250W or 300W case?

[wein]

What is the advantage using 300W case compare to 250W or 230W case?
I'm planning to build another computer for me and I don't want to spend much money on it.
Although I have Antec 300W case, I can figure out what is better than my old computer using 250W ps.
Please give me a tip.
Thanks.

[spigidygak]

Well the most obvious is your system will be powered more consistantly. If you have a lot of drives, fans, etc. your system could get lock-ups once in a while if you don't have enough power. Maybe if you give out the specs of the hardware you're planning to build, I can help you out on whether 250w is going to be enough or not.

[Startide]

I've never hit the wall for power, but I'll speculate that if you have a lot of devices that SIMULTANEOUSLY need high power during initial powerup such as if you put six scsi drives inside the case and they all tried to power up at the same time (thus drawing a huge surge current during the first several seconds of spinup), then you might want a bigger power supply that could deal with the initial surge current.

Aha, my longest sentence on Got|Apex to date.

[Aristo]

I have a PIII FC-PGA overclocked, GeForce2 GTS, 2 IDE hard drives and 1 Plextor CD-RW 8/4/32. However, I only have 235 watt in power supply. I must say my system is extremely stable. If you're using AMD Athlon, and have 2 CD-RW burning at the same time, go for the 300 watt. Otherwise, 250 is good enough.

[wein]

Here are my specs I'm planning to build.

AMD Duron 600
Abit KT7 Motherboard
128MB PC-100 RAM
20GB Maxtor 7200 RPM HDD
3.5 inch FDD
Samsung 19 inch SyncMaster 955DF
Voodoo3 2000 16MB Video Card
Soundblaster Live Value
Plextor 12x10x32 CDRW with burnproof: $250
50X CDROM
56K Modem
PS2 Wheel Mouse
104 PS2 Keyboard
2 Piece Speaker

Will 230 watt case be enough for this?
My local computer store sells 230 watt ATX MidTower case for $20.

[Dave_7]

Spend $20 more and get an Inwin case. Their 235 watt cases are nice, relatively inexpensive and the power supply is reliable.

If you're going to drop $250 on a CD recorder... peel off an extra Jackson for a good case.

And get a three piece speaker setup. The AltecLansing three pieces are down to $35 or so. They're cheap and they sound pretty good. Unless sound matters very little in your quest, of course. It would be a shame, though, to be looking at that nice monitor and have $h__ty sounds from $10 speakers.

The rest sounds good to me. You should be able to overclock the Voodoo 3 2000 to the 3000 speed without too much fuss. Maybe an extra $2 case fan to blow across its heatsink and you should be cool (no pun).

And who knows how high that Duron 600 will go.

So at MOST... these changes will cost you $50 more. At MOST.




Dave.

[Aristo]

Wein,

According to your settings, I say that 250 watt is good enough. You only have one hard drive spinning at 7200 RPM, Voodoo3 (much less power sucking than GeForce2), and 2 CD-Rom and AMD Duron. I'm using ASUS's full tower case (235 watt).

[wein]

Thanks, I'm going for 250W Mid-tower.

[LPMiller]

you can always get another PS later anyway.