Power Supply Question

[o00JONESY00o]

Hey I'm building my first PC and I do not know how to figure out how many watts I need for my power supply.

[blue60007]

What's your complete part list? The CPU and video card will determine this...also, be sure to get a quality brand such as Antec, FSP, or Sparkle (to name a few).

[o00JONESY00o]

Here are the parts:

10-Bay Matrix ATX Window Case

Intel D925XEBC2

Intel P4 3.40GHz 800MHz 1MB

GeForce 6600LE 256MB DDR PCI Express Video Card w/ DVI, TV

Geil Ultra Fast 1024MB PC4200 DDR2 533MHz Memory

Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM UDMA/100 2MB IDE Hard Drive

3C905B-TX 10/100 Fast EtherLinkXL PCI Network Interface Card

4 Diablo LED Fans

Spire Socket 775 Heat Sink & Fan up to 3.8GHz - Copper Core

Cooler Master Blue ICE Chipset Cooler with LED Fan

Lite-on SOHC-5236K / 52x32x52x CD-RW / 16x DVD-ROM / Black / Combo Drive

Lite-on Super Allwrite SHM-165P6S / 16x8x16x DVD+RW / 16x6x16x DVD-RW / 5x DVD-RAM / 8x DVD+R DL / 4x DVD-R DL / 48x24x48x CD-RW / Software / Internal / OEM DVD Writer

Vantec Iceberq DDR Memory Copper Heatspreader

Zalman Ulltra Quiet Heatpipe Hard Drive Cooler

[Alaron]

This Antec will do: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103936

[jayb1234]

Wrong hard drive.

That one only has a 2Mb cache.

Get at least a 8Mb cache and preferably a 16Mb cache. Seagate or Western Digital.

Using that Spire heatsink/fan unit will void the warranty on your processor. The stock unit should be fine for that hardware setup.

I highly doubt that you will need the chipset cooler either, and RAM heatspreaders can be a problem instead of helping. A lot of them end up causing more heat instead of getting rid of it by blocking airflow to the RAM modules.

No need for the harddrive cooler either.

Unless you will be connecting that machine to the internet using a wireless router, you don't need the NIC card.

Optical drives: The liteons are a good choice.

Floppy drive: likely to be needed during setup, and handy to have for diagnostics, etc, etc..

OS: The OEM version of XP Home with Service pack 2 should be fine unless you need some specific feature of XP Pro or want the Media Center Edition, about $85 at Newegg.

Ram: Corsair value select will be fine, no need for the ultra fast. Use the configurator to be sure you order a compatible part number.

That antec psu that alaron posted will be fine.

[o00JONESY00o]

I'm not sure if the CPU comes w/ a warranty, I'm buying it refurbished. It says it only comes w/ the CPU but the requirements say it needs a fan and heatsink so should I buy an intel fan

[o00JONESY00o]

I've also been thinking about changing the video card to a Xmdia GeForce 6600 LE / 256MB DDR / PCI Express / SLI / DVI / VGA / TV-Out / Video Card. Will this change the wattage need on the power supply? Also can you tell me how to calculate how many watts I need.

[wazlakz]

you could try this

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

but it doesn't have all the parts you have listed.

If you're buying the parts from NewEgg, they have the watts listed under the info section.

[jayb1234]

You can order thermal pads, and heatsink/fan units from Intel's website.

[glc]

Research the minimum power supply requirements for the video card you are planning on using, and add 50 watts. Quality is more important than quantity.

Get a SATA hard drive, not an IDE.

[o00JONESY00o]

Alright. Thanks for your help.