FreoHeaveho

Hi guys

I am currently looking at purchasing the following:

1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo E4300 £95.95
Gigabyte GA-945PL-S3 £45.81
2 x 512MB Corsair PC2-4200 £53.50
Connect3D Raedon X1900GT £99.95
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro £11.69
430W Seasonic S12-430 £44.64
Windows Vista Home £79.80

However I cannot find the Connect3D Raedon X1900GT at www.scan.com or anywhere else. Can someone suggest an alternative that will work with Vista for the £100 price range? Also, can you have a look and suggest if there is any other hardware that would be better for the quoted prices?

thank you

smz

have you explored the Nvidia line of products for starters?
I'm in the USA so currency isn't translated in my brain on the spot.

I might add since you are building a new machine that you go a little higher than the 430w PSU. You may barely have the juice to drive it and will be limited from that pint on.. Consider a 500 minimum and perhaps a bit larger. Any reason why you're only going for PC-4200 ram? The core 2 duo can easily do 800+mhz.
Also using a Intel 945 chipset based motherboard is generally not 100% supported without limitations with the core duo. Consider another boad. Gigabyte makes good boards, but find a 965 or 975 or even Nvidia.

dai

you need a larger psu

FreoHeaveho

Thanks for the replies guys. I have ordered this now:

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 u 1 £13.99
Gigabyte GA 945PL-S3, i945PL, S775, 1 £38.99
1GB (2x512MB) Corsair Value Select, 1 £45.53
256MB XFX 7900GS PCI-E (x16), Mem 1 1 £86.50
430w Seasonic S12-430 aPFC PSU Sile 1 £37.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premiu 1 £59.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, Socket 775, 1 £88.95

I cannot really afford much more. In terms of the PSU Dai, I am building a system that is found in the latest "Custom PC" magazine - May 2007. It states that "...Seasonic has contiually impressed us with its PSU;s in our lab and this 430W model will happily supply more than enough power to our 256MB XFX 7900GS GPU and overclocked Core 2 processor, as well as all the other components, without eating too much electricty. On top of all this ,it's quiet."

I respect and value your guy opinion, unfortunately its too late. Thanks though! (had to purchase v quickly).

wish me luck.

Just on that note of the PSU, I have been running a 2.8Ghz P4, AGP 6200 256Mb, 1.5GB RAM, 2 300Gb hard drives, and much more considering the 12 USB ports I have on my current system, all on a 200W PSU, with no problems. I must just be lucky. Thanks again!

TheMatt

Looks good. What graphics did you go with?

FreoHeaveho

thanks mate

256MB XFX 7900GS PCI-E (x16)

smz

WOW, they talk about overclocking in that environment? Seasonic maybe a quality supply but lets face it, it only has 430w... The real killer here is you XFX 7900GS GPU video card. If you were on a tight budget, I would have dropped the video card down the next level or two and opted for a higher Supply. $20 usa more for a 965 chipset on the board and if you expect Overclocking which I hope you don't. I don't know anything about the Artic Cooling Freezer 7, but Even though you bought Corsair Ram, it is "Value Select Series" generally not made for Overclocking and if you do, you will either find limitations or have to raise it's timings a lot.

But if you were in a rush, so be it. We respect the decision you made, just personally if you have too much for this system to handle or start having stability issues, you may have to start eying another PSu for starters. For your own sake and possible major problems, I WOULD NOT OVERCLOCK this. The 945 chipset is Weak for the core 2 duo... It was designed for the P4 and some how was bridged into some compatibility with the Core Duo. Many motherboards I've reviewed with 945 chipsets have a maximum FSB limitation of 800fsb. I hope yours is not one. This is a hardware limitation of the 945 chipset used in these particular motherboards and a bios update will not fix a hardware limitation. Lets hope this 945 chipset is a later rev (if they made one) and isn't affected by this limitation. Though you are using the entry level Core Duo which may not even utilize the 1066fsb needed by the E6xxx cpus.

Good Luck with the project though. I Hope it works out for you.

TheMatt

I would have personally gone with the Antec TP-3 Trio 550 w. That would have had enough juice for that system.

FreoHeaveho

Appreciate the input boys, not planning on overclocking and the cpu is 800 fsb anyway. Lets face it also, I have a reasoable gaming machine that is light years ahead of what I presently have, all for much cheaper than what you can purchase in a complete version (i.e from dell or whoever).

travelling Eurpope, so gotta keep things on a more than usually tight budget.. cheers again

FreoHeaveho

All respect to Dai, Matty and SMZ! I have rethought what you guys are saying and do consider you guys to be very knowledgable, so I have decided to change my order to the Corsair 520W PSU. I used the calculator and it said 479W will be required, so I think the 520 should be enough. Pushing my budget now, so I think I will have to go with that. Thanks again boys!

smz

Glad you took our advise though 520 is still cutting it a little tight. These guys in here have a lot more knowledge about the quality of particular supplies though corsair is a great name for memory. Just try not to overkill the system. You don't have much room to play with with a 40w difference of minimum requirements vs what you bought. I hope the 520 is it's true output. Like I said these guys in here know there power supplies and many supplies claim a certain spec but fail to meet up to them. When looking at the price of a PSu that is generally going to contribute to it's performance based on it's specs claim.

At least you made a step in the right direction. I hope it's enough.

FreoHeaveho

Thanks SMZ, well if anyone has a good PSU that they wish to sell for on or around £70 in London let me know!! thanks!!

FreoHeaveho

now you guys I am really labouring over the PSU!!!! I am glad though, because now I realise that I was making a mistake (sorry again Dai)!

