New PC

[mac_shinobi]

Tbh Mac_Shinobi, I didn't mean to debate with you at all. (I read your post but figured you wanted to be left alone with your 1Kw PSU )

 

Either way, I'm not sure if you're aware but a hard-drive uses around 10watts... Considering that most computers on full load would use less than 240watts and less than 200 in idle... Well I don't know how many hard-drives you'd want, but there's still a lot of room left over.

 

Regarding the GPU, though I said in my last post that it's very much up to the person and their use. Obviously you must be a gamer talking about switching and swapping GPU's, but as I said in the previous post...

 

 

 

btw about your 1Kw PSU, I hope for your sake it cost you in excess of £100, because if it didn't I'd fear not only for the PSU, but for your whole PC. Cheap PSU's(relative to their wattage) lack some security features and their poor performance can actually put stress on components and even short your whole system :/

You don't have to spend big money to get a good PSU, but you might have to spend big money cleaning up the mess a cheap PSU could leave you...

 

Yes I am aware of aprox what each of the components use, I used to use this online calculator :

 

eXtreme Power Supply Calculator

 

along with motherboards.org and some other motherboard websites etc

 

Early 2008 Apple Mac Pro is what I have and it has worked great and have also paid for apple care which covers everything so if it did go bang in a cloud of smoke it would be covered , also have contents insurance so again covered

 

Ref the PSU thing - not trying to debate or anything but its like saying I want to use a 1.4 petrol engine to drive at 120 mph as that's near its max limit and it can handle it which is true but it's nearer or closer its maximum so will make the engine work a lot harder and will most likely kill it faster because its nearer its max limit or load all the time.

 

I presume that the same would be true of a power supply , cpu, hard drive or otherwise hence why I said going for something a bit more then you need so when you do put it under strain its not anywhere near its threshold of what it can take and hence ( should last longer ). At least that's my view - could be wrong

 

Am of the view of I'd much rather have it and not need it then need it and not have it

[Effluo]

I'm not suggesting to anyone that they try to drive at 120mph in a 1.4litre Engine Car.

Similarly it would be a bad idea to run a PSU or any machine at it's max load all the time(Unless it was designed for it of course).

 

This is, however once again completely irrelevant to this case.

I'm proposing a 430watt PSU for a PC which would have a need for around 260watts max...

 

Alright?

 

That's about 60-65% when in full load and completely acceptable.

 

I really don't have the time to continuously repeat what I've said over and over again.

 

...

[mac_shinobi]

I'm not suggesting to anyone that they try to drive at 120mph in a 1.4litre Engine Car.

Similarly it would be a bad idea to run a PSU or any machine at it's max load all the time(Unless it was designed for it of course).

 

This is, however once again completely irrelevant to this case.

I'm proposing a 430watt PSU for a PC which would have a need for around 260watts max...

 

Alright?

 

That's about 60-65% when in full load and completely acceptable.

 

I really don't have the time to continuously repeat what I've said over and over again.

 

...

 

I doubt that - using the calculator I posted above

 

1 cpu, 2 sticks of RAM ( 2 * 4gb ), 2 usb devices ( keyboard and mouse ) , AMD II X6 1100T, 1 dvd drive, 1 regular sata hdd, ati 6790, 4 fans

 

Total usage is 405 Watts so is pretty much 90% load, I'm with localzuk on this one and the gfx card suggested I think was the 6590 series card and that requires a lot more.

 

Ditching the regular sata hdd to a flash ssd drops about 5 watts but still does not give much room for upgrades and also means its running at about 85 to 90% load with the specs the OP requested.

 

Obviously you can adjust sticks of ram as required but original post stated

 

AMD II X6 T1100

ATI 69xx series card

people have suggested either 8 or 16gb of ram ( Depending on money and requirements so adjust as needed )

one SSD of choice and I presume at least one regular SATA HDD for storage as a lot of people would imo want somewhere safe to store data other then the SSD

Optical drive for OS installation etc

2 USB Devices for keyboard and mouse

 

Had to pick the 6790 as that was the closest I could find in the list of graphics card to the 6590, 4 fans for cooling ( obviously again adjust as required )

 

I have tried adjusting things to make it use the least amount and even then its still hitting around 390 ish so still quite high on a 430 watt PSU

Edited August 19, 2011 by mac_shinobi

[Effluo]

Anyone in the know, knows that those calculators are rubbish.

 

If you actually do a bit of googling and research yourself you'll find that out. There's no agreeing or disagreeing on how much power these components use, it's all there in writing from results conducted by experts if you go looking for it. It's not just someone talking bull on a forum it's fact.

