[IamTheWario2002]

I am wondering....am building my first desktop...have a P4 3ghz 4GBram, 320 GB 7200RPM 16MB HD, 128MB PCI vid card (for now), cd burner, 3.5 floppy, etc....what would be a suitable power supply option? have a 100 watt right now...will that work?

[coastie65]

Hi and welcome to the forum. You will definately need a new PSU, preferably at least 500w. This will allow you use a PCIe graphics card. 100w is way too low for today's hardware. coastie65

[IamTheWario2002]

Is a CPU fan absolutely vital? Don't have one right now.....

[coastie65]

Yep. You need a CPU fan as well as a heat sink over the processor. You will as need some thermal compound for the processor as well. You will also need a case fan as well. It is all about keeping that bad boy cool. coastie

[IamTheWario2002]

Appreciate the info. have new power supply 500w, thermal compound, heatsink/fan all on order. thanks again.

[coastie65]

When using the thermal compound, you need very little. About the size of a half grain of rice will be sufficient. Too much and you will defeat the purpose and actually cause an overheating problem as it will act as an insulator rather than a conducter for the heat from the processsor to the heat sink. If your motherboard has a PCIe slot than the 500w PSU will give you what you need to run the card. coastie

[mjd420nova]

One thing I recommend to all builders is to replace the metal standoffs on the chassis with plastic or ntlon ones to prevent possible shorting of the power supply. I find this so often in new builds on initial startups that it's the first thing I check. 500 watts would be adequate for what you have but would be to your advantage to get something around 600 watts to support that future expansion of the video card you're looking to do. Besides the CPU and memory, the video card is the next biggest power user in the unit. Almost all CPU's come with an approved heat sink and fan, but an additional fan for the case would be adviseable to keep the power supply from heating everything up. Sounds like a reasonable starter system for the initial builder.

[coastie65]

I forgot about the standoffs. If you get the Boxed processor, you'll get the heatsink and fan assembly, otherwise you'll get just a processor. If he isn't planning on going to an sli / crossfire graphics configuration, the 500w PSU should do alright. It does fine in here and I am running an Nvidia 8600 GT card. I have thought about going to an 8800 GT or GTX with a little more memory. coastie