How do you go about to find out how many watts you need to power a system? I'm looking at building another pc over the next 12 months or less and been wondering how many watts will I need to sufficiently power it. I had alot of help building my current pc 3-4 years ago and now I'm trying to learn more on my own.

Just buy a 700 OCZ or similar. You can do calculation that tell you (we would have to know what you are building) that you can get by with 400 blah blah but DO NOT skimp on PSU. Bigger is better, plain and simple. Even then if you don't have a good brand you can have fluctuation that drive you crazy. Hey even good ones have problems sometimes.

Just plan on spending 100 +/- on a PSU and don't look back. Life will be a lot easier.

Here is the Big Giant Power Supply Thread ... good luck.

Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16813188019

Memory
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16820146565

Processor
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16819115003

Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16822148138

This is the stuff I'm looking at so far. I'm considering the OCZ GameXstream PSU.

Terrific, this is the Bad Boy right here.

Mine is quiet as a mouse too.

awesome, thanks for the help and the interesting read from the link

Depending on what video card you get a 550-650w from a decent brand will be sufficient. The OCZ PSU's are very good but the only thing I don't like about them is the led fan that they put in it. Which was one of the reasons for getting this Corsair PSU which is also highly recommended.

so if the fan goes bad or if it doesn't push enough air can you replace the fan in the PSU?

Not without voiding your warranty.

oh well, bye bye warranty.

I bought a Antec 550wat dual rail psu about a year ago and ill tell you something I have to replace it if I want to Overcock it right, Im 500mhz away from the top right now and cant go higher because Ive all ready got 1.5375 vcore to it already. It is currently fluctuating over 20% and my PC Probe 2 monitoring program alarm is going off about every 2 or 3 hour's. I thought I was buying a really good psu at over 100 buck's and it was,- a year ago. If you have the cash that will get you a 1k or really good psu go for a better one than you really need and mabey you will be able to use it next year when you are upgrading your box. Im getting tired of buying part's that are obsolete after your first build. I want another K7S5A,come on Asrock build us a 12whatever and AM-2 MB that will take DDR or DDR-2 ram with decent on board video and a pcie-x16 slot on the MB.

I don't remember how many K75A-Pro MB's I built with a 12 or 13 hundred Duron alnd 333-DDR ram that flew for that time they were sweet little builds that you could use almost anything on to get them runing.

That's very true. Was reading up on the rails etc on that Antec unit. Was as 'weak' as a old 420W Enermax Noise taker I had many moons ago.

Which can be found for very very cheap compared to that Antec in my country.