Hi, I've read a lot of your threads, and you all seem very knowledgeable about everything.. so I wanted to ask a question that's very critical to me.

I ordered a new computer, this is what it's made of:

Motherboard - MSI K9A-Platinum ATI Socket AM2 ATX

CPU - AMD X2 6000+ "125w"

Video Card - HIS Radeon X1950 Pro IceQ3 Turbo 256mb GDDR3 PCI-E

RAM - OCZ Platinum Revisio-2 2048mb PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz Dual Channel Memory (2 x 1024mb)

Case - Raidmax Sagitta ATX Clear-Sided

I also have one Western Digital 200gb SATA Harddrive, 1 CD/DVD Drive, and a DVD Reader/burner drive..

I got an 550w Thermaltake as my PSU.. but I'm not sure if that's enough.. what kind of PSU would I need to power a system like that?

Thanks in advance for all your help

Is that peak or sustainable power?

If thats peak power, i doubt it.

Maybe if its sustainable but I'd atleast try to go for something 700w + just incase.

I would agree-- though Thermaltake is a good maker... 550W might be shaving it too close to allow for future upgrades... without allowing for any other peripherals or hardware a PSU calculator comes up with 418W minimum for that combo. If you decide to add a soundcard/speakers/ external or internal second drive-- and then want to play "big" games you could run short.

550w max.

And what do you mean by "big" games?

Also, kind of off-topic.. but would it be better for my combo to have Vista.. or XP?

Theres no way that psu will hold up or if it does you will have VERY limited room for anything, if its 550w peak I'm guessing it'll have a 500 - w sustainable.

XP/Vista depends, XP will be fine it all depends on whether you want vista's new features.

Also if you plan to play DX10 games vista is the only way to go [I'm not sure if that card is dx10 compatible and I'm too lazy to look ]

Personally the way I'm going is keeping XP (since I already have multiple licenses) 'till Vista SP1 comes out and some of the minor annoyances are worked out.

Alright.. but I don't plan to upgrade anything.. if I decide to upgrade one small thing, I will end up upgrading everything.. My motherboard has a nice intergrated audio in it.. good enough for me anyway.

I posed the Vista question for gaming, I don't care about the issues with it because I know what they are, I've had Vista already. I just keep hearing that "Vista eats games alive".

Thanks btw.