Power source and upgrading

[Jomapil]

Hello everybody.

I have two PCs (desktop) and I want to upgrade one of them. I want to profit some old parts such as the box and the power source. But there are power sources of 300W, 450W, 500W, and more. My PCs have 300W and 450W. How can I know if a given source is sufficient to the new total components?

Thank you and cheers.

[redwudz]

You can do a internet search for ' power supply calculator ' and find some programs or articles to help you determine the size of PS you need. Generally with newer motherboards and CPUs, you want about 450 - 500 Watts. If you have a more advanced video card, they may need much more.

And the quality of the power supply makes a big difference. Some cheap PSs may be 'rated' at 400W, but actually put out much less and may run hot and fail early. It's much safer to use a quality 'name brand' power supply than a cheap one that may fail and destroy your system.

Computers made 3 - 4 years ago can often get away with a ~300W PS. Especially if the video card and CPU don't have high power requirements.

[kurt_tml]

im using cheap coolermaster extreme 430watt with 28a on vrail for now since theres no problem yet so far. My rig is Intel c2duo,dvdrw,500gb hdd,2gb hyper ram, nvidia 8600gt,creative x-fi,razer diamondback, six coolermaster 12' fans, coolermaster UV lamp. Iv only noticed that i cant overclock my cpu >3.5ghz. so far so good

[Jomapil]

Thanks for your advice.

Cheers.

[kurt_tml]

U must look into how much current at 12vrail your power supply can provide, rather than just looking at watt.

[redwudz]

A simple test to see if your power supply is sufficient is to check the temperature of the PS exhaust. If it's very hot, like a hair blow dryer, you may have a problem. I have a video server computer that uses a 400W PS, 8 hard drives, a burner and six fans, but not OC'd and a minimal video card. But it's a good quality PS and used well within it's ratings.

It's fairly difficult to get a CPU to run stably much over 3.5GHz. You would need to up the CPU voltage and you may shorten the CPU life considerably. You would also need to closely monitor the temperatures of the CPU, Nothrbridge chip and the RAM.

[kurt_tml]

yea, thats why i stoped at 3.5ghz. Ill try using my old psu for now until it jerking off. This psu r quite old..3years used with my old oced amd64.

[johns0]

If you are upgrading the motherboard and cpu get a new psu because the older 20 pin psu will not be good enough,newer mb use 24 pin psu.