Will I need a new power supply with this future setup?

marioblanket

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I plan to upgrade a few very important components of my PC sometime next month, and I want to make sure I will have enough power for everything to run properly (or run at all, I suppose). Right now I'm using a 430w Thermaltake PSU with an Athlon X2 3800+ processor on 939, 2GB of DDR 333 RAM, and a GeForce 8800GT 512MB graphics card. I plan to get an ASUS LGA 775 motherboard, an intel core 2 e8400 wolfsdale 3.0ghz, and 4GB of DDR2 1000 ram, while using the same graphics card that I have now. Will that be overkill for my PSU?

I also have a couple of other questions. Should I bother with DDR2 RAM? It seems that DDR3 RAM is becoming more standard, but it also seems to have slower speeds. Should I get the e8400 processor or should I get a Q6000 quad core? I hear the slower speed on the quad core, as well as a lack of need or support for four cores right now, make the q6600 not worth it, especially for the increased price. I plan to use my computer primarily for gaming.

Thank you!
 
As long as the 430w power supply is working fine for you now, then no real reason to upgrade it. You might go ahead and use this PSU calculator to see what, if any difference there will be.
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
At newegg the E8500 is only $20 more expensive. Price compression is your friend.
Right now DDR3 RAM will only give you a 3% or so boost in speed, it is also 2 to 3x more expensive. Small benefit for big dollars. The best buy for RAM for all but extreme overclockers is DDR2 800 1.8v RAM. For most uses the E8400 (8500) will give you better performance for the price, there's only a couple of applications (video editing) a couple of games (Supreme Commander) iirc that are quadcore optimised. This may change in the future, so it's a personal call, some people are big advocates for quad core, others for core 2. One interesting article is this recent one by Legionhardware about CPU scaling with the HD4870x2
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770
good luck.
 

tim851

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It's fine. The new setup will hardly consume more power than your current setup. An E8400/E8500 should be less demanding at load then any Socket 939 Athlon64 and DDR2 RAM is less power hungry than DDR1 was.
 
The one thing you want to take into consideration is does the motherboard require a 20 pin or a 24 pin mainboard power connector? If it requires a 24 pin and you have a 20 pin you need to check your manual to make sure your psu provided the required amps needed. If it meets or exceeds the mobo recommended amps then get this adapter:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812189061


If you try and run a psu 20 pin and it doesnt meet correct mobo mfg amps and you even use a 20 to 24 pin power adapter it can cause overheating at the adapter connection to the psu and can ignite a fire. Its not worth chancing it. I went thru this with my media center setup when I switched over to the 775 socket setup. It was possible I could have been ok using the 20 pin but at the time I found the article, in which I cant find atm, that provided this info and I searched the mobo manual and I was lucky to have enough amps and then I ordered the adapter and no worries afterwards.

If you have a 24 pin psu then disregard above statement. You should be fine IMO.
 

bobbknight

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Price compression is your friend. Is that not comparison? LOL
When using the spell checker look at the word.
Though I love it when prices are put under pressure.

Your PSU will be ok. I would look for one with more power just because I like power.
 



It should be fine but take into consideration it was a couple of years inside a different system. The new items are more efficient but nonetheless the new video card will take more power than your old one. Theres probably 100 watts difference between the two at max loads, just speculating without looking it up.

Its a game of chance, if you dont have the money then roll the dice and see what happens. I would prefer to get a new psu myself. Being over specs is better to me than being borderline and worrying about it...
 

marioblanket

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Awesome, thank you! I will need to upgrade my PSU eventually, as I plan to upgrade my 8800 GT to a 9800 GX2 in the future, but for now I'll save money.

Is the 9800 GX2 really the best power for price right now? At 269.99, that's what its looking like to me. What do you guys think?