how many watts should i get for my computer supply?

Question

i am building a computer on he internet and i need help choosing a power supply. if i get more watts for my computer will it be bad for it?

Answer 1

You can't have a power supply that is too large, as the computer will only draw what it needs.

An oversized power supply will create more heat and noise and waste more power than one which is the correct size, but might provide more smoothing than a smaller unit.

Answer 2

If you are only doing internet surfing, a 350 Watt Power Supply should do. The more applications you run, the more expansion cards you install or other devices such as multiple DVD burners will need more juice. Here is an easy way too add up approximately how much wattage you would need for your power supply:

Component Wattage Required
Motherboard 15-30
Low-end CPU 20-50
Midrange to high-end CPU 40-100
RAM RAM 7 per 128MB
PCI add-in card 5
Low to midrange graphics board 20-60
High-End graphics board 60-100
IDE hard drive 10-30
Optical drives 10-25

Add it up & there ya go.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Getting more watts than you need won't be bad for the computer, just bad for the environment. Getting an insufficient amount of watts, however, will be bad for your computer as it may not run properly. Depending on the graphics card and other specs your system has, it will likely need between a 400 and 600 watt power supply.

Answer 4

Basically if you are building a high end computer, then use 400-500W powersupply. An average computer would user about 250-300W. Anyways if you have more wattage doesnt necessary harm your computer at all unless you plan on toying with the power supply:) that should send some current running through ur system.

Answer 5

You're at either 250 or300 Watts (they changed the PSU during the production run as the cost of PSUs fell.. Check on the PSU itself for the exact details) You could happily upgrade that to 500Watts, but you won't damage anything except your wallet by going higher.. PSU's are self regulating, they only supply power as it's requested, in other words, if your MoBo requests 300Watts, your PSU will supply 300Watts, whether it's rated 500 or 1000.. the numbers indicate the MAXIMUM power that can be supplied.

Answer 6

Watts is a selling misnomer.

I have an 1100W microwave, does that mean it is the best microwave available, nope it doesn't.

Don't fall into the "Total Watts is King" mentality.

If you want a decent real world review of a power supply, check out jonny guru, just use your favourite search engine to find his site.

Answer 7

Having too many watts will not damage your computer, as it will only pull as much as it needs out of the power supply.

Though you do not want to overdo the wattage as it is a waste of money and energy.

Here is a site that has a power calculator. This allows you to tell them what components you want to install, and they will tell you how many total watts you will need.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

Answer 8

I am not sure of how many choices you have, but the only down side I see to a larger power supply is the cost and the amount of room it takes up.

A larger power supply will usually handle the load easier and probably run cooler and will allow extra power for future upgrades.

Answer 9

No, it wont be bad for it, but it may be bad for your pocket book if you buy a power supply big enough to power the city of Los Angeles so you can power your floppy drive and CD rom. 400 watts will do for almost anything, as long as you dont have bunches and bunches of external drives, etc, etc.

Answer 10

get as many watts as you can afford. it will not affect the computer.
every device, card etc. that you plug into the computer uses power, so if you have a lot of usb devices, you will run out of power and the computer will freeze.