[MERGED] Your Main PC - Pictures, specs and discussion <IMAGE HEAVY>

Homelander

Sorry guys I don't agree and there's no need for the ultra patronizing tone either. You think something like a VS450 will stand the time of time running at 90% load, reliably with no concerns over component quality/ripple/etc? If that were the case, almost nobody would ever buy a higher wattage supply at 95% of systems would fall within that spec. Also, no not everything with an 80+ rating is good. There are £30-35 Kolink and Aerocool power supplies that are 80+, I doubt you would call them 'good' power supplies or recommend them. Would you trust this reliably with a 3700X and 5700XT system? I certainly would not.

Homelander

In fact there is a Kolink 80+ 400w for just £27 too. There is no way that unit would deliver 400w on a sustained basis, no matter how bad the efficiency was, no way the components are up to the job. Would you trust that one with a 3700X and 5700XT too if the peak load is 350w?

z0oT

The numbers I posted are the draw at the wall. Based on 90% efficiency, I should be good to see up to 500W drawn from the wall, lower efficiency would mean a higher number at the wall.

Either way, I'm a long way off that even with a 5700XT that recommends a 600W PSU.

Homelander wrote: »

In fact there is a Kolink 80+ 400w for just £27 too. There is no way that unit would deliver 400w on a sustained basis, no matter how bad the efficiency was, no way the components are up to the job. Would you trust that one with a 3700X and 5700XT too if the peak load is 350w?

The SF450 is a highly rated 80plus gold rated PSU, and no - I wouldn't choose some crappy unit at €20 to power my system.

A good quality 350W PSU might actually just about work based on my numbers seen in gaming.

Homelander

I don't think it would likely work unless you had a ridiculously good 350w supply. It would have to have enough juice on the 12v to supply the CPU and GPU reliably, and even then you could easily get spikes that'd cause instability. The problem being made here is that people (not you) are seeming to suggest that the only issue with lower-end branded supplies (say, vs450, Kolink 500w bronze, Integrator 500w bronze) is inefficiency at high load, when that's absolutely not the case. All supplies are not equal, try running a lot of lower-end branded supplies at heavy/full load and you will get crashes, shortened lifespan, etc. Go on Amazon and a lot of the lower-end branded supplies (I don't mean Chinese no-name stuff, I mean low-end Corsair, Kolink, Aerocool, etc which are 80+) will have a higher number of failure or crash related reviews...due to people running them at heavy/full load with powerful setups. The irony of someone above saying "you are talking out of your arse" and then going on to say "anything with an 80+ rating is good". There is way more to a power supply than just efficiency. Which again, is why saying any 80+ supply is good is ridiculous as you can spend £25 on a Kolink 80+ 400w, or £90 on a BeQuiet 400w. Only a lunatic would claim the only difference between them is efficiency and that both would run 400w sustained. The BeQuiet one would easily but the Kolink would crash constantly, if not outright die in a fairly short window. A really high quality 500w 80+ could actually run 5700XT in Crossfire if you didn't care about noise or power usage. I wouldn't trust a £30 80+ 500w psu to power a single 5700xt system reliably in comparison.

mp3guy

Homelander wrote: »

I don't think it would likely work unless you had a ridiculously good 350w supply. It would have to have enough juice on the 12v to supply the CPU and GPU reliably, and even then you could easily get spikes that'd cause instability. The problem being made here is that people (not you) are seeming to suggest that the only issue with lower-end branded supplies (say, vs450, Kolink 500w bronze, Integrator 500w bronze) is inefficiency at high load, when that's absolutely not the case. All supplies are not equal, try running a lot of lower-end branded supplies at heavy/full load and you will get crashes, shortened lifespan, etc. Go on Amazon and a lot of the lower-end branded supplies (I don't mean Chinese no-name stuff, I mean low-end Corsair, Kolink, Aerocool, etc which are 80+) will have a higher number of failure or crash related reviews...due to people running them at heavy/full load with powerful setups. The irony of someone above saying "you are talking out of your arse" and then going on to say "anything with an 80+ rating is good". There is way more to a power supply than just efficiency. Which again, is why saying any 80+ supply is good is ridiculous as you can spend £25 on a Kolink 80+ 400w, or £90 on a BeQuiet 400w. Only a lunatic would claim the only difference between them is efficiency and that both would run 400w sustained. The BeQuiet one would easily but the Kolink would crash constantly, if not outright die in a fairly short window. A really high quality 500w 80+ could actually run 5700XT in Crossfire if you didn't care about noise or power usage. I wouldn't trust a £30 80+ 500w psu to power a single 5700xt system reliably in comparison.

