Pentium Power Supply Question

[jm]

I have never put together an Intel based PC. I noticed that many of the
barebone systems on newegg.com for Intel have much smaller wattage power
supplies. Is that normal for Intels or do I have to get a high wattage
power supply like the 300w ones for AMD? Thanks

 

[Broox]

i would never get anything less than a 300w power supply for a newer pentium
barebone. go with at least 300.

 

[D]

It depends,

Total system wattage is determined by ALL of the components that comprise
it. As a custom computer builder, I don't even think about the Power Supply
requirements until I've settled on what I am building, first. Only then do I
calculate the required watts. However, knowing how big a power supply you
need is only part of the equation. You also need to know the required amps
for the 3.3v, 5v, and +12v lines. The most important one here is the +12v
line. You will find alot of barebone systems with cheap PS's that are rated
at 350 watts that only have 10A-12A on the +12v line. For example, I just
finished building a pc for a customer based on the following:

AMD Athlon XP 2600+
512 Megs of DDR 2700 RAM
DVD-RW drive
DVD/CD-ROM
80 Gig. Hard-Drive
EPOX 8RDA+ Motherboard (With 6 USB ports, Sound, Nic, and Firewire)
128 Meg Geforce FX 5200 Video Card
Floppy Drive
(3) Case Fans

And here are the power requirements:

226.8Watts total
6.9W on the 3.3v line
14.3W on the 5v line
11.05W on the 12v line

Now, the above esitmates are based on a system that is running all
components at 100%. As you may have guessed, this will never happen.
Nevertheless, the values presented should give you some Idea of what is
required. Take a look at the 12v line. Do you think that 350W PS special on
Price Watch with 10A on the 12v rail is going to cut it? I don't think so.
Yeah the max watts are way above that listed in my example, but the 12v line
isn't going to make it.

So, what did I end up using in my customer's computer? Take a look
http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage...48-17.JPG/11-124-048-14.JPG/11-124-048-19.JPG


If you post your system specs, I will give you an esimate on what you need
for Power.


Hope this helps,


D.

 

[Bob Knowlden]

I don't know enough to generalize, but one thing to bear in mind: P4 systems
want an ATX 12V supply, which has an extra 4 pin mainboard connector to
provide extra +12V current. ATX 12V supplies can be specified to produce
more current on +12V than pre-P4 supplies that were rated at higher total
power.

A P4 3.2c can dissipate over 80 W, which is more than for an Athlon XP
3200+. (See developer.intel.com, www.amd.com.)

(Just out of curiosity, I checked the specs on a Dell Dimension 8300 system,
which uses an Intel 875P chipset and is sold with CPUs through the 3.2c. It
comes with a 250W supply. It's probably adequate, although you could
probably overtax it by switching to 15k RPM SCSI hard drives, etc. That's
not the market the Dell is sold for, though.)

The 165W supplies don't strike me as typical, but I suppose that they may be
adequate for the small systems sold for use at LAN parties. (I don't go to
LAN parties, so...)

Most of the reviews you'll find may be for enthusiasts. (For that crowd, a
300 W supply is regarded as low-end.) One recent review is:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20030609/index.html

HTH.

Bob Knowlden

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