The New AMD Building Thread

$25 cheaper than the egg, not bad.

 

Curious. Would a good 400W PSU, be able to handle 1-2 HDD's, 1-2 Odd's, the GA-MA790GP-DS4H, 940 Deneb quad (NO OC), eventually 4 sticks of ram? No PCI_E GPU! Just the OBG? The mentioned Gigabyte board is going to my brother, which is currently running a dual core 5200 athlon, one optical drive, one Hdd, OBG, 2 sticks of ram. And its PSU has seen a great deal more, and didn't even get warm. Not even slightly!

 

without a doubt

 

Easily. Even with a Phenom II in there, if it's not overclocked and no dedicated graphics you're probably looking at 150-160W load maximum, something like that.

 

Thanks guys. I was betting it would. But I was curious what other enthusiasts would think of the matter

 

Oh yeah I say you'd be just fine running that setup on a 400W PSU. Only if you throw in a high end GPU would it become an issue. Even then it wouldn't be a problem for overall wattage, it would be the amps on the 12v rail I'd worry about.

 

Sam,
It's also the older revision! The one the egg sells has 10 Sata ports!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Estuansis: Remembering the CX400 is a TRUE 400W PSU, it'd be fine. The 12V rail amps are as high as a 550-600W unit from brands like coolermaster.
Russ: Ah, then that explains the low price.

 

Yeah Corsair does make a quality PSU. Using 2 of them myself remember

Pretty much any Corsair PSU can run a crazy system. I wouldn't personally do it, but I bet you could do HD4870s in Crossfire with a 400CX. Though more likely for the 450VX.

 

Depends what CPU. You could theoretically do it as long as the CPU wasn't overclocked, but it ought really to be an Intel quad or one of the energy efficient ones like the 905e to be on the safe side.

 

Sam,
Can't you find a different brand 500w PSU to pick on! LOL!!



If you don't have a lot of money, the CoolerMaster I have is a decent quality PSU when it's on sale. Right now the CX400 is a better buy for $39.95. I still wouldn't spend the extra $40 the CX400 costs when it's not on sale It's still only has a single 30A 12v rail compared to the 2x 18A 12v rails of the CM. It's not as efficient, I'll agree. But you can easily spend more money and get a lot less. Pick on the "Garbage" like Cool max or Apevia and other junk like that, please! The one I have runs cool, quiet and my voltages are solid as a rock, even when running Linpack for a couple of hours. It's not the best PSU you can buy, but there are others of higher wattage that aren't even as good. It's capable of delivering over 430w! Not great, but it's not going to burn the house down either. It's what I could afford, at the time I bought it, it was the best buy for my money. It wound up costing me nothing because I sold the 460w that came with my Centurion 534 case for what the 500w cost! Not a bad deal considering my budget, and I'm delighted with the way it works! It does the job, and it does it well!

Respectfully,
Russ

 

It's just a good example of a PSU that isn't as powerful as it says it is. Since the units are so popular, they're easily identifiable.
The coolermaster 500W has a limit of 30A on the 12V rail, the same as the 400W Corsair, but the corsair is not limited to a certain current draw per rail, as there is only one, rendering it the more versatile unit.
There is no comparison between CM/Tt units and the terrible brands, but they stand halfway between them as they are just as guilty of 'over-rating' their units. Annoyingly, newegg change the price on the Corsair every couple of days, but there is usually only $10 in the two units.

 

Sam,
While I do agree with that statement, I don't think anyone is going to have as much potential problems from one like mine. And it's far less likely to be dangerous, as we both are well aware. People don't need to be warned about Cooler Masters, they need to be warned about out and out fraud, and advised that there are better units available, but more so advised about potential and real danger!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Uh oh! I think you guys thought im running the mentioned system on the 400W corsair. NOT the case. The system I mentioned will be ran by the 430W Thermaltake(65% efficiency). And I STILL think it will do it almost easily. Like I said. It never got hot, not even warm. And its seen a great deal of equipment. Remember, a GOOD manufacturer will UNDERRATE there capabilities, NOT overrate LOL! I think that my particular Thermaltake PSU is grossly underrated!!! I do realize now that one could buy better though The 400W corsair for instance.

