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People tend to totally overdo the whole WATTS business on power supplies.
If anyone actually went out and bought a "plug-in mains power and energy monitor" (as Maplin calls it), and plugged your pc into it, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Most pcs will actually be fine on a 300w/350w, and maybe a small minority will be requiring 400w power supplies.
My setup never goes above 170watts AC (which actually turns out to be around 125watts DC due to efficiency) in anything I push it in, 3d mark or rthdribl.
So most likely will never go above 150watts DC if perhaps my HDs decide to access while heavy 3d action is going on.
It normally idles at around 105watts AC (~75watts DC).
I use:
Athlon A64 Winchester 3200+ @ 2.4ghz
1gb (2x512) pc3200 samsung original
MSI K8N Neo2 plat
Radeon 9700pro (r9800pro used about 10 watts more in every case when I had one)
2x optical drives
2x hard drives
sound card
tv card
All run of a silent modded Seasonic 300watt with a panaflo 80L1a pushing just 10cfm.
So I'm barely reaching half of the output at full load on this power supply, and if my pc were ever to use that much power I'd stick the stock fan back in there.
Another thing is people always wondering about the +12v rail, well for me that clearly doesn't cause a problem.
This 300w seasonic can provide 15Amps on the +12v rail (180watts).
If the entire pc did run off solely the 12v rail (which it doesn't), I'd still have no problem since it can offer upto 180watts DC on the +12v rail.
My pc is pulling a max of 150watts on all the rails.
Of course some people will be using slightly more powerful graphics cards (6800GT/ultra/7800s) than I am, and possibly Intel setups that use much more power.
And the moral of the story, quality > quantity!
For more info you could take a look at the power supply forum at silentpcreview. I've not visited there in a while but I'm sure the people are still pretty knowledgable.
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Originally Posted by Errr...me
