Intel vs. AMD

mm, an XJ220?
What you're saying is, there's someone who lives up the road from you who's rich.

 

Sam,

Shows you how money has changed. I've had 5 Jags over the years starting with a 65 XKE, a 67 XKE, an XJS and a Classic D and most recently another XJS. I also had a Daimler SP-250, which had a Coventry Climax Hemi V8 in it! Electrics were always the problem. In the US George Lucas was always know as the "Prince of Darkness"! LOL!!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

Whatever that has to do with the cost of cotton in Egypt ...


BigDK
The new Jags are beauties, but I like the looks of the older ones a little more.




This is what I'd like for a modern car when I win the lottery.

 

from amd vs intel to jags....what a thread

 

Heh, it was power supplies for a few pages, and graphics cards before that. Truth is, we haven't had much new to discuss on the Intel vs AMD front.

 

Guys, at least keep it to the PC front lol. We don't wanna get shut down again

As for the Enermax Galaxy, very good PSU. But, as said earlier, it's pretty noisy and has been known to have problems in the past.

If you want silence, get the Enermax Noisetaker or the Whisper II. Very good PSUs(from 420W - 600W):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194001

If you want high power on a single card system get the Liberty(also in 500W & 400W):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194004

If you want the higher power equivalent to the Liberty get the Infiniti(also in 650W):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194021

If you want a high power PSU for dual video get the Galaxy(also in 850W):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194019


Enermax PSUs ARE NOT without their faults but I've seen them all receive high ratings from review sites and have had excellent personal experience.

I'm not being a fanboy any more than I'm trying to promote a top-end product.

IMO the PC Power & Cooling is the very best 1KW PSU and the Hiper 580W is definitely the very best high power PSU for those on a budget.

I've also had an excellent experience with the 430W Thermaltake TR2. It's perfect for a classic GeForce 6800 256MB Vanilla
or X800GTO build. Very high quality. Shut down for me at 450W.

@sammorris, I have had friends with better luck with the Liberty 500W. Shutdown at 535W.

 

Sorry! Off Topic. Sent a PM instead.

Sorry,
theone

 

According to SPCR:
Enermax Noisetaker
21dB@ 0-150W
24dB@ 200W
32dB@ 250W
35dB@ 300W
44dB@ 400W+

Corsair HX
22dB@ 0-300W
29dB@ 400W
43dB@ 500W+

For silence i'd still go with the Corsair!

 

Hmm, point taken.

 

Estuansis
I realize I was OT, but I got there with my sweet little AMD. Like a Jag, it has character. LOL

Theonejrs
I only asked because I didn't understand the Lucas reference in connection to wiring.

Wiring, that get's us back to PSUs which is still a bit OT for this thread, but we gotta have them. What's with AMD? Have they released anything new, did they sneak something in while I wasn't looking.

 

They've been very slowly making the move to 65nm, just as Intel are beginning to move to 45nm. Funny how the Core 2 Duos have the same TDP as the 65nm X2s, especially when the C2Ds are older, and faster!
I'm hoping K8L will kick some ass, because whether or not that sees AMD on top, it sees a technological advance, which is going to be countered by Intel. Whichever CPU comes out top from that one, I will probably get. Despite the issues I've had, overclocking a CPU by 66% has made a fantastic PC come cheap, but I want those latter two words removed. I'll go with a higher spec CPU to start with, and then let's see what happens!

Last point on the PSU noise front, most of us accept a bit of noise when our PCs draw a lot of power, such as gaming, so I compared all the recent units SPCR has tested and found some interesting results.

If you care about noise at all, the Enermax Galaxy and Tagan Easycon should be avoided. This surprises me since Tagan have a reputation for building quiet units. However, the PSU ramps up to a comparatively ear-shattering 45dB (many delta fans are tested to be this loud) at a mere 300W, and reaches 40dB at only 200W, a pretty low load for a 700W unit. The Enermax is acceptable at 300W, but above and beyond that level, it reaches 50dB. Both the Tagan and Enermax idle at 29dB, the same noise level Corsair units produce at 400W.

Doing a bit of number crunching with the decibels, I came up with this for quietness, because I had very little better to do!

1st. Corsair HX (Either model) 23.4
2nd. BeQuiet! Darkpower 430W 29.1
3rd. Zalman ZM-600W 30.2
4th. Antec Earthwatts 430W 31.0
5th. Enermax Noisetaker 31.2
6th. Antec Truepower Trio 550W 33.1
7th. Ultra X-Pro 620W 33.7
8th. Lian Li HPC 600W 34.0
9th. Enermax Galaxy 1000W 35.7
10th Tagan Easycon XL-700W 40.4
(the numbers are a mean of the noise output at various loads up to and including 400W)

it's worth noting that the Lian Li is the quietest at full load (36dB) but the Lian Li, Enermax and Tagan are the only units to exceed 70ºC at full load. That's quite hot. Not sure I'd want a PSU running at those temperatures on a regular basis. By contrast, the Corsairs don't even break 60ºC at max, although they do eventually ramp up to 43dB at 500W, but if you used that much, you'd probably have a higher rated PSU anyway.

