Suggest a PSU for this config.

[rahulhbk]

Hey guys.
I'm building another system for a friend of mine who's a hardcore gamer and VERY rich. He told me to just get the best possible parts that i can find and plug it all in.

Here's the CPU config
AMD Athlon 64 FX 60
DFI Lanparty nF4 UT MOBO SLI
2x XFX GeForce 7900GTX 512MB extreme edition
Creative XFi Extreme music
Crucial 2 GB (2x1GB) RAM dual channel low latency
2xSegate Barracuda 250 GB HDD

What i want to know is what the case should be and which PSU should i use.
Also he's gonna build this next month so i guess i'll probably go with the AM2 Athlon FX 62. The total power consumption that i got for this setup was 637w. WIth a Netowrk in terface card and 2 USB and 1 firewire device installed(Though i don't yet know why i did that but we're computer science students so who knows...... )
On a side note when i changed that FX62 with and EE conroe the power consumption DROPPED to 599w 8O . That's a 38w difference.

 

[doolittle]

Well we wouldn't want him to get mad at you for not spending enough $, since he will probably disregard all specs and look directly at the dollar amount.

PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-Quad SLI T1KW-4E EPS12V 1000W $509 shipped

Also consider a x1900xtx crossfire setup, more $$ is better!

 

[rahulhbk]

Well you're right about him ogin for the $$$ amount anywyz...
By the way i've two more questions.
1) What's the difference between the on you listed and this one :-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817703003
One is that this is cheaper 8)
2) How exactly do you choose PSU's when you buy a computer?? I mean what things to keep in mind?? The one i'm building for myself should use around 510 w power(nearly same but a weaker CPU and no SLI). Now according to this a 510w supply is what i need. (I kept up surge compensation at 25% though i've not got the faintest idea what that is. Wish i could go straight to the 2nd-3rd year in college ) But i doubt a 510w would suffice. ALso when i turn down that surge thingy the power rating comes to 408w 8O .

Someone explain what all this is to me :? .


EDIT another thing....what is PFC and modular cabling

 

[doolittle]

I think the only difference is the one I listed is quad-sli rated so it is "better" :lol:

A simple way to determine power supply is by weight: a cheapo power supply will not have additional components that are needed for quality and stability and are focused on cost effectiveness, while "heavy" PSUs have better quality components and larger heatsinks.
"heavy" brands include EnerMax, Delta, PC Power & Cooling, Enhance, Antec, CWT, and FSP/SPI.
"Light" brands include L&C, Deer, Skyhawk, Star, KME, KingStar, and LCT.
By getting a "heavier" PSU you are greatly reducing the chances of having PSU problems (but not eliminating them, such is the nature of all things electronic) since light PSUs are cheap and go through a lesser quality control by the manufacturer. A cheap PSU will double your chances of a failure and possibly component damage. If you are searching a particular model, if you see a lot of hits on people who have had a lot of problems it may be an issue. Reviews can help, but only if they have put it on a load tester, and are unbiased towards the unit / brand. Too many reviews out there give good ratings on PSUs because it ran there system at "full load" which in most cases is much lower than the PSUs rated capacity :x

surge compensation just gives additional "burst" load that may be required by the system (like a disk spinning up out of sleep mode), but capacitor aging may have more effect - as electrolytic capacitors get older they can start to lose efficiency due to heat, voltage ripple may increase and line load on the output rails may see some voltage sag. Common in cheap PSUs

 

[doolittle]

what is PFC

Ahh, that is a good one. difficult to explain, but will give it a go.

In a simple AC device (say a light bulb), AC voltage and current are "in phase", so the voltage & current stay on the same frequency vs time.

In a complex AC device (like a switched-mode PSU), the capacitive and inductive elements measure the reactance, and it causes the voltage and current to be "out of phase" by an amount of degrees (impedence phase angle)

AC power flow has the three components:

real power (P) measured in watts
apparent power (S), measured in volt-amperes
reactive power (Q), measured in reactive volt-amperes (VAr).

PFC or "power factor correction" is additional ciruitry in the PSU that is designed to compensate or reduce the "reactive" component so the "apparent power" is closer to the "true power".

It is only an issue when you have hundreds of PCs (like data centers) where the reacive component sum of all the devices can add up and cause harmonics in your power feed - which can reduce the voltage / current quality (poor waveforms) and the number of loaded devices can be reduced as well.

...and modular cabling

Well that is much easier...

The PSU will have sockets on the casing so the modular cabling can plug into. A better example may be this OCZ Modstream unit.

 

[rahulhbk]

Hey thx a lot for the answers mate. Though i'll mention after reading tht stuff abt PFC i'm getting sick of my Physics....i mean its alwyz been my weakest subject for some reason but still i could have used a little of my brain and i just might have been able to figure that out. But thx a lot man.

So from what i've learned so far i guess for the 510w power consumption that i can see for my system....i should get something that's gonna give that much output AFTER the efficiency thing kicks in. So basically 510w should be.....equal to the net power AFTER the loss....hmmm that means say for a 70% efficient PSU......i need something that's rated at atleast...728w 8O I wonder wether i made a mistake somewhere there.....that's a little too high. I don't think i've heard of anyone who runs a NON SLI config needing that much power.

The settings i used were

Single Processor AMD Athlon FX 62
100% TDP
one PCI network controller
Soundblaster w frontbay
2USB devices
1Firewire device
Fancontroller
Fans - 1-80mm 1-92mm 2-120mm
7900GTX overclocked
2sticks DDR SDRAM
1 IDE HDD 7200rpm
1-DVD-RW / DVD+RW Drive
100%PSU utilisation
25%Surge compensation(They recommend something b/w 15-25)
Net Power - 473w

DO i really need to buy that high rated PSU??
And what do you recommend for me?

 

[doolittle]

Maybe I missed something, here is what I got

System Type: Single Processor
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 2600 MHz Toledo 1.40v
CPU Utilization (TDP): 100% TDP

RAM: 2 Sticks DDR SDRAM
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX (690/1760)
Video Type: Single Card

IDE HDD 7200 rpm: 1 HDD

DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive: 1 Drive

PCI Network Interface Card: Yes
Sound Blaster w/ Front Bay: Yes

USB: 2 Devices
IEEE-1394 FireWire: 1 Device
Fan Controller: Yes

Fans
Regular: 1 Fan 80mm; 1 Fan 92mm; 2 Fans 120mm;

Motherboard, keyboard and mouse: Yes

PSU Utilization: 100% (peak utilization)

Surge Compensation (+ W %): 25%

Total: 455 Watts

So this would work well
FSP Group AX450-PN 450w $59 shipped @ newegg

Or a higher power unit like one of these Antec TP-II series if you have $ to spare, or just want upgradeability / peace of mind

Antec TPII-480 480w $75 shipped @ ewiz
Antec TP-II 550 550w $80 shipped @ chiefvalue

Those three seem to be at the top of my bang-per-buck list...

 

[rahulhbk]

I calculated with an FX 62 AM2 . That's intersting ain't it? The Power consumption is 20w higher.. . Thx for the recmmendations mate. You've helped a gr8 deal. I'll go with that 500w for mine i guess...just to be safe and the P180 case from Antec for both the systems. Any other case out there that's better??
By the way have you seen this guy OC his conroe??
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99980
8O 8O 8O New WR every few hours 8O 8O 8O