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[R_H] wrote:Has anyone heard of Dragonforce power supplies? I can't find any information about them nor reviews. They're pretty cheap though, 59.90CHF for the 460W model, 89.90CHF for the 750W.

Never heard of it, but I'd be suspicious about the pricing.

Building a computer for my Mother. Her existing one is a 8 year old P4 showing severe cases of system rot(it's just old), and since she aboslutely, positively, does NOT want Vista(or Linux, as I suggested) I've ended up offering to build one and throw XP Professional on it.

She fiddles with family videos and whatnot so I'm getting her a fairly decent video card.

Antec Sonata III 500 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply

MSI P35 Neo2-FR LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA 512-P3-N800-TR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz

SABRENT CRW-UINB 65-in-1 USB 2.0 Internal Card Reader w/ USB 2.0 Port

HITACHI Deskstar P7K500 HDP725032GLA360 (0A35411) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Sony NEC Optiarc Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R Burner

I'm also cross-installing her sound card and TV Wonder, as well as throwing in 2 Gigs of DDR2 I happen to have on hand. Tom's Hardware ran some numbers a while back and ended up running a similiarly equipped system(actually, TWO 8800GTs) at 400Ws, so I'm not too worried about power.

Probably a bit overpowered for her purposes, but she wants to hang on to it as long as her old one(8 years), and she gave me $700 for a budget, and I came in well under it. What do you all think?

A little overpowered? On what planet does a middle aged woman need an 8800 GT to look at family videos?

I would suggest buying a Dell and a support contract/warranty, if only for the headache issues.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:A little overpowered? On what planet does a middle aged woman need an 8800 GT to look at family videos?

Because, I was well under budget and opted for MOAR POWER. In addition, my little brother and sister still live with her, so gaming will take place.

phongn wrote:I would suggest buying a Dell and a support contract/warranty, if only for the headache issues.

Because Dells with XP start at more then she wants to spend.

I didn't right the goddamn requirements, she did.

You may want to invest in more HD space if you can and possibly do RAID 1.

phongn wrote:You may want to invest in more HD space if you can and possibly do RAID 1.

Nah, (1) I would like to come in under budget (2)Her existing internal HDD is only 180GB and it hasn't been filled up and (3)she has a 750GBish external drive.

Couldn't you get a Dell w/ FreeDOS or Ubuntu on it and just slap XP Pro on it?

EDIT: Unfortunately those configurations aren't really high specced. Still, might be better to get cheaper machines and replace more often, and by the time the 2.45GHz processor gets crusty, the 3.2GHz processor won't fare that much better anyway.

EDIT2: The ubuntu ones are upgradable to higher specs, but end up being more expensive and less powerful than your config.

EDIT3: That included monitor, w/o monitor, and assuming you'll get the 8800 and RAM elsewhere, and w/ an Q6600, 320GB hard drive, default warranty comes out to 449$. This is the Ubuntu 530N.

Thinking of upgrading around Christmas after having my current computer for four years. I'll be keeping the DVD drives, hard drive, keyboard, etc., but I have to get rid of everything else (outdated sockets, not enough power, etc.). Anyways, here is what I'm thinking of to last me pretty much another four years:

EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked

Antec TPQ-850 850W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

CORSAIR XMS2 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800

Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz 6MB L2 Cache

ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX

The most room for improvement is the video card, but I do all my gaming at 1280x1024, so that's fine for now. What better RAM is out there right now, if any? Other suggestions? I'd like to keep it under $1000, if possible.

^Looks good, but you might want to grab an Intel motherboard instead. The nForce series is currently plagued by some problems which I'm not sure have been solved.

The PSU is over kill. You can get something cheaper at 500 W from Corsair or whatever brand you like.

The money saved on the PSU might just get you a AMD 4850 which gives better performance than the 8800GT.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Looks good, but you might want to grab an Intel motherboard instead. The nForce series is currently plagued by some problems which I'm not sure have been solved.

Any suggestions on good Intel boards? And what problems have been occurring with the nForce boards? My current nForce 4 board has had no issues.

The PSU is over kill. You can get something cheaper at 500 W from Corsair or whatever brand you like.

I'll probably get an 850W anyways, even if it isn't that Antec, mostly for headroom for incremental upgrades down the line (i.e., some more RAM when I transition to a 64-bit OS, new video card). Hopefully that low price on the Antec will hold out, but if it doesn't, I'll look elsewhere, or go lower as you suggest.

The money saved on the PSU might just get you a AMD 4850 which gives better performance than the 8800GT.

My only objection to the 4850 is that it runs really hot, IIRC. I'd rather not be dealing with that.

starslayer wrote:Any suggestions on good Intel boards? And what problems have been occurring with the nForce boards? My current nForce 4 board has had no issues.

Some data corruption issues. I'm not 100% familiar with them. The 750i SLI might be somewhat immune, though the one I have is not overly overclockable and might have issues I am not totally aware of. The Intel mid ranged Mobos like P45 should do fine.

