Just got my 3870 and it works with my 350 Sparkle PSU

[aziraphale]

If there are going to be problems with the amount power available he is going to get a warning first. ...

Yep; the PSU will warn him before it blows. Dream on.

 

[4745454b]

I actually intend to buy another PSU, as I didn't think it would even run on the 350 watt. I've been thinking about getting the antec earthwatts 500. Is that a good choice? I don't plan to ever use crossfire. How would I go about checking the total wattage of my system so I can see where its really at when I play games?

The Earthwatts 380 would probably be enough, though I'd get the 430 just to be on the safe side. It would suck if you had to buy another PSU cause you bought the 4xxx series card and its power usage was much higher.

 

[JonnyRock]

I have also seen PSU’s destroy PC’s.

One that i will never forget burned black marks on the ATI 8500 graphics card that was in the PC, and melted parts of the motherboard.

I had an issue with my AMD FX53, 6800GT and 4x WD Raptor HDD’s. The PSU was support to be a 500Watt psu, but I found that at load it was struggling to push 400watt. Crap PSU.

I was lucky as I did not destroy the PC but had endless strange issues including boot up problems, USB issues, benchmarks failing, games crashing, windows crashing, memory errors and HEAT!!!!

Do not underestimate heat or the lack of power.

Even running at the very limit is never a good idea. Rather have too much power and spend a bit more on a good PSU than potentially destroy hardware or struggle with strange, seemingly, component hardware related issues/errors.

 

[physx7]

Im starting to think that a minimum for nowadays is 500W dual rail

 

[babybudha]

I'm running my 2900xt on love.

 

[exarrkun]

I'm running my 2900xt on love.

I'm doing the same with my 8800gtx
the 800watt PSU helps a bit though 😉

seriously, my PSU in the first PC i built took EVERYTHING with it in its downfall...
800 watt may be a bit much for a single 8800gtx and q6600, but after this incident I say better too much than too few...

 

[Onus]

A quality PSU, when overloaded, will give warnings and/or shut down before just dying, and should protect the components to which it is attached. A cheap one, however, when overloaded may give no warning at all before letting the magic blue smoke out of something(s). It has happened to me (lost a 440mx, a modem, and I think the CPU). My current PSUs are all good ones, and any in the future will be too.

 

[aznstriker92]

It looks to me like the sparkle 350w in question has a maximum of 25A available on two 12V rails.

That's pretty respectable for a 350w PSU...

really? maybe I read the specs wrong....

 

[nightscope]

25 amps on the 12+ rails...it's not bad. 3870 doesn't require much power, so you're not really pushing anything.

 

[yipsl]

Well when the unit blows from overloading, and takes out half your hardware with it, you'll be able to post here and tell us why wont you?
Besides when you overload something, its not as efficient meaning it burns more energy and creates a lot more heat, in turn causing it to have a short life span.

While I agree that a budget power supply can fail and cause problems, the 3870's just don't need as much power as the X2900XT's. It all depends on what else he has in his system.

I also have no idea where all this nonesense about a bad PSU taking out half a system with it. I've had about 3 PSU failures since i've been building PCs (10-15 years or so) and not one of them has ever damaged any components. All the other people i've talked to have said the same thing, that their PSU failing did not cause any collateral damage.

When I built a couple of systems last February, I took the SL-400TF PSU out of a new AM2 MSI Nvidia 6100 barebones and used it in an old Northwood system. The Northwood's Coolermaster Realpower 450 went into the new AM2 build because it's a better PSU, even though it only has 22 amps on the 12 volt rails.

Well, the budget PSU died about two months later and took the old i865 board and the X1650 Pro AGP with it before I could replace it with a better PSU. The hard drive was fine. I don't have a socket 478 spare board, so I never tested the CPU.

I took a chance instead of just putting the Northwood in the closet until I could get a better PSU. On the other hand, a friend has a RAIDMAX 350 watt PSU in his RAIDMAX case, and it's been going good for well over a year. So, you can never tell. That Sparkle PSU might just survive and not fry anything, but depending on what he has in his box, it might not have enough power for everything at load.

Now, I have an Antec Neo 550 and a Truepower 500 in my two AMD 690G AM2 systems, much more dependable than a budget PSU and the Neo was $79 at Fry's while the Truepower was $49, and they have Seasonic components. Never trust the PSU that comes with a case or a barebones unless you can handle the risk.

I also won't buy a PSU without active PFC.

 

[darkguset]

What people don't realise is that just because something is working, does not mean it is working right. What you don't know about PSU's obviously is the fact that not only the wattage or the amperage is important, the noise factor on the line and the power fluctuations are very important factors that will determine the lifespan of the whole system and its components. Yes your graphics card works fine now, but why do you think your hard drives or something else will say goodbye to this world in a few months time? A good example to give you an idea is a driver that drives his car smoothly applying gas or brakes (high quality PSU) and a driver that pushes the pedals all the way down and up violently (low quality PSU). What do you think will happen to the 2nd car? Both cars drive (like you claim that your PSU is working fine so what?). But one of them is going to have serious problems soon. Having a good quality PSU and a UPS will maximise your chances of those components in your PC to last for years to come. That is the difference why my HD's never fail anymore in 1 year's time or i will come home one day and the PC is off and won't switch on any more. If your PC is just a gaming rig for which you don't care if something burns out and will simply reinstall everything, then go ahead use the cheapest you can find. If you value your data though (and even your saved games), then you should opt for at least a good quality PSU.

 

[nukemaster]

but FSP psu's are not bad(not tops, but not like those old ultra and turbo gamer ect....).....we are not talking about raidmax here ....

 

[astrotrain1000]

Well I just got a $50 best buy gift card for christmas and I know they carry the antec earthwatts 500 I mentioned in a previous post. Can anyone tell me if this is a quality psu?

 

[kpo6969]

34amps
not the best or worst
bang for the bucker

 

[nukemaster]

I have the earthwatts 430, its quiet and the 80+ is the reason I got it.

I can not comment on loads since its running a system that takes about 130watts(the overall savings from my 65% psu allowed me to get a faster cpu and video(i just wanted TV out) while taking the same power as the old machine it replaced....)

But so far it seems to be a good psu for the price($36 or so after rebate). Did i mention quiet and 80+