Hi kids. Ive been on here long enough to know some stuff, but power supplies has always been up for debate (exactly how much power does one need?).

Im going to throw together a mid-range gaming PC and need to get an idea of how much power I need. Adding it up myself I came up with about 500w and have been looking at these two:


Mushkin 550200 550w ATX P/S - $84.99

Enermax Liberty ELT500AWT ATX 500W - $114.99


My only real requirements are that it has enough power, and is modular, because I am awful at cable management. The rest of my tentative specs look like:


2 GB RAM
Intel C2D
Possibly 2 8600 series cards
Audigy
1 Optical Drive
1 or 2 hard drives


Your help is appreciated.


C

550w will handle it more than fine and a 500w will do just as good. In my opinion go with the Mushkin It's cheaper, has more watts and I've always liked Mushkin PSU's. There good quality stuff.

Mushkin quality hands down!!!

I'd have to advise against 8600GT SLI if that is what you are thinking... a single 8800 card would be better... if you want to drive three/four monitors, then fair enough...

I'm going to agree, an 8800 would be better.

well i was thinking of going with a single 8600 and pairing it up in a year when it cant play new games at a good clip anymore.


So far the build looks like:

Case
LIAN LI PC-61 ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $109.99

Power Supply
Mushkin 550200 550w ATX P/S - $84.99

Motherboard
MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 nForce 650i SLI ATX Motherboard - $144.99 - $20MIR = $124.99

Processor
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz 4MB L2 Cache - $174.99

Memory
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $144.99

Graphics Card
BFG BFGE86256GTOC2FE GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI - $187.99 - $60MIR = $127.99

Sound Card
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio VARPAK 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express - $49.99

Optical 1
SAMSUNG Black 20X 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner - $30.99

Hard Drive
Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 - $184.99 - $15MIR = $169.99

WLAN Card
EDIMAX EW-7728In IEEE 802.11b/ 802.11g/802.11n D2.0 32-bit PCI Wireless 802.11n D2.0 PCI - $59.99

Heatsink
AeroCool HT102 92mm Sleeve CPU Cooler - 40.99

Heatsink Fans
2x VANTEC SF9225L 92mm Case Fan - $7.99 ea.

Case Fans
3 x VANTEC TF8025 80mm Case Fan - $7.49 ea.

Keyboard - Undecided

Mouse - Undecided

Speakers
SENNHEISER PC151 3.5mm Connector Circumaural Headset - $34.99


Whatcha guys think?


C

Get a 8800gtx and a E6750 and your in good shape

lol, pretty sweet how you can spend my cash for me eh? Why would I need the E6750? Couldnt I overclock to the same speed with the processor I selected already? And is the 8800GTX really worth the big jump in price?!?

Yes you could overclock to e6750 speeds, or you could overclock a E6750 to 3.4+ speeds.... and yes if your going to be playing stuff like Crysis then I'd recommend a 8800, plus you won't have to upgrade for quite a while.

By the time I buy Crysis, the 8800 will be a $220 card.

And by the time you buy crysis your 8600 will be a 50 dollar card?

Unless you intend to buy Crysis far after its been released then I'd have to disagree.

But if you really are going to wait 2-3 years before you start playing Crysis then to each his own.

Never compare an OC to a stock speed, sort of like apples to oranges, they both can OC While his reasoning isn't correct, the e6750 is still a better choice over the e6550.

e6550=7x333=2333mhz -$175
e6750=8x333=2666mhz -$200
e6850=9x333=2999mhz -$280
q6600=9x266=2400mhz -$280

You'll be severely limited with that low multiplier, you'll hit a wall much faster than the higher multi'ed siblings. Personally, I'd save up a few dollars and go for the e6850, or q6600, which have the high multiplier, funny thing is that the quad core q6600 is the same price as the e6850. Granted, the quad doesn't OC as far as the e6850, but it isn't that far behind. (But make sure to get the G0 revision of the q6600, which is the same revision as the e6x50s, runs cooler, and OCs much farther.)

But I'd highly recommend the e6750 over the e6550 if you plan on OCing at all. You're guaranteed 3.4ghz on the dual core G0s (excluding the e6550), at least 3.2 with the quad, with decent parts and cooling.

The graphics card is up to you, but if you play the "waiting game" then you'll never experience the full power of your rig. Technology changes way to fast, might as well get used to it.

Thats what I was trying to say

But seriously, if your always buying lower end stuff then upgrading the lower end stuff with other low end stuff thats newer then why bother IMO just go with the latest and best save up some cash and experience it the best way possible.

Edit: And a lot of people get he quad to 3.5 - 3.6+ easy

Sorry, but that's just idiotic. Did you even look at his specs? He clearly picked out low-to-mid end components, yet you're bumping him up from a $150 video card to a $550 one. At least Unforgivin was smart enough to back up his advice to go with an e6750. Don't be so blind to other people's financial limits (surprising considering you're currently waiting to save up enough money for one yourself).

