Setup:
Chaintech ATX Mobo
Athlon 64 3200+
512 3200 DDR (will probably soon be 1GB total)
Ati Radeon 9800 Pro
1 CD-RW/DVD
1 80 GB HD
1 CPU fan
2 Case fans
I’m currently using the 350W psu that came with my Aspire X-Dreamer Case in the same setup as above, only with P4 2.0GHz and MSI mobo. Will this be sufficient? Do I need a larger power supply.
Thanks
That should be fine. Processor power, in terms of increase to power requirements, does not have that much of a jump. The only time I’ve needed to increase my power supply was when I added quite a few peripherals. 2 HDs, 2 CDroms, 2 Sound cards etc…
Hope this helps!
350w for the above should get you by but I think with that setup you are getting close to the edge (not dangerously…just close). Adding a few more peripherals may knock you over so keep that in mind for the future.
I know my power-supply woes well. I am currently running an Athlon XP 2700 and I had three power-supplies and had serious problems with freeze-ups and reboots.
But in all fairness, I believe that my PC was overclocked. I am not sure about this though. I may have overclocked it and forgotten about it. There is no speed designation on my PC and I have long-since thrown away all of the documentation about what I ordered. So I clocked it down to the Athlon XP 2100 speed and I haven’t had problems since. But through all this, my best power-supply was the 233W power supply that I bought for a PC about 6 years ago!
When I was in Germany, I spent about 80 Euros on a case that apparently had a decent enough PSU to accomodate the extra power usage. But when I came back to the US I wasn’t sure what was wrong and thought my hardware was damaged in the shipping. I only transported the innards and bought a case here. The one that came with the cheapo case fried. Yes, I opened it up, and found that there was no breaker, but a hard-soldered fuse that was burnt! This PSU had no “hard” on/off switch. I then bought another that was also rated at 400W and it was less reliable than the 233W power supply.
I have heard arguments that they made better PSUs back in the old days. I would believe it because the old one seems more substantial and has some weight to it. The new ones feels like a tin box with nothing in it.
The moral of this confusing story is this. Don’t skimp on the power supply as it will cause real problems if it is not adequate. I don’t know what makes them inadequate, but get a reputable PSU from a company with a good reputation for making good ones. Go to a gaming hardware site that reviews components to get a good idea of this.
I’ll NEVER do that again, and pay more attention the the importance of the lowly PSU in the future. In fairness, my CPU may have been overclocked, but the quality (I don’t understand how, though) of the PSU, not the Watt rating was the deciding factor in what gave me my problems.
O…K…Thanks for the…story. 
As noted in the OP, I’ve been using this 350W psu for a couple years now in the identical setup except that I’m getting ready to upgrade to an Athlon 64 3200+ (with compatible mobo) and I’m wondering if that change in and of itself warrants a greater psu.
I’ve looked at this site which has a chart with some numbers to do a calculation. My calculation puts me around 280W, but then there’s this line about multiplying your total by 1.8 which kind of scares me. Then again, I guess if I did the calc with my current setup I would get the exact same number and I haven’t had any power problems at all.
I know a higher wattage psu would be good, and would give me some room to move as Whack mentions. However, I’m trying to do this upgrade on the cheap so I’d rather not do it right now if I don’t have to.