Are power supply minimums a hard rule?

J

jjbpenguin

New Member
I have an HP m8417c

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N308

full specs shown above.

Basically, I am looking for a video card to go along with this computer and most of the cards I want have a minimum requirement of a 400watt power supply. Sadly, I only have a 350 watt power supply and was wondering what would happen if I were to get one of these cards. It is a pretty well setup computer and with a nice video card it should suit me well for games. I am looking at something like this...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...?EdpNo=3763161&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

This will be the first time I have done an install of an aftermarket video card, so any tips you can offer will be appreciated.

Jordan
 
MrBucket

MrBucket

New Member
power supplys are insanly cheap, you can get 400w PSU for like the same price as 600w ones (might suffer on "quality" ) but i would always just get one thats a good 200w's more than u need just in case u want to upgrade
 
dark666apoc

dark666apoc

New Member
itll be fine as long as you dont overdraw from your powersupply
im running an 8600gt off of a 250 watt psu
as long as it isnt to massive of a jump or draw an insane amount of power youll be fine
 
S

smoothjk

New Member
It really depends on the quality of your PSU. My old stock PSU was 300W, and the online PSU calculator said it recommended something in the range of 285W (I had a 4600+ CPU and a 9600GT GPU). But I encountered problems with crashing during graphics intensive games on a couple of occasions. Sure it ran fine most of the time, but for me, I'd rather make sure and have peace of mind.

Then again, that was a stock cheapo PSU. If your 350W PSU happens to be a good one, it might be OK -- but I wouldn't bet on it.

**Edit: Actually, I saw that you are looking to get a 9600GT. Your setup pretty much consumes as much power as my old setup, which ran fine most of the time on a cheap 300W PSU (mine was a 2006 Gateway GT5252). You have a newer model with a higher wattage PSU, and probably better quality, so you should be fine with your stock PSU as is.

You won't be able to upgrade much beyond that without buying a new PSU, but for now, you should be good.
 
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