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How much watages


Bit Hunter

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With in next week i am going to order parts for a dead computer. I am going to get a Core 2 Quad Q9550, i was wondering how much power do i need to supply. I have a PSU on 250W, which worked fine before on a Athelon 64 3800+ (Q9550 has only 6W more on TDP). I am going to use same graphics card for the time being (ATI Radeon HD2600 Pro 256MB), while i was playing Assassins Creed or Crysis Core on 3800+ i never got passed 200W±5.

Do i really need to upgrade to a new PSU, if how big? I don't really want to buy one right now, maybe in 6 months when I will get a better graphics card (again maybe).

Although I will be going from DDR-400 (PC3200) 2GB to DDR2-800 4GB (PC6400)

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The thing with psu:s are that they differ in quality when it comes to effectiveness. So a generic low price 300w psu has maybe 65% efficency which means it does not produce 300w. If you get a high quality brand they are more likely to be close to 90% or over it.

I'd go for a pretty good 500-600w psu just in case. Also, the longer you have the psu, the more the efficeny gets lowered due to age of the capacitors.

I use this to get an idea of what to get... http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I can recommend zalman, corsair and ocz's powersupplies.

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I use this to get an idea of what to get... http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I can recommend zalman, corsair and ocz's powersupplies.

Thanks for the link, according to this site i need only 206W (as a high end desktop), means i will keep my PSU for another 6 months.

(I am not deciding that, it is my pocket)...

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While you can never go wrong with more available wattage, there's no point in overdoing it: high-wattage power supplies are expensive to buy, and expensive to run (because they waste power).

When evaluating your 250W, it's important to note that 250W is the instant (or peak) wattage it can supply. The continuous wattage is lower. (How much lower depends on the quality of the PSU.)

So, check out the continuous wattage this PSU offers (on a spec sheet or on the PSU case itself) and see if that is above the 206W or whatever you need.

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