All I can say is up until recently I was running hardware on crappy PSUs for years, pushing the spec limits and never had anything go on fire or break :pac:

z0oT

mp3guy wrote: »

All I can say is up until recently I was running hardware on crappy PSUs for years, pushing the spec limits and never had anything go on fire or break :pac:

There's always people with "conerns" on forums about stuff breaking I find.

Usually (although not 100% of the time), the manafacturer has done all the hard work before they release anything to make sure it won't break or go on fire. That's not just PSUs, but graphics cards, motherboards & everything else too.

K.O.Kiki

z0oT wrote: »

There's always people with "conerns" on forums about stuff breaking I find.

Usually (although not 100% of the time), the manafacturer has done all the hard work before they release anything to make sure it won't break or go on fire. That's not just PSUs, but graphics cards, motherboards & everything else too.

I agree with Homelander - PSU is the one component I never skimp out on.
Quality 80+ Bronze or better is a must IMHO.

z0oT

I don't think anyone here is suggesting skimping on the PSU.

I'd want to be seeing a review like this of a PSU before I'd get it. Where they actually hammer the outputs with specialized equipment than testing with a typical PC setup.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-sf450-platinum-sfx-psu,5917.html

This is more important than the 80plus certification which on its own doesn't tell you much.

But here's the point - A high quality unit doesn't need to be a high wattage unit, and wattage numbers like 400-500W are plenty for most single graphics card setups.

ED E

Homelander wrote: »

If you have a low to mid-range 450w supply with average efficiency, running at 400w on a rating of 450w is not good.

Homelander wrote: »

In fact there is a Kolink 80+ 400w for just £27 too. There is no way that unit would deliver 400w on a sustained basis, no matter how bad the efficiency was, no way the components are up to the job. Would you trust that one with a 3700X and 5700XT too if the peak load is 350w?

Me: A Honda Jazz can do 100km/hr fine

You: Yeah but a pedal cycle can't so hah you're wrong.



Nobody, I repeat NOBODY, is suggesting some no name hungarian PSU is dependable. G'way with your nonsense.

Homelander

Seriously. Anything with an 80+ rating is good. They can't get that rating without being able to sustain the load printed on the box.

That appears to suggest different even though there are loads of low-tier PSU's with 80+ ratings, some of them pretty much garbage. I know you didn't say that specifically yourself but it ties into the whole "you're talking crap" angle.

Sorry but it's not nonsense. Your argument appears to be that the only issue with low-tier branded PSU's is their inefficency. Ignoring the fact that lower-tier PSU's have lower quality components, are more prone to spikes, and less reliable on consistent delivery on power like on 12v. Simple wattage and efficency rating are not indicators of anything. Take the original example. A 3700XT and 5700XT drawing 350w under peak load. Would you be happy to run such a system on a Corsair VS450? I doubt it, and no professional would recommend it either. And the reason isn't simply because it's not efficient. It's because power delivery and components are much lower quality than buying a proper 450W PSU in a higher tier, are much more likely to suffer instability at high load, and degrade over time much sooner.

If what you're saying (or seem to be implying) was true,, that low-tier branded power supplies are completely reliable but simply inefficient at heavy/full load, there would be zero reason for 90 percent of the market to buy above something like a £35 Corsair VS450. I suppose all the experts are completely wrong and talking ****e as well. Or why is it that they would never recommend something like a VS450 for such a build? Could it possibly be because supplies of this type are not reliable in the longer-run at delivering consistent, stable power at high load without instability/spikes that cause issues? For example a quick google of the VS450 reveals a Tom's Hardware review which noted that the OCP was bad, which meant they had to abort 12V tests "or else the PSU would break". Sounds perfect for a 5700XT and 3700X system. Would I trust that power supply with a rx580 and a ryzen 2600? Yeah grand. With a 5700XT and 3700X. God no. Even though the peak load comes comfortably below the wattage of the unit.

Solitaire

Thing is, we're not dealing with a PoS PSU here - literally the exact opposite in fact. Just by looking at the pics we can see the PSU is a Corsair SF450 Platinum, the 2018 update for the older SF450 Gold. Even the old PSU broke records at the time. The Platinum version has over 91% efficiency when fully maxed out in a hotbox, and in real world conditions its fan has the firepower to keep the temps lower than that. At 400W draw in a reasonably warm room it should sit around the 93-94% point. This is a unit designed for a rough life as high-end SFX units usually end up in LANboxes, fed hot air from a GPU wedged up against its face in a hot environment while being lugged around the place in ways that full-size ATX PSUs don't have to deal with. It is designed to take a beating and last a long, long time. Its a top-tier consumer PSU with a seven-year warranty - and manufacturers don't just give those away like candy.

