PSU, Mobo and Tower for remains of gutted XPS 710?

[daniflemp]

Approximate Purchase Date: Anytime but sooner the better

Budget Range: £100-£150

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Photoshop, Movies, Music, Internet

Parts Not Required: Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers, Graphics Card, RAM, HDD's, Sound Card, ROM Drives

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: www.dabs.com

Country of Origin: France (though I'm British, so I don't know French sites)

Parts Preferences: Cooler Master

Overclocking Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments:


Hey, figured I'd register here and see what you guys thought.

So I'm planning on gutting my Dell XPS 710 system and building a new system around the majority of the components that were in it. Here's an image of the specs I have:

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My main goal is to find a decent PSU, Mobo and case for this new system. According to the coolermaster site's calculations, my consumption is around 556w, even with dual 8800GTX's (443w with 1 card), which makes me wonder what was going on with the XPS 710 that it needed a 1kw PSU?

I reckon I'll probably be fine with a 750w PSU, what do you guys think? I have only ever bought 1 PSU before and it was a coolermaster (7 years and still going), does anyone have any recommendations? Keep in mind that I'll not be using SLI straight away, but if the coolermaster site isn't lying, and the Mobo supports it, I could be tempted.

I've been looking at some Mobo's by Asus and Gigabyte:

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-p5g41c-m-lx--intel-g41--775--2ddr2-or-2ddr3--pci-ex16--dsub--8-chhd-sound--matx--gb-lan-6P4H.html
http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyte-s775-nforce-630i-matx-ddr2-audio-lan-vga-4SH8.html?refs=405070000-11
http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyte-lga775-intel-g41-ddr2-matx-a-l-6C6L.html?refs=405070000-11

As you can see, I've only really looked at dabs.com because I don't really know any other good uk/european sites. I like the ones above but the problem is that I have 4 sticks of RAM (I know the linked Mobo's above don't all have 4 Dimms) and it seems pretty difficult to find 4 Dimm, socket 775 Mobo's that aren't discontinued. Considering I'm running XP, which only recognized 2.53Gb's in the Dell, I guess I'm not too bothered about the 4 Dimm's as I won't be upgrading my OS any time soon; although the option would be nice.

Apart from that, I'm not too bothered about the tower as long as it can fit the 8800's into it then we're in business.

Well, hope to hear what everyone thinks

 

[batuchka]

Have a look at the CM HAF 912 case and prolly BeQuiet/Antec High Current Gamer series for that part of the world ^^

 

[daniflemp]

Have a look at the CM HAF 912 case and prolly BeQuiet/Antec High Current Gamer series for that part of the world ^^

Thanks, those are both great choices but sadly they leave me with very little budget for the motherboard. I'll definitely keep an eye on those for when I upgrade this rig further.

So, I did some serious looking around and I've come up with a few different options:

Case: Advance Vulcan 8002R

http://www.pc-look.com/boutik/Prod_Advance_Boitier-Tour-Facade-Mesh-Vulcan-8002R__44604_en.html?language=en

This has the best bang for buck as far as coming with 4 fans, plenty of room for expansion in the future and it's a good size overall.

PSU 1: Corsair Builder Series CMPSU-600CX 600W Power Supply

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/600w-corsair-cmpsu-600cx-builder-series-80-eff-120mm-fan-single-12v-rail-atx-ps-2

All the different types of power and surge protection it has is awesome and it's Corsair, so it's definitely a quality product.

PSU 2: FSP Everest 85PLUS 600W Power Supply

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/600w-fsp-group-everest-85plus-80-plus-bronze-85-eff-sli-crossfire-21db-eps-12v-120mm-fan

I'd never really heard of this make before (haven't upgraded a system in over 5 years) but from reading around different sites, it seems quite well regarded. The good thing is that it is SLI ready, so when I decide to later upgrade my motherboard and processor etc. I know I shouldn't have too many worries with this once I SLI my 8800GTX's. 4 channels at 18A seems pretty sufficient and the 6 SATA connectors is definitely comforting for future proofing.

PSU 3: OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W Power Supply

http://www.dabs.com/products/ocz-technology-psu--modxstream-pro--600w---uk-5D15.html?refs=50121

I've heard a lot of good things about OCZ's price/quality, so this is looking pretty good. Once again, another SLI ready PSU here, but with plenty of power and surge protection as well as plenty of connectors for future expansion.

