harjeet Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 Would a generic 250W power supply be enough to run the following? Gateway i5 650 3 x 2GB DDR3 1333Mhz 1TB SATA HDD GTS 450 1GB Card Reader Firewire PCI card I'm asking because I was running the same power supply in an HP with and Athlon II X4 635, with the same GPU, but used 4GB of DDR2 memory, and I never experienced any issues. I just want some opinions on whether or not I should go ahead with this, at the moment I don't see any problems as a similar setup was working before. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted April 7, 2013 Moderator Share Posted April 7, 2013 No, you need at least 450 for that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
123456789A Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 I would go for at least 400-450W if you want to be comfortable with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harjeet Posted April 7, 2013 Author Share Posted April 7, 2013 Really? It was working fine with: Athlon II X4 635, 2x2GB DDR2, 7200RPM HDD, GTS 450 1GB, Card Reader and Wireless PCI card. :s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phouchg Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 It's a wonder of nature that your generic PSU is still ticking. That said, the maximum possible power requirement of this system (calculated using TDP of all components + a certain reserve) is about 230W; and not likely to be reached, unless the system is being stress tested. That's why it was running fine thus far. So 300 to 400W is well over enough and within the middle of the usual efficiency curves. Not that it's any crime to go crazy in these cases and stimulate the industry with your hard-earned money, but still - do choose a high-quality PSU that is just enough rather than an oversized box of crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harjeet Posted April 7, 2013 Author Share Posted April 7, 2013 It's a wonder of nature that your generic PSU is still ticking. That said, the maximum possible power requirement of this system (calculated using TDP of all components + a certain reserve) is about 230W; and not likely to be reached, unless the system is being stress tested. That's why it was running fine thus far. So 300 to 400W is well over enough and within the middle of the usual efficiency curves. Not that it's any crime to go crazy in these cases and stimulate the industry with your hard-earned money, but still - do choose a high-quality PSU that is just enough rather than an oversized box of crap. Thanks for that! Haha, yeah I never really thought about it until I recently upgraded to a GTX 560 which required a new power supply. Can you kindly point me to what you used to calculate the power requirement? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phouchg Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 TDP. Which stands is "thermal design power". TDP is *not* power consumption. It's the maximum thermal power a certain device is designed to dissipate without limiting itself in some way or overheating. It's usually measured at real-life maximum loads rather than absolute peak. Which is why I add 10% and say you'd simply never reach it in practice. TDP values for most components are available from manufacturers' websites. Also, a healthy assumption is made that, for example, an addon card with a small single-function chip would never eat as much as a whole chipset that does a ton of things. In short, it's mostly numbers off Google and out of my a**. The only actually accurate method is a watt-meter - a device between the PSU and the wall socket. Value shown by this device is then multiplied by PSU efficiency to get the actual power consumption of the whole system. Or, perhaps, this white paper explains it better than I can: http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/white-paper/resources-xeon-measuring-processor-power-paper.pdf (it's about CPUs, but all electronic devices are similar in this regard) YounGMessiah 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harjeet Posted April 7, 2013 Author Share Posted April 7, 2013 Ah. That makes sense. Thanks for the help! I'll give this a shot in a week or two and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgjerlow Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 Get at least a 500w PSU. I would recommend the Cooler Master GX 550w :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted April 7, 2013 Moderator Share Posted April 7, 2013 I thought Cooler Master was frowned upon. No? I think Corsair or Antec would be better for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon H Supervisor Posted April 7, 2013 Supervisor Share Posted April 7, 2013 why would cool master be frowned upon? from all the reviews I've read from some of their more recent PSUs I'm seeing nothing but positive feedback aside for the occasional person who got a DOA one (which can happen with any product/brand) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgjerlow Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 I thought Cooler Master was frowned upon. No? I think Corsair or Antec would be better for you. I had a Corsair PSU not so long ago, ended up blowing up some of my house fuses and breaking within a month. The Cooler Master I bought recently is excellent. It's running very well indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted April 7, 2013 Moderator Share Posted April 7, 2013 why would cool master be frowned upon? from all the reviews I've read from some of their more recent PSUs I'm seeing nothing but positive feedback aside for the occasional person who got a DOA one (which can happen with any product/brand) Just what I got from another forum, I guess. I had a Corsair PSU not so long ago, ended up blowing up some of my house fuses and breaking within a month. The Cooler Master I bought recently is excellent. It's running very well indeed. I had the opposite effect. My CoolerMaster I had died like within a month. My Corsair TX650, I had for years now. It could be the effect that I got a "cheap" one. From what I understand, the Builder series (CX) of Corsairs are considered to be lower powered than the TX/HX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harjeet Posted April 8, 2013 Author Share Posted April 8, 2013 Thanks for all the help everyone, if you guys really want to continue this debate, I can make another thread for you guys. :D :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adrynalyne Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 Just what I got from another forum, I guess. I had the opposite effect. My CoolerMaster I had died like within a month. My Corsair TX650, I had for years now. It could be the effect that I got a "cheap" one. From what I understand, the Builder series (CX) of Corsairs are considered to be lower powered than the TX/HX The TX650 is a good PSU. Nothing but good things to say about mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted April 8, 2013 Moderator Share Posted April 8, 2013 Thanks for all the help everyone, if you guys really want to continue this debate, I can make another thread for you guys. :D :p We're done here ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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