UPS wattage

[t_blake07]

Well its officially spring here in Missouri and that means rain, thunderstorms and tornado's, and such. I've already had one power outage which caused the power to flicker on and off about 6 times in 2 seconds. I dont know much about electricity, but I dont think thats good on a PC. Especially when its not plugged into a surge protector or UPS. Luckily the PC you see below was alright. When Im buying a UPS, do I need to buy one that will power my PSU, or one that the wattage is equal to or greater than the total wattage of all my components?

[JJ 3000]

When you buy a UPS, dont buy one that runs at full capacity. An inline UPS is constantly recharging the battery, so if it is operating at full capacity, it produces a lot of heat. The heat will kill your battery.
The UPS rating should EXCEED your TOTAL VA or wattage output by at least 25%
here are some manufacturers

www.apcc.com
www.surgecontrol.com
www.cyberpowersystems.com
www.mgeups.com
www.tripplite.com
www.belkin.com
www.powerware.com
www.liebert.com
www.minuteman-ups.com
www.tic.toshiba.com

[t_blake07]

Yea, i've read some reviews that say the same about the heat issue. I dont really have a way to determine what my total wattage output is. I have used the calculators on certain sites but those are estimates. I was looking at a CyberPower 850w UPS. Maybe thats too much, i dont know.

[JJ 3000]

I dont really have a way to determine what my total wattage output is.

You need a multimeter. It will tell you all about your electical systems. Radio Shack sells them for about forty bucks.