Is my PSU good enough?

[iQue]

Acer is known for giving their computers small capacity PSU's, great for the average buyer but for the ones interested in upgrading it's bad news...

I am really eager to buy the new 8800 GT to replace my old crappy 7500 LE but I'm not sure my PSU will have the power enough to support it to the fullest. I have a 250 Watt PSU...

My complete specs atm:

• Windows: Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
• Internet Explorer: 7.0.6000.16546
• Memory (RAM): 2047 MB
• CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ 2.6 GHz
• CPU Speed: 1005,1 MHz
• Sound card: Högtalare (Realtek High Definit
• Display Adapters: NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE (128 mb) | NVIDIA GeForce 7500 LE | RDPDD Chained DD | RDP Encoder Mirror Driver
• Screen Resolution: 1152 X 864 - 32 bit
• Network Adapters: Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller | Hamachi Network Interface
• CD / DVD Drives: E: HL-DT-STDVD+-RW GSA-H21N
• Hard Disks: C: 146,3GB | D: 145,9GB
• Hard Disks - Free: C: 26,6GB | D: 135,6GB
• Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
• Product Make: Acer Aspire E380
• Motherboard: Acer EM61SM/EM61PM

I copied it straight of a system specs program and I couldn't be arsed to edit it

So does anyone know if it'll work or will it end in epic fail? I'm going to a computer hardware store tomorrow to ask but it's nice to have other people's opinions as well.

Cheers!

[Sniper1432]

DO NOT USE THAT PSU WITH THAT CARD not only will it not work, it will also damage the hardware possibly. I'd say use nothing less than 500 watts.

[XavierOwn™]

Wow...

Definately Buy a new PSU 500W Mininum...

Your PC would blue screen, as possibly as Sniper said, it could brake taking most your conponents!

BAD IDEA!

500W Are cheap, make sure its a good brand!

And your be fine!

Good Luck

[iQue]

Yeah I'm never buying anything from Acer again... :laugh:

I can afford a new PSU as well so it's ok to upgrade. (Sorta knew I had to)

[Trevortt]

Acer are good. Maybe you should do a bit of reviewing next time you buy a product and not winge when it does not perform as you would like.

[D3lit3]

Acer is known for giving their computers small capacity PSU's, great for the average buyer but for the ones interested in upgrading it's bad news...

I am really eager to buy the new 8800 GT to replace my old crappy 7500 LE but I'm not sure my PSU will have the power enough to support it to the fullest. I have a 250 Watt PSU...

That's like trying to run a Hummer on baby oil.

[megawhompertoo]

probably a non-starter from the get-go: chances that that 250W psu has a 6-pin pci-e plug are marginal.

plenty of decent psu's out there, and you don't have to go nuts. a fully configured q6600 system w/an 8800gt and 4gb of ram sucks about 338W, most that on the +12v rail.

[looqas]

probably a non-starter from the get-go: chances that that 250W psu has a 6-pin pci-e plug are marginal.

plenty of decent psu's out there, and you don't have to go nuts. a fully configured q6600 system w/an 8800gt and 4gb of ram sucks about 338W, most that on the +12v rail.

I second this.

But bad manufacturers bloat their total wattage with non-elevant 3,3V and 5V so it's wise to check out how much wattage is actually coming from the 12V rail. Might be that a total 500W PSU only outputs 400W on the 12V rail. And since about 300W out of 338W might be actually from 12V rail so this leaves 400W-300W = 100W headroom. It's plenty if the PSU is as good as the specs say, but we all know there are 500W marketed PSUs which actually give out only 450W.

So do some research first from sites like http://www.silentpcreview.com/ and http://www.xbitlabs.com/

Especially the Xbit's lab does very good and very thorough tests on the PSUs. Not like cursory one-pager reviews what majority of the tech sites do. The good thing about xbit labs is that they do round-ups pitting PSUs together like this one http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/oth...u-roundup.html