When I've finished saving my pennies, I'm going to invest in the following setup ... Antec Sonata case (w/ 380w PSU) Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 mobo AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (skt. 939) Geil value 1GB PC3200 dual channel kit Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 XL graphics (PCI-E) CD, DVD drive, DiamondMax 80GB HDD, etc (from current computer) My main concern is power ... the PSU is rated 380w. Would this be enough for this setup? With this PC, I'm on a £600 budget but ideally would like a near silent machine and the Sonata is getting good reviews. Would anyone like to suggest another setup for £600?
I don't know off-hand what Gigabyte recommends for the PSU, but I have been looking at DFI's requirements for a PSU: 480W w 25A on the 12V rails (or combined 12V rails). They also say to get a 24-pin ATX power connector---native mind you, no 24->20-pin converters---not the standard 20-pin ones. Quite honestly, I definitely would recommend paying good money for the PSU since that can cause all sorts of fun troubleshooting hell with no specific cause. Not all PSU's are the same, and generally, you're best off to stick with Enermax, OCZ, Thermaltake, or Fortron/Sparkle. If you're really rolling in cash, you might consider PC Power & Cooling, but they're very expensive, and probably out of your price range. I don't know the specific PSU you have now, but unless it's a particularly good unit, I would definitely look to get something that's going to be a solid unit. Nothing buries the mood with a non-booting system.
I've decided to buy the Sonata case and use the 380w PSU with my current system until I've saved up enough pennies to buy my new system. I'm guessing that the PSU should be adequate for now, seeing as how I've coped with a 350w PSU before! But when I get the new system, I'm investing in an Antec TruePower 550w unit, which should be enough. I'm on a PSU budget of around £70 - £80 so if anyone wants to suggest a good but QUIET PSU for that amount of cash, then feel free!
Sweet setup spuff (I wish I'd bought the X800XL instead of my 6800, alas), 380 watts probably would have been plenty of power but just the same, you can look at this , this other guy, or look for something on Newegg..
Problem with Newegg is that they don't ship to the UK ... The good thing is that they post feedback on products!
I'm not real familar with good online UK stores, but if I'm looking at UK prices I look at Dabs or Komplett.co.uk
Yes, Dabs and Komplett are very reasonable. I've also found out that amazon.co.uk is also surprisingly very good because I got the Sonata case for £67 instead of the usual £80, and free delivery! Overclockers.co.uk is also very good value and (if I'm not mistaken ... which I probably am!) they do international delivery. If only Newegg did international delivery ... dammit! lol
Shoot, sorry dude, never even thought about Neweggs lack of UK support, seems kind of silly when it comes down to it. Big consumer base down the drain.
I've decided to go for a DFI LANParty UT NF4 Ultra-D board (more tweakage! Yay!) instead of the Gigabyte board. The rest of my setup is staying the same (although eventually getting 160GB SATA HDD). But I've heard good things about Tagen PSUs. I'm thinking of going for the Tagen 480w TG480-U01 PSU but would this provide enough power for my setup? I can get one of these for £58 (about $100 roughly) locally so I think I'm getting a good deal. I'm not too clued up on PCI-E but as far as I know, the Sapphire X800 XL I'll be getting doesn't require extra power leads from the PSU ... can anyone confirm this?
Nope, you should be just fine, the x800 series is pretty modest with their power requirments, unlike the 6800 Ultra which does need the two leads.
That should be alright. As long as you have a good PSU with at least 25A on the 12V rails, you should be good. That and good RAM are the two things that people haven't gotten into their heads. I don't know if it's just DFI's board design or just A64 in general, but you don't want to skimp on the PSU. Personally, I got an Enermax EG565P VE, and that's working out rather well. From what I've heard, OCZ is taking the Tagan designs and adding some more meat to them...and that's what I see being used by a lot of folks with DFI's nForce 4 boards.
I use that very same power supply for my SLI Athlon64 setup! Plenty of power to burn. Very stable. Enermax is a name you can trust. In the UK I believe the model you would be looking for would be labeled Enermax EG565AX, since active pfc as I understand it is kind of a necessary thing in europe.
Well, I got everything now but because of price, availability and good reviews, I went with a Tagan 480w unit. I was going to try my 380w unit but it only had a 20-pin m/b connector and my DFI NF4 is a 24-pin. All set up now and everything runs smoothly and I have headroom for future upgrades. I didn't even need the PCI-E power cables but I have 2 on the unit, just in case!
