How many watts do I REALLY need?

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Tue Aug 16, 2005 8:32 pm

Agreed with the above posters. Get a 300-400W SPCR recommended PSU. Those cheap 525W PSU's can't even handle 150W, I don't know why they are advertised as such. But the SPCR-recommended PSU's are tested to actually do as they are advertised, so you can't go wrong.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 8:18 pm

i would never put a psu with a bottom fan on the top of the case ever again.

it will heat up if you play modern games, and it wont spin down.

leaving it on for 3-4 months the seasonice 400 tornado I had never stabilized no matter waht I did to the case.

The only thing that helped it not "ramp up" is by lowering exhaust fans and opening up the front case, but still, breath a little heavy and it would ramp up again and not come down till you were out of the room.

the 350 heats up a LOT less when pushed to higher loads than other psu's. it is more efficient, therefore less heat waste. Cool it down with a nexus 120mm and you now have a real psu that can take quite a beating and is inaudible for most spcr people's standards.

if you could rip off the fan on the 500 and do your own thing, this would be best, but 500 watts is a bit overkill for almost any gaming system that uses a venice type core.
(and they all should be using venice cores....)

Sunfox · Post by **Sunfox** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:08 pm

Well, just received my Phantom 500w... serial range D050702, so hopefully no problems.

Now to wedge it in the P180 case...

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:26 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:i would never put a psu with a bottom fan on the top of the case ever again.

it will heat up if you play modern games, and it wont spin down.

leaving it on for 3-4 months the seasonice 400 tornado I had never stabilized no matter waht I did to the case.

I find that odd because I don't remember any other observations like that; was your Tornado the problematic A1/A2?

In any case the ATX spec is insufficient when it comes to hot processors and graphics cards. Get as much heat out with case fans and bring cool air into the PSU. Apart from being noisier, a hotter PSU has a shorter life and can't deliver as much power. Passive PSUs are probably better in those situations as they do not directly suck in hot air, but you will have to maintain the extra airflow to keep it cool.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:29 am

the phantom 350 is the most efficient psu at load.

it delivers more power than almost any 400 watt psu.

his system needs less than 300 watts.

Sunfox · Post by **Sunfox** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:06 am

Well, I'm just installing software on my new system and so far so good.

The Phantom 500 is a very nice power supply - doesn't even have that annoying burn-in smell I've had on so many others. A bit of a wedge fit in the P180 case, but worth it.

And considering the system has a P4 3.73GHz, ATI X850 XT PE, 4 hard drives and a total of 6 low RPM fans working away it's amazingly quiet. It has a soft hum, but no annoying noises and it appears to be slightly quieter than my current system (although I'm not done playing with RPMs yet). It also seems to be running cool enough.

cotdt · Post by **cotdt** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:49 am

congrats on getting a phantom 500. it is an excellent choice as long as it fits into your case. that thing is abnormally long that it won't even fit inside my case! so i have phantom 350 instead. i don't expect your phantom 500 to spin up much, since most computers use a lot less power than people think, even the powerful gaming systems.

Sunfox · Post by **Sunfox** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 7:46 pm

So far so good - the new system has been 100% rock solid. I've been playing some stressing games for hours on end with no heat issues, and last night spent a couple hours capturing and re-encoding HD video on a 4-drive RAID array and again, no issues. I haven't heard the Phantom's fan spin up either.