Valhalla Legends Archive

After 15 years of buying PCs, I finally realized that the power supply is at least as important as the motherboard.  Get the highest-rated power supply you can afford.  Antec, Enermax, and a few others are on top.  Have a very very good reason for not doing it if you decide against a top quality power supply.  The importance of steady voltage regulation and heat removal cannot be overemphasized.

Quote from: effect on June 09, 2004, 09:44 PM
Oh really is that what he was doing? i wouldnt of guessed , cause its not like we are at the most flame filled forum there ever was.

doonkoph.

I dont care either way , stick with your crappy chipset and i hope it blows up on you.

*sigh*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipset
Without a chipset your motherboard kind of, well... wouldn't work.

Ok , i see the problem here.. , a mis-understanding ,  around my area if something is a "Chipset" it enevitbally means onboard periphals (Sound , netowork video etc).

which back to my original statement , fucking sucks.

Ok, that makes a hell of a lot more sense

Quote from: Grok on June 09, 2004, 09:48 PM
After 15 years of buying PCs, I finally realized that the power supply is at least as important as the motherboard.  Get the highest-rated power supply you can afford.  Antec, Enermax, and a few others are on top.  Have a very very good reason for not doing it if you decide against a top quality power supply.  The importance of steady voltage regulation and heat removal cannot be overemphasized.

Quote
Power Supply:
- 450Watt P4 Ready & AMD Approved

That's all it says about the power supply that comes with the case I'm ordering. Should I be safe and buy another power supply seperate, or just go with that one?

Quote from: Eli_1 on June 09, 2004, 10:02 PM

Quote from: Grok on June 09, 2004, 09:48 PM
After 15 years of buying PCs, I finally realized that the power supply is at least as important as the motherboard.  Get the highest-rated power supply you can afford.  Antec, Enermax, and a few others are on top.  Have a very very good reason for not doing it if you decide against a top quality power supply.  The importance of steady voltage regulation and heat removal cannot be overemphasized.

Quote
Power Supply:
- 450Watt P4 Ready & AMD Approved

That's all it says about the power supply that comes with the case I'm ordering. Should I be safe and buy another power supply seperate, or just go with that one?

Who makes the case? If its a thermal take or aspire case there is your power supply manufacturer. 450 and it works with amd and intel, sounds fine to me.

Overclocking on intel and amd
AMD traditionally has a reputation of running hotter then an intel processor, but that is not quite the truth anymore.  From what i have heard amd is better to oc on these days.  To oc an intl you have to incriment the front side bus, which will increase the load on all of the hardware includeing the ram, video card, and hard drives, a great deal. If any part lags it is going to cause instability and possibly errors. However amd can overclock with cpu ration (which is locked on almost all northwood intel processors to my knowledge) so it will not strain the rest of the pc when you jack up the clock speed a bit. The disadvantage to over clocking on an amd is amd does not down clock with the temerature. Many motherboards will down clock it with their thermal sensor, but it is not built into the processor so getting a little hot could damage the processor. Intel will downclock and eventually the system will freeze or shut down if the heat is too great (watch the videos of them taking of cpu fans on tomshardware.com). That is just my perspective as an intel use. I have a p4 2.6 800mhz fsb w/ ht running a 3.4 right now, generally I use dynamic over clocking though.

If I am wrong about any of this anyone, please correct me, that is just how I have come to understand it. Hope this comparison makes your decision between processors a little easier.

Power Supplies wise, for the most part you don't want stock.

Get Enermax if you can, but Antec will suffice (they're pretty damn good.)

Eli:  I didn't contradict myself at all.  I advised you to get a dual channel mobo, and to get AMD.
There are plenty of dual-channel supporting mobos.
Please do some research before you disregard someones opinion.  Below are the major manufacturer's and their respective DUAL CHANNEL SUPPORTING mobos.
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=9842&vpn=NF7-S&manufacture=ABIT
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=11124&vpn=A7N8X-E&manufacture=ASUS
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=11304&vpn=INFINITY-NFORCE2&manufacture=DFI
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=10573&vpn=L7S7A2&manufacture=ELITEGROUP
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=9970&vpn=GA-7N400PRO2&manufacture=GIGABYTE
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=10262&vpn=MS-6570-030&manufacture=MICROSTAR

Check those out.
Thanks.
Cheers.

