The system is coming. Did I make any mistakes?

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supercheyenne

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Feb 9, 2005
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Here it is. Where did I screw up?

Hyundai L90D+ 19-inch LCD
Antec Sonata Case w/350W (Black)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce3 Ultra
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (90nm)
Corsair 1GB PC 3200 2-64x64 XMS
2 WesterDigital 74Gig Raptors (SATA)
EVGA GeForce 6800 Ultra (AGP)
PLEXTOR PX-716A (IDE)
Samsung 1.44 (Black)

Total Price?
$2015.59 (includes all shipping and taxes)

HOLY CRAP! My initial target was $1000 w/o monitor. Monitor only cost $361. Hope this system is Fast, Quiet, and doesn't need upgrading for 2-3 years.

Anyone see anything I made a mistake on? Hope not, because this puppy is on its way.
 
You may not have enough power with only 350 W. According to the <A HREF="http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/" target="_new">Wattage Calculator</A> you will be very close to drawing the maximum power from your supply.
 
Yeah, your pushing it with your PSU.

You wasted a little money on the GPU (not worth the price/performance in my opinion) - better card would have been 6800GT.

I hope that LCD is good for gaming (as I hope you built that system for - else you wasted alot of money :wink: ) else you will have 'ghosting' problems if you play FPS etc.

Very nice system overall though. Well researched!

______________
Read the friggin FAQ, and use the search button or I'll kick yer face in!
 
I had a 430w picked out before I found this case with the PSU. I read reviews on newegg where people were saying this PSU is solid with pretty stout setups.

Will I be able to run the system short term without any harmful effects if it ends up being under powered? Short term being 1 week or so.

What's another $70 when you're $600+ over budget anyway? :) Thanks for the tips and compliments. I basically chose this through this message board and the links provided. Next up will be 0 raid...... I don't know diddly about multiple HD's.

The reason I went so big on the graphics card is because that's what's holding me back on my current family CPU. It's very outdated, but the graphics card is super slow (ATI Rage Fury Pro). For me it seems the graphics card is the watermark for a new system.

I'm going to be a first time AMD'er!
 
sku # items:
qty unit price ext price
3715396 Corsair 1GB PC 3200 2-64x64 XMS Dual-Channel DDR - #TWINX1024-3200C2PT - Lifetime Warranty 1 $159.99 $159.99
subtotal $159.99


removed because I may have broken a rule?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by supercheyenne on 02/09/05 09:16 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Yeah, really consider the PSU.
The geforce is good for about 115 watts
CPU likes about 70
mainboard another 30
both drives another 60
and still about 30 for the rest

Would mean quite a load for a 350W psu, result will be that it runs hot all the time and the 12V rail especially could be overtaxed.
 
Its not uncommon for people to buy the case they want knowning that they will have to toss the powersupply, so that isn't necessarily a mistake. Unless you liked another case better but chose this one because of the supply.

An Antec 350 watt is better than most off-brand 400+ PSU's but with your hardware I wouldn't be supprised if this system is 100% stable when you stress test it.

If thats the case you will need a new PSU, but you might as well stress test it first.

---

The LCD/Graphics card choice is a bad match..

I think 6800 GT is overkill for an LCD that maxes out at 1280x1024. At 1280x1024 there is no reason to upgrade from the 6600GT.

If you are thinking about furture proofing your video card, forget it. You are better off spending $200 now and $200 latter when new games require DX 10 support.

In my option you would have a much better experience saving $300 by getting the 6600 GT and buying the more expensive 20" 1600x1200 Dell UltraSharp 2001FP.

A great 20" LCD will still be a great 20" LCD in three years, in two years 6800 is going to be a joke.

You probably can't return the LCD. If you could I would say either return it or the 6800.

My advice is to send back the 6800 for a 6600 GT. Then upgrade to a $200-$250 card at least one month after the release of hardware supporting DX 10 hit the shelves.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Codesmith on 02/10/05 11:08 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
I was thinking 2 Raptors, a DVD and the floppy will about do 60 watts but that was a guess. Don't know what Raptors use, but they get quite hot..
 
I am drooling over those dual raptors.

If you put them in a RAID 0 config please bench them with HDTach and post the results :)

My single 74GB Raptor doesn't seem to run any hotter than my six other drives.

I think I would get a 2nd one now if I had the room.
 
That 70% number vaires quite a bit from manufacter to manufacturer.

Most PSU's are overrated by their manufacterer's a few are underrated.

Some manufacturers actually rate their PSU at xxx watts only if it can really handle xxx watts and remain 100% stable.

Others rate their PSU at xxx only if it won't blow a fuse xxx watts.

Actually some cheap xxx watt powersupply will catch fire without you exceeding xxx watts or the maximum amperage on any of the rails!

Getting an off brand PSU is always a gamble.
 
Let me put it this way. For an electrical device to conform to North American standards, it must be able to operate at it's rated load, and must be able to operate continuously at 70% of it's rated load.
This is a requirement for nema, csa and ul/ulc.
I certainly agree that some power supplies are better than others, and that some seem to have cheated on standards. All I was trying to say was, if you are going to calculate the demand load for a psu, do not use the rated wattage, but rather 70% of rated.
 
Why not PCI-E/SLI platform?
Saving your money for the secondary 6800Ultra ~~ hehe
Click to expand...

I'm not much of an "upgrader". I'm more of a "replacer". When this system gets out of date, I'll just buy a new one. - Which is why I bought the baddest graphics card I could.
 
The 380 should do the job but compared to a 450 there would be a bulkier load. That's why, to be safe especially thinking a couple of years ahead, people recommend a more powerful PSU.
 
Ok, on that note then I may take back that last statement. Ive got a True Power running one of my systems. Its a 430, but it does a very good job. 380 is still a little on the low side, but it may do just fine. give it a shot and see how it does. Ill PM our Antec PSU GURU and see what he thinks.

READ THE STICKY AND WIN A PRIZE! ALL PRIZES CAN BE CLAIMED IN THE SECTION TITLED "THE OTHER"
 
Don't bother upgrading until you know you need more power.

If you stress test your system and it crashes, then you thing about upgrading.

When you are forced to upgrade its best to spend a little extra so you can reuse the powersupply in future upgrades.
 
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