I'll probably get an 850W anyways, even if it isn't that Antec, mostly for headroom for incremental upgrades down the line (i.e., some more RAM when I transition to a 64-bit OS, new video card). Hopefully that low price on the Antec will hold out, but if it doesn't, I'll look elsewhere, or go lower as you suggest.

Well, the only way you are going to use even more than 620 W is if you do SLI and several other things running at once. I am quite comfortable running a 9800GX2 on a Corsair 620W and that's 2 GPUs smacked together.

My only objection to the 4850 is that it runs really hot, IIRC. I'd rather not be dealing with that.

A good casing should be able to remedy that. It's not like the chips will get any cooler in the future, to be honest.

I'd back off the CPU to an E8400 and back off the PSU to a 500-600 Watt. I doubt you'd ever notice much difference between 3 and 3.33 GHz (and 8400's can be OC'd to 4 GHz anyway) and the difference is $100. And there's no way incremental upgrades would come within shelling distance of 850 W. Under full load the system you just specced will probably be pulling less than 200 W. 850 W PSU's are for people running tri-SLI setups and shit.

With the money you save you can get a 9800 GTX+, 4850 or even GTX 260 or 4870 that will rock your games for years and years to come.

OK, sweet. I guess I'll go that route, then. Like I said, I may not even have to buy a PSU then, depending. Interestingly, though, why do those online PSU calculators throw out these 600 W values if under full load the system draws much, much less? Is it because of start-up needs?

New system:

Same RAM and motherboard (for now, anyways).

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775

EVGA 896-P3-1266-AR GeForce GTX 260 FTW Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3

OCZ StealthXStream OCZ600SXS 600W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

I don't plan on overclocking (except factory-done OCing) or SLI/Crossfire.

Which calculators? If it's provided by the manufacturers, it's because they want you to buy the biggest, most expensive PSU. If it's by other manufacturers, it's because they have to assume you're buying a shitty no-name PSU that doesn't even put out half its rated wattage under realistic conditions so they won't get sued. Also could be that it assumes the GPU and CPU are at full load, all hard and optical drives are spinning at full, all USB devices are pulling the max amount of power the USB spec can provide, etc. Convenient assumptions for a calculator, but doesn't exactly give a realistic picture.

People have run gaming rigs with 8800 series cards from a 250W PSU. I wouldn't recommend doing that, of course, but it goes to show how far out of line with reality people's expectations of how much wattage they need are.

These were RAM and motherboard manufacturer ones. I found a different one here that gives much lower results (I got 339 W for my planned rig). Going by what you told me, I'll trust that one, and both your and Fingolfin's advice.

Will either of these motherboards work well with an Core 2 Quad Q6600, and a pair of 8800 gt's?
option a
option b

How much power would I need for that setup?

You must have an nVidia motherboard for SLI. Don't buy quad-core right now, it isn't worth it (an E8400, especially overclocked, will be be faster for gaming.)

You may wish to consider ATI CrossFire solutions, since they work with superior Intel-based motherboards, and the 4850 and 4870 are very fast cards.

Power-wise, a quality 600Wish PSU from the like of Corsair or Seasonic should be fine.

phongn wrote:You must have an nVidia motherboard for SLI. Don't buy quad-core right now, it isn't worth it (an E8400, especially overclocked, will be be faster for gaming.)

Second the dual core, but the e8400 is a bad idea right now. The latest round of price cuts left the e8500 at $189.99, but no one bothered to drop the e8400, so it's still at the $169.99 it's been at for a few months.

Dominus Atheos wrote:Second the dual core, but the e8400 is a bad idea right now. The latest round of price cuts left the e8500 at $189.99, but no one bothered to drop the e8400, so it's still at the $169.99 it's been at for a few months.

Huh, that's not that bad, then, though if one overclocks the $20 can go to a better HSF.

What is HSF?

I say dual 8800's because I already have one, and another is about $170.

I really want a motherboard/proccesor that will last me a long time, and give lots of room to upgrade other components.

I have as my current choice an E8500, and the Asus board listed as option a above.

HSF = Heatsink/Fan.

You'll never know how long a motherboard will really last, alas, but Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and DFI are generally considered to be solid brands (this list is not exclusive).

Well, my current motherboard is an older DFI product, and while it will do SLI, it wont take DDR2 or better ram.

So, just about anything with that fits the requirements will work? Or are there some that deserve attention or avoidance?

This is my planned new build, when I get around to it:

Case: Antec P182

Power: Corsair 450W

M/B: Gigabyte EP45

CPU: Intel C2D E8500

HSF: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (I momentarily considered a Tuniq Tower, but after seeing a couple of pictures of that monster actually installed in a case, I regained my sanity.)

RAM: Corsair 2x2GB DDR2 800

Video: Visiontek Radeon 4870

HDD: Western Digital 640GB

Optical: Samsung DVD burner

Sound: Asus Xonar DX - This one's a maybe.

SPRC seems to like this heatsink quite a bit.