• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Is 450W enough?

L

leon42

n00b
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
2
I was about to buy Antec Sonata II case which comes with a SmartPower 2.0 450W PSU. But now that I've finalized the rest of the hardware I'm getting, I'm worried that PSU might not be enough power for my system.

Here's the specs:

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
Athlon 64 X2 4200+
GeForce 7800GT
3 Westen Digital 7200RPM 320GB hard drives
NEC ND-3550A DVD-R

If I need a bigger PSU, that means I probably have to buy it separate from the case and spend a lot more than I wanted (or else get a cheap -- and probably noisy -- case). Or maybe there's some other option I'm not thinking of. Can I get away with 450W? Any suggestions?
 
leon42 said:
If I need a bigger PSU, that means I probably have to buy it separate from the case and spend a lot more than I wanted (or else get a cheap -- and probably noisy -- case). Or maybe there's some other option I'm not thinking of. Can I get away with 450W? Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how capable an SP450 is because I haven't used one and the label is a bit confusing (showing 3.3V, 12V, 12V1 combined, but not 12V1 and 12V2) With just one 7800, it might be fine.

But as a rule, case manufacturers aren't going to miss the opportunity of an up-sell. They hardly ever put an adequate power supply in a case. Don't shop for a case because of a power supply. You're buying a case. Not a power supply. The right thing to do, with almost any case out there, is to pull the power supply out of whatever case you like and chuck it.
 
Based on davidhammock200's estimation of ~29A for the SP500 PSU, the maximum combined +12V amperage capacity for the SPII-450 which comes with the Sonata II case is about 26A.
 
Thanks for the help. It sounds like I should just spend the money and get a 550W PSU to be safe.

1. I'm now looking at the Antec TP-II 550 and the TP2-550EPS12V. Other than the fact that one has 1 big fan and the other has 2 smaller fans, is there any difference between these PSUs? Is 2 fans better? The price difference is only abour $5.

2. How much power does each additional 7200 RPM hard drive use (assuming they are in a RAID so they are all busy at the same time)?

3. Does anyone have any suggestions for quiet, not-too-expensive cases? The P-180 looks great, but that's going to push me way over budget. (I know I should probably ask this in a different forum).

Thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top