New rig needed

hravn · Post by **hravn** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:58 pm

Hi,

lurking days are over I guess... been planning on upgrading my rig for a couple of months and now my old PSU (Antec TrueBlue 480W) died and forced me to switch to my backup Chieftec 360W. Unfortunally, since I was running all fans on the temperature controlled fan-only connectors on the TrueBlue, all my fans are now running at 12V and are driving me absolutly crazy.

So, it's time to get on with building a new computer and this time, it should be _quiet_. (When even your girlfriend tells you to get a new computer because the old one is loud, you know it's bad).

Old rig was an Athlon XP 1700+ overclocked to 2.4GHz in a Antec P160. I'll save the harddrives and sell everything else off (or use in some other projects).

Parts to get (subject to change):
---------------------------------

Antec P180
Venice 3000+ or X2 3800+ (to be overclocked)
Abit AN8 Ultra or Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Scythe Ninja
Antec Phantom 350W
2048MB Corsair XMS PC3200
DVD-RW (not decided on brand, cheapest I guess)
XpertVision GeForce 7800GTX (cheapest 7800GTX I could find)
2x PATA IBM 180GB Deskstars 8MB (leftover from old system)
1x SATA Maxtor 250GB 8MB
1x Papst 120x25mm to run in lower chamber (Nexus is kind of hard to get hold of here)
1x Antec 120mm blue LED-fan (leftover from old system, and yes, I like pretty lights

)

So, my questions are:

#1. I'd rather get the Abit AN8 board (since it's cheaper and I really don't need SLI), but I'm a bit concerned about if the Silent OTES cooling will get sufficient airflow with a passive heatsink (planning on running 1-2 of the exhaust fans).

#2. Do you think that the Phantom 350W is enough to power this system (and maybe another 1-2 HDs)? When looking at specs for the Phantom 350W and 500W it doesn't seem to be any real difference on the 12V lines? I'd rather get the 350W (even though the 500W is actually cheaper here!) since it's shorter and space seem to be somewhat limited in the lower chamber .

#3. Papst vs Nexus vs Antec. Anyone know how bad the Antec fan is compared with a Papst or Nexus? I'm planning on running all fans at 5V. I could get Nexus fans instead of Papst, but it's a hassle since I need to order them from a separate place.

#4. Other comments are greatly appreciated.

hravn · Post by **hravn** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:53 pm

*bump* Anyone?

Additional questions:

In the SPCR article "Power Distribution within Six PCs" it says that the hard drives draw it's power through the 5V line, but I've seen elsewhere in the forums that it draws through the 12V line? Which is correct?

Does anyone know the correct maximum power draw for a 7800 GTX? I've seen ~7A and ~80W.

The Venice together with the MB should draw something like max 8A.

So, if the hard drives draw through the 5V line, I should end up with something like this on max 12V load: 8A (cpu/mb) + 7A (gfx) + 1A (dvd) = 16A, which should be well within the Phantom 350W maximum 12V spec of 34A (18A + 16A). Am I right?

teknerd · Post by **teknerd** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:35 pm

the phantom will be fine with either setup, especially in the P180.

the antec's set to medium and wired for 7V or wired for 12V and set to low will probably be fairly good (especially given what you are coming from

)

Personally i would spring for the Asus since the quality is better overall (but thats just my personal opinion). Either board will work fine in the P180

otherwise it sounds pretty good.

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:41 pm

I've never really followed any numbers on how much a PSU can handle. I usually judge it based on looking at posts on SPCR about how much a 300W PSU can handle (search for it, there's a thread on it somewhere). I would trust my 350W Fortron PSU to run your setup, but I would be worried about adding two extra drives to that load. I'd look for something in the 400-450W range. Nexus and Seasonic PSUs come to mind as being in that range, but they aren't passive.

I have an Antec Tri-Cool right now in my case and at 5V its probably almost as quiet as a Nexus. The only issue was that the first few times I powered it up on the low setting, the fan wouldnt start. I decided to just keep giving it push every time I booted up, at least until I got a replacement for it, but after a few days it started fine at 5V. I've been a little uneasy ever since that, but it hasn't failed in the past 8 months or so. I prefer Papst fans because they give you more headroom if you want more cooling. A nexus is slightly quieter and moves about the same air at 12V as a Papst at 5V. If its quiet enough for you, I'd stick with the Papst so you can turn it up if necessary.

Personally, I would get a 3000+ and overclock it, but then again I would also stay with 1GB of RAM and wouldn't buy a 7800GTX. It all really depends on your perfromance vs. price threshold.

I have no experience with the P180 or the Abit AN8 Ultra, so I can't say anthing about #1.

hravn · Post by **hravn** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 12:59 am

Thanks alot for the answers.

Yeah, I'll overclock the processor whether I get a venice 3000+ or a x2 3800+. I'd like the X2, but it's costs three times more than the venice.

The reason for 2GB RAM is that I play BF2 which is a real memory hog, on my current rig (1 GB PC3500) it takes up to 1 min until I can use my computer after exiting the game, just swapping like mad from the harddrive.

Also, I do alot of software development on my machine so a X2 would be nice since I have _alot_ of programs open at the same time, and use Virtual PC (which really need ALOT of memory) extensively.

From your posts I'm leaning towards thinking that the 350W should be enough for this rig, I'm just concerned about the hard drives... (12V or 5V)

teknerd · Post by **teknerd** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 7:13 am

SPCR did testing on hard drives to see how much they actually draw and the majority never peak above 9 Watts. So all of the hard drives will only add up to 27 watts, far less than your processor or graphics card.

hravn · Post by **hravn** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:52 am

Hmm, interesting... In the article SPCR's Hard Drive Testing Methodology it says that standard 3.5" are powered from both the 12V and the 5V line (mostly from 12V?) and that 7200rpm 3.5" HDs draw 20W+ on spinup. Worst case scenario is that it draws it all from the 12V (no clue) which would mean something like 5A.

Since I've decided to go with the X2 3800+ which has a max draw of 89W (7.4A) I've come up with the following:

Max 12V load would be 10A (cpu/mb) + 7A (gfx) + 1A (dvd) + 5A (hds) = 23A, which is still well below the Phantom 350W max 12V draw of 34A.

Split up between the 12V lines the 12V1 would get 3A (mb) + 7A + 1A + 5A = 16A, which might be a bit close to the 18A limit for 12V1. On the other hand, the Phantom 500W is actually rated for 17A on the 12V1 line, so it would be even worse. The question is where the protective circuits kick in.

The 12V2 shouldn't have any problem powering the X2 on the other hand.

I'm assuming there is an error in the Phantom 350W review where it says that the 12V1 line powers the CPU, because in the Power Supply Fundamentals & Recommendations article it says that it's the 12V2 that powers the CPU.