Buying a power supply

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Hi all,

Following on from a topic I posted a few days ago, I was just wondering if you guys could give me some advice regarding purchasing a power supply........... is it as simple as working out (or in this case reading the dc output from the old psu) what amount of W is needed to run the internals, the different type of connectors required and if its a btx or atx for form factor? having never purchased a power supply in my life im unsure.

Kind regards

 

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not exactly.

what are your system specs and I will tell you what you should get.

Generally if you use one of those online wattage calculators you should add 30% to what it says but if you plan to upgrade in the future then 30% + 100 is what you should go for.

You should also go for a quality brand no matter what setup you have, you dont want to risk brown outs and dirty power by going with a cheap brand.

Good power supplies. Seasonic (the best), Corsair (made by seasonic), Cooler master (the newer ones), Thermaltake (toughpower units only), OCz Extreme, Silverstone (the newest models), Enermax (the new ones).

And thats about it for good ones.

Do not under any circumstance purchase a rosewill, Winpower, powerman, or tagan power supply they are best used as paper weights and nothing else.

 

many thanks bruce lee for your detailed and helpful reply
if i was to simply replace the existing power supply would it be as simple as buying one with the same dc output and connectors?

the power supply that requires renewing is 350w , would it be as simple as buying a new one rated at 350 w and checking it had the same connectors available?

 

PSU connectors tend to be the same from one PSU to the next.

My advice, spend as much money as you can afford on a PSU because it will more than last the lifetime of your current PC (my Enermax Galaxy is now in it's 3rd PC case), in my opinion the PSU is pretty much top of my list when it comes to spending money on because no matter how good your motherboard\cpu\ram etc is, if you have a crap PSU you will have a dodgy system.

I would look into getting a decent 500 watt branded PSU and take it from there.

 

All modern PCIe systems should be running a 550w with atleast 26a on the 12v rail in my opinion. A corsair vx 550 is a great place to start with but what are your systems specs?