[Wyatt]

Since I miss playing it on my XBox 360 (which I sold last fall), I'm resurrecting my old PC to play Oblivion. A friend has offered to sell me this card for a mere $50 (yeah, I know, amazing deal).

I'm a little concerned that my PC (which is at my parents' house at the moment) won't be able to power the card. I know it's compatible with my motherboard, but I'm worried about its use of an external power supply. It just uses a standard Molex 4-pin connector (like a hard drive would use), but the system requirements on the box specify a 350 watt PSU is required. I have no idea what wattage my PSU is, but should I be concerned? I've got plenty of spare connectors on my PSU, so am I pretty much guaranteed to be okay (the only other devices in there will be one hard drive (ATA 100) and one DVD drive.

Am I okay, or should I investigate some more?

[turtle]

It sounds like you should be fine. Plus, worst case it you could just sell the card if it didn't work and you'd make a profit.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by turtle2472 It sounds like you should be fine. Plus, worst case it you could just sell the card if it didn't work and you'd make a profit.

Right. Good call.

Basically, what this boils down to is: Will I blow my PSU? If not, I'm taking it.

[chucker]

Since you have to open up the machine to install the card anyway, why not have a look at the wattage of the PSU?

[turtle]

I doubt it will, but without knowing what's pulling power from your system and how much the card *actually* needs it's hard to say for sure. Normally the PSU won't blow, but the breaker of fuse would give way first. It really doesn't sound like an issue at all though.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by turtle2472 I doubt it will, but without knowing what's pulling power from your system and how much the card *actually* needs it's hard to say for sure. Normally the PSU won't blow, but the breaker of fuse would give way first. It really doesn't sound like an issue at all though.

Thanks, I feel a little better now.

Chucker, I'd love to open it up and check, but I won't get to install the card until next Friday night, but he wants a decision from me today.

[Wyatt]

Just to update, in case anybody else has this question down the road: It turns out I have a 250 W power supply, but the card works just fine. It absolutely dominates Oblivion, even with my old CPU and slow (and tiny) RAM.