 

thats the whole reason i went with my setup. it was a cheap way to get a c2d setup. i paid more than i needed to on my ram beacuse i intend to use that again when i upgrade to a 1066/1333 cpu in the future.

i think that i would be hard pushed (not be able) to get an amd setup that would come close in performance for the price i paid for this.

 

Likewise. At stock, maybe, but not considering how much you can overclock a Core 2 Duo. I'll probably be keeping my RAM too.

 

Here's a few more interesting facts while we wait for AMD to give us something to talk about!!
This is taken from a review of the SilverStone Decathlon SST-DA750 750W PSU:

In the past manufacturers tried to make us believe that more +12V rails are better but now we're seeing more and more high-end units using the single-rail approach. One of the reasons for this is because some components like high-end graphics cards use an enormous amount of power, especially in SLI, Quad SLI or CrossFire setups. If multi-rail power supplies follow the official ATX PSU specifications, each rail may only provide a max of 20A (or 240W). For most hardware that's not really a problem but considering the upcoming R600 will use up to 540W in CrossFire you can see that multi-rail PSUs will get into trouble. 75W per card comes through the PCI Express slot which is on a different rail so an additional 195W per card is needed from the PCI Express power connectors. With two cards you need a voltage rail which can deliver 32.5A and that's not something you'll find on multi-rail PSUs.

Nowadays it's definitely recommended to get a PSU with a single +12V rail if you're building a high-end PC. I'm not saying that multi-rails are bad, but if you need a lot of power a PSU with a single rail may be better.

Single rail PSU solves RD480 Crossfire problems

Xtremesystems, Sampsa, ATI and support guys confirms it

By Fuad Abazovic: Monday 27 February 2006, 21:32

WE have a solution for problems that we have had with A8R-MVP motherboard and two graphic cards. You can check the original post here. We spoke with many people today and they all indicate that it has to be the power problem.

ATI key motherboard designer John Bruno told us that a single rail PSU is better than a multi rail PSU. He reported that ATI had some issues with multi rail PSUs while all of the single rail 500 W + PSUs were running fine. It turns out that both OCZ Power stream 600 W PSU and Akasa 650W PSU are using more than one power rails.

One of the readers an administrator of a motherboard company forum recommended ENERMAX EG651P-VE FM(24P) PSU with 36A and a single12 V rail. Our colleagues at Bit tech managed to test dozen X1900 cards including Crossfire with a single rail 520W OCZ PSU. You can check the article here.

We got a nice link where one of the top overclocker, our good friend Sampsa had the same problem with 600W multi rail PSU and A8R-MVP board and two X1900 cards in Crossfire. He solved its troubles by switching to a single rail 560W PSU. You can check the post here.

This specific problem reminded us on the same problem that we had with two Geforce 7800 GTX 512 cards. Those two cards in SLI were crushing the machine while two 7800 GTX 256 MB cards worked flawlessly. You can check it out here and we have been working for two weeks with Nvidia to solve the problem but failed to make it work. Someone simply could suggest that we should try single rail PSU 500+ W and everything should work. SLI works with two 7800 GTX 512 after all.

Hurray, now we know that Nvidia and ATI should warm people that they need single rail PSU not just any 600 W PSU. That really makes the difference. We are speechless why no one warned the users about this issue.

Despite we have two 600+ W PSU we are back at the spot where we need to get a new PSU for the lab to test those power hungry rigs. Asus A8R-32 MVP Deluxe board powered with RD580 chipset can even work with multi rail OCZ 600 W or Akasa 650W PSU as we guess it is distributing the power better than the previous one. A mystery solved, but beware if you are buying top motherboard SLI or Crossfire and you want to plug two power greedy cards inside. You need a lot of quality single rail power, not just any power.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=29940

