advice on build compatibility

[finerty]

sry but its the age old post

heres my currant build, which im pretty sure is all compatible.

i only have a couple of questions,

the ram is not one which has been certified by the asus. but having checked there website this motherboard seems to have been tested with only ram from companys that i either don't want to buy from or never heard of (kingston is the only one that i might buy from does anyone have any experience of there ram) what are the chances that the ram won't work with the motherboard?


Asus P5b Deluxe wifi ap Lga775 Core 2 Duo P965 Fsb1066 8gb DDR2 Sata Dual Gigabit Lan Wifi Audio Firewire ATX
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/116481

CPU
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93ghz - Skt775 Fsb1066 4mb Cache retail boxed
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/112728

GPU
XFX GeForce 8800GTX 768MB DVIx2 TVO PCI-E
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119643

RAM
OCZ 2GB (2x1024MB) DDR2-800 PC2-6400 CL 5-5-5-12 Gold XTC dual channel kit (lifetime warranty)
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=7204&category_id=262&manufacturer_id=0
(link seems broke, may have to just find it in the ram section manually)

HD
Seagate 7200.9 120gb Sataii 7200rpm 8mb Cache - Oem
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/115416


DVD
Sony DWG120ABC 16X Dual Layer DVDRW/RAM Black Retail Box
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/116975

Sound Card
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Soundcard - Retail Boxed
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119556

Monitor
Video 7 V7L22WD 22" (1680x1050) 5ms 700:1 Silver & Black MultiMedia DVI TFT Monitor 3 Years Warranty
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/121037

Speakers
Yatai 5.1 Black/Silver 33W RMS Surround Sound Speaker System - With LCD Front Panel/Wireless Remote
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/105960

OS
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Inc SP2

PSU
OCZ 600 Watt Game X Stream PSU
http://www.custompc.co.uk/custompc/processors/reviews/linker.php?r=84147&s=CCLOnlineProductTable&i=0b8f2429&x=words



case
Antec P160W Aluminium Mid Tower With Side Window - No PSU
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/99890


extra fan
Hiper 120mm Case Fan - Clear HiperFlow Frame & Blades - 3pin with Adaptor/Screws Included
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=24117504567&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=105137
5.37 inc VAT

the other main thing im worried about is compatibility, ive checked everything but as i am far from experienced if you could cast your expert eyes over my list and point out any problems i might have (its the motherboard and psu i know least about) i would be grateful

thankyou

 

[flasher702]

Compatibility looks fine.

1. I've never heard of that brand of monitor. Last time I bought an off-brand monitor it came with an entire colum of dead pixels (768 dead pixels) and there was no possible way to make a warrenty claim. I ended up convincing the retailer to let me send it back to them even though their policy was to not accept returns on monitors. That was a CMV brand monitor btw.

2. The remote on that speaker system will be pretty useless to you won't it? You can turn the volume up and down... but that's it. Get a multi-media remote for your computer so you can pause and skip and all that. Don't let the remote on these speakers affect your buying decision at all. Personally I don't buy "computer speakers" at all. I get monitors with integrated speakers, if I want privacy/immersion/noise-cancelling I use headphones, if I want more volume I have a 400watt amp.

But yeah, I didn't notice anything that woth be compatible there. RAM should work fine, only a few modules with default voltages that are out of spec that you have to worry about.

 

[finerty]

tbh its the first time ive paid for speakers, but as im finally building a gaming rig i felt it was time to start. The remote has no impact on my desision and will probebly be bined as i always sit at my pc.

one other quick question, im buying the retail version of the cpu and i was wondering if the cooling it comes with is enough (i assume it must with a heatsink + fan for those who don't mod) as have no plans to overclock it atm. does anyone have experience with the stock fan that comes with it?


woops just realised that i will need a sli psu just to power the one 8800 GTX so the psu is changed to

Antec TruePower Trio 650W PSU - With 3x 12v Rails and 120mm Fan
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/114933

that would have been rather depressing if i hadn't remembered

 

[flasher702]

Eh, there isn't really any reason to get an "SLI certified" PSU. If you edit your first post to change the title to ask for PSU suggestions I'm sure you will get lots of responses xD or you can look here:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/PSU-101-ftopict198276.html
and here
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/

Looking at teh calc taking a little surge compensation and capacitor aging into account to make sure it will still be running strong in a year seems like you want a a 489w PSU with 40.75 amps on the 12v rails. The antec one you picked out is 650w with 52 amps on the 12v rails and should be fine. That amperage is spread across 3 lines that are each limited to 19a though so you have to make sure that you're spreading the load across all 3 rails or the PSU will switch off at max load. If antec wired it up so that the 12v aux and PCIe connectors are each on their own rails you have nothing to worry about, if they did it differently you might have to get creative...

