Digital Home Thoughts: Power Up Your Purchases With The NewEgg PSU Calculator

"Simply enter your CPU, motherboard, video card, and the rest of your components into the form, click the Calculate button, and you'll see an estimated wattage for the power supply you need to buy. As somebody who not only builds his own PCs, but wrote a whole series on how to build your own computer, I can tell you that when it comes to power supplies, you want to buy quality—don't cheap out or it will die very quickly."

Having a powerful enough power supply for your computer is absolutely critical to a healthy computer. Insufficient power can lead to random reboots, shutdowns and damage to your hardware. The problem has been how much is enough? NewEgg has stepped up to offer their own Power Supply Calculator so you can quickly figure out what the minimum wattage rating you should look for. After trying it out, I do find it somewhat basic, but it does do the job, taking into account all the major parts of a computer. However, if you're looking for something a little more advanced, PSU manufacturers like Thermaltake and Antec offer a branded version of OuterVision's PSU calculator which offers much more detail. When picking a power supply two big pieces of advice I can offer that will save you headaches, money and screaming in the long run. First, whatever a PSU calculator recommends, always add a little bit more, since you never know when you'll be adding another hard drive, video capture card or more memory. Second, buy a high quality PSU. So called "no-name" PSUs often don't work efficiently, supply enough power on the 12v rail, degrade faster or fail earlier. A brand name PSU, while it may cost two to four times as much, will never let you down. I've had cheap power supplies fry during a lightning storm while I've yet to replace a name brand one.