PSU for a good Intel build

[Upendra09]

hey alll,

I am building a new comp and i need a case, preferably with a PSU but having read the other threads i have now come to the assumption that PSU case bundles aren't good at all.

These are my parts

wolfdale CPU 2.5 ghz Pentium dual core.....................67
Foxconn Mobo DDR2 RAM LGA 775 mATX....................90
Gskill 4 gigs RAM 800...................................................60
Case/PSU, Sigma ATX case, 500 Watt PSU..................65

total: 282 USD

I plan to add a gfx card later as i do a bit of gaming but not much for a dedicated gfx card right now, and the mobo comes with good int graphics from INTEL, the X4500HD with an HDMI port.

My question is what's the lowest i can go on PSU wattage for a future gfx card? I used a PSU calculator, and i only needed like 330 watts w/o the gfx card but if i added one in on PCIe x16, i would need 379 watts. So is 400 good or do i need to go higher?

second question, what are some good name brands?
These i know about, antec, silverstone, coolermaster,

Lastly, if the case says it is compatible with an ATX mobo is it also compatible with a mATX mobo?

Thanks for your replies

 

[Upendra09]

Bump

 

[AKM880]

Corsair 450W - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003&Tpk=corsair%20450w

What GPU were you planning to put in?

 

[Upendra09]

A 1 gig card once they get cheaper probably the, 4650.

as for the PSU and case, i forgot to add that i will need to do this within 300 USD sorry, anyway is SIGMA a good brand? and are their PSU good?

thanks for replying

 

[Ancient_1]

If you want a case with a PS I would suggest Antec. They have decent power supply's with their cases. Like this combo or this one.

 

[Upendra09]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156062

is this a good combo? and do really only need 430 watts for a future gfx card?

 

[AKM880]

Nice case, bad PSU.

 

[Ancient_1]

The Antec 430 has aprox 30a on the 12v total compared to 22 or 23 that the raidmax shows on that 500 (hard to read even enlarged) which with the system specs you are looking at should be fine for most any single gpu vid card.

A good to decent quality PS will out perform cheap/generic units of much higher ratings. And will last much longer.

 

[AKM880]

Yeah, the 430W PSU should be fine for the 4650 1GB your planning to run.

 

[Upendra09]

thanks I will be going ahead with the 90 dollar Antec case

 

[Bluescreendeath]

A 1 gig card once they get cheaper probably the, 4650.

as for the PSU and case, i forgot to add that i will need to do this within 300 USD sorry, anyway is SIGMA a good brand? and are their PSU good?

thanks for replying

1GB of RAM goes to waste on a 4650.

 

[AKM880]

Doesn't it just take 512MB or whatever from the 4GB of RAM. Make sure you have a 64B OS to recognize all the 4GB of RAM

 

[Bluescreendeath]

^ no, 512mb of onboard RAM is separate from 4GB of system RAM.

 

[Upendra09]

what are you guys talking about? and what's wrong with the 4650?

I have XP 32 bit but once 7 gets released i will be using the 64 bit version.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

^ There is no point in getting a 1GB ver of the 4650 because it isn't powerful enough to use it. You'd need something like a GTX260 or 4870 to actually use 1GB of RAM.

 

[Upendra09]

what do you mean by it isn't powerful enough? is the VRAM slow?

 

[Bluescreendeath]

A GPU needs processing power (ie. stream processors, core clock, memory bandwidth, memory rate, memory clock, etc) to be able to utilize video memory.

If it is too weak, then it is only able to utilize up to say 300mb, or up to its normal 512mb, depending on the resolution.

ie. If a Pentium3 600MHz was put onto a system with 8GB of RAM.