Question about PSU upgrade and stuff

[soulslicer]

So, recently I had a 550 w Cooler Master Real Power Pro, which had been in my system for nearly a year. I was not really happy with it as it didn't have much upgrade potential, meaning that if I wanted to upgrade my GPU in the future, I'd have to ditch the PSU. So I sold, the PSU for about 100 sing dollars, (I had bought it for 140), and I'm thinking of what level of wattage should I get for the next PSU I plan t buy, as my system is powerless now.

I have a 9800GTX+ at the moment which draws nearly 250-300 over watts on load, and if I do upgrade my GPU any time in the future, it would probably draw far more power. So what kind of wattage should I get, just to be safe? 650? 700+?

 

[TheOneFreeMan]

While it obviously depends on what other gear you have apart from the GPU, but IMO a 650w should do you fine unless you put a serious beast in there or go SLI, but for just a little extra you could just put a 750w in there and be covered for most single-GPU setups you'd want to build.

Also, the make of PSU makes a difference. From what I understand a lower wattage no-name brand won't take what a good brand (e.g. Corsair, Antec) single rail +12v PSU will.

 

[Asus]

The 250-300 figure is for the whole system btw. A 500 (and large +12v rail) would work. I would recommend getting a 600 watt though with a large +12v rail for some room for a smart GPU upgrade (not SLI or something huge).

The 9800 GTX+ actually uses less power than the 9800 GTX when clocked to the same speeds. And this system in the link hit 260watts but it took a high end intel quad OCed to 3.5GHz to hit that watts as well.

But that card series uses more power than ATI's (4850/4870). And Nvidia's new stuff probably will be no different compared to ATI's 5000 cards. So if you know you would upgrade Nvidia then you probably know you need a higher PSU. BUT with the new nvidia card being a big unknown regarding how big it will be I wouldn't plan on a PSU size for upgrading. I would put it in the relm of SLI where you just buy a new PSU when you decide to go that route. Having that big of a PSU on a system as simple as what you have now isn't the best power usage. hehe
You'd be using 20-35% of it's power most of the time (even under load) where the PSU probably will be far from efficient.