Every day, I read either here at [H] or other PC forums about a weak multi-rail PSU causing failure of one (or more) expensive pieces of PC hardware (often graphics cards or even whole motherboards); usually because one rail is overstressed. Because of that sort of nastiness, I determined that *despite* preparations to build an SLI rig (my first such), there was exactly zero chance that I would purchase a multirail PSU for it. However, there are few single-rail SLI-certified PSUs available at *any* price, let alone those that the typical PC do-it-yourselfer can afford. In fact, I walked into the closest MicroCenter (Fairfax, VA: Nutley Street @ Lee Hwy.) hoping I might actually have better luck than online, only to find my luck equally bad: two of the three single-rail SLI-certified PSUs they normally carry they were out of stock on, and the third is the PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 1kW-SR ($550USD; in a word, *OUCH*). However, given the lack of other alternatives, I will wind up going *maximum overkill* and buying the big 1kW-SR.
The out-of-stock preferences? The Silverstone ST-56ZF and PC P&C's Silencer 750 Quad (my first choice); in fact, the pair *combined* cost less than the 1kW-SR.
I also mentioned in the title of this post that I *loathe* multirail PSUs; now I'm about to explain why. The problem with multi-rail PSUs (all of them; no particular model of multi-rail PSU escapes this problem) is that all too often you can't tell what molex or other plug is being fed from what rail of a multi-rail PSU. While modular PSUs obviate this to a degree, even they are vulnerable because of rail cross-wiring (and you also have losses simply due to modular connectors in the first place); worse, the big current-drawing devices (graphics cards, especially in SLI) will wind up almost completely taxing at least one rail in a multi-rail PSU (resulting in uneven PSU load, because one rail is overtaxed, which will almost certainly lead to PSU failure early). However, most newer PSUs are, unfortunately, sporting multiple rails. (Ugh!)
Given the size of the *rest* of my investment in the system (over two thousand of my hard-earned American dollars), I am taking the *better safe than sorry* approach, and making sure that I could use the system reliably for as long as the components are viable. That means a high-current single-rail PSU

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1171827

So for a high end system,single rail is the way to go.

Some good info on power supplies here too.

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t136602.html

 

sam,
there is an excellent rundown of your psu here if your interested:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/369/1



In fact your psu is actually a rebadged PSH750V-C01!

http://www.cwt.com.tw/english/2_product/1_detail.php?ID=867

I remember you posted somewhere either here or one of the other threads that you get wary when a manufacturer rebadges someone elses products with their own.Thought you might be interested.It just shows what it says on the case isn't neccesarily whats in the box.

Another interesting thing is your psu gives the impression it has 4 12v rails when actually it has 1 single 12v rail with four 12v outputs coming from the one rail.
Thats probably a good thing if you decide to go sli or get a more power hungry card in the future.

 

If I put a Radeon 9600XT 256mb AGP8x into a good PC how much slower would it be then a 256mb 6600GT or Ultra in terms of games alot or just a bit?

 

I do get wary when a manufacturer badges someone else's products as their own, but my SPCR trawling showed me several cases where that was the case with PSUs, it seems to happen pretty often. However, I get more wary when a manufacturer trades the same products under two diferent names. I'm happy to accept that my PSU is a Channel Well, (if that was even the first) since they designed some of the Antec PSUs that got such a high rating, and the fact that my other choice, the OCZ GameXstream, is the same as the FSP Sparkle unit.
What really interests me about that article is the curious thing they did with the fan, half of it is covered with a clear plastic sheet. Why would you do that? Covering half a fan up is a sure way of increasing noise and decreasing airflow...
I'm kind of mixed about the virtual rails, it's a good thing because there'll be no problem with allocating lots of power to any one rail, but then again, it's a bit of a sneaky tactic anyway.

With the graphics cards, I found these benches:

UT2004, 1280x1024 4x8: 9600XT: 32.1, 6600GT: 69.5
Half Life 2, 1280x1024 0x0: 9600XT: 37.1 6600GT: 61.1
Doom 3, 1280x1024 0x0: 9600XT: 18.8, 6600GT: 57.4
Chronicles of Riddick EFBB, 1280x1024 0x0: 9600XT: 14.8, 6600GT: 32.3
Pacific Fighers, 1280x1024 0x0: 9600XT: 49.4, 6600GT: 79.5
The Sims 2, 1024x768 Max: 9600XT: 18.6, 6600GT: 56.2 (CPU limited)

It looks like the 6600GT is around double the power of the 9600XT, and up to three times in more demanding games like Doom 3 and, of all things, the Sims 2, where the 6600GT could have scored even higher had the test been run with a faster CPU than an Athlon64 4000+. The result would be academic due to the other hardware, but it proves how much of a stride nVidia made in this generation. The 9600 was definitely better than the FX5600, and yet the 6600 was way beyond the power of the X600, and in some cases even the X700.

 

sam,

Maybe you could email them and ask the question?

The only thing I can think of is it directs the airflow to critical components??I'm only guessing.

That psu has got some kickarse reviews btw.

I wonder how many other psu's are made by third parties?

 

It has yes, and I know it can be a lot quieter than it is now, because when I ran it in my X2 system (which let's face it should use a similar amount of power or potentially more, with the same graphics card), it remained at its idle noise level even when I had been playing games for hours. I just need to get my heatsink facing the other direction.

 

sam'

What's stopping you doing that?