I'm getting a new computer, and I decided to get it from Ibuypower. The only case I liked happened to be the cheapest one. It's the NZXT Trinity WITHOUT the side window or temp. monitor. Well, it comes with a 350W PSU. Along with that, I got the Opti-UPS SS1200-AVR Mighty Voltage Regulator. I'm wondering if the PSU will be okay, or if the voltage regulator will prevent any problems in that area. The computer's turning out to be pretty expensive (for me at least, it's like $1500), and I'm trying to keep as many costs down as possible. I don't want to sacrifice anything important though. So, should I upgrade the 350W PSU for the NZXT PF-500 500 Watt Power Supply or will it even matter?
Whatever you do, DO NOT skimp on your power supply! I would invest in a nice 500W PSU. I like Antecs'
think of a PSU like a Sub woofer for a car. the Sub might say 500 watts but the RMS (Root Mean Square) shows as 200 to 300. so you could get away with a 300 or 350 but remember its only going to pump out about 75 to 175 at max before heating up more then it should.. and might get reboots often if you add more things than it can handle i say dish out the extra cash and get the 500w.. better to be safe then sorry when it comes to computers
I certainly hope you are buying one helluva computer for $1500, if you're building it yourself. I mean, seriously. I built this 2.8ghz when 3.0 was the max, and case/ram/chip/and 6800GT I only have about $700 in this system. <edit> Just so you don't think it's crap, lol, it's in a kickass ventilated case, 2 intake fans, one 120mm exhaust fan, with a thermaltake...eh, I forget the model, 13cm high sink that's got a 90mm fan, gig of pc3200, and a 7.1 eax2 sound card, 2 160gb 7200rpm wd's, 1 external 40gb, 12 usb2 ports, 4 firewire, 16x dual layer burner, 52x cd burner uh...you know, the usual. $700. Over a year ago I built 2 bargain comp's for a nonprofit community center and bought every component minus hdd's, monitors, and mouse/keyboard for $410, shipped, and they're no slackers either. The general rule is 20 watts per device. Unless you're SLI'ing a couple PCIE video cards, a 350 antec will more than suffice for you, 400 to be safe. No need to drop a hundred bucks on a PSU.
I went with Ibuypower because I don't want to risk messing something up by building it myself. I picked an Asus P5LD2-Deluxe, Pentium D 3.4 GHz CPU, 2 gigs of ram, nVidia Geforce 6200, 160gb hd for OS and other stuff, 300gb hd for video stuff (I'm gonna get more later), cd/dvd±rw drive, modem (I can only get dial-up currently), flash card reader, all in an NZXT Trinity. With the keyboard, mouse, xp, two extra fans, and voltage regulator, it's about $1280. Then, I got the monitor and speakers off Newegg.
Shame about the graphics card....In fact it's a shame you didn't build it yourself. It is really dead easy! Only takes a few hours from start to finish. You have the same case my mate got for the PC I built him. That card will [bold]REALLY[/bold] struggle to play games. Actually, it is one of the cheapest & probably the worst on the market. It will quite literally do nothing! Just as long as you don't want to do any gaming with it, it will be OK
I'm not going to be gaming. This is just for video editing, flash, and normal computer stuff. It's going to suck having to wait to buy the programs I want, though.
if you are going to do video editing make sure you have at the bare min 1gig of ram.. i would advise 2 or more gigs 100gigs deticated to just video (i run 400gigs deticated and a 20gig partition for my OS) then an SataII hard drive *advise 2 running in raid* AMD 64 chip.. not Intel.. i have a intel w/ HT and its nothing compaired to my AMD system. ASUS Abit or Gigabyte mother board.. DFI lan party if you want a realy Bad ass mother board. Kingston ram.. same as the other higher priced ram just it cost less. need to remember if you are getting into video editing just for kicks you are going to end up branching out to other things that are going to need the same performance.. might as well get something that will last 4 years with upgrading then a system that might only be able to upgrade once. thats why its always better to build it on your own.. Now here is a list of PC parts + shipping i pulled from newegg.com price with 3 day shipping should only be about $430.. and i bet its more power then what your going to be getting from ibuy the case and mother board are already together so all you have to do is put the ram, cpu, hard drive in. take your cd/dvd drive from your current machine and your done. maybe a 15min process. then just install windows and that only took about 30mins to 1hr to do on my computer. ASUS Vintage-AH1 AMD Socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64/Sempron ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Barebone - Retail Model #: Vintage-AH1 Item #: N82E16856110043 Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6V200E0 200GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM Model #: 6V200E0 Item #: N82E16822144012 Kingston ValueRAM 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 333 (PC 2700) Unbuffered System Memory Model KVR333X64C25/1G - Retail Model #: KVR333X64C25/1G Item #: N82E16820141429 AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3000BPBOX - Retail Model #: ADA3000BPBOX Item #: N82E16819103537
Intel D is dual core (for those that dont know) if you are going dual core you can get the amd 64x2.. those blew Intel out of the water. put it this way say you have a P4 3.0gh vs amd xp 3000. the amd will out do the P4 and its only running at 1.8gh vs intels 3gh besides this fact you pay a lot less going with amd hard core gamers *with tech knolage* go with AMD. check out the benchmarks at www.tomshardware.com www.hardocp.com or even hit amds site for benchmarks amd vs intel http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8796_8800,00.html the 64 bit cpu i listed would put up a nice fight to a dual core intel.