 

 

I don't mean to sound like an ass here, big headed or whatever, but I do know what I'm talking about. I've got quite a bit of experience and done a lot of research regarding computer hardware and specifically getting the best PC for your needs and budget.

This thread is quickly disintegrating into some kind of post battle, which I can assure you I will not be partaking in. This is supposed to be about the op trying to get a new PC, it's not about who's right, who's actually providing solid background to what they're saying or who actually has experience doing this hundreds of times...

 

You can choose to disagree all you like, that's fine, I'm not fussed, but it's ruining the thread and for the op's sake, it should be dropped.

 

k

 

o/

[Arthur]

I have tried adjusting things to make it use the least amount and even then its still hitting around 390 ish so still quite high on a 430 watt PSU

Like manufacturers, almost all PSU calculators over-estimate power requirements. It's surprising what you can do with a good quality efficient 400 watt PSU....

 

[b]Processor[/b]      AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition (3.2GHz / 125w TDP)
[b]Motherboard[/b]    Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
[b]RAM[/b]            8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1,333MHz Low Voltage DIMMs
[b]SSDs[/b]           2 x Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SATA III SSDs
[b]HDDs[/b]           1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 (HD103SJ) 1TB HDD
              2 x Western Digital Caviar Black (WD1002FAEX) 1TB HDDs
[b]RAID Card[/b]      LSI MegaRAID SAS 9261-8i 6Gb/s PCIe Card w/ 512MB memory
[b]ODD[/b]            Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS
[b]PSU[/b]            Corsair CMPSU-400CX
[b]Fans[/b]           1 x Scythe 120mm / 1 x Scythe 100mm

 

http://i.imgur.com/kWeOp.jpg

 

As you can see from the table above, the maximum power this system will draw is 290 watts. Most people don't run Prime95 and Furmark so power consumption will typically be significantly lower.

[mac_shinobi]

no mention of a dedicated graphics card

 

Post you are linking to is using onboard graphics which are generally rubbish and also use your RAM so OP would lose RAM if they were to use onboard options

 

If you were buying dedicated graphics cards they wouldn't be idleing away all the time so am guessing it would draw power / wattage the second you pressed the power button

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/12/16/ati-radeon-hd-6950-review/10

 

Power and thermal section above

 

minimum one is 128 watts + 290 watts = 418

 

If we use the 237 from the chart ( prime95 )

 

237 + 128 = 365 - again still quite high on a 400 watt PSU and not much room for upgrade or headway to do much

 

Maybe a 400 watt PSU for a home brewed NAS where graphics card you could use onboard, gigabit ethernet, 8gb of ram and whatever raid card and sata hard drives you wanted ??

 

The 128 watts is the idleing wattage with Aero

Edited August 19, 2011 by mac_shinobi

[mac_shinobi]

I thought he unsubscribed from the thread, was just replying to arthurs post but then why not go with a 350 watt psu

[Arthur]

Post you are linking to is using onboard graphics which are generally rubbish and also use your RAM so OP would lose RAM if they were to use onboard options

Integrated was used because the computer didn't need a discrete graphics card i.e. Hyper-V without RemoteFX or ESXi.

 

237 + 128 = 365 - again still quite high on a 400 watt PSU and not much room for upgrade or headway to do much

Are you sure about that? 128 watts is the idle figure for Bit-Tech's test PC (spec on page 5) which you are adding to the power consumption of the PC above running Prime95.

 

From Guru3D's review of the Radeon HD 6870...

 

We'll be calculating the GPU power consumption here, not the total PC power consumption.

 

Measured power consumption

System in IDLE = 166w

System wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 278w

Difference (GPU load) = 112w

Add average IDLE wattage ~19w

Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~131 watts

 

Using these figures for the Phenom II X6 system above we get an idle of 125 watts (106 + 19) and a load of 368 watts (237 + 131). As per the review, a 500 watt PSU is recommended for a 6870.

[mac_shinobi]

Exactly

 

A 500, not 400 but a 500 watt psu

 

Thanking you :-)

 

Ignore my math above

 

Ellyou or w.e can carry on using 400 watt psu's. Dont make any diff to me

[Arthur]

A 500, not 400 but a 500 watt PSU

Glenda's Radeon HD 6750 would use less power though.

[Effluo]

Some people just don't want to be saved xD

 

[SYNACK]

Some people just don't want to be saved xD

 

Some people have their own opinions and experiences to draw from, having delt with hundreds of computers built like that (with no overhead) it dirves me mad when the best option after two years is to just throw it away as every component has been selected for being 'just' good enough.