Also bear in mind that you're seeing peak figures for heavy usage scenarios. Steady state values will be lower, and the DC power being pulled is ~375W even during torture tests. In regular gaming the steady state will likely vary between 250-350W. We no longer live in times where there's a huge efficiency and/or lifespan drop between running a unit at 80% output versus 50%. The usage scenario suits this PSU just fine - it is basically what it was made for.

Homelander

I'm not really arguing about the OPS unit. I accept in his case that he has a good PSU perfectly capable of his setup and was fair enough to admit I was being overly dramatic in his situation as didn't know the specific unit at the time. My issue now is with being called "full of crap/****e" for saying that low-tier branded PSU's should not be used to run at heavy/full load indefinitely on a system like the OPs, like 3700X and 5700XT. People seem to be arguing that their only issue is inefficency and that they will run fine at full load with no issue indefinitely. (indefinitely being the key word)

Homelander

I keep mentioning the Corsair VS450 but take something like the EVGA 430W core model, both are about £35. I sincerely doubt anyone here would recommend either for a system like 3700X and 5700XT, even though both are comfortably above peak wattage. And the reason isn't purely efficiency. It's because of factors like lower component quality, fan noise is also a thing, but overall both are relatively unreliable at heavy/full load compared to a solid, proper 450W model also produced by both companies in higher tiers. Again, be grand for a 280w system like an RX card and Ryzen 3600 or whatever. They exist for such builds. So yes, my issue is with these claims that I'm talking crap for saying that a low-tier branded psu (like the vs450 or evga 430) is a bad choice to reliably, indefinitely sustain close to or max load.

z0oT

I was curious so I looked up a review of the Corsair VS450.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-vs450-power-supply,6076-4.html

It's actually not that bad. Ripple tests are okay even at 110% rated load for instance.

Corsair offer a 3 year warranty on it aswell, so they've presumably got some level of confidence in it to last 3 years at least.
https://www.corsair.com/eu/en/Categories/Products/Power-Supply-Units/vs-series-config-2018/p/CP-9020170-EU#tab-tech-specs

I wouldn't buy it myself personally though. Spend a bit more and you can get a unit with 7+ years of warranty for instance.

Homelander

Again, I'd trust it fine with a mid-range setup. Not a high end setup. Literally the conclusion was:

The Corsair VS450 is one of the most affordable 450-watt power supplies on the market, but you'll pay in decreased performance and efficiency.

Cons: Low efficiency and overall performance. OCP and OPP are not properly set. Outdated platform

I think you would agree that it would be a very bad choice for example, for your setup, 3700X and 5700XT, despite the wattage, brand and warranty. That's the point I was making. Same story with low-end branded supplies from Aerocool, Corsair, EVGA, and others. No professional or enthusiast would recommend such a supply for your system even if it's way above the peak load from a wattage POV. That's all.

uchimata83

Attached is a picture of my upgraded build.

Overall very happy with it. I definitely found it a lot easier this time (my 2nd build) than previously, although I do need to tidy some of the cables. The only thing I struggled with was getting the M.2 drive to be detected and thank you to Polar101 for helping with that.

It started with an impulse buy of the GPU on prime day and snowballed from there. The only part I was able to salvage from my old PC was the PSU.

My first experience with RGB lighting and found it very straight forward with mystic light. I went for midi tower as I thought it would fit under my desk, but it is slightly too wide. It's snug enough but there's enough cut outs in the case to keep things tidy

Specs are:
Case: MSI MAG vampiric 010
PSU: Corsair GS 600
CPU: Ryzen 3600
Ram: 32GB hyperx predator 3200 MHz
Motherboard: MSI MPG X570 Gaming pro carbon
GPU: Sapphire pulse Radeon RX 580
CPU Cooler: Coolermaster ML240L RGB
Storage: 500gb M.2, 1TB SSd, 2 x 1TB HDD

ED E

Total nitpick but with the MSI dragon in the top right you don't need it down the bottom. Keep her minimal

Gamer Bhoy 89

First time ever building a PC from scratch.

Specs;
Case|Phanteks Eclipse P300
CPU|Ryzen 5 2600 6-Core 3.4GHz
GPU|Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS OC 6GB
RAM|16GB DDR4 3000MHz
PSU|Corsair RM650


I have a few other things as well such as a 500GB SSD and 2TB HDD.
Everything was recommended by someone on Reddit who gave me a build compiled using PC Part Picker.

So far, it's running flawless. I love it. It's so fast!!!

Shlippery

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

First time ever building a PC from scratch.

