PSU Advice

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Hi, I am looking to purchase a new PSU and primarily wondering what sort of wattage I should go for, for what I want to do.

Basically I need one NOW for an older (5 yr old) system on which I have upgraded the CPU, but one which will be useful for a future rig also.

The current older system is :-

Celeron 1.8GHz
Chipset = Intel 845-E (Brookdale-E)
Mobo = QDI PlatiniX 2E v2.0
2 x 1GB PC3200 184-pin DDR SDRAM
PSU : UPGUARDS MPT-301P, 300W

The new CPU is :-

Intel P4 3.0Ghz Socket 478 Northwood CPU (S-Spec : SL6WU), 800MHz FSB, Hyper-Threaded

With this new CPU at 3GHz I am experiencing hangs under load (eg running Prime95 stress test or booting up 3 VM's simultaneously - though they CAN boot individually OK).

The temps a seem OK (37 deg C idle in XP Pro) so the problem is most likely the PSU not providing sufficient power.

I am wondering what PSU wattage I should be looking at - for maximal future upgradability in a future rig I use it in - eg I may want to put in a high-end graphics card or upgrade the CPU again. What ball-park figure should I go for ? I see they go up to 1000W and beyond. Also does anyone have any particular models they like, or don't like for any reason ?

I am effectively 'over-clocking' my chipset with this 800FSB CPU as 845-E chipset only supports up to 533MHz FSB, but my mobo has a jumper setting for 800MHz FSB and the latest BIOS (v2.2SLCP) supports 800FSB - so I figure it should work.

 

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I would go with this.
I have a 530watt Hiper running a C2D overclocked to 3.2, 4 hard drives, 2GB of RAM, an 8600 graphics card, sound card and 5 fans. If you went with the one I linked to it would give you more than enough power for whatever you want to do with it and is a reasonable price.

 

Thanks NightWalker, really like the look of that PSU for the price range and the reviews on overclockers.co.uk are very positive - it'll certainly be on my narrowed down list for when I buy
Cheers

 

Yeah I would definitely say a 500W PSU minimum and you'll be safe. But you haven't mentioned your graphics card - if it requires any power connectors etc..