 

Your entire argument in this tread has been faulty anyway as the OP is not an 'average' user and has stated that they will be using it for virtualisation. This forum has many people with more than a clue about hardware and software so the conensus here is worth considering. At any rate I think that we have established that this whole line of debate is pointless in this particular thread given the OPs requirements.

[Effluo]

The thing is that I've never once said that you should choose a PSU which will give you no overhead. I've in fact said that you do need a decent amount of overhead throughout this thread. So please can people stop putting words into my mouth, it's happened around 3 or 4 times now... Reread my posts, I'm not suggesting anything mad here.

 

Also @@synack claiming that my whole line of argument is faulty... wut?

Please reread before trying to justify that statement, we've been talking about a wide range of things on this thread and if I ever mentioned the regular user then it would have just been in reference to what someone else had said. The only non-average thing about the op in terms of need for PC hardware is that she would apparently benefit from having more than 4GB of RAM. Most of this last bit of conversation has been about PSU's and anything I've said on that has been very valid and relevant.

 

 

Also, I do appreciate that people do have their own experiences and I'm completely open to that, because I love learning more about these things and I yearn for any constructive input. BUT some posters here are just trying to defend what themselves in their own set ways whether right or wrong. Repeatedly showing that they have put no effort into actually researching the thing and then augmenting any benchmarks they have used just to try and justify their own decision. Laughable, then some other guy comes in showing another how he misread the benchmarks and he still tries to twist it to agree with himself, while completely ignoring what I've said throughout the thread.

Not to mention trying to make out that I've said things when I haven't.

 

A lot of IT people do this, they talk about things they know very little about while thinking they know a lot, because they know more than the common man and they can usually get away with bluffing 90% of the time.

After the kind of attitude that's been displayed in this thread by some people, then the unfortunate conclusion that I come to will be that this guy no matter how clear the evidence or logic suggests will never back down from their position for the sake of not backing down, some kind of man pride. :/

 

 

I'm really not interested though

 

 

As I've said already, I don't have time to readdress what I've already said...

Have a nice Saturday o/

[mac_shinobi]

arguement is moot as per synack and agree with synacks comment - you stick to how you do it and I will do it my way - agree to disagree ( think that is how the saying goes )

 

Just leave it at that

 

Going to quote a fellow EG member here in saying the following :

 

1. 400 Watt PSU's don't have as many power lead outputs

2. They tend not to be modular

3. Reminds me of the tyre thread on here a while back ref using used tyres vs new when its the only thing between you and the tar mac , same here ref its the only thing between you and a fried computer and the only thing between having over head and later on down the line being able to upgrade to that new graphics card that ATI / Nvidia have released that requires an extra power lead, oh hold on that 400 watt power supply can't give you enough power and hold on what lead can I use ? Oh yeah gotta buy another power supply , when instead of buying a reasonable power supply to start with you now have to throw more money at another power supply and that's without buying that new graphics card or new whatever.

 

I am just saying ( as everyone else on here knows ) if you spend your money wisely to start with ref getting a power supply that does give you the extra over head ( yes you don't require it straight away ) but at least it is there and available and you can forget about it.

 

At the end of the day I have not built my own PC for a few years now and am sure the OP is extremely capable of deciding which path / route he wants to go down as far as PSU , wattage requirements and the rest

 

@ Mod - can this debate be deleted from this thread as pointless having it as part of the OP's thread as am sure the OP wanted answers to his original question not a debate because of a difference in opinion

 

Thanks

Edited August 20, 2011 by mac_shinobi

[Arthur]

ArsTechnica has a excellent article on choosing the correct power supply. As they say, one size does not fit all.

 

Power supplies run from diminutive things running tiny low-profile systems the size of a few paperback books to massive kilowatt-plus units powering extreme multi-GPU setups. Clearly, one size does not fit all. Aside from just total output capacity (size) to consider, form factor, efficiency, and noise are all important factors, not to mention cost.

 

Power output: Size the power output of your PSU appropriately to your system's requirements. Plan for expansion if needed, but be realistic. Keeping things appropriately sized will keep you in the sweet spot of the power supply's efficiency curve, which is a good thing, even if curves today are fairly flat.

 

Consider your system both at idle, typical load, and maximum load, and size accordingly. Check individual component draw on specific power supply rails (+3.3v, +5v, and however many +12v rails are involved) and make sure the PSU can deliver power at the correct rails. This has shifted in the past from +3.3v and +5v focused to +12v focused, so those old power supplies, despite their ample total power output, may actually not work on a newer system.