Mobo 1: ASRock P5B-DE (i965)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-P5B-Motherboard-SATA-300-8-channel/dp/tech-data/B002TYZATG/ref=de_a_smtd

This is a company I have no real knowledge of, but once again I've read a fair amount from happy (and not so happy) customers. Well it's dual channel (8Gb max), 1x ATA, 4x SATA, 1x PCI-e 16x, 2x PCI-e 1x, 3x PCI, up to 10x USB and there's 1x Firewire. Comes with a lot of opportunity to overclock (doubt I'll do much though) and plenty of software to monitor temperatures if the cpu and motherboard, amongst other things.

Mobo 2: Gigabyte GA-EP41

http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Gigabyte-GA-EP41-UD3L-Intel-G41-Socket-775-DDR2-Motherboard_20031.html

There isn't much difference between this and the ASRock, except it is missing Firewire and 2 potential USB ports. On the plus side, it has 4 fan connections on it and an extra PCI-e 1x than the ASRock. I has a slightly more up-to-date BIOS and some more interesting software such as; Virtual Dual BIOS, Xpress Recovery2, Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced etc.

In the end, I can choose any one of these options and should stay just about inside my budget. The only thing I'm curious about though, other than which options you guys prefer, is whether there are any noticeable compatibility issues with this stuff. It all seems to be compatible but then again I could have missed something.

I really like the look of all of this stuff lol sadly I didn't have much choice as far as dual channel DDR2 (with a bigger max than 4Gb's), PCI-e 16x that my 8800GTX wouldn't block a necessary PCI-e 1x port (need it for my X-Fi sound card) socket 775 mobo's.

Well, lemme know what you think

 

[daniflemp]

It's taken me another couple of days but I've decided on what (new) parts I want. I had to revise my original options for my build, making it really feel like more of an upgrade build by changing the mobo choices to something that could handle DDR3. I also decided to choose a different PSU that really gave me greater options for later expansion, something that met the expansion opportunities offered by the Vulcan case. So, here they are:

Case: Advance Vulcan 8002R

ATX, Tool free installation, 5x internal + 2x External 3.5" bays, 4x external 5.25" bays, 2x USB 2.0, 2x HD Audio connectors (fancier than saying microphone+headphone connectors lol), Dust filters, water cooling compatible, 4 fans included (1x 120mm front, 1x 120mm back, 2x 80mm sides).

Price: reduced from €47.90 to €34.90

PSU: Corsair GS600 - 80+ (600W)

20+4 pin ATX power cable, 8-4 pin EPS/ATX CPU connector, 2x PCI-E (6+2 pin), 6x SATA, 8x 4 pin, 2x floppy adapter. +3.3V (25A), +5V (25A), +12V (48A), -12V (0.8A), +5Vsb (3A)

Price: €69.90

Motherboard: Asus P5G41T-M LX

Socket 775, Intel G41/ICH7, FSB 1333/1066/800, 2x 240pin DIMM (8Gb max) DDR3 1333 (O.C.)/1066/800, 1x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI, 4x SATA, 8x USB 2.0/1/1, 8Mb flash rom, AMI Bios, PnP, DMI 2.0, WfM 2.0, ACPI 2.0, SMBIOS 2.5

Price: €43.20

RAM: OCZ 4Gb (2x 2Gb) DDR3 1066 Gold C7

CAS 7-7-7-20

Price: Reduced from €49.99 to €29.99

CPU Heatsink: Coolermaster Hyper TX3

Intel/AMD compatible, aluminium fin/3 heat pipes, fan speed 800 ~ 2800 R.P.M (PWM), airflow 15.7 - 54.8 CFM, pressure 0.35 - 4.27 mmH20, 17-35 dBA

Price: Reduced from €19.90 to €15.75

Total Price: €193.74 (£165.36/$266.84)

So I ended up going a little over my budget, but I made that budget figure before factoring in the DDR3 RAM, so I'd say that's not too bad. Any thoughts on the stuff I went for? Although the PSU supports SLI, I really doubt I'll bother SLI'ing in the future as I'd rather upgrade from GDDR3 to GDDR5 by the end of the year. Probably will upgrade processor and mobo then too.

My only problem now is that the mobo doesn't support RAID and my 2 HDD's are RAID 1... I fore-see a large headache in the future