Larva, input (and others who can help...)

Hate to bug ya but i know that you know your stuff on this topic.

I'm about to head off to college this semester so i need a smaller case and i'm going to take this time to switch my A64 system over from AGP to PCI express. As it stands right now i'm pretty sure my 420 watt antec PSU is probably hardly fitting the bill and it may explain the OC problems i've been having.


Right now i've got it powering 1 52x rom/burner, another 12x dvd reader, a floppy drive, and three hard drives:

1 old 60 gig drive (5400 rpm, maybe 7200)
1 36 gig raptor (10,000 rpm)
1 250 gig WD 8mb cache drive (7200 rpm)

As of right now i've got an ATI 9800 in there, but as i said that'll be different.

I've got an A64 that i intend on running upwards of 2.5 ghz, 1 gig of ram (2x512).

Then 2 or 3 120mm fans.

That said...what would you recomend for power?

I'm thinking the Sparkle FSP550-60PLG 550w

I like this one. More expensive but more headroom too.

Fortron FSP550-60PLG, OCZ Powerstream 520w.

What is your budget for PSU?

Honestly, A64s rarely tax modern supplies. About any leading brand single or dual line supply will do the job. I like my Antec TPII-480, and I've got a couple of SP2-350s now that are impressive in practice. Believe it or not the most demanding thing about your current load is the video card, being that it is run off of 5V. Once you go to a PCI express video card the load is almost entirely 12V and dual line supplies like the Fortron AX-500a, a big Antec SP2 or TP2, or Seasonic S12 start looking really attractive--especially for AMD rigs. I only recommend the big single lines units for Intel rigs with ambitious OC ambitions at this point.

So you saying that my PSU would suffice?

Yours might be enough, but if its not and you don't have much to spend, even the low Fortron/Sparkle PSUs are amazing. Mine runs what I have in my sig completely stable, I have also run an additional 2 hard drives. I think that was the limit though. If Antecs are built like fortrons, I don't think you're going to have problems.

Speciale said:

So you saying that my PSU would suffice?

Click to expand...

Probably not, I'd look into getting a better one, especially if you plan on getting a higher end video card. If you decide a low power videocard, onboard video or anything like that you'd be fine though.

I'm looking into either a 6xxx series Nvidia or an 8xx series ATI...