In any case, cdog, you'd definitely be better off with an 8800 than 8600. If you plan on buying these parts asap, microcenter is running a deal until the 14th...20% off all evga cards. You can grab an 8800GTS 320MB for ~$260. Or pick up a 2900Pro for a little bit more and flash it to XT levels.

Wow what an amazing rebuttal! *Cough Cough* This is also the guy that doesn't know the difference between DDR and DDR2 *Cough Cough*

I appreciate the replies. Honestly though, I could probably swing the faster CPU, but I think Im going to be fine for now with the 8600. What do you guys think of that motherboard? If Im not using SLI will the PCIx slot run at 16x instead of 8x?


C

At the very least get an 8800GTS. The 8600 will leave you very disappointed.

Do you plan on going SLI in the future? If not, then I'd look at a P35 board instead. Not to mention that the 650i chipset is old, 680i is the newest nvidia chipset. They have a "light" version of it if you're looking for a cheaper solution (680i LT), but again, look into P35 if you don't plan on SLI'ing. And regardless of which CPU you decide to go with, I still think you're better off with an 8800GTS over the 8600. 8600 will be a major bottleneck with any C2D system.

I'll put down the stick in a minute (the one I'm beating this dead horse with lol)...

the E6750 is about $50 more than the E6550... and while the one step higher multiplier will make it easier to max out your CPU oc (with 7x you may reach the mobo FSB limit first), the CPU power is so immense that it's really not going to make all that much difference to most people...

if you like playing new games, you mentioned Crysis so I'm going to assume you like playing the latest games, the 8600 cards aren't really going to run the games that well...

It's $269 (after rebate) for an EVGA 8800GTS 320MB... you could even get an XFX 8800GTS 320MB for $10 less than that... so that's about $140 more compared to the 8600 card (after rebate) that you listed...

Unless you use CPU intensive applications all day and need the extra flexibility of the 8x multi, I'd say save $90 more than the CPU switch you were thinking about to get the 8800GTS 320MB... it really is a better investment and has more long-term value than any 8600 card, even if you decided to go for 8600 SLI down the line...

Ok, I've thrown the stick away

Like I said, no matter what C2D you decided on, the 8600 would be the bottleneck. So if you're looking to save money, I'd have to agree with nrg that it would be better off to invest in the 8800GTS rather than spend to upgrade that CPU.

Its not so much that Im looking to save money, its more that I have never been compelled to dish out more than $175 for a video card. My last desktop had an fx5750 that could play Doom 3 on Medium when it first came out and I was cool with that. I dont buy the latest games. And I didnt mention Crysis, whats his face did.

I think since I am going to be buying a couple componenets at a time per week that I will just save the CPU and video card purchases until last and see what the best bang for the buck is. The GeForce GO 7900GS in my notebook is doing just fine on World in Conflict so Im okay for now.

I looked at the Intel P35 boards and I couldnt really tell the difference between the $250 ones and the $150 ones. I usually just pick up an MSI board because Ive had good luck with them. If you recommend a specific brand that would help me get the best overclock for my money that would be cool.

I just picked up the ABIT IP35 Pro for my Q6600. ~$150 after rebates on clubit! One of the top P35 boards available.

cool, thanks!

Pogs, please keep the thread on track.



Well actually, the 650is came out after the 680i It was marketed as the mainstream/mid-range board and does pretty well in moderate OCs for the money.

But in this case, a P35 would probably be the better choice. The only real thing the 650i SLI has over the P35s is SLI, otherwise the P35 takes the cake in features and OCing. The Abit IP35 linked above is good, along with the Gigabyte P35 DS4. I'd avoid MSI for right now, they just aren't a top brand right now in the high-end world.

By the way it sounds, you'll probably be fine with a 8600GT. Again, it's up to you if you if you want to bump or not, but I think your more concerned with actual game play, good performance, and decent quality which the 8600GT will suffice. But you'll miss some of the quality that the 8800GTS will offer.

I think so too. Who knows? If Google's stock keeps skyrocketing (80 bucks in the last 45 days!) then maybe I will just take the jump!


C

Just ordered this one. Im going to get the E6750 also in a couple weeks. The 8800 is still up in the air, as I want to make sure I get a raptor HD.


C

I am not sure of the DS4's cpu voltage options in the bios , but I bet its like the DQ6 since it has the same 12 phase power or (8 pin plug), which should make it a more stable board. I have been looking at that board myself for another quad rig. The vdroop is so bad on my DS3 that 1.6 volts setting only gives me 1.52 volts in cpuz, (could be the small PSU) and the options in the bios go in increments up to 1.6 then it skips to 1.8 unlike the DQ6 which has a lot more settings. I agree with Unforgiven on the the cpu also if you can afford it. The 6550 with that 7 multi will require some good clocking RAM to get a good OC, I remember that when OCing my 6300 with a 7 multi.