 

Ah, now that's different. The 430W Thermaltake is actually only a 250W unit.

 

Well...you know what. Its happening. I appreciate, and respect your input. I really do. But this PSU, perhaps not all of this model, is pretty solid. Now im gonna see just how solid. It will be running all of that equipment come Saturday. Possibly friday.

 

Despite how weak it is, the Thermaltake 430W will still easily be able to power that lot.

 

Well if the 430W Thermaltake is only a 250W it's an exceptionally good one. I've used several as replacements for generic systems and they seem quite high quality to me.

 

Oman7,
As it happens, Sam doesn't like Thermaltake either. He used to use my 500w W0093RU as a bad example, before I switched to the CoolerMaster! LOL!! I bought two! One for me and one for oxi. Both still going strong after more than three years, So far, he doesn't like my choice in hard drives, CPUs, Case fans, video cards and power supplies! He didn't like my choice in CPU coolers either, but has changed on that one over the years probably owing to the great success that other people have had with them too. He makes it so obvious that people have actually PM'd me asking if there is anything I buy that he does like? ROFL!! It's all in good fun though! I just think it does a disservice to people with not a lot of money to spend. We have a large gap between what I think is an acceptable compromise between price and quality and what his opinion is. Not a rant or an attack either, just the way things are! LOL!! I see literally hundreds of computers a year with all the repair work I do, and I base some of the opinions I give on what I see. I keep notes on what failed and why, and when someone asks about certain components that I am familiar with, I recommend accordingly. Like PSUs! If it says Bestec on the label, get rid of it! It just might burn your house down. Usually with components that fail spectacularly, they failed in the original design. There's a huge difference between acceptable quality and junk, especially when Junk can kill you, not just hurt your wallet. My PSU says on the label that It's highest sustainable load is 431.7w! I would agree with that. I don't think I could draw that kind of load, even with an overclocked Phenom II 940 in it. In fact I think it would be well short of that load. Today most people that are experiencing high CPU temperatures, even with a good cooler are having case ventilation problems. It's not enough just to remove the heat from the CPU as it doesn't do a lot of good if all that heat isn't being removed efficiently from the case. Then too, modern CPUs don't generate as much heat as they did just a few years ago. my 95w chip doesn't make any more heat than the old 65w E6750 did at idle, and far less under load. While you can push the voltage high enough to make it that hot, if you stay within the voltage range the manufacturer specifies, the temperature rarely goes up more than a degree or two whether overclocked or not!

It's not like I haven't learned anything from Sam either. All my case fans are now 1200 rpm, save one, and it's adjusted to 1200 rpm like the rest. The result is a quieter computer than I had before, in spite of having one more fan, and it cools better. The big bonus for me is that I've yet had to clean the CPU cooler in over 3 months, mainly because I have the CPU cooler sitting in the middle of a veritable wind tunnel, so the dust never lands, it just keeps going right out the back where the highest CFM fan is located. I do have to vacuum the drapes once in a while, because that's where it mostly winds up. better out than in I always say. LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with the units, but electrically it's only a 250W performer. What most people don't realise is that 250W is still actually a lot of power, more than a lot of systems use. A typical gaming system with a Core 2 Duo and 8800GT is unlikely to use any more than 170-180W or so.
While Seagates aren't my favourite brand due to noise and poor reliability in the .12 range, anything earlier is a solid performer as long as you have sufficient cooling to deal with the monstrous heat they put out. As far as I'm concerned, they are no worse than 3rd of the 5 main HDD manufacturers in my book. I still think your choice in case fans is questionable to this day, but then again, few people who use such basic cooling systems tend to care that much about what fans they use. I don't ever remember criticising the Freezer 7 Pro unduly, I owned one as early as January 2007 and still recommend them as the primary cooler for 775 to this day. With regard to video cards it's down to the intended use, people who don't play modern games have no need to buy powerful video cards. The relatively baseless preference for nvidia is not uncommon. At least you can actually state a reason other than the typical "they're just better".