powersupply size for AMD 3500+ ?

[Wayne Fulton]

Is any special powersupply size needed for todays chips like the AMD64
3500+ ? The AMD site doesnt seem to have psu recommendations anymore.
Most cabinets seem to have 300 or 350 watt powersupplies, so I assume
that still works. Specifically, I'm considering a new Antec True380 psu
(380 watts), with ratings of
+5V 35 amps max
+12V 24 amps max
3.3V 28 amps max

That seems like a lot, but I have no clue about actual requirements.
The computer will also have 1GB memory and 80 and 120 GB hard disk
drives. Any other ideas? Thanks.

 

[Anonymous Joe]

Is any special powersupply size needed for todays chips like the AMD64
3500+ ? The AMD site doesnt seem to have psu recommendations anymore.
Most cabinets seem to have 300 or 350 watt powersupplies, so I assume
that still works. Specifically, I'm considering a new Antec True380 psu
(380 watts), with ratings of
+5V 35 amps max
+12V 24 amps max
3.3V 28 amps max

That seems like a lot, but I have no clue about actual requirements.
The computer will also have 1GB memory and 80 and 120 GB hard disk
drives. Any other ideas? Thanks.

That should be fine. Most of the power is used from the 12V line (12*24 =
288W, thus 75% of the PSU here). So, the amps on the +12V is important, so
long as teh +5 and +3.3 are decent enough. My PSU (using an Athlon XP
3000+, 2x120GB, Geforce3 Ti 200 [not much of a draw there ], 3xoptical
drives) is 450W, but only 15A on +12v. Instead they gave it something silly
like 45A on +5v.

 

[Tony Hill]

Is any special powersupply size needed for todays chips like the AMD64
3500+ ?

A decent quality one is what is required.

The AMD site doesnt seem to have psu recommendations anymore.
Most cabinets seem to have 300 or 350 watt powersupplies, so I assume
that still works.

A good quality 250W supply will do the trick, a poor quality 500W
supply will not.

Quality, not quantity.

Specifically, I'm considering a new Antec True380 psu
(380 watts), with ratings of

Antec makes VERY good quality power supplies. The True380 will
definitely be a good choice.

 

[Wayne Fulton]

Thanks much, Joe and Tony. That was what I suspected, and now I wont
worry any more about it.

 

[Bass]

Thanks much, Joe and Tony. That was what I suspected, and now I wont
worry any more about it.

It also depends on what video card you have. The latest and best vid
cards are very power hungry. If you have that cpu with let's say a
Nvidia 6800GT vid card then you should be looking at an Antec True
Power 480w or something similar.

 

[George Macdonald]

Is any special powersupply size needed for todays chips like the AMD64
3500+ ? The AMD site doesnt seem to have psu recommendations anymore.
Most cabinets seem to have 300 or 350 watt powersupplies, so I assume
that still works. Specifically, I'm considering a new Antec True380 psu
(380 watts), with ratings of
+5V 35 amps max
+12V 24 amps max
3.3V 28 amps max

That seems like a lot, but I have no clue about actual requirements.
The computer will also have 1GB memory and 80 and 120 GB hard disk
drives. Any other ideas? Thanks.

I've just done a new system on MSI K8N Neo2 Plat. with Athlon64
3500+(90nm), 1GB(2xCrucial 512MB), GeCube 9600XT/256MB, 80GB Seagate SATA
HDD, DVD and DVD-R/-RW+R/+RW using the Antec Sonata with the 380W PS and I
came to the conclusion before purchase that it would be fine... so far so
good. The key here, as far as I was able to find out, was that Antec
increased the current on the +12V from 18A to 24A on later models...
especially for some of the 130nm Athlon64s.

If you go for one of the new big-power sucking video cards, you might want
to think about something with a bit more oomph but even there I'm not so
sure. BTW I do not recommend the GeCube 9600XT(256); I went with it when
the Sapphire model went out of stock between selection and final order
completion at NewEgg. Looks like the hot new mid-range video card in AGP
8x is going to be the Nvidia 6600GT but that was announced just on Nov 16.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Wayne Fulton]

I've just done a new system on MSI K8N Neo2 Plat. with Athlon64
3500+(90nm), 1GB(2xCrucial 512MB), GeCube 9600XT/256MB, 80GB Seagate SATA
HDD, DVD and DVD-R/-RW+R/+RW using the Antec Sonata with the 380W PS and I
came to the conclusion before purchase that it would be fine... so far so
good. The key here, as far as I was able to find out, was that Antec
increased the current on the +12V from 18A to 24A on later models...
especially for some of the 130nm Athlon64s.