 

Efficiency: Converting typical household power—delivered as alternating current to the direct current consumed by your computer's internal components—is imperfect. Old power supplies tend to be less efficient than newer ones, although finding lousy new power supplies based on older standards is still easy. A new power supply with a modern design will be more efficient, which means less electricity wasted as heat, and a lower electricity bill. The old first-generation ATX PSU may be 65 percent efficient compared to a modern 80PLUS certified unit that is 88 percent or more efficient. Good quality power supplies also have very efficient active power factor correction (active PFC) rather than older passive PFC or non-PFC designs, which helps in some areas (although at least in the USA, most users don't have to worry about PFC affecting their electricity bills).

 

Connectors and cable length: Cheap power supplies tend to come with fewer connectors and shorter cables. Make sure your power supply has the right connectors for your components and that the cables are long enough. If your case mounts the power supply in a nonstandard location, double check the cable length. You may need especially long cables or especially short cables in such cases. Those of you who have tried to cram 20 inches of cable into a case the size of a shoebox know our pain, as do those who picked up the high-end components only to find the CPU power cable was an inch too short (!). If your power supply of choice is short on connectors, splitters and adapters may be used, but be careful not to overload the power supply—pay attention to the maximum current available on the required power supply rails and the power draw of the components being installed.

 

[...]

 

A final side note on efficiency, size, and manufacturer's recommendations: actual power draw on most end-users' systems is much lower than manufacturer-specified minimum recommendations tend to be. This is because most end-users don't run their systems at 100 percent load all of the time, and manufacturers tend to be conservative. After all, the manufacturer of your CPU, motherboard, or video card has no idea if you are using a quality name-brand power supply that can actually deliver the power it's rated to give, or if you are using a generic el cheapo unit that will explode when taxed beyond a small fraction of its load. They tend to try to accommodate the el cheapos out of the simple necessity that they really do not know what quality power supply the end-user may have.

[Arthur]

can this debate be deleted from this thread as pointless having it as part of the OP's thread as am sure the OP wanted answers to his original question not a debate because of a difference in opinion

Would be useful to keep it as a reference point for future threads.

[Arthur]

Back on topic.

 

Corsair Dominator 8192MB (2x4096MB) Memory Module

Current AMD processors don't really benefit from 1,600MHz RAM, so the Dominator's would be a bit of a waste of money if you didn't buy one of the new Bulldozer CPUs.

 

Lastly, the AMD offer is showing its age. The on-chip memory controller on the Phenom IIs struggles to benefit fully from DDR3-1333 and 1600 memory, as bandwidth usage hits a ceiling far too quickly. Performance in the mono-threaded test also shows the limits of an architecture whose successor, Bulldozer, is eagerly awaited and should become available in the second quarter. (Source)

 

OCZ 120GB Vertex 2E Solid State Drive

I would avoid OCZ SSDs personally. Firstly there is the poor reliability, then there is the performance degradation problem which affects all SandForce SF1200-based SSDs (the Vertex 2E is one of them) and thirdly, if you bought an SSD from Intel or OWC you would get a five year warranty instead of three (link, link).

[localzuk]

I was about to buy a new machine this month (but that got delayed due to new job), and comparing the AMD to Intel offerings, the Intel trounce AMD in pretty much every way at the moment. The Bulldozer chips are supposed to even that out though, so if you're really going to go for AMD, wait until they're released and see how they compare in reviews before buying, else go for an i5-2500 (or the 2500K, as it is on sale at the moment at http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Intel+Core+i5-2500K+3.30GHz+%28Sandybridge%29+Socket+LGA1155+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=43216]aria[/url], as it is is a better chip, and can handle faster memory.

[john]

I was about to buy a new machine this month (but that got delayed due to new job), and comparing the AMD to Intel offerings, the Intel trounce AMD in pretty much every way at the moment. The Bulldozer chips are supposed to even that out though, so if you're really going to go for AMD, wait until they're released and see how they compare in reviews before buying, else go for an i5-2500 (or the 2500K, as it is on sale at the moment at http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Intel+Core+i5-2500K+3.30GHz+%28Sandybridge%29+Socket+LGA1155+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=43216]aria[/url], as it is is a better chip, and can handle faster memory.

 

I can vouch for the lovely I5-2500K chip as its in my new PC I made the other week runs very fast with the SSD in it

[Arthur]

Just in case you were still thinking of getting one, AMDs new FX processors will be released on 12th October 2011.

 

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/21685