masop

Distinguished
Feb 14, 2006
439
0
18,780
I am doing an upgrade from an old AMD Socket A platform. Below is what I'm planning on buying to give my system a major face lift, for under $750. I already purchased the 2 hard drives yesterday as the first phase of the upgrade. If you don't see it listed, that means I am using the older parts from my current system instead to save $$$. Any input would be appreciated. All parts are from ZipZoomFly and are retail boxed, to maximize the quality and warranty. I am considering NewEgg as an option as well.

Motherboard: Link

Asus M2N-E nForce 570 Ultra Sempron/Athlon 64(FX)(X2) SktAM2 DDR2 ATX Motherboard w/Audio, Gigabit LAN, RAID/Serial ATA Retail - $104.99

Processor: Link

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 3800+ Socket AM2 (65W) Retail - $109

Memory: Link

OCZ OCZ2P800R22GK 2GB Kit DDR2 PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel Memory Retail - $198.80

Video Card: Link

Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB PCI-Express Video Card w/Dual-DVI & HDTV-Out Retail - $184.99

Hard Drive(s): Link (Already purchased these on 2/19/07)

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB Serial ATA II 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer Qty 2 = $145.00



The total comes out to $742.78 plus $8.98 Fed-Ex 2 Day Shipping = $751.76


-- MaSoP

NOTE:

Existing PSU is an Antec NeoPower 480 Watt... Link
Existing Case is an Antec Performance Series II SOHO File Server... Link

Lastly, since I'm an AMD faithful, I'm likely going to stick with them unless a much better Intel deal comes around.
 

masop

Distinguished
Feb 14, 2006
439
0
18,780
x1950pro needs 450W 30A minimal. Antec NeoPower 480 has 480W & 32A combined. So it's fine.

Everything looks good.

Hmmm... I figured I'd have around 50-100 watts of spare juice to work with but didn't bother to check the requirements of the video card. That is cutting it close. I wonder how much power the card draws during gameplay? I know power supplies are rarely ever maxed out. Would it be wise to pick up a more powerful psu as well? I haven't decided when to place the order. I believe it is safe to assume if I did another upgrade later down the road such as a more powerful cpu, it might make sense to upgrade the psu at that time, as long as my existing 480 is currently sufficient for the x1950 pro. Thanks for the info.

-- MaSoP
 

akhilles

Splendid
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

For a rather fully loaded am2 pc, i found 426w max. However, I don't trust those calculators anymore. It's more like a guideline. If it says 400w total, a quality 380w can still do the job. Quality > wattage.

The worst case scenario of an underpowering psu is instant reboots/shutdowns when the pc is under load/stress (benchmarking, gaming, etc.). It won't blow up your house. Especially not quality psus.