Can Ahanix 350w silent PSU power a leadtek 7900GS?

Can 350w silent PSU power a leadtek 7900GS?

I've been searching google for an hour and I can't find this answer. I have an Ahanix MCE601 HTPC case. It comes with a customized 350w silent PSU (which I can't find the specs of). Its running an nvidia 6600 right now but I need more juice to output to a 1080p TV. There's not much else in this system that drains power:

3200+ AMD64
1 SATA2 HD
1gb corsair pc3200 ram (2x512mb)
2 60mm fans
1 serial VFD
1 DVD-RAM drive
1 USB card reader

No overclocking and none intended. This is a HTPC client. Its an older one but I just sold my newer one so I need to bring this one up to par.

I want the 7900GS but I don't know if it will run on this PSU. According to AnandTech its a SilentX PSU but I coun't find any SlientX that matches it. Ahanix says its "customized" on their sparse spec sheets. If I take the top of the case off, I can just make out that it looks like it says 30A on the +5v line. To see the whole label I would have to take the whole thing apart (its an HTPC case after all, not build for easy in/out). If it comes down to that I will just gamble because leadtek says a 350w PSU is baseline. But Leadtek says it needs 20A on 12v and 20A on the 12v rail is alot. Especially for a "silent" type PSU. Replacing the PSU is not an option, its not standard size and nothing I can buy locally will ever fit in there.

If I make an educated guess based on prior experience with silent PSUs, this PSU is probably 16/17A on 12v rail. Is that enough juice to power a 7900GS?

Thanks!

How much space do you have behind your case, in the cabinet or whatever that it is in, and will you ever need to move it?

Humm, well once its in place, I probably only need to move it maybe once or twice a year but there is only room for the cable heads in back of it. Say 3 or 4 inches. If the PSU won't power the card, will a 7600GS or GT be able to output 1080p smoothly? I only want nvidia since I already own a pure video license.

do you have an extra psu laying around that would fit behind your case where ever it is placed? If so you could use a seperate psu to power the video card just to be safe.

The other cards should work fine though and I would just get one of them if you dont want to really play any horribly demanding games at high rez with AA and AF on. Getting a different card would not only relieve the power issue but it would cost less.

Thanks! Thats a good work around. I do happen to have a couple extra PSUs (standard size). Is there danger of fire with a naked PSU just plugged in and left alone? It will be placed in an area I will never look at except for, maybe, a couple times a year. This is a sunny and hot country (good for humans but not so much for computers ).

a 350w psu will most likly run it with out any probs.... just dont plan on ocing the system and gfx card... but other than that a 7900gs will run just fine with that. heck i ran a 6600gt voltmodded on a athlon XP 2400 ocd to 2.4ghz with 3 hds 2 cd drives, 2 nic cards, and sound card for over a year on a 125w psu. i dont know how it did it... but it did.... i know for a fact my current system (see siggy) uses no more than like 220w.... and that would be on full load with full system oc.

Thanks nd4spdbh2!!

heck i ran a 6600gt voltmodded on a athlon XP 2400 ocd to 2.4ghz with 3 hds 2 cd drives, 2 nic cards, and sound card for over a year on a 125w psu.

Click to expand...

Now that is incredible! I don't even know where to find a 125W PSU .

silkshadow said:

Thanks nd4spdbh2!!



Now that is incredible! I don't even know where to find a 125W PSU .

Click to expand...

lol it was out of an OLD home built system.... slot 1 p2 333mhz.... with a $450 28k dial up card, ISA sound card, 500dollar old *** ATI card and a 600 buck 7.85gb hd

Ha! I remember paying US$700+ for a 128mb hard drive . Bought it from a catalog too .

I think you should be alright, as long as the PSU is of decent quality. I ran an OCed 7800 GT on a 350W in my old dell for about 6 months without issue.

Thanks everyone! Just to update, I got the card and its working great so far. Outputting beautiful 1080p goodness . Will load some games today and see if they do all right. Emulation for lower end systems (nes, genesis, dreamcast, n64, etc) doing all right. Having problems with the PS/PS2 emlator though which used to work great on the HTPC I sold. Hopefully its not video card related. Will be torubleshooting today as well.