The stock cooler is reportedly good for up to 3ghz and beyond. At stock speeds the x6800 runs at 2.93ghz. You can get coolers that will cool better and run quieter, but the stock one should be fine.

 

[skyguy]

What are you planning on using this system for?

The 6800 isn't really necessary if you're willing to do a bit of overclocking. Your mobo and RAM will take it, so you should seriously consider dropping down to the 6600, save a good chunk of money, then easily overclocking the 6600 beyond a 6800 without breaking a sweat.

 

[finerty]

right im starting to get confused
i understand volts, amps, rails, plugs
but

the 8800 gtx needs 2 12v rails right

does anything else use a 12v rail?

if so can i just use this psu instead which has 2

Coolermaster eXtreme Power 650W PSU - ATX 12V V2.01 120mm Fan 20+4pin

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/116522/rb/24242430915

 

[finerty]

scratch that read some reviews and it has heat probs

ill just get the 550W version
http://www.antec.com/uk/productDetails.php?ProdID=07656

should still have plenty of amps (as far as i can tell (not very far ) )

it does dosen't it?

 

[flasher702]

Nothing *needs* 2 rails. Most computer PSUs don't even have 2 seperate rails anyway, just seperate current limiters so that no one line goes above 20amps (supposed to reduce fire risk).

Pretty much everything in your computer uses 12v. GFX and CPU use the most.

I can't offer much in the way of individual PSU recomendations. Antec has a pretty good reputation, and I like my Seasonic S12 as do a few other people around here. Biggest concern is to make sure you have enough 12v amperage. I used a quick dirty method (the one reccomended in the article I linked above) to come up with 40.75 as a number that includes sufficient overhead. To get that much 12v amperage you will almost definately be looking at a PSU with multiple 12v rails, just be aware that it's more of a gimmic and a saftey consideration then an actual technical superiority and make sure your rails are ballanced.

Oh, and the above advice about getting the e6600 instead of the x6800 isn't half bad. Even without overclocking it won't make much of a difference in games and if you're looking to shave time off long encoding runs I think an OCed e6600 would be a better choice then the x6800 at stock or overclocked (you'd end up with basically the same CPU speed but more bandwidth). Not really my area of expertise though (C2Ds or Encoding).

The 550w Antec you linked above looks fine to me with ~42amps on the 12v rails.

Notice this in the specs " Transient Response +5V,+12V and 3.3V outputs return to within 3% in less than 1ms for 20% load change." If the rails were completely seperate this would only happen on one of your 12v rails at a time. If you were doing extreme OCing "withing 3% within 1ms" might not be good enough (and some powersupplies of lower quality are not this good) and spinning up your HDs and Optical drives all at the same time (opening Windows explorer with power saving options could cause this to happen) or launching a game that suddenly maxes out your CPU and GFX might cause a system crash but at this point in time if you're doing that kind of extreme OCing your best bet is to use multiple PSUs to get seperate rails (I haven't seen anyone actually doing this though).

 

[finerty]

i come out with a result of 414 watts (the number of processors confused me a bit but i assume that a dual core is one)

so (my brain is starting to hurt here)

to work out the amps i assume that 90% of the power is through the 12v rails so

414 *0.9 = 372

to get to amps

372 / 12 = 31.05 amps

the 3 12v rails have a max output of 504 watts

504 / 12 = 42 (not sure how you got 50 amp)

the watt calulater says to add 30% as its inaccurat so that is

31.05 * 1.3 = 40.365

i don't think that 2 amps is really a safe margin of error so i may have to get the 650W one

624/12 = 52 amps across the 3 rails


now maths is not my strong point but these results look reasonable to me would you mind glanceing at them and seeing if ive gone wrong as i got quite a different result to flasher on the amps provided

thx for all the help so far and to come

ps. sry this has turned into a psu disscussion in the wrong forum


pps. after having read the psu myths in the psu 101 thread i am now completly unconfident about my psu selection. bassically its very likly that it will have to go to full load (its a gaming rig after all) alot of the time. apparantly ill lose 30% of the power as the psu heats up and more beacuase of the extra rails etc etc im getting close to beliving no psu will work

sooooooooo if anyone has a suggestion for a psu that i can purchase ( i live in the uk) that will be 100% stable (theoretically) with the requirments im putting on it

 

[flasher702]

I used bad math, duh! Good thing you caught that error

If you're adding 30% that is your margin of error, you don't really need to add another one. Won't hurt anything though (except maybe your wallet, but looking at the other stuff you're planning on getting your wallet seems to be able to take a beating) and will probably run cooler.