Specs;
Case|Phanteks Eclipse P300
CPU|Ryzen 5 2600 6-Core 3.4GHz
GPU|Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS OC 6GB
RAM|16GB DDR4 3000MHz
PSU|Corsair RM650


I have a few other things as well such as a 500GB SSD and 2TB HDD.
Everything was recommended by someone on Reddit who gave me a build compiled using PC Part Picker.

So far, it's running flawless. I love it. It's so fast!!!

PULL THE PLASTIC OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

Gamer Bhoy 89

Shlippery wrote: »

PULL THE PLASTIC OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

My fiance loves doing that more than me. No joke she wants me to leave it as is until she comes down so she can peel it off herself :pac::pac:

deceit

Shlippery wrote: »

PULL THE PLASTIC OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

I had a spare pc (Phantex evolv) and left the plastic on for over a year to torment my mate who would think about it even while he couldn't see it :P

deceit

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

First time ever building a PC from scratch.

Specs;
Case|Phanteks Eclipse P300
CPU|Ryzen 5 2600 6-Core 3.4GHz
GPU|Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS OC 6GB
RAM|16GB DDR4 3000MHz
PSU|Corsair RM650

I have a few other things as well such as a 500GB SSD and 2TB HDD.
Everything was recommended by someone on Reddit who gave me a build compiled using PC Part Picker.

So far, it's running flawless. I love it. It's so fast!!!

Looks nice, one thing if your comfortable with opening the pc tidy up the psu cables and would look alot better

Gamer Bhoy 89

deceit wrote: »

Looks nice, one thing if your comfortable with opening the pc tidy up the psu cables and would look alot better

They're underneath, hidden. That's what that long "box" is underneath where the glass stops.

EDIT: Oh sorry I thought you were talking about the PSU itself.

I didn't even notice them. I have a few cable tidies I've yet to use

EoinHef

Having cables tidy will help down the road with maintainence and cleanouts.

Nice job on your first PC though. Congrats on makin the step:)

Gamer Bhoy 89

EoinHef wrote: »

Having cables tidy will help down the road with maintainence and cleanouts.

Nice job on your first PC though. Congrats on makin the step:)

I was actually stressing out a lot during the whole process. At the time I was saying to myself "how in the hell do people enjoy doing this so much?" I guess I was in over my head going into it but once I figured everything out I flew through it.

The only thing I ever did to the inside of a computer prior to this one was upgrade the GPU and install a couple of sticks of ram, and add one or two hard drives. I never installed a CPU before so the whole thermal paste/heatsink was my biggest fear.

Temperature is between 40 and 50 on average so I must've done it right

Shlippery

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

I was actually stressing out a lot during the whole process. At the time I was saying to myself "how in the hell do people enjoy doing this so much?" I guess I was in over my head going into it but once I figured everything out I flew through it.

The only thing I ever did to the inside of a computer prior to this one was upgrade the GPU and install a couple of sticks of ram, and add one or two hard drives. I never installed a CPU before so the whole thermal paste/heatsink was my biggest fear.

Temperature is between 40 and 50 on average so I must've done it right

Sure it's a bit nervy at the start (especially with the CPU) but the reward at the end makes it all worth it! :pac:

EoinHef

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

I was actually stressing out a lot during the whole process. At the time I was saying to myself "how in the hell do people enjoy doing this so much?" I guess I was in over my head going into it but once I figured everything out I flew through it.

The only thing I ever did to the inside of a computer prior to this one was upgrade the GPU and install a couple of sticks of ram, and add one or two hard drives. I never installed a CPU before so the whole thermal paste/heatsink was my biggest fear.

Temperature is between 40 and 50 on average so I must've done it right

Id say thats pretty normal building your first one:)

Everyone worries about the amount of paste initially!!

Its a lot of money for most of us so the fear of damaging something is real.

Also its self taught,relying on people/videos/guides online to help intially so ye can find your feet. That can bring a scariness of its own.

But once your done i think its a great feeling. The more ye do it the more things like the cabling will take care of themselves with experience. Just good to start as you mean to continue.

Whats the first game on the list?

Skerries

Candy Crush

Gamer Bhoy 89

EoinHef wrote: »

Whats the first game on the list?

Oh it was definitely Total War: Three Kingdoms.

My last rig was an APU A8-660K Quad Core with a Radeon R7 260X v2 Sapphire OC (1GB)
Didn't stand a chance and my motherboard was outdated so I couldn't upgrade any further

Its announcement last year was the reason I said I was gonna go for a fresh new computer entirely. Granted it took me long enough but I got there.

z0oT

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

So far, it's running flawless. I love it. It's so fast!!!

I bet you got a great feeling when you pressed the power button for the 1st time? The way everything whirrs to life and you're presented with the BIOS setting screen.

Savor it - it becomes less thrilling the more you do it.