Watts is definately a part of the big picture.  However, amps seem to help as well (as I have learned).  If you will look around, many will tell you to buy power supplies with high wattages to take care of any future expansions.

From what I have experienced, you get what you pay for.  I originally had an Enlight power supply that came with my enlight case.  Little did I know that the QUALITY enlight supplies are the ones sold seperately.  After working to trace down a spontaneous reboot issue, one of the factors that appeared to help was the addition of an Antec Tru 480w power supply.  Betwee that addition and an upgrade to OCZ enhanced latency memory, my spontaneous reboot issues disappeared.

Buying a quality supply will help with future expansions.  For instance, my new supply had enough oomph to power my 9800 pro vid card.  It also had SATA power connectors.  If you think you might expand to bigger cards (perhaps the newest NVIDIA offering) or may wish to overclock, you may wish to spend the dough up front.  If not, you can always add a better supply later and just try that free supply that comes with the case.


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