Antec - Fortron / Sparkle?!!

[kayboykb]

Alrighty - yanno it just occurred to me that my power supply is 400W? I have an Antec SL400.. it's been with me for a good year now, and I must say it's a quality power supply. Very quiet, and supplies the power I need. I was reading my winbond reader and my cpu undervolts sometimes, but I think that's because of the Abit IC7 and not so much the Antec.

I guess the question is, with the up and coming technology, do I need to go ahead and upgrade to a 480+ Watt power supply? I heard that P4's need a minimum 400W powersupply, so hopefully my P4 C isn't sucking up all the power.

My specs are in the sig - so I guess if I need to upgrade recommend a pretty good 480 W power supply -

Also. - why are the Antec True power series so much more expensive than the solution series ones?

 

[Nebulous]

I say check your rails with a digital multimeter before shelling for a new psu.

As for the tru power costing more; Only thing i can come up with is their rails are much stronger for the more power demanding mobos. I have a True 550w, I guess it's the original True Power series since it's about 3 years old. The rails were pretty low. I vmodded them since the warranty was already outdated. So far she's still going strong. if you need a new psu, go with either Fortron or Sparkle. Both psu's are tops and Sparkle is made by Fortron. Plus you get the internal pots for voltage adjustments.

The smart power series are junk IMHO.

 

[Oklahoma Wolf]

The SL's are far from junk, they're just not the best out there for overclocking. They're based on older technology where the 5v is derived from the 12v, while the Trues have all three seperated. Not sure you'd need to upgrade, however... I second the suggestion to see how the rails are with a meter first. If you do want to go ahead with upgrading, I suggest the Fortron 530w or the Truepowers above 480w (or the OEM CWT 480w or better units if you can find them).

 

[Cerberus2k7]

I wouldn't consider it a neccessary upgrade. I've seen a couple P4s overclocked running on 250-300watt PSUs.

 

[kayboykb]

Okay, I hear all of you guys. I'm gonna check my rails when my 9800 pro gets here on Wednesday - and if they're ok I'll wait for a bit.

I have about 100 bucks extra to spend (income tax!!) so it's either going to a new powersupply or to knock off 100 bucks off a $400 LCD screen >D

 

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

if it ain't broken...

go for the LCD

 

[Gautam]

it's been with me for a good year now, and I must say it's a quality power supply. Very quiet, and supplies the power I need.

Case closed, I'd say. If it's been running well for you, there's no reason to part it with yet. Low wattage, high quality power supplies can run a lot more than they're often given credit for.