I bought a case bundled with a 520W and it died completely after only about a year of usage and caused me to reinstall windows a good 2 or 3 times along the way.
Thats ok, just thought of saving you some cash if all you were going to do is bum around on the internet, considering the power consumbution of the Atom. Oh and you can partition a HDD in any machine and run your favorite linux distro, well a few, plus windows. At one point i had win98/XP pro, suse linux and debian installed back when XP was released in year dot.5 lol! Now its XP/win7 beta and ubuntu, however work related tasks means i dont have much spare time to bum around in beta OS's and linux. Come on retail release of Win7 i say! What i would suggest is a solid performing Dual core or Quad core CPU, and a seperate HDD for your DVD activities. That way when encoding you can set the software to use 1 or more cores, keeping one free for the OS and your other apps. The second HDD on its own SATA connection will help speed the job up as OS information isn't bogging down the transfer of data. Oh and its already been mentioned, but a system running 18 hours a day really needs a quality PSU, you shouldn't need more than 400W of power, so a Corsair VX 450W PSU will be a great choice for your build, and many others in the future, well aslong as the ATX standard dosen't change too much!
Hi Burnout. I went on to another forum and received some great advise, I went on to this forum and received more, I'm still working my way through. Power consumption and budget is a big thing for all three machines. The two machines I am building for friends, they are happy with Matx boards, to be honest, one of them would have been perfectly happy with an Atom set up of some kind but to late now, cases purchased. Azrael has given me some great all round advise, especially so on the MOBOs and CPUs. But now I'm dithering. I wanted all three machines to be identical, for practical reasons but now I find myself, a little selfishly, wanting a little more for my setup. I haven't yet but I must look at the reviews on the Biostar TA790GX MOBO and there is another Bio very similar, I do like the idea of an ATX board for myself. As far as the PSUs were concerned, I was very fortunate, I purchased, sealed for £8 each, 4 x 480w, these. Now normally I wouldn't give such PSUs a second glance at that price but the company was closing down, the were selling low. So I hope my gift horse is just that, I haven't found any horrible reviews but clearly they are not in the same league as Corsair or another famous brand beginning with S, but £8. Power consumption is an issue, it's why I am going for on board graphics MOBOs, my understanding is on board consumes less. The 5050E CPUs will be just fine although I haven't ruled out a black addition although they uses more power. I have to be realistic however, for what the PCs are going to be used for 5050e will do. As for the OS, absolutely, roll on Win 7, I will more then likely install Ubunto although I have just heard of another distro, Mint I think it's called, that has had some good reviews but I'm way off those decisions as yet. Next week I will buy the MOBOs and all the gummings and build them, shouldn't take that long, 45 minutes per PC maybe. Thanks for the advise on the HD partitions, I will keep that in mind.
I have been looking at some MOBO specs' and some of them state " anti surge protection", is this to do with the fact that these boards have solid state capacitors?
I'm not really liking what I'm reading about your PSUs. Cheap they may be, but will they stand the distance? Well, as long as you're basically building "office PCs" you're probably good. For that little "special" build I suggest getting a better PSU. I've written this elsewhere here on this forum, but I always liken the PSU to the heart and I bet you wouldn't want your heart to give out. To get back to the issue of mobos I still believe you'd be better off with a quality 780G-based board than a cheap 790GX-based one (that Biostar really was the cheapest I could find).
Well, the reason he got them *that* cheap is because the company selling them went out of business. It still gives me the itchies, though.
I understand this, the fact they were cheap for me doesn't mean they are cheap rubbish or does it? These units retail for about £30-£35, is that cheap as far as basic rigs/PSUs are concerned? I know some brand PSUs you can pay top $ for and deservedly so. I provided the link, to be fair while only briefly looking on the web, I haven't seen any bad reviews on this brand, I'm more then happy to be told/shown otherwise and take it from there. Pay peanuts, get monkeys but I'm hoping I got bargins.
