Help on voltage requirements.

[FlamingForce]

Hi there, Techimo.

Quick question, my friend's pc died on him today and after some fiddling around with spare hardware we found the source of the problem to be a dead PSU.

Now, we're in the market for a new one to replace this old 480w PSU, however I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to PSU's, I have to select a new one, keeping in mind that there's a very real chance he'll want to upgrade his GPU in the future (He's currently working with an ASUS GeForce 8800GT)

Going on an old Foxconn 946GZ7MA motherboard, I wonder what my best options are here, I'd like some help with this, if at all possible.

[stroyal]

Basically unless you have a a computer with an unusual power draw, like 6 hard drive in a RAID0, you choose, the power supply by the video card.

If you are planning for the future, probably no single card needs more than 550watts.

It is extremely important, that you only buy brand names.
Most people, don't see, the power supply is the foundation, along with the motherboard.


A brand name 400watt will have about 30 amps on the 12v rail.
A cheap 400 watt, will have as low as 15amps, on the 12v.
A cheap power supply, can take out the whole system, when it fails.

Without knowing the future card, this is a guess.
Newer cards, are using less power, so 550watt, should cover almost any upgrade.


The value of any upgrade, will depend on you CPU though.

If it is a weak CPU, getting a GPU that is more than it can handle, is a waste of money.

Here is our power supply post.
Power Supply Info