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New Power Supply

N

NIGHTMARE2

Gawd
Joined
Jul 4, 2003
Messages
645
I'm upgrading, I need a new power supply.

I plan on getting a 6800 Ultra so I figure I'm buying a new power supply so I will get one in the 500w area.

What is the best 500w power supply?


Thanks.
 
The 500w area? Dude you dont need nothing in the 500w area. That video card alone isn't going to pull no huge amount of wattage compared to the video cards right now. Yes it has dual 12v connectors and yes it will draw more but it wont be anything drastic.

A good 400w PSU will more then enough. If everyone had to upgrade to a 500w PSU to buy an nVidia 6800 there wouldn't be many bought. OEM machines will use these video cards and they have small generic power supplies.

Most high end systems never use over 300w and that is with like 4 HDD's and several opticals and a load of other stuff. 500w PSU's are less efficient and usually louder then smaller 400-480w PSU's.

There will be a new BTX standard PSU before you need an ATX 500w PSU.

My suggestion would be an Antec True Power 430-480w or Enermax in that size range.
 
But unless your running multiple SCSSI drives and doing some serious over clocking that requires adjustment pots on your rails, then the Turbo Cool 425 deluxe will be more than enough I highly recomend it. It would be a better choice than the True Power 550. ( I had the 550 prior to my Turbo425.)
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
The 500w area? Dude you dont need nothing in the 500w area.
Click to expand...

probably true
a PCP&C 510 would be the equivilant of a much larger cheap PSU

Output: +5V @ 40A
+12V @ 34A, 38A pk
-5V @ 0.3A
-12V @ 2A
+3.3V @ 30A
+5VSB @ 3A
power<510W

Regulation:
1% (+5, +12)
5% (-5, -12)
1% (+3.3)

MTBF: 100,000 hrs.

and that would be a rating as tested at 40C
not the typical 25C
(which can boost the metric by as much as 33%)
 
Originally posted by stumpy
No reason to get a 500w, just a waste of money.
Click to expand...


wouldnt necessarilly say that
a PSU running at half load will last longer than one running at full capacity, and if you end up powering alot of drives (as mentioned before) it could be a good move

however, the standard is likely to change in the near future from the typical 20 pin ATX mobo connector to the 24 pin SSI compliant EPS12V connector (mostly found on dual CPU mobos currently) so as a long term investment in infrastructure.....
 
As people have said here, it's cheap insurance for an EXPENSIVE rig.

How are the "Ultra Quiet"s of the PC&P?
 
Originally posted by KevC
As people have said here, it's cheap insurance for an EXPENSIVE rig.

How are the "Ultra Quiet"s of the PC&P?
Click to expand...

My 425 is pretty quiet. At least I cant hear it over my other case fans.
 
cant currently hear anything over my AC anyway :p

db levels are so subjective
 
I just fired up my 450W Custom PC P& C PSU in the file server.

I wouldn't accept anything less in my ATX compatible systems (Shuttle is rather proprietary in their XPCs).

Get a PC P&C. it'll probably last longer than the parts in it; this PSU has survived at least a dozen computers. Upgrades come and go, but a PC Power & Cooling PSU will endure.


450W powering all of these, and still have perfect rails:

P3 733
i815 mobo (gateway OEM)
384mb RAM
ATI Rage AGP Videocard
802.11g wireless NIC
Highpoint RocketRAID 404 RAID 5 controller
3com 10/100 NIC
cheap 10/100/1000 NIC
8 WD 80gb hdds in RAID 5
1 WD 80gb hdd in Vantec EZ-Swap tray
1 IBM 30gb hdd in Vantec EZ-Swap tray
1 DVD-ROM
4 80mm fans, 1 92mm fan.
 
another proud owner of a pcp&c here..

I highly recommend the 510 Deluxe, hands down it's the best PSU money can buy.. sure, it's $190 but considering it'll be the last ATX psu you'll ever need, and will power ANYTHING you throw into it, it's well worth the investment..

As a good runnerup, the antec 550 tru control is nice, but still lags behind the pcp&c in performance.
 
Originally posted by Barnaby

As a good runnerup, the antec 550 tru control is nice, but still lags behind the pcp&c in performance.
Click to expand...

Dont you mean True Power?

the voltage regulation (which my links above point out the importance of in a modern (post 2003) system) is excellent in either
the True Power line having a special circuit to maintain it and the PCP&C having a within 1% variance (where the industry norm is 5%)

just to reinterate once more
[H]ardcore PSU info > Dynamic Load Multimeter Charts
PCP&C 450 18th chart, Antec True Power 480 21st chart
and
the majority of damaged RAM returned to memory manufacturers is destoryed by fluctuations in the voltage.
 
you definetley need more than an antec 430, to whoever said a good 400watter is enough. Look at my system. I was having all sorts of stability problems including a tradeoff between high cpu speeds and low video card clocks or vice versa and massive screen corruption @ 4ghz with an overclocked video card, memory errors, etc. Severe voltage line drops, even measured with a multimeter. Then on someones suggestion I hooked up a second 480watt psu to my system and took everything except the cpu, vid card, ram, and mobo off the antec. Boom, stability problems ALL went away. Every single one of them. Sitting here now @ 4ghz prime stable with 430/370 clocks on the video card.

I just sold my mushkin for $400 to buy a pc power and cooling 510 deluxe. I'm sick of underpowered and second rate psus. Spring for it. Trust me. Oh, and all atx psus will be compatible with BTX formfactor, so whoever mentioned that, don't be worried about that. Theres a great article about it at Anandtech.

So IMHO get the pcpower and cooling 510 deluxe. Especially with that card drawing a lot of power.
 
Well I've heard only "one" person say that all you need for home computing is no more than a 300 watt power supply. I've also heard this "one" person suggest that you can use a 300 watt power supply or under to power serveral harddrives and the lastest greatest video card and all. My take on this is simply put this way. Bullshit. Not to be negative it's just that from my own personal experience I have learned differently. I run a high end processor, the latest greatest video card, and only one harddrive and I tell you this; I was only running a 300 watt power supply. After 2 months of running this poor; overworked thing, it burned up. I had a birthday and a good friend of mine got me an Antec 550watt. Ever since then I have had better performance and faster benches. And it has been 8months since and it's still ticking. So do as you wish, it's your money, go ahead and listen to the "one" nut that claims to know everything in the world about power supplys and see where it gets you. The "one" person that stays up night and day looking for a thread with the words "power supply", "Antec", or anything that has to do with power supplies just so they can claim to the world their knowledge that is...hmm, how should I put this....WRONG! So, people, it's not like the power supply is the most expensive thing in our computer. Most people would spend a 100 dollars just for a good part in their computer or a 100 dollars for 2 video games. These days 100 dollars is nothing when building or upgrading your pc. So I say, go ahead and get a 400 watt, 500 watt, or bigger. Hell for a hundred you can get one hell of a power supply. Might as well. Why settle for some ragedy ass 250 or 300 watt power supply. Open your options up, spend some money on a good one. Hell maybe someday you would like to overclock, why limit yourself. So for the "one" who claims the 250 and 300 watt is enough...."SHUT-UP!" It's our money let us do what we want with it. Even it it seems stupid. What's the worst that could happen? Oooh, OH NO! I MIGHT HAVE TO MUCH POWER!! AHHH!!!!!!!! <----Um, no. Nonsense. So to everyone out there buying up parts for your systems, give props to the power supply for being there for us. Spend your money and do your system proud. All Hail the great and mighty power supply, for without it, nothing would run.
 
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