Power Supplies

[DaftpuNk]

Well, I have seen the recent posts regarding what power supply to buy, but besides that, when to buy one? I've recently migrated from SFF back to a desktop system, and I have an Antec Super LANBoy case.

In it I am currently running a plain Abit NF7, a mobile 2500+ which is currently at 2.3GHz, two hard disks and one optical drive. I've sold off my good graphics cards and so I now just have a geforce 2 GTS. (Cor, 4,185 in 3DMark 2001 SE )

The thing is, I want to get a more reliable power supply for the future so that when I do buy a nice spanking 512MB graphics card, it will work nicely. Also, in the short term, I want to be able to see how far this 2500m really can go, 2.3GHz isn't pushing it at all.

Now the problem is that we're now migrating to the 24-pin ATX connectors on motherboards, well I haven't seen any motherboards with them but only PSU's with the connectors. In a case this would be quite ugly and fill up space however, as an adapter would have to be used for the current motherboard with the standard 20-pin connector.

So do I buy one now, with a 20-pin connector, and hope the wattage rating is high enough so that the extra 4 pins won't be needed for a PCI-Express graphics board in the future, or do I get a 24-pin one now? A bit of a dilemna really

Let me know what you think...

[BUFF]

PCI=-E boards have their own cable connector (a 512Mb card - wow! ).
http://www.tomshardware.com/firstloo...opower-01.html

[SilentDeath]

Get a cwt 550w from scan.
It has the 24pin connector, and an adaptor for 20 pin,or if you can be arsed, switch the connectors over and put insulation tape aroudn the extrra four, before hiding them in the corner
This is what I done.. well I cut the extra four off inside the psu, and made all the connectors modular... and then sleeved them.

for the nf7-s, make sure you have adequate mosfet heatsinks. They get very hot at anything past 1.75v... Cooling them will make it more stable - more important than psu imo.

Any decent psu rated at ~550w will last ages - and a decently vmodded gfx card will take about that of the next gen cards.. and people are running 80w TECs of the same psu.. so I dont think yours will be pushing any of the decent ones..

[DaftpuNk]

Very true Buff, but if you have the extra power going to the PCI-Express motheboard, I assume you may not have to have a power connector going to the card at all, which would mean tidier cases

I considered the possibility of that SD, but I find it a bit scary to swap the connector over! Maybe I should just be happy with a 20-24 pin converter and stop worrying about what it looks like inside the system :S

[Flash]

Thermaltake 480w purepower butterfly would be the best for that case, not only have you got the massive amounts of power and stabilty but also the pretty cathodes inside the PSU that gives your case an extra touch

[BUFF]

Very true Buff, but if you have the extra power going to the PCI-Express motheboard, I assume you may not have to have a power connector going to the card at all, which would mean tidier cases

Afaik on top end-ish nVidia cards & possibly ATI XT PE level you will need the connector .
& a 512mb card I guess would be top end-ish