i have been considering replacing my current system with something a little more modern. i currently run six monitors but may add a couple of more. would a larger power supply be of any benefit in the new computer? thanks mike
The power supply unit in your computer has nothing to do with how many monitors that you are running. On a side note, the new LCD monitors are clearly more energy efficient than typical CRT monitors ( often 2-3 times mor3e efficient ). As for an actual power supply unit for your computer, make sure that you stay away from the cheapo units that you see advertised on various internet sites. Do some research on the web and learn about how the +12V, +3.3V, and +5V rails work and what parts of your computer that they support. Remember, if you are running a powerful AGP video-card, those cards can consume a power draw of almost 70 watts during peak gaming ( ie. Radeon 9800-Pro ). Furthermore, the +12V rail supports the Pentium-4 processor and you can use about 110 watts just from a P4 at 2.60, while the +3.3V rail supports your RAM where you can conservatively estimate that 8 watts are needed per 128mb of memory. The +3.3V rail also supports the AGP video card. Thus as you can see, things can really add up! I upgraded a brand new Dell Dimension 8300's power supply to a 400 watt model from PCPower & Cooling called "The Silencer-400". As you can see by their website, prices are fairly reasonable for anything up to 350 watts. Above 400 watts and it gets expensive. But I really do believe that you get what you pay for in this case. Power supplies are not GLAMOROUS, but they certainly are important! www.pcpowercooling.com