power supply ?

[FoulDragon at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/21/2006 1:49:25 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
tigerflag at tigerflag.com writes:
>Before buying, check the decible levels. Also check how many cable 
connectors 
>they have for the different voltages. Drives and different parts of your 
>Motherboard use different voltages. You want to make sure that your PS has 
>adequate juice for your voltage needs.

I'll note there tend to be two distinct types of PSU on the market today.

One is the "older" style, it usually has tons of +3.3 and +5v, and only 15 to 
25 amps of +12v, depending on wattage.

The newer style has less +3.3 and +5, and usually 20+ amperes of +12.  Often 
it has two distinct +12 circuits.  This is more suited for the P4 and A64 
systems, which draw the CPU power off the +12, and modern video cards, which tap 
+12 for extra power.

If your mainboard uses the extra little square power plug (commonly called 
the P4 plug, although many A64 and Athlon XP boards need it too), you're often 
better off with the newer style.  You'll also want it if a mainboard upgrade is 
in your future.

The Antecs do tend towards quietness, but note in some cases this is because 
they only run their fans on demand.  The SP350 I bought for my A64 built is 
like this, very disturbing to feel no air coming out of the PSU.  It has worked 
well, though, on both an Athlon 64 system which has the "P4" plug, and an 
Athlon XP machine which doesn't, so it seems beefy enough for desktops.