A few questions!, thinking of building my next pc

Moreilly

Im considering building my next pc, maybe over a period of two or three months, ive never done a self build before but im willing to give it a try !
thinking of making a start with something like the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R ( i haven't a clue about motherboards !),Cooler master haf x case and a Intel core i7 950,and a fairly high wattage psu, following on with the rest as cash becomes available. any advice for a newbie to this !

Icyseanfitz

have a pc just like this (same mobo and its great by the way) except for my i7 being a 930 as i heard some stories about some 950's having trouble with overclocking, its a great piece of kit, for the psu id go with a antec 1000W and id also throw a gtx 460 1 gig into it
btw this was my first build as well and i had no problems with figuring out the motherboard very easy to understand

Biy

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

...for the psu id go with a antec 1000W...

What are you smoking! :eek:

Jonny7

1000 watt psu recommendation? thats a first!

Icyseanfitz

why not the rest of his build is top notch why skimp on one of the most important components that will last you through a couple of builds also you never know what you might want to put into the pc later down the road, by the way i have that antec true power 1000 w psu and its amazing got it for 160 euro as well on pixmania so great value

Solitaire

You can blow your own money all you want, but please don't try to trick others into wasting their hard-earned cash on out-of-proportion parts - its a serious no-no on this forum.

[/mod]

PSU recommendations are generally keyed to intended and near-future hardware needs; generally what you're looking for is a good-quality PSU that will only be loaded by 50-60% of its maximum 12V rating when your system is running fully loaded; for gaming systems this is only achieved when your system is running a game that fully loads both CPU and GPU(s). Not neccesarily 100% each, as that's unrealistic too; very few games completely maxes out CPU and GPU simultaneously and its not a huge issue if one game makes your system draw 40% of the PSU's maximum, and another pull 65%; so long as the average is close to 50% its all good. 100% load isn't the same as peak load either - sometimes a program/game can make the CPU and/or GPU power usage spike tremendously high for an instant; this is not a normal condition and is measured against the maximum safe PSU load; so long as its under 100% and average use is closer to 50% then you're fine.

If you underspec your PSU then obviously you'll be running your PSU at over 60% which reduces efficiency and increases costs. This gets more serious when the figure exceeds 80%; at 90% you'll be significantly reducing your PSUs reliability and lifespan as well as costing yourself more for electricity. On the other hand, overspeccing your PSU isn't clever either. Modern switch-mode PSUs are actually most efficient around 50% load and least efficient above 90% and below 30% of their rated capacity; they are at their very worst as load tends towards zero. Aside from the direct cost of overspeccing, you'll use more power (thus bigger ESB bill) with an overspecced unit compared to a "sweet-spot" unit. This is even more obvious with gaming rigs, as the 100% load condition is so far beyond the idle condition and actually accounts for fewer hours of use compared to a workstation where the CPU will account for 80% of the loading and will be running heavily loaded most of the time. Much of the time a gaming rig will have its GPU(s) idling and pulling negligible power and its CPU often idling too unless its folding in its spare time

Moreilly

what 'ballpark figure' load would the system above usually have?, looking at something like the Corsair 850w http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_01COM/29_PSU/01_PSU/productdetails/15460921/Corsair_Professional_Series_HX850W_Power_supply/CMPSU_850HXEU/default.aspx

Moreilly

Ended up with the Corsair Professional series AX850 after looking at endless review's ! , got the Coolermaster haf x case, LG DVD drive, and caviar black 6gbs sata drive so far !, waiting until jan to get motherboard / cpu as s.bridge should be out then and either prices of the i7 950 drop or s.bridge has a better cpu for the same price, which i doubt as cutting edge tech always seems to be a lot pricer upon launch....