Did my Graphics card toast my Power Supply? Assassin's Creed + Nvidia Geforce 8800GT 512mb = smell of death!?

Question

So after installing a new graphics card

( PNY Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT 512) I was looking forward to running a game I had wanted to play forever, Assassin's Creed.

After setting preferences ( 1440 X 900 LCD screen) I was just settling in to watch the intro when, POP, poof! Smell of ozone, flash, dead computer.

FYI, the Motherboard is an AMD Core -Duo 64X2 Phenom, with maxed RAM ( 3.84 or whatever 2x 2gb sticks equals)

Power source is an Okia 450 ATX.

1 huge block fan on the motherboard/heatsink, and 2 more cooling the case in addition to the one on the FX card.

Was I simply asking too much of my power supply? No other graphics heavy programs were running. Just the usual background stuff.

Thanks, all.

Answer 1

It's possible. Cheap power supplies might not be able to deliver what they claim and you were probably asking more than it claims to supply. I would try a new power supply to see if the computer still works.

Below is a link of a review of cheap power supplies. It's kind of funny but makes you realize how important a good power supply is. The rest of the web page has reviews of good power supplies.