Help me to get a proper rated PSU

[Castout]

I'm going to buy a few components which I haven't changed since my last new build.

In the end the system will be

Intel i7 2600 CPU
NVidia GTX 560 Ti
6 Gb DDR3 RAM
1 Tb HDD 7200rpm
1 DVD-RW optical drive
Gigabyte Ultra Durable 3 motherboard
1 External HDD to power from time to time
1 Mic and headphone to power

And I'm thinking to get a 850 Watt good PSU. Would that be good enough?

Should I get an additional 2Gb DDR3 RAM?

[the_tyrant]

i believe 600w should be more than enough

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/
check it out, its a psu calculator

[Skybird]

i believe 600w should be more than enough


That ^. I got a 750W just because it was the same price than their 600W.

And 6 or 8 GB RAM depends on whether your mainboard supports dual or triple channel.

[Castout]

Thanks My mobo supports dual channel. So does that mean I'm better off with even number of RAM stick?

As for the PSU I always aim a tad high because you need to put in the power factor of 0.8 and I'd like a stable power fed in. Higher power rating usually mean longer lasting PSU in general to my understanding.

I had had a horrible experience where my GPU was fried because the PSU failed. I was advised then to buy a local PSU and though it was rated a 700+W PSU it failed after 2 weeks. The main culprit was the total war game I played. So I only buy proper well known PSU now and with higher rating than what I need.

[Skybird]

Thanks My mobo supports dual channel. So does that mean I'm better off with even number of RAM stick?

As for the PSU I always aim a tad high because you need to put in the power factor of 0.8 and I'd like a stable power fed in. Higher power rating usually mean longer lasting PSU in general to my understanding.

I had had a horrible experience where my GPU was fried because the PSU failed. I was advised then to buy a local PSU and though it was rated a 700+W PSU it failed after 2 weeks. The main culprit was the total war game I played. So I only buy proper well known PSU now and with higher rating than what I need.
Dual channel always: 2x or 4x RAM-Bar. These today have 2 or 4 GB per bar.

So with dual channel you either have 4, 8 or 16 RAM

RAM is cheap. Take 8 GB, therefore. I planned for 4 initially, but now I'm happy I did not make that a gospel. I took 8.

[Castout]

Yeah I will add another stick to make it 8.

It seems I have been mistaken about the CPU. I will be getting either i7 880 or i7 875K. It's the socket.
picked me a LGA1156 mobo and I didn't know better.

I can live with either i7 875K or 880. I assume 880 price has come down to reasonable value. If not I'll settle with 875K.

[Castout]

No i7 8 series available in stock :damn:.

I have decided to buy a whole new motherboard to go with i7 2600 rather than buying for socket LGA1366 i7 and mobo. The vendor picked me LGA1156 socket in December. Damn the guy for wasting my money. I was without internet so I couldn't research before buying. Well there's the cellphone but internet on cell is just yuck.
Any advice? I'll definitely buy Gigabyte's ultra durable series but I'm not sure which is the best for my setup.

So it will be

i7 2600
4x 2Gb DDR3
1 Tb 7200 rpm HDD
GTX 560 Ti 1Gb
850 W PSU

And

Gigabyte's ultra durable LGA1155 socket motherboard but which one would be best for my setup.

I'm ill equipped to understand motherboard.

Any advice is appreciated. I intend to upgrade the GPU about 3 years into the life. Maybe the memory too if needed. I only need to run Shogun 2 Total War and Arma 2 Combined Operation flawlessly currently. It doesn't need to run at the highest setting.

[Arclight]

Jeesh, er... anything with a P67 chipset, basically. Unless you want to use the onboard GPU of the new Sandy Bridge CPUs, in which case you want H67 chipset.

Beyond that you'll need to compare features and see which one satisfies your needs.


*and of course consider the brand of the PSU. Crappy 750W is no better than a good 500W one, not too mention it's more likely to damage your system.

[Castout]

Jeesh, er... anything with a P67 chipset, basically. Unless you want to use the onboard GPU of the new Sandy Bridge CPUs, in which case you want H67 chipset.

Beyond that you'll need to compare features and see which one satisfies your needs.


*and of course consider the brand of the PSU. Crappy 750W is no better than a good 500W one, not too mention it's more likely to damage your system.

Thanks Yeah I trust Enlight for my PSU. I realize it's not well known in the US but it has made a name here.

