Alright, I recently purchased a GeForce GTS 250 for my computer however it did not meet the power supply requirements, it requires a minimum or 400 watts and at the time I had a 250 watt. Against the better judgment of the suggestive minimum requirement, I went ahead and installed, hooked up everything and turned on the PC and everything was fine. For a week or so the PC worked normally and the graphics card was looking great but I couldn't get it out of my HEAD that I really should upgrade my power supply. So I went ahead and purchased a Corsair 650 watt and installed it and again, PC works just fine and dandy.

My question is, does it really make a difference upgrading my power supply from the 250w to 650w? I mean to the UNTRAINED eye like myself I don't see a significant difference, can ANYONE explain why this was needed to upgrade or could I just kept my 250w power supply in to run it. Would there have been DANGERS or PC problems if I hadn't upgraded?

Any info would be appreciated.There are more factors than just the power available from a PSU when considering the computers use for gaming demands. However the power of the PSU is at the top of the list . To help you with that realization here is a link to a specific gaming site forum that gives criteria for some popular games. As well it does talk about the relationship of PSU's to the gaming phenomenon. I suggest if you intend to involve the computer with gaming you would be wise to join (of course in addition to the CH forum) one of the gaming forums. There you will be able to benefit from the knowledge and experience of others that share that interest, truenorth
P.S. To answer your question directly YES the stated minimum PSU is required.
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26158044Thanks for the quick and direct answer, I suppose I did the right choice then.

I am not so much into gaming on the PC however there is a game coming out that I wanted to be prepared for and my graphics card at the time, the fan wasn't really working right.. it was off balance and I felt it was time to upgrade anyways. So I bought something that would suit my needs as a casual PC gamer and be great for other future games. Everything runs beautifully and it certainly met my expectations, but like I said I was concerned about the power supply difference and had seen many sites about it that would never fully explain themselves, even those saying it was a myth.

But again, thanks for the replay - it puts me at ease with my decision.You are welcome. I am not certain that you saw my reply with the 'link" in it as i realized i had omitted it and did a "modify" to include it --so you may want to go back again to my reply.truenorthOh I saw it. One of the first links on the site was actually one that got me into the whole video card movement, the "Can You Run It" site. I am glad to see that my PC can now run a lot of the games on there I am interested in.

If I have any further questions on gaming I'll be sure to ASK them then. I was just concerned about my power supply, it was the first time I actually had a GPU hooked up to it, so I was just wondering about the different wattage and such, if it was safe or ruin my PC in the long run if it was still lower than the minimum. But I am glad I upgraded, if need be can carry it over to a new PC, hopefully one I can put build myself.

Thanks again.