Power for nvidia 9600gt

adrek · Post by **adrek** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:31 am

Hi

I'm thinking on getting a BFG 9600gt video card and at BFG's website the minimum requirement for power is a 425 W power supply with a combined 12V current rating of 28A or more.

My power supply has 375W but i'm not sure about the V and A.
Googling I Found many people said it was ok to run that card even with a 350W power supply although they weren't so sure about that so i don't want to try it and fry my PSU.

My questions are:
Will I be ok with my current 375W PSU?
Let's suppose I get a 450 Watts power supply, Does that mean it will constantly spend 450 watts of power or it depends on the load of the computer components?

Basically My computer components are:

Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86 ghz
Seagate 250 Gb SATA drive
Seagate 400 Gb SATA drive
Nvidia 7300LE video card
2 GB RAM

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any help

tehcrazybob · Post by **tehcrazybob** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:49 am

The card actually only draws about 60 watts at full load. The reason the manufacturer suggests such a large power supply is that a great majority of the power supplies on the market today are cheap and hugely overspecified. The generic PSU that comes free with every computer case is realistically likely to provide roughly half its rated power without burning up.

So, you have a 375 watt power supply. Is it a good name brand? If so, you'll have no problem running a 9600gt. If it's not a good name brand, then rather than buying a million-watt cheap PSU, you should go out and buy a 300-400 watt quality PSU (Seasonic, Corsair, etc. - see the recommended list).

piglickjf · Post by **piglickjf** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:28 am

I have a 9600GT and my PSU is the EarthWatts 380W that came in my Antek NSK3480. I've had no problems whatsoever. As techcrazybob said, if you have a good quality PSU you should be fine.

PigLick

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:51 am

Video card manufacturers artificially inflate their required power numbers to compensate for the fact that most users have poor quality, generic power supplies in their systems. The main problem is they typically do not output as much power as they are rated for and when they're pushed to the limit of their capacity they fail more readily.

When I come across a generic power supply, in my head I automatically cut its rated wattage in half and treat it as such.

adrek · Post by **adrek** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:45 am

Thank you all

My PSU came originally with my Dell XPS 410, it's a Dell NPS-375AB B

It says:

375 Watts MAX
Max combined power on +5V and +3.3V output is 150 watts
Max combined output current on +12VA & +12VB output is 30A

So I guess my PSU won't get the job done.

I live in Mexico and because many websites won't sell outside the US I usually go to San Diego to get this kind of stuff.
For that reason I couldn't find any Seasonic in a common store like best buy, circuit city, frys etc. so I decided to go for the Earthwattls 380 since piglickjf says it's working fine with him.

Again thanks to you all for that fast response.

tehcrazybob · Post by **tehcrazybob** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:26 pm

I'm not sure what's drawing you to the conclusion that it won't work. Looking at your system specs and the numbers you posted for the power supply, I don't really see a problem. It may not be a really good brand-name PSU, but it's certainly better than the dirt-cheap supplies I was talking about. I think it should work just fine.

However, if you've already bought an Earthwatts, you should also be just fine; that's a pretty good choice.

adrek · Post by **adrek** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 6:56 pm

Allright tehcrazybob, I will try with my Dell PSU and see what happens.

I'll post back later just in case somebody wants to know if I needed another PSU or not.

Thanks again

lucas82 · Post by **lucas82** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:28 pm

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdo ... =2834&p=10
Including the (in)efficiency of the PSU, the XPS 410 consumes 240W at 100% CPU.
And that's with E6600 and 7900GTX.
Probably with your E6300 and a 9600gt it won't be higher.