That "PSU myths" article has concepts kind of out of context (they want you to buy their PSU). The concepts are right, but they don't really apply to a good-quality PSU like the antec you're looking at. If you look at the spec the Antec PSU is specced to run at 50c, so they took heat into account when they said it would produce that much power. Your case temps should be well below 50c.

I added capacitor aging and surge compensation and then assumed that 100% was going to 12v to create a margin of saftey overall wattage and a slight extra margin for the 12v, we both ended up at the same number for 12v. If you have 41amps on the 12v rails you should be good for a year, at which point you'll probably upgrade something and you might want to think about a new PSU anyway (but we can all hope that power requirements go down...).

If I were you working with your appearant budget I'd get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA=0&type=&Description=s12+seasonic&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
Seasonic S12 Energyplus 650w

It has four 12v rails, one of which you probably won't even use, but it doesn't matter since you can still get all the power it can give you out of the other 3 which is rated at 52amps, more than enough. It's also quiet and up to 88% effecent. No bad reviews that I'm aware of after glancing around (let me know if you find any).

The 550w one provides 41a on the 12v rails which, as I said, should provide plenty of power, including a saftey margin overhead, for quite some time. The 650w one is only a little more expensive and won't change the overal price of a system like this by much. If an extra ~$30 will make you feel better, go for it. It certainly won't hurt your system at all.

 

[dragonsprayer]

ok the psu looks good but upgrade the ram and change mobos!

ocz is weak psu grab a silverstone, why the pb5 - why don't use 650i 04 680i board? or a P5W-DH, i build systems and i use this board!

p5w-dh has way better sound too - u need a sound card if want good sound - get the p5w-dh u get remote and nice wireless!

5-5-5-15 u should spend $40 and get corsair 4-4-4-12 $230 after rebate i just ordered some!

i checked the ocz its got alot of amps 72! wow

there wires are stiff - i pulled a ocz it was 450 watt with only a x1800xt but it did have a 4.25ghz 3.6j probably pulling 135+ watts - i replaced it with 600 watt hipro - zero crashes!

i probably just undersized it - i will say this after 10+ crashes no damge to anything - i had rebuild the raid in the utility and did have to make a new boot sector but no hardware damge! So gogo ocz!

 

[dragonsprayer]

most manufactures cross the rails -- so i.e. 12v3 may pull juice from 3 rails. check silverstones site look at the loading diagrams

usually the 12v1 pulls from 1 rail for the mobo

then the pci-x pulls juice from 3 rails

so 12v4 with pill from 1,2, and 4 that's pci-x 3 & 4 in quad -sli psu

12v3 is 1,2,3 thats how it gets all the power with out going over the limit witch is 19 amps per rail for safty reasons

 

[finerty]

um which one mplichfamily? we seem to have gone through quite a lot of potential ones.

the reason i don't get a 680i is because i do not wish to use sli or crossfire whichever it is i forget

p5w :as im getting a sound card id rather not pay for a board with better onboard sound which will be redundant

 

[finerty]

right there have been several changes since the originol post

the ram is now
Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4D) DOMINATOR

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=119738



the screen is
Viewsonic VX922 19" 2ms 650:1 (1280x1024) DVI Silver & Black TFT Monitor 3 Year Warranty

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=24276813884&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=101080




the psu is still up in the air abit while i try to make sense of the responses

thank you for all the freindly help so far and for future help

 

[dragonsprayer]

that's a winner - get the $20 fan its cool! or use the crab fan for lights!

the corsair fan that clips on the denominator ram

 

[finerty]

ive just found this for the same price as the antec one and its nicer and blue

http://www.custompc.co.uk/custompc/processors/reviews/linker.php?r=84147&s=CCLOnlineProductTable&i=0b8f2429&x=words

this seems very good and gives me tons of overhead for later upgrades etc.

just one question, what is the 'word' on ocz? good company, bad company, build quality

ive found a few reviews and they seem favourable

 

[finerty]

ok im going to buy the ocz 700W one this evening if anyone can spot any reason not this is your last chance after all this i hope its good.


thankyou to everyone who helped me ive had great advice and its been very freindly, a great first experience on these forums

 

[flasher702]

um which one mplichfamily? we seem to have gone through quite a lot of potential ones.

the reason i don't get a 680i is because i do not wish to use sli or crossfire whichever it is i forget

p5w :as im getting a sound card id rather not pay for a board with better onboard sound which will be redundant

He was reffereing to the 600w OCZ in your Original Post ("OP") as being fine.

 

[finerty]

ah thank you

ps. ive checked and i can only find one source which says the 8800 gtx will fit my case
antec p160w
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=1959556&frmKeyword=&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

as this thread has no pictures and only one person has said it id like a bit more reassuring

does anyone have experience of this or know of any other threads dealing with this