Building a new PC, advice wanted.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-07-31 08:45am

Ace Pace wrote:The first generation will apprently run at up to 300W(just for itself) and be quite hot, however both promise to drasticly reduce this by second gen.

This is news to me. Is this from the Inquirer?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-07-31 09:01am

Arrow wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:The first generation will apprently run at up to 300W(just for itself) and be quite hot, however both promise to drasticly reduce this by second gen.
This is news to me. Is this from the Inquirer?

It was from an anandtech preview for half a year or back, however the inq has an updated story about it.

ACCORDING TO PC WATCH, the next round of GPUs are going to be really smoking, not because they are fast, but because they suck power like it is going out of style.

If you read the article (here and translated here), you will see the damage that will be done to the world's petroleum reserves.

The short story is this, G80 form Nvidia is looking to suck down 175W on a 90nm process, probably a bit less on 80nm. R600 from ATI is looking to take about 200W in 80nm, and less if they pull off a shrink to 65nm.

Either way, this is simply too much. The current 100+W is borderline insane, and adding half again to it is just silly, speed is OK, but I think we have just passed the point of being ludicrous. When you are at more than twice the power of the CPU, it is time to hit yourself on the head with the same high velocity cluestick that AMD and Intel have already experienced. µ

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-07-31 09:55am

Well, in that case (assuming the Inq is actually right and not just making shit up), its a good thing I've got a 850w PSU, a 725w UPS (the weak link) and a wind tunnel for a case!

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-07-31 10:03am

Arrow wrote:Well, in that case (assuming the Inq is actually right and not just making shit up), its a good thing I've got a 850w PSU, a 725w UPS (the weak link) and a wind tunnel for a case!

Why would you need 850 watts! Are you powering a small third world country inside your computer?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-07-31 10:31am

Arrow wrote:Well, in that case (assuming the Inq is actually right and not just making shit up), its a good thing I've got a 850w PSU, a 725w UPS (the weak link) and a wind tunnel for a case!

The inq is actully understating what anandtech reported some time ago.

IB, he's running high end SLI rigs with high end dual core stuff.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2006-07-31 10:34am

His Divine Shadow wrote:Also thinking about building a computer, this is what I got:
Code: Select all
NEW: 		DigiComp AMD AM2
Case: 		CO-8007-C43/420W
Floppy drive: 	Black floppy drive
Motherboard: 	MSI S-AM2 K8M890CE VGA DDR2 SATA2 MATX
Optical drive: 	LG Black DVD-RW drive
Processor: 	Athlon 64 X2 4200+/2.2GHz 2x512kb L2 AM2
Graphics card: 	GF 6200LE TC 128MB DDR ROHS PCI-E 64BIT DVI/TVOUT
Harddrive: 	300Gb S-ATA HDD
Memory: 	1GB DDR2 667MHz
This would go at around 800 dollars I think, 670 euros anyway. No OS or screen yet but a 20" TFT would be the choice as well as a TV-tuner card.

A some of the same objections apply. Why not get a Core 2 Duo? That graphics card is going to suck wind at playing any sort of game. Though, if you're going for cheap, *shrug*. It might be nice to have more memory, though 1 gig is fine for now.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-07-31 10:37am

Ace Pace wrote:
Arrow wrote:Well, in that case (assuming the Inq is actually right and not just making shit up), its a good thing I've got a 850w PSU, a 725w UPS (the weak link) and a wind tunnel for a case!
The inq is actully understating what anandtech reported some time ago.

IB, he's running high end SLI rigs with high end dual core stuff.

Wouldn't a 500w PSU with two +12v rails be enough?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-07-31 10:50am

It'd be marginal and ignoring anyone who runs more then one HD and one optical drive.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-07-31 10:52am

InnocentBystander wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:
Arrow wrote:Well, in that case (assuming the Inq is actually right and not just making shit up), its a good thing I've got a 850w PSU, a 725w UPS (the weak link) and a wind tunnel for a case!
The inq is actully understating what anandtech reported some time ago.

IB, he's running high end SLI rigs with high end dual core stuff.
Wouldn't a 500w PSU with two +12v rails be enough?

Probably, but it would be close, especially with the draw they're talking about for the next gen. I'd rather have the extra overhead.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-07-31 10:53am

Hey arrow, are you considering a switch over to Conroe or will you stick with the 939 platform untill K8L?

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-07-31 11:14am

Ace Pace wrote:Hey arrow, are you considering a switch over to Conroe or will you stick with the 939 platform untill K8L?

I've seriously thought about it, and for now I'm holding off, at least until Vista. My 4800+ still performs well, and I'm GPU limited in the lastest games at my native res (1920x1200). So I'm definitly getting G80s before anything else. (I'd consider ATI if they'd clean up their drivers!)

I'll probably upgrade my CPU/motherboard when Vista comes out, if only to future proof and to save from an OS reinstall at a later date (BTW, I'm waiting a month after release before getting Vista, just see how it performs and different platforms and if any critical issues pop-up). That will most likely be an Intel upgrade, since I don't think AMD will have a good enough anwser to Conroe with K8L. I also want to see how stable the Nforce 590 is before I upgrade as well. And I want to see how Conroe/590 systems overclock; my current system doesn't overclock worth shit.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-07-31 11:40am

InnocentBystander wrote:
Arrow wrote:Well, in that case (assuming the Inq is actually right and not just making shit up), its a good thing I've got a 850w PSU, a 725w UPS (the weak link) and a wind tunnel for a case!
Why would you need 850 watts! Are you powering a small third world country inside your computer?

That's not the most extreme. PC Power and Cooling actually makes a 1000 watt power supply.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-07-31 12:10pm

The problem with such overpowered supplies (besides costing an arm and leg) is that you pay for futureproofing with low efficiency now. If you're only drawing a fraction of the amount the PSU can supply, it's going to generate a lot of heat and drive up your electricity bill compared to a more reasonable unit. And I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't plan on spending a bunch of money so I can have a video card that generates so much heat that the cooler must sound like a jet engine taking off. Not when I can wait a while for the power efficient cards that have been promised. A nice power efficient card combined with a Core 2 means that you can most likely run a whole system on 250 W.