power supplies

[Subjugation]

I just bought a 480w Thermaltake power supply from Newegg, and I'm wondering if that's going to be enough to power everything I'm planning on installing on the system I'm building. I would list everything that I have in mind, but I haven't decided on running twin video cards off SLI down the road, when prices come down on whatever card I go with. Plus overclocking, and possibly going RAID 0 if I turn it into a hardcore gaming system.

So I guess my question is, how do you tell how much power you actually need? I wasn't sure if could run a stable high-end system with lights, fans and accessories with anything less than a 500-550w supply.

[tahkis]

Don't look at the power amount, look at the manufacturer/brand. Some unknown 500W will most likely be worse than some quality 350W.

Never heard about the power supply you bought.

If you want quality, you should buy one of these: Fortron (=Nexus/Zalman/Aopen), Enlight (=Sirtec), Be Quiet!, Seasonic, Q-Technology (= not Q-tec), HEC, Antec.

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20040122/index.html

[Ephemeral]

I disagree with tahkis about not considering the power requirments.
First thing I would do is the power budget, add up the power requirements for all the devices you will be running and then add a 'buffer' over the required amount.

[Subjugation]

I got the PSU today, and I had no problem with the install. It has some cool manual fan controls that I'm going to wait to hook up when my new aluminum case arrives. I love the sleeved cables, too. Makes it look much more organized. Oh, and the lights on the PSU fan change colors, too. It goes from red, to green, to yellow, to blue...etc. It looks super cool with the lights off. Kind of a disco theme.

Yes, I'm embarrassed by my 4 year old socket 462 mobo and processor. Now you can tell why I'm overhauling just about everything on my system. :blushing:

[Dyers eve]

So you got all this to play... Continuum? :P

Just kidding :grin:

Check what every part needs on power, make sure you have some power left so you won't be using the powersupply 100% all the time. Kinda what Ephemeral said ^-^