Power supply and hardware?

[mikey186]

Well, the good news is just today, I have brought a (ASUS) nVidia GeForce GTX 750ti 2GB, but now I have another concern which is the power supply. According to the box, it requires me to get a 400W+ power supply, I have 315W at this time.

I found some easy ones on Amazon and Newegg, but is there any additional specs I gotta look for when it comes to buying a power supply from perfect brands (like ASUS, EVGA etc). Plus, I don't want my computer to.....'blow up in fire' even on easy. I have a Intel i3 3.30ghz quad core, w/4gb ram.

Who would think that just one card can take a LOT of power.

 

[JCitron]

Go higher than the minimum requirement for a power supply. If the company recommends a 400W power supply, go for a 600 and up, and this size is fine for what you want to do. The reason I say this is there are other components in your system that can draw current such as the CPU and fans, and even memory when your system is running hard and pushing the data around. Another reason to do this is if you plan to upgrade you RAM for instance by increasing to 16GB, which I recommend doing. These extra RAM chips will draw more current, and this can cause your system to become unstable. The same with additional hard drives or larger hard drives, which really draw power, though SSDs do draw less.

For brands, well the best place to check are those online reviews on New Egg. If there are 20 reviews and 3-stars, stay away! For the most part, the known brands are pretty good. I have had good luck with my EVGA power supply. It's one of the very expensive high end ones and is 1200W to ensure I have enough power to drive my multiple fans, i7 5860, 64GB of RAM and multiple hard drives.

I will say I have built systems for close to 30 years, and even worked on the very earliest PCs as a hardware technician that repaired the circuit boards, and only once did I have a power supply blow up. This was due to being an unknown, really, really cheap brand which blew something inside. The blow up took out all major components including hard drives. I consider this a problem with the crap hardware and nothing that I did to cause it. The unit ran for a week then blew out. Plugging in wires wrong is impossible because the connectors are shaped a specific way, making that really difficult to do, though if you can fit a round peg into a square hole, you might have an issue.

I will add that getting one of the those modular power supplies is highly recommended. What these are is a power supply unit with nearly all the plugs removed. You are given a bag of wires with plugs on the ends and you plug in only the wires you need. The good thing about this is it keeps the clutter down to the minimum inside your computer case, which allows for better airflow.

John

 

[mikey186]

True. I guess I better like upgrade everything?? I already have a good SSD really. Goodness, that'd be something I better get a GT40 4GB Superclocked instead.

Hm.....Newegg could be ideal. Buying a brand can be tricky........because I don't want to get a cheap brand that'll pull off my hair, amd set my controller on fire even on easy. So probably EVGA would be at it's best, i might have to go to best buy to check.

 

[JCitron]

True. I guess I better like upgrade everything?? I already have a good SSD really. Goodness, that'd be something I better get a GT40 4GB Superclocked instead.

Hm.....Newegg could be ideal. Buying a brand can be tricky........because I don't want to get a cheap brand that'll pull off my hair, amd set my controller on fire even on easy. So probably EVGA would be at it's best, i might have to go to best buy to check.

Your CPU and motherboard are probably fine, and with your new video card you've gone pretty much into a nice machine. What you want to upgrade will be your memory. Given that RAM is so cheap these days, go as high as you can afford. Choosing the memory can be tricky and I highly recommend that you consult your motherboard's user manual or the manufacturer's website for the exact specs. I made this mistake once and ended up with lots of RAM, but only seeing a portion of it. In the end it cost me more because I had to order the RAM special for the motherboard like I should have in the first place. If you do upgrade, I do recommend GSkill memory.

I was at BestBuy before Christmas with my bro looking at parts for his machine, and all they have are the small-sized power supplies. Your best bet is to look online at places like New Egg. You can actually check EVGA directly at www.evga.com and then buy the same thing on New Egg.

John

 

[mikey186]

I guess it'll do then. The only most amount of RAM my motherboard can take is 8GB. Close enough? At least to run TS12 & T:ANE?

 

[SailorDan]

I guess it'll do then. The only most amount of RAM my motherboard can take is 8GB. Close enough? At least to run TS12 & T:ANE?

Check that the new power supply provides the leads and connectors that the video card requires. A simple upgrade to a higher-rated power supply might be a standard AT replacement part without the additional connectors. Any decent gaming PS will have the additional leads.

 

[nicky9499]

Picking the right PSU requires a little bit of research. Get an estimate of what your hardware requires here. Aside from the fact that you may be spending more money on the PSU than you need, keep in mind they're also designed to run most efficiently at around 50% load and therefore you want to avoid a massively overpowered or "just enough" unit where they'll spend most of their time outside their peak efficiency.

Similarly, when you buy a 600W PSU for example you are not going to get 600W. The 80+ rating, if the unit has one, means it has a peak efficiency of at least 80% (you get 80% of the advertized capacity and the rest is lost to heat and other resistance) so that has to be taken into account as well.

 

[EverTrainz]

Do yourself a favor and don't buy a PSU under $50, if your PSU fails, there's a great chance it takes down other components with it, too. I got a decent 80+ Gold XFX for $60, it's very efficient and well-worth the (sale) price.

 

[mikey186]

Picking the right PSU requires a little bit of research. Get an estimate of what your hardware requires here. Aside from the fact that you may be spending more money on the PSU than you need, keep in mind they're also designed to run most efficiently at around 50% load and therefore you want to avoid a massively overpowered or "just enough" unit where they'll spend most of their time outside their peak efficiency.

Similarly, when you buy a 600W PSU for example you are not going to get 600W. The 80+ rating, if the unit has one, means it has a peak efficiency of at least 80% (you get 80% of the advertized capacity and the rest is lost to heat and other resistance) so that has to be taken into account as well.

Well here's what I found based on my entire specs.

Close enough? My current brand installed was AcBel

 

[nicky9499]

Looks good. Personally I would pick something at least 80+ Gold though.

 

[mikey186]

Ok, well now I need to find the 'form factor' of the power supply. I tried researching it, and just gives me USELESS results, the brand came from China, and it's a AcBel PC9045-ZA1G. If what computer I have, I have a ASUS Essentio CM6730.

 

[clam1952]

Looking at the Pictures on the Net it's a standard ATX PSU, Ok tracked down a proper description

AcBel PC9045-ZA1G (PIII & 4) 330w ATX P/Supply

 

[mikey186]

oh ok, I figured it was it! Thanks to all, I FINALLY got a power supply, installed the Driver, and i'm SET! Apparently in TS12, it was starting to.....lag whenever I load a route, on a higher settings. I set it to OpenGL, with anti-alias to 4. And I noticed some.......well.......some dots on transparent trees.

I don't know the settings. It's been a while since I used TS12. I only use TS10:

 

[clam1952]

Slide the anisotropy up to the other end as in maximum.