Power Supply needed

[bigdave]

Hey, first time on this forum and I need some advice.

I am planning to build a new PC once the E8400 comes out soon and I am at a lost of how much watts I actually need.

Heres my set up so far:

Intel E8400 (Socket 775)
2 or 4 Gigs DDR2 Ram
Nvidia Geforce 8800GTS (512MB)
SATA2 HDD and 2 DVD drives
Creative X-Fi Gamer
Thermaltake Soprana + 3 fans


I'll pretty much figure out the model of the motherboard and ram after I finish my uni exams. So is 600 watts enough for now as well as some overclocking potential and future releases of graphics card?

Also on a side note, gonna be buying my bro a power supply so he can run an ATI Radeon HD3850/70 so 500 watts should be alright?

His:

Pentium 4 3Ghz+ (Cant remember exact speed)
1gig DDR2
ATI Radeon HD 3850/70
2 HDD
2 DVD drives.

(P.S. sorry for being such a newb)

[mac124]

I would imagine you are pretty much spot on on both counts. The OCZ Stealthstream are good value so i would recommend them, comes in 500 and 600 watt versions too.

Welcome to the forum too :D

[bigdave]

lol, what a guess!:P
Well I had a slight idea. Never built a pc before ya see. Dunno if I should just stretch it to 700 Watts for the hell of it, but I'm not gonna run SLI/Crossfire so don't really see a point.

Cheers again.

[mac124]

Might come in handy to have some in reserve, if you decide to upgrade to a quad for example.

[bigdave]

Yar, but I dont think I'll fully use a Quad ever until its implemented fully in games which will be a couple of years yet. Intel are releasing a new socket in the summer and this new build lasting me for a minumum of 5 years (maybe more depending how I feel and might be long enough for the next generation after nehalem :P), my next build cycle will be then.

Cheers again for the advice and your sig. is freaky! stop tracking me!:mrgreen:

[Biodoid]

can never have a big enough psu :P after all you never know what you may add in the future

[bigdave]

can never have a big enough psu :P

well, thats true to a point. But if we assume that technology will continue to use more wattage every year then its safe to assume we'll have power supplies that can double as an electric heater (i.e 3KW) but it looks like with Dual core, motherboards and DDR3 are using less voltage/power I can only assume things will cool down.
(Except the growing trend of more wattage of graphics cards which will probably unbalance this :P)