[jayson]

Can any one give some advise, i am planning on getting a new case soon chieftec full tower, i can get it with either an Antec 340W PSU or an unbranded 550W PSU, i'll be running Athlon xp 2000 (hope to overclock) and some othe case lights (cold cathodes), which should i go for??.....

[Monaco]

Welcome to the forums, jayson!

I would go for the Antec- better to have 340 reliable watts that live up to their ratings, than 550 questionable ones that propbably don't.

Especially if the Antec is AMD approved.

[Jon]

I would see if I could get some specs on that 550W though. Some of those generic are manufactured by prime companies and can give quality performance.

[FDUSMC]

Why would you need a 550 watt power supply?

[Monaco]

welcome to the forums, FDUSMC.

A 550 watter is useful if you are going to be running lots of external equipment on a heavily overclocked system. For example, if you wanted to run a peltier or two in addition to a normal complement of fans and a 4 drive RAID array off the system PSU, a 550 watt power supply stops being a luxury item

It also gives you so much reserve power, you'll never ever need to wonder if it's a weak PSU holding back your overclock.

[jayson]

thank you, i will have to get some more info on the 550W PSU then decide

[Wangster]

jayson,

I would recommend that you look at pc power and cooling's website and their PS specifications and then look for something close to their specifications.

I philosophy is to try and get as much usable wattage as you can afford to anticipate for future power needs.

Good luck,

Wangster