Yes, thanks, it is sounding very fine. I think my video card will be on the
smallish side, my use is 2D instead of 3D.

I am planning on the Antec Sonata case too, largely for the psu. Antec's
website says the Sonata has a special True380S powersupply, the S appears to
be identical in all respects except that it has one fan instead of two. For
noise I assume, and this seems fine, no problem to me. I like that the True380
series can temp control the case fan(s) too. How is that feature working out
for you?

 

[George Macdonald]

Yes, thanks, it is sounding very fine. I think my video card will be on the
smallish side, my use is 2D instead of 3D.

I am planning on the Antec Sonata case too, largely for the psu. Antec's
website says the Sonata has a special True380S powersupply, the S appears to
be identical in all respects except that it has one fan instead of two. For
noise I assume, and this seems fine, no problem to me. I like that the True380
series can temp control the case fan(s) too. How is that feature working out
for you?

Yes that 120mm fan with thermal speed control is worth a few dBs. What's
odd about the "special" True380s is that it does not follow AMD's
recommendations on case air flow - it has intake vent slots only on the
front of the PS casing, whereas AMD recommends the conventional ATX
configuration with an intake on the bottom, close to the CPU... apparently
losing the 2nd fan means losing the hole it sits in too. I don't think it
does any harm since it seems to me that the 120mm rear case exhaust fan is
doing most of the work of air flow for the CPU, mbrd etc.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[The little lost angel]

It also depends on what video card you have. The latest and best vid
cards are very power hungry. If you have that cpu with let's say a
Nvidia 6800GT vid card then you should be looking at an Antec True
Power 480w or something similar.

I'll think it's fairly safe to say that 480W recommendation that had
been floated around since the 6800/X800 launch is coming out of the
bull's rear end. From past experimentations on my own as well as
friend's, a fully deck out uniproc system with a top end graphics card
and lotsa of drives barely make it into the 250W ball park.

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[Bass]

I'll think it's fairly safe to say that 480W recommendation that had
been floated around since the 6800/X800 launch is coming out of the
bull's rear end. From past experimentations on my own as well as
friend's, a fully deck out uniproc system with a top end graphics card
and lotsa of drives barely make it into the 250W ball park.

Then I guess Nvidia are full of shit? 250w? The internet is rife with
stories of people blowing 250w and 300w PSU's on even an R9800pro.
I'm sure some high quality 250w PSU's will pass muster but it's better
to play it safe than stoopid wittle angel.

 

[Tony Hill]

Then I guess Nvidia are full of shit? 250w? The internet is rife with
stories of people blowing 250w and 300w PSU's on even an R9800pro.
I'm sure some high quality 250w PSU's will pass muster but it's better
to play it safe than stoopid wittle angel.

As I said before, quality, not quantity.

Sure, people will blow plenty of 250W power supplies because most 250W
power supplies being sold today are bottom-of-the-barrel trash using
crap components and rather generous power measurement practices. They
might claim to be 250W supplies but they simply can't withstand more
than 200W of power being pulled through them.

L'Angel is quite right, even a fully loaded system rarely pulls much
more than 200W.

 

[The little lost angel]

Then I guess Nvidia are full of shit? 250w? The internet is rife with
stories of people blowing 250w and 300w PSU's on even an R9800pro.
I'm sure some high quality 250w PSU's will pass muster but it's better
to play it safe than stoopid wittle angel.

nVidia admitted that they were playing it really safe with their 480W
recommendation. To quote:

"Ujesh Desai, General Manager of Desktop GPUs for Nvidia... Marginal
power supplies and poorly ventilated cases must be taken into
account... people that do not want to overclock, the 480W power
supply and second power connector combination is overkill... A good
quality 350W power supply with a sufficient 12V rail pull can support
the 6800 Ultra standard clocks of 400/550."

Finally, I didn't say a 250W PSU should be used. What I said is the
system barely make it into the 250W ballpark which is the basis for my
opinion that 480W is way ridiculous.

