Cheap for power supplies is irrelevant, because you should NEVER buy a cheap power supply. The PSU is the single most important component in the PC. If you skimp on that, you're putting not just your PC, but also your life in danger. For reference, a PC with two 8800GTS cards in SLI and an overclocked Core 2 Duo will run fine on the 520W Corsair HX Power supply.
thnx guys much appreciated...but one bad thing is that there is no cosair PSU in SA...couldn't find any...
Enermax is good but way too expensive for me, Thermaltake is good too but still expensive, OCZ is good still expensive...AH!!!!! I dont know...they're all too expensive...i don't want AOpen... my budget is around R1000 - R1500 these are the online site that i can buy from: http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/ http://www.zaps.co.za/ http://www.pcint.co.za/ http://www.pc123.co.za/catalog/ http://www.take2.co.za/ i sold stuff online but i never bought anything online...
face facts GTR35, if a power supply's good it'll be "expensive". You should always take great care in choosing a power supply. If you're short on funds downgrade your other components, never the PSU. Can you get an OCZ StealthXStream from any of those stores? They're quite cheap, quite well made and will provide sufficient power for most gaming PCs...
hmm...after what you've said i think i'll go for a more and powerful PSU, the StealthXStream seems nice and cheap and quiet but what do you think of this one...only a bit over my budget: http://www.prophecy.co.za/gamexstream-700w-power-supply-p-2152.html
To be honest, I prefer the Stealthxstream to the gamexstream units, they seem a better design. There's no advantage to you of going with the Gamexstream, so save your money...
will 600W be enough to power SLI card and OC CPU...hmm...if you think about it, it should be enough, since CPU and GPU cores are getting smaller and smaller...and less power...
My overclocked and overvolted Core 2 Duo and an X1900 card only draw about 210W. I'm sure a 600W unit will suffice.
I recently measured how much power my PC draws, and I've researched power supplies a lot since a cheap Qtec unit I bought a long time ago nearly destroyed one of my PCs, consequently I can't bear to see people use cheap nasty power supplies.
i am going to upgrade to an 8800gt in a couple of weeks and i would like to know if my psu can handle it. i have a themaltake 430 watt psu. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153023
I personally would doubt it. I'd say you'd want at least a 500W thermaltake to run any 8800. You may get away with it, but I don't think it's worth the risk.