I'll keep the H67 in mind, won't need them but I'll check them out anyway. Thanks

[Castout]

Umm one more thing it's kind of stupid probably but If I use H67 my GTX 560 will still work fine right?

H67 is cheaper than P67 mobo!

Is there any drawback of using both integrated graphics from the CPU and GPU both at the same time?


Edit:

All B3 chipset LGA 1155 motherboard hasn't even arrived. The B2 is a defective product. I'm postponing changing the motherboard and CPU for a couple months until the B3 mobos are stocked.

So all those i7 2600 and any LGA1155 users may be using a defective mobo out there without realizing it.

[Arclight]

No, everyone knows it. Was a big recall by Intel. Think all manufacturers got reimbursed for the callbacks.

I can't tell you much about Sandy Bridge, will have to read up on that. But normal onboard GPUs don't interfere with dedicated graphics cards normally, so I think it will work. Boards with integrated graphics are usually targeted at lower end users: you'll probably notice that the cheaper H67 boards have less features than the more expensive P67 boards.

I'd avoid it though. Onboard graphics on a gaming system is absolutely useless imo.

[Castout]

Thanks B2 LG1155 motherboards are still WIDELY sold here :damn:. There's even not a single B3 motherboard on the market.

No one is going to tell you they are defective.

[Skybird]

i5 2500 is better value for the money and more bang for the buck than i7 2600 ;) Consider if those minimal performance increases are really worth the much higher price! ;) In all hardware tests I looked at in German sites, the 2500 gets recommended to be preferred over the 2600, for that reason.

http://images.tecchannel.de/images/tecchannel/bdb/2141445/97065266F00D12A4749FB78B4D738A5D_800x600.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:window.close();)



http://www.tecchannel.de/_misc/galleries/detail.cfm?pk=33150&fk=2141445


click on the graphic in the article to increase it, and then wade through 28 more graphs.

The two CPUs are almost identical in performance. Don'T throw away your money. The money you save here you can use for an external HD, for example.

[Castout]

In my knowledge i5 2500 doesn't come with hyper threading. Yes you do get 4 physical cores but no HT.

But the graphs is astounding those i5 2500s are really fast huh.

I've taken a look at the price of i7 2600. Imo it's worth having the extra threads. It's about 300 bucks here. Arma 2 and Shogun 2 and Empire or Napoleon could make use of those. Better still it looks like I'll be postponing buying the CPU an motherboard altogether for a few months until B3 motherboards are fully stocked. All more time to save.

I know buying 4 cores 8 thread CPU is not much useful if it's just running daily chores but the games which I play however few could make use of those threads :DL

[Arclight]

Just grab a 760 and clock it to 3.4GHz, done. :yep:

* and hyperthreading is more likely to cause lesser performance in games, than an increase.

[Skybird]

In my knowledge i5 2500 doesn't come with hyper threading. Yes you do get 4 physical cores but no HT.

But the graphs is astounding those i5 2500s are really fast huh.

I've taken a look at the price of i7 2600. Imo it's worth having the extra threads. It's about 300 bucks here. Arma 2 and Shogun 2 and Empire or Napoleon could make use of those. Better still it looks like I'll be postponing buying the CPU an motherboard altogether for a few months until B3 motherboards are fully stocked. All more time to save.

I know buying 4 cores 8 thread CPU is not much useful if it's just running daily chores but the games which I play however few could make use of those threads :DL
Check the later graphs where they tested for example Crysis. The difference is smaller than you think.

It does not matter whether or not you have this feature or that gimmick abpoard. The difference it makes - or not - for the overtall performance is what counts. And is the additional minimal gain worth 100 euros? In some tests in those graphs the two CPU scored even identical! Does the 2500 really need HT then?

[Castout]

Just grab a 760 and clock it to 3.4GHz, done. :yep:

* and hyperthreading is more likely to cause lesser performance in games, than an increase.

I'd settle for i7 880 or i7 875K or i7 870 but there's no stock of either. It means I have to buya new motherboard and I'd choose LGA 1155 socket than the older LGA 1366.

Check the later graphs where they tested for example Crysis. The difference is smaller than you think.

It does not matter whether or not you have this feature or that gimmick abpoard. The difference it makes - or not - for the overtall performance is what counts. And is the additional minimal gain worth 100 euros? In some tests in those graphs the two CPU scored even identical! Does the 2500 really need HT then?

