Can you offer some help with buying a power supply?
My computer is only a about a year old or so. I’ve decided with my income tax I want to put in a nice graphics card, since I have pretty good RAM and CPU right now.
Problem is my current power supply is only 300w, the graphic cards I want need 350–400w.
I’ve been looking at newegg.com. I also went to best buy but everything seemed slightly overpriced to me anyways.
This is the power supply I believe I will end up buying.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182074&cm_re=power_supply_400w-17–182-074-Product
And compared to Best buys stuff, I’ll save about 20–25 dollars.
Any other advice or power supplies you can tell me about before I make a final purchase?
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8 Answers
It would help to know which graphics card you plan to install and what CPU, RAM, motrherboard you have as well as the number of drives sa as to be able to work out how much power you need. It’s never a good idea to run a PSU’s at or near their rated wattage as manufacturers tend to over estimate this.
Another golden rule when buying a PSU is to never, ever buy a cheap unkonwn brand. If the thing fails there is a good chance it will take every other component with it.
I second @Lightlyseared please let us know what graphics card you have so we can make sure we set you up with the best recommendation.
400w is going to be just adequate. I’d look at some in the 500–600w range. For example, if you’re serious about gaming, you’ll probably want to add a second internal HDD eventually. Give yourself some headroom.
My current graphics card is integrated. Which is why I want a better one, mine is eh okay.
Can you recommend me any PSU? These are my current specs.
Model DX4200–09 – Pretty sure this is the motherboard.
http://www.ascendtech.us/itemdesc.asp?ic=MB64GATDX420009
AMD Phenom™ 9150e Quad-Core Processor 1.80GHz
RAM 4.00 GB
System type 64-bit Operating System
I was looking at power supplies yesterday and I am cheap. Here are the Newegg deals which caught my eye.
Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC 430W
$31.99 after mail-in rebate card
OCZ StealthXstream II OCZ500SXS2
$34.99 after mail-in rebate card
COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-500-PCAR-A3-US
$29.99 after mail-in rebate
@jaytkay Will those work with my computer?
_Will those work with my computer?
From your link, the motherboard requires:
“One 24-Pin power connector with full ridge
One 4-Pin power connector ”
So check the specs, but those are present on almost every power supply these days.
The other connector to worry about is the graphics card 6-pin power cable. But if your card requires only “350–400w”, then it probably does not have a 6-pin power connector.
And you need to check the dimensions of your existing power supply.
These ATX power supplies “are 150 mm width, 86 mm height, and typically 140 mm depth, although the depth can vary from brand to brand.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_unit_%28computer%29
I’d look into something more in the 600 to 750 range, especially if you plan on updating anything else in there again. It’s not that much more expensive and it will make a difference when browsing GPUs.
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