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I pretty much followed the advice from The Tech Report for buying the Econobox:

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15009/2

My question is, that when I was browsing through the parts, the GeForce 9600 GT states the following in it's specs:

System Requirements: Minimum Power Supply Requirement 400 Watt

Now, the Econobox system uses the Antec NSK4480 case, which comes bundled with a 380 Watt power supply. Why would they recommend this bundle when the power supply is already insufficient for their recommended video card?

Will I need to go out and get a new power supply, or does anyone think the 20 watt difference will be ok? I won't have anything included in this rig besides what is listed on the guide.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14168/9

The 9600 doesn't need nearly that much power. nVidia just likes to be conservative.

Welcome to TR

What a great graph, and thanks for your response!

The entire system is a replacement for a P4 1700 MHz desktop I currently use, which was purchased 7 years ago...thats right, 7 years ago.

And I figure I might as well dive into the whole "build it yourself" generation, since its a great skill to have, and will be as powerful, and much cheaper than going the Dell route again.

Lobes wrote:

What a great graph, and thanks for your response!

The entire system is a replacement for a P4 1700 MHz desktop I currently use, which was purchased 7 years ago...thats right, 7 years ago.

And I figure I might as well dive into the whole "build it yourself" generation, since its a great skill to have, and will be as powerful, and much cheaper than going the Dell route again.

While I'd like to take credit for the graph, it wasn't mine. It's just a good resource.
That is quite an old system. Congrats on lasting so long with it.
What type of gaming are you looking into doing?

Lobes wrote:

And I figure I might as well dive into the whole "build it yourself" generation, since its a great skill to have, and will be as powerful, and much cheaper than going the Dell route again.

Well, you've found the right place. Glad to see you and hope to see more of you here in the fora. We're chock-full of answers, though figuring out the question can be tough at times.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

That is quite an old system. Congrats on lasting so long with it.
What type of gaming are you looking into doing?

Really, the only game I play with any regularity is World of Warcraft. And my old system with a GeForce Ti 4600 did well enough so far. I don't play many of the really graphically intensive games, but perhaps with this system I can test some of them out.

I'm just praying I get it all put together correctly, and all the wires plugged into the right spots. I'll be very nervous when I push the power button for the first time.

No need to pray, there is a handy guide to help you put it together, with nice fingernails to boot.

Should you have other questions, there are other forums to post your questions. However if it is related to this one build, may be you can try our System Builders forum.

You may be able to get some answers immediately by looking into this once you put it together.

Not going to bore you with details, but Nvidia/AMD usually overstates the wattage requirements to make sure that they can cover most PSUs, including those crappy ones that tend to exaggerate their wattages. The 380W PSU included with the Antec is a good quality PSU so it should be good. Around here we usually don't look at the wattages too much, it is all about the 12V amps. Should you really feel uncomfortable you can always move up a notch to the Sonata III or the NSK 6580.

Lobes wrote:

System Requirements: Minimum Power Supply Requirement 400 Watt

I've always wondered how they come up with that number, given that it references total load and they have no idea what other loads will be on the PSU..

Its probably a general thing... You probably dont have a $500 dollar graphics card, when the rest of ur system also cost $500, you can probably make an estimate on (generally speaking) how much power the average person uses, depending on how powerful the graphics card is... The better the graphics card, most likely the better ur computer is... Normally better means more power, better processor, faster hard drives, etc...

Pardon me for resurrecting a dead thread, but I have a question related to the case / PSU in the OP's topic.

I too followed TR's good advice and assembled a econobox for casual gaming. It is running a lowly E7200 at stock speed, on a P43 board inside the NSK4480 case. I loaded it with 4GB of DDR2-800 RAM and a HD4850 and that was all it took to run the games I want (e.g. Oblivion at 1600x1050).

With GPU prices dropping like rocks recently, I am tempted to get myself a HD4870 1GB, and maybe grab a E8400 CPU on closeout. But I am not sure if the 380W PSU in my case can pump enough juice. Any advice please?

I'd stick with the HD4850 for a while longer. Check back in 3-12 months. Your power supply should be okay as long as you don't get the (huge and power hungry) GTX280 or a dual-GPU card like the Radeon HD4870X2.

I would even wait for the quads to come down to near $200 after the i5 is out. Upgrading from the E7xxx to E8xxx is not big enough of a jump for me.