What do you think of this

OCZ Power Supply PSU 600 Watt / 600W / 600-Watt SLI

thanks!

floydfan

umm... smz, your psu is 25 dollars, i would worry about your psu with the system you have way before worrying about bigfella's 430w, its not the wattage thats important... that corsair 520w psu is excellent, and i would even take it over the 600w ocz, because ocz's design is based on fsp's epsilon, which has issues with high ripple. that psu calculator, by the way, grossly overestimates system requirments.

smz

My power's clean. Though at the same time, I would buy Corsair before anything from OCZ. But let's face it, I bought the supply I have as a quick temporary solution and it just so happens to drive more then I have to throw at it. I did buy it brand new you know. But since I spent a mear $18, i expected to have to fork out alot more. But as it goes, not only did this supply I have drive a barebones Core 2 Duo with one Drive, but I added 2 SATA 7200 drives, a 7600GT Video Card and an internal SATA DVDRW and not a difference in stability.

Regaredless, he isn't buying a 430 supply as a temp replacement. He's spending a fair share of money on a supply that actually will be acting as a temp replacement. Also note, I admitted my lack of knowledge as far as quality of power supplies, but facts are facts. If the guy needs 479 according to the calculater and you have to give it a reasonable margin of error, the 40w leeway isn't much. But saying you'd take something else over the OCZ is because of your knowledge of quality. And from what I know about their ram, they lack quality.

TheMatt

Floyd, I have continually noticed that the PSU calculator underestimates the requirements. It it will often put in less than 650 w even after the additional 30% on a system with a Core 2 Duo E6600, a high end motherboard, and an 8800GTX when a PSU for that system should be 750+ w. The Corsair 520 w should do fine since you won't have many disk drives, but the OCZ would be a good option as well.

floydfan

you dont need a 650w system for even most high end systems... the most power hungry setup you can think of will draw about 550w from the wall, and that is with two fx74 cpus, the crazy 680i chipset and two 8800gtx in sli. the calculator certainly does overestimate, because it makes alot of erroneous assumptions when coming up with its wattages. consider this, while amd might rate a cpu at 89w, rarely will amd make a cpu in that range that actually consumes 89w. its just a ceiling figure, most cpus will be a good deal lower. add to that, is the fact that prime95 is pretty much the only way to actually come close to whatever its tdp is. cpus pretty much never get fully stressed. add other components to that, and also consider this: when is every single hard drive, cd-rom drive, video card, ram, mobo, and cpu stressed fully at the same time? obviously never... in reality, that system will consume around 250w max from the wall, ofcourse it certainly doesnt hurt having more power than needed, the psu is under much less stress, but theres no reason to go overboard either.

FreoHeaveho

Lots of healthy debate here guys. Thanks for you input, it seems that PSU's are a source of confusion even for experienced and knowledgable enthusiasts. I probably will stick with the Corsair, as to be honest, Floyd's logic makes sense. I will be changing the order through scan.co.uk, tomorrow, so if anyone else has some suggestions, or great offers, please let me know.

Cheers for ALL the advice guys!

FreoHeaveho

Ok guys I have been thinking more, sorry for the randomness of this thread, however I would love it if you guys could check there are no glaring issues with this:

LN13080 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 up to 4.4GHz - S775 Dual Core / Core2Duo Ready £13.99
LN16656 256MB XFX 7900GS PCI-E (x16), Mem 1320 MHz, GPU 450 MHz, 20 Pipes, Dual DVI/HDTV £86.50
LN17167 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32Bit 1Pk OEM (DVD) £59.99
LN15047 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, Socket 775, 1.86 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache, Retail £93.43
LN15216 520W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU, ATX, EPS12V, whisper quiet, 5 year warranty £58.52
LN15258 Gigabyte GA 965P-S3 iP965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £55.00
LN10408 1GB (2x512MB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £59.64


If all is well, I think this set up will suit me fine!

smz

Well I be happy to tell you that the slight CPU upgrade is a BIG difference. That's darn good memory if not some of the best you can buy. You already got our approval on the video card. Your smartest decision was picking up that gigabyte 965. That board is one of the few that is Quad Core Ready, that's right, when those Quads come down ALOT, you don't have to worry about upgrading anything but the chip, probably a bios flash, and perhaps the cooler. That board has 4 total memory slots so nothing is wasted there for the future. And if I had to choose 1 of the 3 power supplies you listed, I would have to go with the corsair myself. All in all, you were very smart for seeking help and not being too stubborn about taking our input and criticisms. You got suggestions from people with different views on your configuration. In the long run you are going to me much happier. You bought gaming ram for one and a board built for the future. The CPU is cheap enough where even replacing it in a couple years isn't that costly.

I'll give you 1.5 Thumbs up out of 2 (Only because I don't think you have that much room for expansion) But, that rating is pretty good considering what your first configuration looked like. If you aren't looking to expand greatly like multiple dvd readers and writers along with internal raid hard drives, I think you'll be able to pull this off, I'm sure with the Corsair, you will get a true 520 out of it. I wouldn't have trusted that OCZ if you paid me. I have to guess the 965 intel chipset is going to be much more efficient then the 945. I won't get into the details, but I've seen people get that CPU you ordered up to near 4000mhz per core for a total of 8ghz. Don't try this on your system but just know you've got alot to work with. Plus you get the benefit of the 1066fsb.

The only thing I would say I got some slight jealousy of is your video card.. But i'm not a gamer so the 7600GT was actually overkill for me. All I wanted was something adequate with DVI support and dedicated ram.

Have lots and lots of fun!