Power supply

[DaveOC]

Hi
I have just bought a commputer which is quite fast, the power supply is 400watts which I think is quite low. What are the advantages of having a 500 600 or 700 watt power supply. Thanks for any help.
dave

 

[Softus]

In your position, almost certainly no advantage at all.

Which computer, how fast, and was it off-the-shelf or custom built?

 

[Trazor]

Provided whoever built your computer, checked the power consumption required for each piece of hardware, then 400 watts may well be more than enough.

More important, is that the power supply is of good quality, cheap power supplies can cause problems.

 

[DaveOC]

It was custom built, Quad core, 500 HDD, 4 gig ram, 8600 Graphics card, has 2 DVD rewrtiers.

 

[Softus]

OK then. Since it was custom built, did you agree the specification before work started, and does the PSU match what was specified?

 

[Trazor]

Use this site to calculate your power supply size...

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Once you know how much power you require, add at least 20% to this figure.

 

[Spark123]

It was custom built, Quad core, 500 HDD, 4 gig ram, 8600 Graphics card, has 2 DVD rewrtiers.

I have a similar setup running happily on a 450w PSU, I have the Q6600 processor, 4gb, hard disks (RAID) and an 8800 GTS graphics card but only 1 DVD rewriter and a DVD rom.
Even number crunching these it works out just over 320w.

 

[Deluks]

It depends on the manufacturer, a 400w seasonic will beat seven shades out of a generic £8.99 value PSU with the same output.

...but the main question has to be, is your system giving you any problems? If it ain't broke......

 

[DaveOC]

Thanks for all your help, I'll chech out the spec again