psu

[SnaarffiE]

i am building a new gaming machine. i duno wot psu to get wot rating would i need? 350 400 500?

[NEWSBOT3]

at the very least a 400

[meglamaniac]

http://www.thermaltake.com/products/...wer/w0008r.htm
Yes it may be expensive, but it's:
a) bloody quiet
b) bloody reliable
c) surge protected

Never underestimate the dangers of power surges - I once lost the entire contents of a 40gb harddrive to one (there was a power cut which cause a series of power spikes which scrambled the FAT plus half the sectors on the disk)

If you're going for a QUIET gaming system, why not buy all the base hardware you need all at once (case, cooling, psu).
http://www.thermaltake.com/products/...aquariusII.htm

Again, expensive - but unlike many things computery, with hardware you pretty much get what you pay for.
Thermaltake have an excellent reputation for cooling equipment, so you can't go far wrong. Thier new silent PSU's are also recieving some very good reviews.

[Luckeh!!!!]

what are your intended specs?

apparently ALL Dell computers ship with 250W... heh.

[BesigedB]

i have a 200 in my two year old dell, and it seems to be the only propriatary bit in the computer (according to misc. websites)

just when i wanted to change it, too

[meglamaniac]

Er - how can just the PSU be propriatary?
The only way a PSU can be propriatary is
a) The input socket/voltage is non-standard (incredibly unlikely and stupid)
b) The output sockets/voltages are non-standard (in which case whatever they connect to (motherboard/harddrives/whatever) is also non-standard)

If it's just a slightly odd shape it can't be that hard to come up with a workaround.

As for intended specs, I wouldn't put anything below a 300 in an P4 2.0Ghz or Athlon XP2000+, and even then I'd be watching it damn closely.
If you're after a performance gaming/'multimedia' setup you may be looking at some serious power drain.
This is what's in my XP2000+:
GF4 Ti4600 128Mb, SB Live, TV/radio card, NIC, 2 7200 RPM harddrives, 512Mb DDR2700 RAM, 3 USB hubs (all onboard and 2 in full use (so 4 sockets)), a 16x DVD ROM and a 24x10x40 CDRW, a 90mm fan for the CPU/chipset and of course the XP2000+ itself.

All that is going to be drawing some serious power - you wouldn't catch me running that on 300w. 250w would be suicidal.
To be honest, that processor is now quite slow for a performance system - you'd be looking at something like an XP2600+ at least now.
I'd say get at least a 400w PSU. I'm running a 420W Antec which is good quality and provides nice stable power even at high drain (and I frequently burn audio CD's while playing UT2003 - that's pretty high drain).

[Luckeh!!!!]

I believe Dell have modified mobos and PSUs so you can only upgrade from them, they also modify the BIOS to limit OCing options and other hardware/bios stuff...

but seriously, I can confirm Dell use 250w PSU in a 3Ghz syste mthey are currently selling... something must be up with that...