To my understanding Crysis is not actually a heavy CPU hitter. If they used Combined Operation for the test it would be another matter. A lot of graphs would mean little unless the test is done under circumstances that would make use all the i7 2600 threads. Combined Operation would make use of all 7 threads leaving the remaining one for background task and operating system. Now test with that under significant number of AI and action and I bet there will be a big difference between the four core no HT i5 2500 and the four cores 8 HT i7 2600 because in the i5 2500, 3 core would be utilized for the game while in i72600 7 thread would.

As it is I'm aware there's so few games that actually take advantage or need of i7 full power(7 thread for application).

But in the end I haven't put off the idea of getting i5 2500 than getting i7 2600. If the difference in price is huge why not. It's not like I have to decide right away. It will need some time for the B3 motherboards to be fully stocked. Wiki states by April but I doubt that it will probably take at least another month or even 2 here. And if I'm happy with Shogun 2 performance with the new GPU I will probably postpone getting a new mobo and CPU until a year in the future.

[the_tyrant]

Have you checked the xeon 3xxx?
You don't need a new motherboard, and they pack great bang per watt

[Skybird]

To my understanding Crysis is not actually a heavy CPU hitter. If they used Combined Operation for the test it would be another matter. A lot of graphs would mean little unless the test is done under circumstances that would make use all the i7 2600 threads.

Well, then look at other benchmark tests, or the ones included in my link, which are more about typical CPU load. In most of these you do not see huge differences. But if you wait naother couple of months, then you could be right, prices chnage from week to week in this business, and it could very well be that the difference in bucks becomes so small that it becomes irrelevant.

[Castout]

Have you checked the xeon 3xxx?
You don't need a new motherboard, and they pack great bang per watt

Yeah only I'd like to keep my PC as cool as possible and I don't think my mobo is designed for AMD CPU. It's a P55 motherboard.

Well, then look at other benchmark tests, or the ones included in my link, which are more about typical CPU load. In most of these you do not see huge differences. But if you wait naother couple of months, then you could be right, prices chnage from week to week in this business, and it could very well be that the difference in bucks becomes so small that it becomes irrelevant.

The two most important test graph in the link you provide are these two:
You won't see any difference or significant advantage between i5 2500 and i7 2600 unless you test for all threads and all cores to get utilized. I know this because I played ArmA 2 from time to time and experienced significant improvement from my CPU from a Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz to an i5 2 core 4 thread 3.33GHz with the same GPU. :yep:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v319/roh_kudus/246C9E1E7170B584C3608550F2956F19_800x600.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v319/roh_kudus/90580EF17FAC355310E619C0FDC1DDB6_800x600.jpg

[the_tyrant]

Yeah only I'd like to keep my PC as cool as possible and I don't think my mobo is designed for AMD CPU. It's a P55 motherboard.


Ahh, you've mistaken
I'm talking about these:http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?series=42926

Just got a Xeon 5620

I can under volt if i want extra low energy consumption.
Its power consumption is 80w at original voltage. While at the same time its performance is probably better than the similar core i7 920 at 130w

Xeons are quite hard to get, but if you get one within your price range, I will definitely recommend one

[Castout]

Ahh, you've mistaken
I'm talking about these:http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?series=42926

Just got a Xeon 5620

I can under volt if i want extra low energy consumption.
Its power consumption is 80w at original voltage. While at the same time its performance is probably better than the similar core i7 920 at 130w

Xeons are quite hard to get, but if you get one within your price range, I will definitely recommend one


hey thanks didn't know it exist lol. Thanks appreciate the information very much I'll start asking whether they've got that in stock.

[Castout]

No stock..again at least not the 3Ghz one that I wanted the nearest alternative was so far away down the range.

[Arclight]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v319/roh_kudus/246C9E1E7170B584C3608550F2956F19_800x600.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v319/roh_kudus/90580EF17FAC355310E619C0FDC1DDB6_800x600.jpg
As far as I know, those graphs represent rendering time on CPU alone. Games use the card for rendering. Don't think those are valid when it comes to gaming performance. :hmmm:

I have an "old" C2Q running at 3.4GHz. I can assure you A2 does not even come close to using alll that power. I saw more improvement going from 8800GTS512 to GTX460, than from C2D to C2Q.

Think you might be misleading yourself.