[fluid]

Yeah you said you were building it to upgrade your family computer so I didn't expect that you would care. I'd recommend looking for a 9x00-generation ATI or a GF4-generation nvidia to get something powerful but not obscenely expensive. Even a GF3-generation nvidia (like I use) could pull most games but the newest (Doom 3, etc) off without a problem. CPU is really whatever you feel like spending, and so is the case. Personally, I love my Enlight midtower, and I'll advertise for them until the day I die. It's served me for nearly 5 years without a hassle. Very roomy and air circulates very well inside. I only wish I had gotten more than 300W because now I have to upgrade my power supply because of concerns for adding a third hard drive.

[Jump]

With some of the new vid cards you need a bigger P/S also.

[fluid]

Yes that's true. Although generally speaking a good quality 350W or higher will power anything a typical home user will throw at it.

Let's take a trip to electronics class. We know Power (W) = Current (A) * Voltage (V), and each power supply has three different "rails" of power: +3.3V, +5V, and +12V (add on the ground wire and that's why you plug a 4 prong plug into all the drives inside your case). Certain devices use different power as their primary source. Processors almost exclusively use +12V power, and a P4 3ghz sucks up about 10 amps. So 12 * 10 = 120W of power for just the CPU. A P4 2ghz uses 8A, so backing off on the ghz doesn't help much. Hard drives also use +12V power, about 2A, optical drives about 1A, and even a decent quality fan will use up about 0.25A. These all add up quickly. Other devices will use up amps on one or more of these rails as well: +5V supplies most PCI cards, keyboard/mouse, memory, USB/Firewire devices, and hard/optical drives. +3.3V supplies PCI devices, video cards, and the motherboard itself. The +5V and +3.3V rails are usually very well accomodated given a decent overall wattage rating, but the biggest problem is usually on +12V power.

When you buy a crappy generic power supply, you're usually only getting 12-16A or so through the +12V rail. As you might already tell, this is gonna get really painful when you try to add the basic components into a decent P4 system - one hard drive and one optical drive and you're already potentially unstable. The reason they can call the supply "400W" is because they give you a whole lot more amps on the +3.3V or +5V rails, which is cheaper for them to do, and then they can call it "400W" and sucker in some people with the larger number.

Good quality power supplies at 350W or higher will give you about 18 amps on the +12V rail, and that is enough to power a P4, 2 optical drives, 2 hard drives, and have plenty of breathing room for fans and other devices. Most any power supply will list its amps per rail on the label, and newegg is nice enough to list that information online for most of its supplies as well. For example, here's a nice 350W Enlight with +12v@18A that I plan on buying myself, and here is a generic 480W (!) supply which only has +12v@17A. They add 8A onto the +5V rail to achieve that higher wattage rating. For what you need, I'd look for at least +12V@18A, +3.3V@30A, and +5V@30A, give or take an amp or two.

Hopefully that'll make those crazy numbers on the label less cryptic and more meaningful as to whether the supply will do you any good.

PS: Here is a nice power supply guide that gives you a chart for computing how many amps you need on each rail

[Jump]

Thanks bud. I never realized that. That's good info to know.

*looks through all his P/S's laying around.*

[fluid]

I actually just recently learned that myself while searching for what I'd need to buy to satisfy my current system's power requirements. It explains why my backup 250W power supply was able to sustain all my peripherals so well.

[Mickey_D]

Just to reiterate here, I have the following just sitting on a shelf for anyone willing to pay postage on the items:

Corsair Value Select 256Mb PC2700 memory stick
Creative SB Audigy Gamer 5.1 with all associated cables and software.
HP NIC
Matrox G450 16Mb Dual Head gfx card.

Feel free to contact me at sylvester_mack@hotmail.com if you're interested in any of these.

[Mickey_D]

Oh, and if anyone has an HP specific PSU (one of the ones that the CPU fan is plugged directly into the PSU) lying around, I'd be willing to trade all of the above for it!!

[Jump]

Fluid, I take it that, like me, your friend hasn't recieved his rebate? As I just got an email from Newegg that basically hinted that fact and gave all sorts of info on how to get both rebates. Sounds like Newegg got complaints and did some ass kicking.

[fluid]

Just checked with him he said he got his a while ago. Maybe there were only isolated incidents or something.

[Jump]

I doubt it. It was a very specific and tense seeming email. I think a lot of peeps got screwed. I personally have never ever recieved any single rebate I have ever applied for. I have filed many complaints with the wall next to me since there is no agency to look into these crimes of money. Western Digital is the worst of the bunch. I no many peeps that have never recieved rebates from them.

[fluid]

Circuit City is very good with their rebates. About a month ago I received over $100 worth from stuff I bought on Black Friday. I've received a few from Western Digital as well. Best Buy screwed me out of one for about $100, though. That was annoying.

[Jump]

Unfortunately, all we have here is BB. CC is a drive.