Q: will this psu power my pc pefectly ok http://www.corsairmemory.com/products/vx.aspx im looking at the 550w one athlon 3600 1.9ghz 2gb 2x1gb ddr2 800mhz 2 sata drives 1 dvd rw drive bfg 9800gtx+ oc 1 sound card 3 fans its the graphics card im worried about plus could you tell me how far this psu will go like sli and stuff i choose this one because the single 12v rail is ment be very good at powering gaming pc's and it says it outputs just under 500watts of the 12v line so thats good aint it? im not going for 750w psus not even 650 coz ino for certain thats over kill i hate it when people buy 1000w psu's to power there 8600gts dont you?
A: After a quick run through my fave psu calc http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp here is my result: ----- System Type:Single Processor Motherboard:Regular - Desktop CPU:AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ EE 1900 MHz AM2 Brisbane CPU Utilization (TDP):85% TDP RAM:2 Sticks DDR2 SDRAM Video Card:NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ Video Type:Single Card SATA HDD:2 HDDs DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive:1 Drive Sound Blaster - All Models:Yes Fans: 1 Fan 80mm; 1 Fan 92mm; 2 Fans 120mm; Keyboard and mouse:Yes System Load:90 % Recommended Wattage:287 Watts ----- For SLI just select "sli" under "video type" (default is "single card") I get 372W for SLI mode. So even the 450w will be good enough for the single card but SLI maybe the 550w is better suited. And good choice Corsair makes excellent power supplies you will not be dissapointed. I found a review of the VX450 if you are interested and want to save a few bux and not go w/ the SLI setup :) http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM3NSwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0 I think people don't research their power supply enough, even a 500w+ unit that is not properly rated can't handle a 300w continuous load and that is where many problems happen. This will not happen w/ a corsair brand you apparently did your homework good job. cheers