Power Supply Question..

Hey,

Just wondering if a 450 wat Antec power supply is good to run:

9800 GTX

E8400 3.0 GHZ

3.5 gigs of DDR2 memory

+ Mobo

Thx is advance, and if the psu isnt good enought can you link me one that would be?

I'm pretty sure a quality 450W power supply, like an Antec, is fine for the suggested specs. In Anandtech's review of the 9800GTX, their test system, which had a Skulltrail mobo using two quad-core processors, produced a maximum of 350W. Even if you clocked that E8400 to 4GHz it wouldn't match that kind of power consumption.

EDIT: However, if you're planning on SLI'ing that card down the road, then yeah, you'll want a more powerful PSU. Something like a Corsair HX620W would be ideal in that case.

In answer to your question...what the other posters already said. No. Here are some decent, inexpensive PSUs to consider instead...

PC Power & Cooling S610EPS EPS12V 610Watt $109.99

CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX ATX12V / EPS12V 650Watt $109.99 ($89.99 after MIR)

MSI TurboStream 600W ATX 12V V2.2/ EPS 12V/ BTX 600Watt $79.99

BFG Tech BFGR650PSU ATX 12v 2.0 / EPS 12V 650Watt $74.99 ($49.99 after MIR)

The BFG is tempting from a price to performance point of view, but it's durability is somewhat in question of late. I've had luck with mine, but I dunno if it would be my first choice. I listed them top to bottom in order of quality IMHO. Most to least expensive thing just sort of happened... ;) If you can afford a stronger, higher wattage PSU 700 to 800 Watts would be ideal. I'm fairly certain a setup like the one you listed could squeak by with a 600Watt PSU, as long as the 12v rail is beefy in its amperage.

Along these lines, I have a dell inspiron 530 and am thinking about getting a 9600gt or 8800gts card. how do i know how much power i need? i have 300 watt power supply right now i think. i have the Q6600 with 4 gigs of 800mhz ram. do i just add a 100 or 200 watts to what the recomended power requirements for the card? thanksanthonyle2002

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

A free online PSU calculator. It'll give you a minimal number for the wattage, just add in all of the hardware that is running off the PSU and the hardware you're thinking of getting. A 100Watt float, over the number the calc gives you is a good idea, as a PSU gets weaker over time and with usage. Leave yourself some wiggle room. ;)

according to that thing....my system needs a 850watt psu..... i orderd a 650.......floridaskater05

If you mean the rig in your sig, with a Q6600, 4GB of memory and 2 8800GTS cards in SLI, then yes. 850Watts seems like a good baseline.