yes, by the weight! Faked 300W power
supply has the similar weight as the 250W power supply. Real 300W poewr supply is much heavier than the 250W power supply,
due to the heatsink is larger, and components must be able to handle larger current. To the manufacture, it will cost close to $28
USD marterial to make a 300W power supply, not including the labor and shipping. If someone selling a computer case including
a 300W power supply totally less than $30, you know that is not real!

With that you get what you pay for as well if you must have that nice looking case at least put in a quality psu such as enermax or antec both approved by amd/intel. Most cheap cases come with a 250w generic psu while the norm for todays hardware is 300w, consider that you may add more or stronger hardware at some time in the future to upgrade then a 350w would be nice plus give you less odd occurences in your system plus your parts will perform better since video cards are more demanding for steady power. Mine is an enermax 361w although wished I went for more.

In the excerpt above meaning weight is because there using a bigger heatsink with quality parts. So do yourself a favor and don't skimp on a psu and a good motherboard.

[[shawn@localhost /home]#]

yo one thing, im getting a new puter here and i already ordered it to be built (will be ready in 2 days) and i picked the 300W power supply

my system is this:
Gigabyte 7VXTE mobo with KT266A chipset
AMD Athlon XP 1700+
GeForce2 Ti200
Maxtor 60GB 5400RPM HDD
1 stick 512mb PC2100 DDR RAM
50x CD
with a pretty big fan on it

is 300W enough if they all run at once?

[Kurylo]

250W should be enough. At the working PC, I get 185W without monitor (don't ask me how did I count that, but believe me, that are the practical measured result), but it is plugging separately.

[dtech10]

At http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/products/power_supplies/index.htm
They have an on line power supply calculator it it's any help.

[arthur888]

I read this and I thought it might be interesting:

http://www.xtremepcuk.com/articles/psu/2.shtml

[vibe666]

i have a 1ghz T/Bird and it wouldn't even get to POST with a 250W PSU. I bought a 300W one and it boots fine. swapped it back just to check, and nothing.

and that was with the MoBo and Video card ONLY, and it still wouldn't boot.

i have a DVD, CD-RW, 5400rpm 40GB HD, Video, NIC, Sound and several USB bits and bobs and the 300W runs it all.

Athlons suck juice big time. look at the MAD website, they recommend a minimum of 300W PSU from most PSU suppliers.

you can't hurt your system by having too much spare power, but you can do a lot of damage by not having enough.

[vibe666]

that was supposed to be the AMD website not the MAD one.

incidentally out of curiosity i looked up www.mad.com and it is still up for grabs.

can you believe it something so simple and it's not been taken yet.

so who wants it?:D