Power Supplies

[McBainUK]

The S12 range is excellent. Good luck with your build.

[Ted the Penguin]

hey, sorry, the reason for the lack of an answer is well, I really dont have any great evidence, the enermax ones seem to do well in the THG tests, but the seasonics seem to do better. I have honestly never owned either of these brands

When I last upgraded my computer I did it on a shoestring budget, aka I got the cheapest stuff I could and made everything work anyways, because I needed to get out of the tiny ASUS T2-P that I had been using as my main rig. I needed a real case, so I got a (kinda) cheap PSU (it was recent, but modular PSUs have been pretty scarce until recently) and a cheap mobo, and a case I friggn love (red aluminum, soo light), but it was cheap as well. dont know if I am gonna keep the PSU or not

but I know that I am going to get a seasonic for when I upgrade my file server

anyways, that modular seasonic (aside from being the only one in stock) should be fine for you 550 should be more than enough for most stuff short of some of the last netburst pentiums paired with a high end PCIE graphics card (or two), but if you are worried about comsumption, list all of your parts (I say this at the risk of reading back and seeing the list already) and I will let you know what I think.

parenthesis are awesome:p

[Fatawan]

http://www.jonnyguru.com The best power supply reviews out there.

[stangdaman]

Well here is what I have right now for my system.

Case: Thermaltake Mozart HTPC Case
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...CatId=1507

Mobo: MSI K9N Platinum Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813130049

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+ 2.2 GHZ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819103741

By the way I ordered this from newegg on monday it got here on tuesday from california. (I live in Vermont you don't get to travel much further then that in the US) I ordered my video card from tigerdirect and just got the e-mail it was shipping today. Way to go newegg.

Video card: XFX GeForce 7600 GS 256MB PCIe w/Dual DVI (this was $69.99 with MIR from tigerdirect I thought that was a pretty good deal)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...CatId=1558

Things I haven't purchased yet but will:

Well Obviously the power supply

Tuner Cards: two Hauppague PVR-150s (Circuit City has these for something like $60 right now but I just can't bring myself to buy anything from them after my last encounter with them. We'll see. I'll probably break down because that's a pretty good deal.)

RAM:Haven't decided how much yet or what kind because the system can take up to 8 gig but I think that's a little overkill and to be honest I don't know what kind of RAM to get for this mobo.

Sound Card: I haven't decided whether to get one or to just use the onboard audio.

Oh and I need to get an OS. I haven't decided whether to get MCE and try it out along side GBPVR or to just get XP Home or something like that. GBPVR won't work with Linux will it? I was at the tech library at work yesterday looking at Linux and itching to try something new but I should probably pace myself.

I may replace the case fans on the system and the cpu fan that comes with the AMD Processor but those will have to come later as I'm already way over budget.

Alright well I'm probably forgetting something here but I'm not sure what at the moment. I think that's just about it.

I used all the parenthesis for you by the way Ted.

[Ted the Penguin]

after taking a look 550W will be perfectly fine for you, there will be plenty of extra power.

on a side note, I rather dislike tiger direct, their rebates take forever and it just doesnt seem as friendly to me as newegg, and their site is not nearly as good.

RAM:Haven't decided how much yet or what kind because the system can take up to 8 gig but I think that's a little overkill and to be honest I don't know what kind of RAM to get for this mobo.

your mobo takes DDR2, I would suggest 2GB, but that will put you waay over, a 1GB stick should be fine to start, I would suggest getting it at DDR2 800 speed, but if your memory performance concerns you that much, you could get 2 512MB sticks, so its dual channel, but honestly it wont make a huge difference

Sound Card: I haven't decided whether to get one or to just use the onboard audio.

well there is an easy solution. use the onboard sound, if you dont like it get an x-fi. :p

Oh and I need to get an OS. I haven't decided whether to get MCE and try it out along side GBPVR or to just get XP Home or something like that. GBPVR won't work with Linux will it? I was at the tech library at work yesterday looking at Linux and itching to try something new but I should probably pace myself.

I would just say MCE anyways, because its pro, + some stuff. but thats me, and I am a power user, so I want the flexibility of having the whole operating system (home locks some stuff out).

Alright well I'm probably forgetting something here but I'm not sure what at the moment. I think that's just about it.

hard drives, optical drive... social security number, address, mothers maiden name :p

I used all the parenthesis for you by the way Ted.

<3 lol, I was just making the comment to mock myself for using them so much

[stangdaman]

With the RAM I knew it was DDR2. Most of the time when I go looking for RAM for my current PC for instance I go looking for PC2100 or 2700 I guess I just don't know what that translates to. It has to do with the speed of the RAM right? Am I just completely off base as far as the number I'm looking for?

[Ted the Penguin]

really easy one for you, go to newegg, desktop memory, click on the speed dropdown, it has values for the frequency (DDR 333) that match the PC whatever number (PC2700), DDR2 533 or 667 is probably what you want, dont get DDR2 400, but there isnt much of it out there, so you wont be tempted

[stangdaman]

yeah that's cool. I was just using PC2700 as an example. My current PC is maxed out at 1gig I was just curious as to what that number means exactly. I'll look that up though.

[Ted the Penguin]

ah ha, so I got curious as to what the hell the PC-XXXX numbers mean, maximum data throughput on a 64-bit channel, so 400MHz x 8 bytes = 3200MB/s. woo, they actually have meaning, however, that throughput is theoretical, you will never actually achieve that as there will always be some processing delay

[stangdaman]

Where did you find that? I looked all over for it. I saw a few places that explained that pc3200 was 400mhz or pc6400 was 800 etc. but nowhere that explained exactly why. Thanks I was really curious about that.