IV got myself a pentium 4, 3.4ghz with an ABIT AA8 3rd eye LG775 motherboard. Planning on gettin a half decent PCI-e grpahics with 1gb memory. With that many cases available starting at £15, how do you know which one to get? Im not looking for nothin fancy, just a basic case with UBS ports at front, and with cooling capacity to allow for the spec above + some uprgades in future. Any recommendations appreciated. As i say, cheap is good, nothing fancy, basically something reliable with all the required cooling.
I don't get the cases that have a bundled power supply. I have found that they usually have a low quality one. I get a case that has the features I want without a power supply then buy a good name brand power supply. The only exception I have made is when I got my kid an Antec case that came with an Antec True Power power supply, so it had a good one already. I have Antec power supplies in 2 other PCs here and have had no trouble with them.
People always recommend not getting unbranded PSU's, I myself have 2 pc's one with an unbranded 300watt psu and the other a 500watt unbranded psu, and to tell you the truth both are silent, both are very reliable and both cost under £10. I have never had a brand name such as Antec so I can not compare the quality, but my unbranded ones where cheap and work well, if they only last a couple of years I dont care because they were cheap. A good place where I have bought a few cases from, both plain cases and modded case for under £20 is ebuyer. http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...3N1YmNhdGVnb3J5X3NlYXJjaA==&cat_uid=23&stid=2 Very good cases can be found there, all cases should be compatible with what you need.
MY Antec 550W TruePower lasted 6 months, before it blew up. I tried to contact the seller, Overclockers, they did reply, but I got absolutely NO help from them. I gave up after 5 E-mails. They were hopeless. It was as if they were completely incapable of reading & understanding a 2 sentence message. Bunch of tossers. I got a £20 500W PSU from PC World (shudders!!) 18months ago, still going strong! Pulsar
I'd say that a case is down to personal preference as for a psu try a Hiper Type-R they are well priced/speced and very reliable
@Pulsar, I have had very good luck with Antec. Forget the reseller, go straight to the manufacturer, especially after that long of a period after the sale. Back when I did tech support years ago I never messed with the reseller. Myself, I will never go with an unbranded power supply. They might work fine for years, but when they go the surge usually takes more than just the power supply. I have seen capacitors on the motherboard overloaded and split, memory chips corrupted, and various other problems due to a power supply failure when I did PC support. The name brand ones such as Antec put some additional protection circuitry in the load side, so even a lightning strike on the line side will not travel to other components. I wouldn't want to put a $500 video card in and skimp on the electrical components to protect that investment.
The one I got from PC world was a Jeantech. I agree with you about the quality of components, but my Antec blew up (literally) at six o'clock on Chritmas eve' I had to wait until Boxing day before the shops were open! Man was I pissed off that Chritmas day. I felt like I had my right arm chopped off! I prefer quality of parts everytime. But I was in a predicament! Pulsar
Thanks for the advice, although with the mixed reports, still unsure if i should spend my money on an antec or just get a basic £10 one. Anyway, the next question, what size of psu should i be buying. Taking in mind iv got the intel pentium 4, aa8 3rd eye motherboard and am looking to purchase a mid range pcie graphics card, sata 200gb hardrive and two cdrw/dvd drives. Im thinkin a 500w but may be of the mark, could someone please advise. Last question is when decided, is there any specifics i should be looking for when purchasing with regards to connections etc? Many Thanks
You should be okay with a psu from 480w-550w, make sure it has sata power connections and enough other power connections with some length in the cables or even a cable management system. The psu is what your system relies on for stability if it ain't up to the job your system won't perform correctly or it could fail in bad way and take your system with it...personally i wouldn't skimp on the psu, check out something like tomshardware for psu reviews and take it from there
I would advise against skimping on your PSU, bad idea. I was unlucky with my Antec. They do have a good rep, overall. Pulsar
I myself bought a Xion II case which came along with a PSU. People say that case PSUs are bad but this one runs very quietly while pumping out almost "chilled" air. I have no problems with it, except for the fact that it uses a 20 pin mobo connection instead of a 24.
