I was planning on getting a 850W or 900W psu. I dont plan on running more the one monitor and only ever putting 2 video cards in it. Is this enough or should I go smaller. Just gettin all my ducks in a row so when I start getting stuff its not crazy...lol

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I wasn't there..... and you can't prove it.

My humble opinion: You can always go too small, but never too big.

I bought a Thermaltake 1200 watt PSU some time ago, and I am glad I did.
Everytime I upgraded I have found myself needing more power, so I was well covered with the 1200 watt.

The number of monitors you run has nothing to do with the power supply... I've been running dual monitors for years, although sometimes I wish I was running 3 or 4... My computer right now has a 500W power supply, which I bought to power an 8600GTS video card and extra RAM, but I have also run dual monitors with a standard 150W power supply... It isn't the monitors that you have to count, it's the video cards, harddrives, optical drives (CD, DVD, etc), RAM, CPU, fans and anything else that plugs directly into the power supply itself...

For running dual video cards, I would recommend at least a 1000W PSU, but it depends on the requirement for the cards you actually get... The video cards tell you in the specs how much power they need... If you are getting 2 of the same card, then double it... Then figure in for your fans and everything else, just add all the watts together... Then for safety, multiply the total by 1.1 or 1.2 (add 10-20%) and buy that size or larger... If you go smaller, you can count on replacing the power supply everytime your power company farts...

Just my past experience (and EET education)...

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The Lord helps those who help themselves...
For everyone else, there's Democrats...

Agree w/ HiTech...

I built a rig about 8 years ago with a 550 Watt Vantec that just died the other day. Good life on it. I have upgraded many things, and am also still running an 8600 GTS myself.... (still using my old socket 939 AMD rig lol)

I just bought a CoolerMaster 500 Watt. Works great.

If I were to build a brand new rig today... I would get around a 650 Watt. No need to go higher at all. Along w/ better technology coming, I also see less energy consumption.

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I have been reading about power supplies for about a week. My old rig had a 620 watt Corsair and using a meter, during gaming, it consumed about 320 watts. I just purchased a Corsair 1200 watt power supply because I plan to add a second video card later. Most power supplies are the most efficient running them at 50% load (but not all), plus they run cooler, quieter and should last longer. Just my two cents, I hope this power supply is my last.

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Prepare to be boned!!

this is an old post I must have missed the original. here is the interweb I use to estimate power consumption and it is quite accurate

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