PSU help

[Axel]

I posted this same thread on 4chan, which was a mistake cos they're hardly ever helpful...

I'm not so experienced with PC hardware. I bought a prebuilt from Dell for £290 last year with intel core duo 2.6ghz processor, 3 gig of ram, windows 7, but an awful intel integrated graphics card.

I asked my parents for a graphics card, and not knowing anything, they bought me a 7200gs. It's an alright card, runs games better than my integrated (L4D2 goes from 2 fps or so to about 15).

But I'm wondering, is it ok running this with just a 300w PSU? Is anything at risk? I have a friend running a radeon HD 2400 pro on a 250w PSU and he seems fine. Do I need a better PSU or anything?

[Grippz]

Hiya, the Minimum system requirements regarding power for the graphics card you have is:

MINIMUM 300Watt or greater power supply

Personally if I were you I would purchase a new PSU @ 550/600W. That would be perfect for your machine and would guarantee that power gets to the remaining hardware. It will also come in handy if you ever wanted to upgrade your graphics card in the future.

Failure to upgrade to a better PSU could result in power being taken from other key components of the computer and could cause it to crash/short out.

Remember not to buy a cheap PSU, if it were to fail it could take out the computer all together.

Have fun!

[LMS16]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/102994

Need I say more

Lew.

[[Chris]]

You DO need to say more.

If your buying a PSU go for a good brand, like OCz or Corsair

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/204353 - OCz
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132563 - Corsair

[Jack!]

Just get a 400w one, that should cover you for a while

[Recursion]

Generally I'd go for 100w over the stated wattage on the graphics card box at least, so look at a 400w or more PSU by someone like Antec, OCZ, Be Quiet!, Cooler Master, Sparkle, Enermax or Corsair.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135159 is a good one for you.

[Axel]

Do I really need a new PSU though? My friend has been using a PC with the same set up as me, but 1 gig more ram and a better graphics card, and he's only on a 250w PSU.

[Recursion]

That PSU will be at load most of it's life, if I were you I wouldn't risk it.

Remember the PSU is the one thing in your PC that can take everything with it when it dies.

[Jack!]

Wouldnt want to risk the PSU killing everything do you? if you leave it as is, you might be ok, but its going to be a maximum load everytime is on