i am pretty sure 400W wont be enough for your current setup with the new parts you mentioned above. i suggest ~600W. also make sure your old power supply has all the proper power connectors for your new mobo such as the 8-pin CPU power without the need of a converter.
I'll give you one caveat to think on. If that 400W PSU is running at peak or near peak output, it's going to reduce it's lifespan. You should calculate how much wattage each component uses, add it up, and add another 100W for buffer. The time you strain the PSU the most is at power-on time. All the components turn on at…
C'mon guys, do you really think the higher the better? Efficiency is much more important, also, run his system through one of those PSU calculators, you'll come out to about 300w. Do a little more research on actual power needed instead of just buying into 800w marketing hype. Also, greevar, a 400w 80% efficient PSU means…
Earthquake is right. Plus power supplys have many different ratings. You can have a 700 watt psu that has crappy rails and will work terrible next to a 500 watt that has high rails. Same thing with efficiency. Its hard to go off deciding based strictly on wattage.
Is there any particular reason you want an Intel chip instead of an AMD? When building my machine I found that I could get more power for the same price from an AMD chip than an Intel chip. I was budgeting just around $100 per component too, so it really was a budget build.
Hey EarthQuake, thanks for taking the time to explain about stability. I wasn't aware there were stability differences between the two. When I built mine I wanted to get the most power for the least price and even then it took me a year to be able to afford all the parts. I haven't run into any issues yet with my AMD chip…
Regardless of how much power your components need, never cut corners when it comes to PSU's. If those things go bust you can say bye2 to everything inside. I'm running on a Cooler Master M700, certainly not top of the line stuff but this thing has been serving me well since my 8800gt days.
Why not go for the i5 2500? That PSU should be fine, if not, buy a new one. If it worked for your old PC, and you're not adding anything that sucks a massive amount of power, theres no reason why it wouldn't work for the new one. As for motherboards, just get something cheap, reliable with good ratings and only the…
Maybe it's just me, but I find it irritating to have a PSU go out on me. It's usually good practice to upgrade your PSU when you upgrade the CPU/GPU. Besides, a decent 500-600W PSU isn't much more than $50-$60, so it's a worthwhile upgrade if it gets you 3-4 years of use. An old PSU at peak power could tank at any moment.…
Hello guys. About time I put some new parts in this computer. Will be getting new CPU, Motherboard and RAM. Going to keep the rest as I can't afford it atm. I've read other threads about upgrades and trying to keep it simple but just wanted to make sure I am not doing something wrong. Older parts that I am keeping are: -…