Only somebody without much common sense will buy a 250W PSU to power a
250W system without leaving any margins for error pPppP

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[chrisv]

Antec makes VERY good quality power supplies. The True380 will
definitely be a good choice.

Buy an Antec Sonota case, and you get the Tru380 for "free". 8)

 

[Rob Stow]

Is any special powersupply size needed for todays chips like the AMD64
3500+ ? The AMD site doesnt seem to have psu recommendations anymore.
Most cabinets seem to have 300 or 350 watt powersupplies, so I assume
that still works. Specifically, I'm considering a new Antec True380 psu
(380 watts), with ratings of
+5V 35 amps max
+12V 24 amps max
3.3V 28 amps max

That seems like a lot, but I have no clue about actual requirements.
The computer will also have 1GB memory and 80 and 120 GB hard disk
drives. Any other ideas? Thanks.

I have built a few Athlon64 systems configured typically with:
Athlon 64 3200+ to 3500+
1 GB PC 3200 (2 x 512 MB)
12X DVD burner
2 x 120 GB SATA hard drive
Radeon 9600 or Radeon 9800
that have done just fine with a 310 to 360 W PSU from
PCPowerCooling, Antec, or Enermax.

However, even a "quality" 350 W like the Antec SL350 leaves
little margin for expansion in a system like that. For example,
I later expanded the RAM in one of the systems from 1 GB to 6 GB
(2 x 2 GB, 2 x 1 GB) and had to upgrade the Antec SL350 to cope
with the additional power ( 40 to 50 W ? ) that the RAM upgrade
needed.

My current preferences are the Silencer 310 ATX and 360 ATX from
PCPowerCooling but I want to try the Antec Phantom 350 soon.

 

[chrisv]

My current preferences are the Silencer 310 ATX and 360 ATX from
PCPowerCooling

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

They've went off the deep-end in their pricing...

 

[Keith R. Williams]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

They've went off the deep-end in their pricing...

You think $50 (310ATX) or $65(360ATX) is a lot for a power supply? I
paid about $90 for a PCP&C 250W (IIRC) power supply five or so years
ago when I built my K6-III system.

Also note that these are Power Factor corrected supplies.


http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/prices/index.htm

 

[Bass]

As I said before, quality, not quantity.

Sure, people will blow plenty of 250W power supplies because most 250W
power supplies being sold today are bottom-of-the-barrel trash using
crap components and rather generous power measurement practices. They
might claim to be 250W supplies but they simply can't withstand more
than 200W of power being pulled through them.

L'Angel is quite right, even a fully loaded system rarely pulls much
more than 200W.

Why don't you go read both Nvidia's and ATI's PSU recommendations and
you will see that you are both quite wrong in your estimations. I say
play it safe so that you don't risk a blown PSU and/or damaged
hardware. I use quality (Antec and Zalman) 400w PSU's in both my PC's.
I suggest you go read some other hardware groups besides this one to
get the real deal. Niether of you are taking PEAK power pulls into the
equation. Fatal error there. Do either of you even run heavy duty 3D
games?

 

[Bass]

Only somebody without much common sense will buy a 250W PSU to power a
250W system without leaving any margins for error pPppP

Saying, "From past experimentations on my own as well as
friend's, a fully deck out uniproc system with a top end graphics card
and lotsa of drives barely make it into the 250W ball park." may well
lead some people to think that is all they need. Running a 3D game
puts a lot more demand on the PSU than running Internet Explorer.

 

[Bass]

nVidia admitted that they were playing it really safe with their 480W
recommendation. To quote:

BTW, you consider Enermax a quality PSU? I ask because the reason I
went to a 400w Antec was because a 360w Enermax I had wasn't even good
enough to run a Geforce4.

 

[keith]

Then I guess Nvidia are full of shit? 250w? The internet is rife with
stories of people blowing 250w and 300w PSU's on even an R9800pro.
I'm sure some high quality 250w PSU's will pass muster but it's better
to play it safe than stoopid wittle angel.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What a wonderful way to introduce yourself to the regulars in the group!

Hint for the newbies: L'Angel has been a regular in .chips for *many*
years. She's certainly an angel (can *run* across the country in a day
and "wittle" is condescending to tha max! Stoopid? I don't think so. My
bet is that she's done more research into power supples than have you. It
was sorta her thing for some time. ;-)

You're showing your MCP stripes and they're smelly as a barnyard!