Minimum power supply and cooling needed for AMD FX 8150

[princess_arabella7]

I am going to be purchasing my first build, which will be optimised for GIS. Using ESRI's ArcGIS software, I will be performing spatial analyses on large datasets, some 3D modelling, programming.

I am looking at the following:

ASUS M5A97 EVO
AMD FX 8150
Apacer 4GB DDR3 RAM x2
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO
Thermaltake Litepower 550W
64GB SSD

This will be my initial purchase, I will be adding a graphics card later, as onboard graphics is suffiecient for now. Just to be clear, I will not be gaming on this pc at all, I will purely use it for GIS. The current application is 32-bit, with some tools now using 64-bit background geoprocessing. My concern is the PSU/cooling. What is the minimum requirement for this setup?

 

[manofchalk]

There isnt any onboard graphics with AMD FX chips.
Also you will need more RAM (estimate 16GB) for your usage.
Get the FX-8350, its better than the 8150 a roughly the same cost.

Stock cooling is fine unless you are overclocking.
550W is more than enough for the rig, though I would advise a better brand.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013&Tpk=xfx%20550W

 

[princess_arabella7]

Thanks for the quick reply. I don't need more RAM than that for the moment, though I will be adding more later (currently running ArcGIS 10.1 on Windows 8 on a Dual Core Compaq laptop with 2GB RAM). I'm really just wanting to get the basic setup for now so I can do my work, and add more optimal hardware later.

Wrt the power supply, the options available to me are:

Antec VP550P 550W~ $80
Thermaltake Litepower 550W ~$73
Coolermaster Extreme Power II 525W ~ $73
Gigabyte ODIN 585W ~$64
Gigabyte GreenMax 450W ~$81

 

[manofchalk]

The Antec VP550.
Where are you buying from, those prices are pretty off?

 

[princess_arabella7]

My country likes to overcharge for electronic stuff. The place I'm buying it from will assemble it for me at least. Buying the components separately from my local online retailer and picking it up from their warehouse directly (a few minutes drive from me) costs more. And that's not taking into account the fact that I've never assembled a computer from scratch (most I've done is swap hard drives and graphics cards around). Those prices I just roughly converted based on the current exchange rate.

 

[manofchalk]

Can sympathize, live in Australia and a lot of components are more expensive here (PSU's in particular), though nowhere near as bad as that.

 

[princess_arabella7]

Lol, I've been hoping for years that things would change. This place doesn't stock the 8350, so it looks like my basic build will be:

ASUS M5A97 EVO ~$190
AMD FX8150 ~ $291
Apacer GB RAM x2 ~ $46
Sandisk 2.5" SSD 64GB Read 490MB/s Write 240 MB/s ~$79
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO ~ $41
Antec VP550P 550W ~$83
GMC Double-x No PSU [ATX] 1x5.25", 3x3.5", 2x120mm LED Fan, 1x120mm rear fan ~$53
ASUS ATI AMD Radeon HD 5450 Silent 1GB DDR3 64 bit ~ $51

Total ~$880.

 

[stickg1]

Do they carry the FX-8320?

 

[princess_arabella7]

No :-/ the 8150 is the best they have, the others are the 8120, 6100, 4170 and 4100.

 

[stickg1]

Okay, if you plan on overclocking then go ahead and get the 8120 if it costs much less. The reason being is most of these two chips (8150 and 8120) will reach the same overclock potential on an air cooler like the Hyper 212 I see in your parts list. So you might as well save a few bucks if you can. Maybe put it towards a slightly more powerful GPU, more RAM, better PSU, or just stick the money back in your pocket. Whatever suits you best.

 

[princess_arabella7]

I'm not planning on overclocking, and will be adding more RAM later.

 

[stickg1]

Okay then stick with the FX-8150 and you could probably ditch the aftermarket cooler if you don't plan on overclocking. They are nice to have just incase you do want to get higher frequencies later on. They're aren't entirely necessary though at stock settings.

 

[princess_arabella7]

OK thanks, that will save me a few bucks for now.