When to upgrade one's power supply?

Sem

Typically I'd upgrade it if I added a new Graphics card but I've recently acquired a 1TB internal HDD and was wondering if it would be necessary to do so if I swap it out for my measely 250GB HDD? My box still has it's stock power supply and it's doing good so far I'm just not sure if power consumption is the same despite the larger storage size.

Any ideas?

Dysgraphia

Not necessarily.

LSA King

Whats the stock power supply? These days anything below 450 watts being sold is just plain wrong, one of the many reasons why those pre-built PC's are crap because the power supplies leave little room for expansion as do the usually micro-mobos.

As far as hard drives go, you're fine, they eat up a laughable amount of power. The only time you hear hard drives power consumption being thrown around is in the server/cluster computer environment where heat and multiple RAID's become an issue. The 6-12 watts a typical HDD eats up at most is hardly worth mentioning. The video card on the other hand can be a problem if your power supply is low. Fucking 150 watt idling bastards these days. Seriously, fuck performance, lower the heat and power on those bitches, they did it wth CPU's. I'm starting to think Tim the Toolman Tayler runs the GPU market these days.

Katzenklavier

Unless you start to notice problems, there is no need for a bigger SMPS.

Unknown

You really don't need to upgrade your PSU unless you're adding more powerful parts to your computer. An HDD isn't going to make a big difference really and like you said, it's the GPU you should worry about. Some SLI/Crossfire setups can suck up a lot of power.

Dfg

Don't trust the stock Power Supplies. Most of them are labled incorrectly. I had a stock PSU from BOSS [China] 400W and it showed 18A on 12V rail but I knew it would be far less. Once you pick a PSU you can feel how much weight it has. I was going to get Radeon 5550 which would run on my old PSU but then I got a sweet deal on PSU. So, I just upgraded.

If you have enough cash and want to upgrade your PC from time to time, investing in a good PSU [500W+] would be a good idea. DO NOT RISK your system.

A powerful PSU can handle overclocks and you can add different components and GPU's without worrying about stuff. I am using Antec TRUEPOWER TRIO 650W and although I don't have a decent GPU yet [8500GT] I know can upgrade to a heavy duty graphic card without worrying about anything.

Also, I have a 1TB Seagate drive and it doesn't require that much power. But I did notice faster data transfer thanks to a better PSU.

All in all, a PSU is the foundation for any new or old built. It's one of the critical components that can ruin your system if you don't get it right.

Katzenklavier

Dfg wrote: »

Once you pick a PSU you can feel how much weight it has.

Weight has nothing to do with the power of a switch mode power supply. I could have 2 supplies with mostly all the same circuity. One could have 18A mosfets and the other could have some 30A mosfets; both would weigh the same.

It depends on topology too, a buck converter weighing 3 pounds could maybe put out 300 watts, a ZVS half bridge of the same weight could put out 1-2kw.

Dfg

Katzenklavier wrote: »

Weight has nothing to do with the power of a switch mode power supply. I could have 2 supplies with mostly all the same circuity. One could have 18A mosfets and the other could have some 30A mosfets; both would weigh the same.

It depends on topology too, a buck converter weighing 3 pounds could maybe put out 300 watts, a ZVS half bridge of the same weight could put out 1-2kw.

I was referring to Chinese PSU. Compared to the better ones you can easily judge using weight. Also, this weight terminology is mostly used in the user computer parts trade. If the PSU is heavy it's good. Since they buy in bulk it's easier to find good ones using this method. But again this is just a subjective opinion. I am sure what you're saying is valid as well.