Q: I will be building a pc in the next 6-9 months and am not really sure what size Power Supply I should get. I want to get about as much as I need and no more than that. I would like to save some money on my electric bill. Here are the specs(tentative): Intel Q9550 Asus P5Q-E motherboard 1x Asus HD 4850 video card 6GB of DDR2 800 memory 1TB Seagate Hard Drive. 1- 2dvd burner
A: I'm not sure if I would only go 500-600W like the other guy suggests. If that's all that you're ever going to do to your computer than yeah I assume that 550-600W would do the job (make sure it's a PSU rated for that wattage, not it's peak wattage). But if you ever wanted to add another video card, you'd be hurting in the power department. I got a 750W just to be safe since I want to SLI in the future, but if you never want to Xfire than that would be sufficient. Oh, and if your computer isn't pulling 350W if you had a 750W PSU, your PSU wouldn't really be sucking much more power than a 500W PSU with 350W being used, so I wouldn't worry about your electricity bill. I should think that the difference would be minimal.