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Off Topic => Engineering => Topic started by: Dracho on May 04, 2009, 11:43:38 am

Title: PC Case & Power Supply
Post by: Dracho on May 04, 2009, 11:43:38 am

Well, I have reached a point in my system where my video card (ATI 3870X2) is tripping my power supply (Thermaltake 750W) when I am doing something intensive, such as slagging super mutants in Fallout 3.

I'm thinking about a new PS and I'll probably get a new case as well (Thinking of upgrading my mid-tower to a full-tower so my 12" graphics card isn't wedged against my hard drives).  I'm seeing a lot of cases with the PS slot on the bottom now.  Has anyone used one of these?  I'm probably going to need a 1200W-1400W rig to power everything, and that concerns me with the PW fan being low.. will it push enough air to stay cool..

Anyone have any experience to share?

Title: Re: PC Case & Power Supply
Post by: _Rondo_GE The OutLaw on May 04, 2009, 11:55:47 am

Dang, what you need all that power for?  I've been getting by with 600 w for a while.

Title: Re: PC Case & Power Supply
Post by: toasty0 on May 04, 2009, 12:11:47 pm

When you have 1500 instances of wireshark running you need the juice.  ;D

Title: Re: PC Case & Power Supply
Post by: Dracho on May 04, 2009, 12:57:31 pm

LOL...

My rig is running an AMD Phenom Quad Core, 4 GB of DDR 1066 RAM, an EIDE DVD burner, 4 SATA hard drives and 2 EIDE hard drives, and that 3870 X2 PCIe 2.0 video card (2 3870 cards on 1 card, with 1 GB of video ram and 4 GPUs).  I think the video card alone is sucking 600w.

Title: Re: PC Case & Power Supply
Post by: Sirgod on May 04, 2009, 03:51:02 pm

You mentioned the card was between the HD's. Could it possibly be a cooling/airflow issue rather then the PS?


Either way though, one can never have a large enough power supply. Never know what you might add later.

Stephen

Title: Re: PC Case & Power Supply
Post by: Dracho on May 04, 2009, 04:08:57 pm

Cheap solution too would be to toss out some of those drives and stick in a couple of 1TB SATAs.  That'd reduce the power footprint considerably.

I do want a full tower though... tired of busting my knuckles in that thing.

Hey.. here is a neat tool:

http://www.journeysystems.com/?power_supply_calculator

According to this I need about 692W

Title: Re: PC Case & Power Supply
Post by: NJAntman on May 04, 2009, 11:17:11 pm

I'm using a CoolerMaster Stacker 830 case, full tower with a lot of room, big side flow through panel and top & front bay ventilation. Very easy to work on (tool-less), gives a lot of options (reversible front panel door, multifan bracket for the side, etc..)

Power-supply on the bottom (ATX type B?) looks like one of three options for the nearly identical Stacker 831 case.