Choosing and Buying Components - Power Supply
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The power supply is one of the most important components in a PC, and yet most people give it little consideration. In addition to providing reliable, stable, closely regulated power to all system components, the power supply draws air through the system to cool it. A marginal or failing power supply can cause many problems, some of which are very subtle and difficult to track down. Most problems are not subtle, however. A poor or marginal power supply is likely to cause system crashes, memory errors, and data corruption, and may fail catastrophically, taking other system components with it.
Use the following guidelines to choose a power supply appropriate for your system:
- Above all, make sure the power supply you buy fits your case and has the proper connectors for your motherboard. Most cases use ATX power supplies, and any ATX power supply fits any ATX case. SFF and microATX cases often use SFX or proprietary power supplies. We avoid using those whenever possible.
- Size your power supply according to the system configuration. (The wattages we specify are for power supplies that are rated at 40ºC, such as Antec and PC Power & Cooling units. For power supplies that are rated at 25ºC, multiply these wattages by 1.5 or 150%.) For an entry-level system, install a 230W or larger power supply. For a mainstream system, install a 300W or larger power supply. For a high-performance system, install a 400W or larger power supply. For a heavily loaded system, install a 500W or larger power supply.
- Buy only an ATX12V-compliant power supply.
- Make sure the power supply provides Serial ATA power connectors.
RECOMMENDATIONS Power Supply
PC Power & Cooling power supplies (
http://www.pcpowercooling.com) are the standard by which we judge all other power supplies. We also strongly recommend Antec TruePower power supplies (
http://www.antec-inc.com), which we consider to be as good as the best PC Power & Cooling units.
Avoid cheap power supplies. A good power supply costs at least $35 for a basic system, $50 to $75 for a mainstream mini/mid-tower system, and $100 or more for heavily loaded, full-tower systems. Attempting to save money on the power supply is a false economy.
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