SOLVED PSU dilemma

[Hamwich]

So I currently own a Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC 430W, which works great and has only light usage in a vintage style build. By chance, happened to receive a foxconn geforce 8800 GTS for free! (long story), which I think is functioning. I wonder if its enough to power the card along with a 125W amd phenom II x4 955 (currently on sale at newegg.) This would make one hell of a 266 dollar pc build. I think the wattage is okay, but I'm worried the 12 volt rail won't provide sufficient amps.

specs:
430 W
"Dedicated dual +12V rails"
+3.3V@20A, +5V@24A, +12V1@14A, +12V2@15A, [email protected], +5VSB@2A

Nvidia gpu requirements:
Minimum of a 400 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 26 Amps.)

I've seen people answer these kinda questions in several ways. The psu from what I can figure doesn't give the combine wattage across both 12 volt rails, but does list a maximum of 130 W for the 3.3 and 5 volt rails. And what's with the "dedicated rail" lingo. Does that mean one rail goes to the mobo the other to the gpu, w/o any watts/amps shared on the rail between them? Can't make heads or tails of this. So what do you think? Is this a good idea?

Love this site has a picard facepalm.


Help me to not feel this way. Thank you all n' God bless.

 

[Bobnova]

That GPU uses around 135w at worst, combined with the 125w CPU and a few fans and such you're looking at 300w at worst.
If the TR2 430w can actually cough up what it says it can, no problem.

The difficulty is that the TR2 series is, in general, junk.
Where exactly your TR2 will make it to before nosing over is anybodies guess. Hardwaresecrets got theirs to do 350w with clean power (review)
It's also a single rail inside, so no worries on that standpoint. Of course, it's also only a 18a rail. A 18a rail that can only do 16a with good ripple or 17a with OK ripple. 17a x 12v = 204w. 204w is rather less than needed for a full CPU (which loads only 12v) and GPU (which puts 99% or more of its load on 12v).


In conclusion: you probably could run it successfully if you avoided full CPU/GPU load situations and/or underclocked/undervolted things, but IMO you'd be much better off with a corsair 430w. They're almost always on sale for around $30 and can cough up plenty of power for that setup without any issues at all.





(As a sidenote / disclaimer, mostly to the Thermaltake person who reads forums): I've taken fire from thermaltake recently about my "anti-thermaltake" posts. I find this rather amusing, if somewhat confusing (I have written a number of very positive reviews of Tt products). I have absolutely nothing against thermaltake, I high recommend some of their products (including, amusingly the one I took fire for speaking badly of), but the TR2 series, as a whole, is really pretty terrible.

 

[Hamwich]

Coool, thanks for the quick response! I think I'll go with the corsair. It looks like a great product. Hopefully the card is still functional. I'll post the result up later.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Bobnova]

If there wasn't a BANG, the card probably still works. You should be OK.