Hi and thank you to everyone who has advised me so far. After a lot of dithering all three of us have decided finaly on PC build. We have decided on this MOBO. AMD Athlon X2 5050e This Ram. or this RAM . I decided not to chance the PSUs I had purchased, instead, after a good write up, we have opted for this PSU. Budget constraints means optical drives will be re-used, along with existing Seagate 360GB Sata 2 7200rpm Hds, built in graphics and sound, XP Home OS and ATX cases. Because power consumption was important I have tried to use the advise received and hope I have achieved balanced, all round home/office machines. Comments on the proposed builds would be much appreciated. The only thing I am still not sure of are the cooling fans for the above CPUs. I want to spend £15 - £20, I have looked but still not sure. Perhaps someone would be good enough to give me three choices/links to fans I can pull straight out of the box and fit, or will the fans that come with the CPUs be OK, taking in to account the PCs will be on 18 hours a day.
I'm not sure you're better off with the new PSU. To be honest, I almost liked the other one better. As for memory, is there money for Corsair products in your budget? In my experience they make some of the most compatible RAM out there. That's not to say that either Kingston HyperX or GEiL is a bad choice, but I've had some compatibility issues with Kingston in the past (never dealt with GEiL, though).
For any other Danes out there, when finding harware this is a good site to find the bedst prices (however not all is listed in there) WWW.edbpriser.dk
Good Morning Azrael, Funny, the reactions I got on the other PSUs made me doubtful, so I shifted position and looked for something else. The latest choice of PSU had a good write up last week in a couple of publications. To me it proves that unless you pay £100 -£200 pounds on a PSU, anything you buy will be suspect. I've not heard of GEil before, it was a recommendation by someone who like you knows their stuff and taking into account our budgets. Corsair would be the best options but I couldn't get any where near 4 GB of 6400 ram for the money, again Kingston and this particular ram had a good write up and works well with AMD PSUs so the article said. I supose I won't be sure of anything until the first PC is built but apart from the above, does the build look OK?.
That is pretty much true. But there are a few quality supplies for cheap, for example: Corsair VX450 Corsair CX400 OCZ ModXStream 500W OCZ ModXStream 400W
doesn't look like you made any progress on the psu. it's not 80 + certified, and the amp rating is low. i would not spend extra for that. at all. in fact, give me half the money you would spend on that psu, i'll kick you in the nuts, and you will be much better off. ram is ram. corsair is "recommended" because they are the most widely used and compatibility checked, but as long as the volts and speed are in your mobo's specs, you will be fine. as far as the mobo and proc choice, if thats what you can afford, thats what you can afford. so, one more time for s&g's, do not buy that psu. spend a little extra and get a good quality unit. go down to 2 gigs of ram if you have to. sell some...fluids...
Hi trig, But this one is and had a couple of good reviews in magazines recently. I do take your point however.
i was referring to that, but it takes me forever to load pages from work. all i saw was "high efficinecy" and typically when a unit is 80+ it will say it. however, i would love to have a link to the reviews, or the magazine's that reviewed them because I am always curious about hardware. cause i tell you what, i searched google, yahoo, msn and i get no hits on powercool as a manufacturer, who may manufacture powercool units, or any reviews whatsoever. when you can't find the manufacturer with a quick internet search, there is a problem. never a good sign. again, my advice is to drop down on the ram, beg and borrow to get an extra 10 w/e you call its and grab the modxstream 500w. but please, list the mags that reviewed it, i'd love to find out more about this company.
Alright Trig let me deal with that for you. Last weeks Computer Shopper or Computer World, I can't remember which, reviewed the unit, gave it a thumbs up. Then an article by Louis Turfrey in last weeks UK MicroMart, Page 10, He starts by saying of the Powercool unit "This is a lovely PSU------", so I reckon that's a thumbs up to, what do you think Trig?
that corsair 550vx is pretty good bang for the buck compared to the 450.. only like 5 bucks more- I like around christmas.. can usually find the really sick deals- that's the time to buy your new rig imo =]
thanks. nothing negative there. have you tried researching the manufacturer? did any of these reviews measure thoughput, rated volts under load, temps, or noise? if it all checks out and the warranty is there, then heck, go for it. just tryin to help you make the right decision. another good reasource is a guy on here named bbq of doom. hunt around for him. he would be my final answer if i was wondering about a psu. good luck with whatever you choose.
Your welcome, as I said I do appreciate the points you raised, let me ask you something. I noted this Powercool PSU unit has only 2 sata connectors and 4 molex connectors. I think I may need an extra sata connector, can I turn 1 in to 2 as you can with a molex or am I getting confused? If I can, what am I looking for?