Quote from: Eli_1 on June 09, 2004, 09:28 PM
... And the price tag seems reasonable. I've never built a computer before, $116 for a motherboard like that isn't a bad deal is it?

Most people I know try to keep the motherboard+cpu under $200 when making their own computer.

Quote from: cefx- on June 10, 2004, 07:54 AM
Eli:  I didn't contradict myself at all.  I advised you to get a dual channel mobo, and to get AMD.
There are plenty of dual-channel supporting mobos.
Please do some research before you disregard someones opinion.  

I don't wanna get into this too much, but I said that because I gave you guys two specific motherboards to choose from, and tell me which one you think is better. One of the motherboards supports dual channel memory but not an AMD processor, the other supports AMD processors but not dual channel memory.

Thanks everyone for all of your input.

Quote from: cefx- on June 10, 2004, 07:54 AM
Power Supplies wise, for the most part you don't want stock.

Just because it comes with the case does not make it a bad brand. Mine is stock and its enermax, thats what came with my case. Like I said if the case maker is antec, thermal tak, or aspire you should be getting a pretty decent power supply.

Quote from: j0k3r on June 10, 2004, 08:15 AM

Quote from: Eli_1 on June 09, 2004, 09:28 PM
... And the price tag seems reasonable. I've never built a computer before, $116 for a motherboard like that isn't a bad deal is it?

Most people I know try to keep the motherboard+cpu under $200 when making their own computer.

Which is only really possible with amd, If you want a nice intel it will run you atleast 150 and a good 50 doller motherboard can be hard to find. You can get a good amd for around 100. But I am an intel man, I throw in the extra cash. But depending on the prices of the dual cored opteron processors coming out later this year I might be tempted to switch. But you know amd will sell those for an arm and a leg.

Quote from: peofeoknight on June 10, 2004, 12:37 PM

Quote from: cefx- on June 10, 2004, 07:54 AM
Power Supplies wise, for the most part you don't want stock.

Just because it comes with the case does not make it a bad brand. Mine is stock and its enermax, thats what came with my case. Like I said if the case maker is antec, thermal tak, or aspire you should be getting a pretty decent power supply.

But it is not enough to say, as you said earlier, "450 and it works with intel, sounds fine with me".  I can put a crap 450 power supply in a case and say it works with Intel, that would not be fine with you.

The major point here being -- pay as much attention to the power supply as you do to your motherboard, to your CPU, to your memory.  You'll probably have your case and power supply years after you retire the other components.  If the PSU feeds poorly regulated voltages into your motherboard and peripherals, those components will die sooner than you expect.

But it seems kind of foolish to go out and buy the power supply at best buy that has the 3 led fans in it and a strobe light. A power supply is a power supply is a power supply, something that is not fancy does not neccessarily spell poor quality. Many cases come with power supplys by decent companies, just check that out first before you buy the psu separate. Make sure the power supply is by aspire, thermal take, enermax, vantec, antec, zalman, and possibly coolmax. Those companies can make a pretty decent quality psu.

Quote from: peofeoknight on June 10, 2004, 08:20 PM
But it seems kind of foolish to go out and buy the power supply at best buy that has the 3 led fans in it and a strobe light. A power supply is a power supply with power supplys by decent companies, just check is a power supply, something that is not fancy does not neccessarily spell poor quality. Many cases come that out first before you buy the psu separate. Make sure the power supply is by aspire, thermal take, enermax, vantec, antec, zalman, and possibly coolmax. Those companies can make a pretty decent quality psu.

But the fact that it has 3 LED fans doesn't make it bad quality either, does it? Because the one I'm looking at in the side of this case has 3 purple LED lights.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-145-038&depa=1

Quote from: peofeoknight on June 10, 2004, 08:20 PM
But it seems kind of foolish to go out and buy the power supply at best buy that has the 3 led fans in it and a strobe light. A power supply is a power supply is a power supply, something that is not fancy does not neccessarily spell poor quality. Many cases come with power supplys by decent companies, just check that out first before you buy the psu separate. Make sure the power supply is by aspire, thermal take, enermax, vantec, antec, zalman, and possibly coolmax. Those companies can make a pretty decent quality psu.

I'm pretty sure neither myself nor Hostile has been stressing PSU strobe lights.  We clearly indicated the power supply should be selected on voltage regulation stability and cooling capability.  Quietness is another factor, especially if you are a gamer.  But blue lights on a power supply is not one of our criterion.