Antec 400w enough?

[Azhreal]

Is a 400w antec enough power for an athlon 64 3500+ (probably going to oc), a8v deluxe, geforce 6800gt, dvd, and 2 hd's?

 

[GeForceX]

Dude, WTF. Do people not read or are they just so lazy?

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=844691

-J.

 

[Azhreal]

As sad as it may seem... people overlook stickies no matter where they are. For some reason it is very easy to completely miss them, though it may just be because of my ADD, lol. Apologies for the quick post.. I have a habit of asking questions before looking for the answer so yes, in short.. people don't read and they're lazy. I looked over the list of topics and didn't see anything worthwhile and immediately posted my question.. maybe they should flag accounts and force popups saying to read stickies when they read in, lol.. of course then I'd just click X like I do on any box without reading it, so it's a worthless cause... this will keep occuring until the world is over. Sorry for the disappointment

 

[Azhreal]

After looking at that program someone wasted a frickin huge amount of time... good god. That is nowhere near accurate enough nor worth the time to continuously update with how often hardware changes in today's industry. A simple.. yes or no, get a 500w to be safe is much more efficient then that contraption, lol. 1 answer to threads like these will more then likely get it buried within 3-4 hours depending on board activity. After using that tool it claimed like 277w of power.. and I'm still not certain wtf it was trying to say. That thing doesn't even have any of the 90nm ath64 chips.. unless I just missed them, and they take a lot less power then socket 754 3400+.

 

[Dominat0r]

I use a Antec SL400 with the system listed below....i have a Neo2 coming tomorrow (i hope)

 

[Ice Czar]

After looking at that program someone wasted a frickin huge amount of time... good god. That is nowhere near accurate enough nor worth the time to continuously update with how often hardware changes in today's industry.

if you actually follow the guide there are additional resources
that calculator is up to date enough when it comes to processors, mobos and most other devices are pretty spec controlled and though your actual hardware might not be listed, what is there is often representative

it does lack the latest and greatest advances in contemporary graphics cards, which is why I supplied additional resources specifically for that

what that calculator does do is keep you from having to bust your noggin converting amps to watts and keeping track of their additives, though you'll still have to do that if your going to work up a full set of baselines


so here is your simple answer, spend the extra money on over capacity and hope you guess right
for $200+ a Turbo Cool is a safe bet
or actually figure it out, so that when you upgrade you dont fry something
because simply put watts dont mean jack

POWER SHMOWER
or How PSU Power Ratings Mean Almost Nothing

A frustrating fact about PSUs is that there does not appear to be a stringent or regulated standard for reporting, advertising and labeling rated power. This is despite the existence of standards like ATX2.03 or Intel ATX12V.

There are well-established standards for measuring and rating HDD capacity, an engine's horsepower, or the heat generated by a furnace... but not one for how much power a PSU can deliver. There are so many cases of people with "450W" PSUs having power stability issues running a system that can't possoibly draw more than 150W. And "300W" units that keep running where the "450W" units are faltering.

It's not just about bad PSUs vs better ones. It's a dumb situation caused by uncontrolled marketing competition. Real regulation would bring PSUs out of snake oil territory and into a more sensible consumer-friendly terrain.

There are many ways PSU makers fudge to make their units seem more powerful.

1) Out and out lying. You add up the power on all the lines in many PSUs and they fall short of the rated power by 10, 20 30W or even more.

There are more sophisticated ways:

2) Limit the AC input voltage to a very narrow tolerance. The best PSUs are able to deliver their rated power given a decent range of AC input power, say 90~130V for a 120V unit. It's much more demanding to produce 300W w/90VAC input than with 120VAC, so what some PSU makers will detail in their tech specs (usually not in their consumer brochures) is to specify 115-120VAC for input power. A PSU specified this way will not deliver full power if the AC voltage sags, if there is a brown-out. Surely it causes instability more often than a PSU rated to deliver full power with 90-130VAC.

3) Specify a low operating temperature for rated output. This is quite common, but again not often seen in consumer brochures, but rather tech spec sheets provided usually only on demand by engineers or corp buyers. A typical PSU operating temp statement is somthing like this:

0ºC ~25ºC for full rating of load, decrease to zero Watts O/P at 70ºC

Examine what that says. Full power (let's say 400W) is available when the unit is at 0ºC ~25ºC. Hmmm. Think about this.

Have you ever felt air blown out of a PSU in a PC running absolutely full tilt (which it would have to do to get anywhere near 400W output) that felt cool to the fingers? 25ºC airflow would feel exactly that: Cool, given that normal body temperature is 37 °C.

So this PSU cannot deliver full rated power when its temperature goes over 25ºC. OK, what happens to the max power output capacity above that temp? It decreases gradually so that by the time the PSU temp reaches 70ºC, the PSU cannot deliver any power at all. So if you assume that this power drop as temp rises is linear, then max power capacity will drop by ~9W for every degree over 25ºC.

Now having examined as many PSUs as I have over the last 2~3 years, I have to say there's not a single PSU in ANY PC I have ever used or examined that would not measure at least 30~35ºC almost anywhere inside the PSU under almost any kind of load. And if/when it is pushed, 45ºC is nothing at all, especially for or near hot running components like voltage regulators.

So let's say 40ºC is a fairly typical temp inside a PSU. This 400W rated unit would actually be able to deliver a max of just 220W at that temp. Hmmm. Interesting, isn't it? At 50ºC, the available power would drop to just 130W. No wonder some PSUs have 3 fans each capable of 50 cfm!!

Here's a simple fact: Really high quality PSUs are actually rated for full power output at as high as 40ºC. The trick is get a hold of the spec sheets that tell such information so you can compare apples to apples. Or ask.

total wattage means absolutely nothing if its capacity on the wrong rail, or if its "ghost" capacity that simply isnt there when a supply is derated for temperature
you learned how to integrate components and employ your OS, well now-a-days, you need to learn how to buy a PSU or risk frying some pretty expensive components
there are plenty of object lessons to go around
learn or burn

 

[Azhreal]

Not knocking your guide.. it's just not.... mmm, non-hardware tech friendly There are people out there like me who are software people and not hardware who enjoy the thrills of overclocking, lol. I'm an mis major.. I hate math, hence the passing up of CS as my major. Your guide and page looked like a massive rocket fuel formula that I could not decipher, so I decide to simply ask the experienced people of this forum if 400w antec will be good enough for my new upgrades.

 

[Azhreal]

I use a Antec SL400 with the system listed below....i have a Neo2 coming tomorrow (i hope)

Your 3000+ only hit 2160? I notice you have an A8V 2.0, the board I have coming... you think for some reason it's the boards fault and not your cpu? I've seen some heavy oc's with both A8V and the neo2 board... but curious why you're changing.

 

[Dominat0r]

I originally wanted the MSI board, but needed a board quickly so i could ship my old stuff out. So i drove to Tigerdirect store here and bought the Asus, once my MSI gets here, i will return the Asus and eat the fee.

I really think its the limit of my chip. I have tried both SATA controllers, the Promise and the Via. The Via is slightly faster in benchmarks, but this did NOTHING for my OC. I cant go any higher then 240 right now.

I will be getting a new PSU soon, but the 400w Antec i have no is working fine.