Aria's 300W PSU Enough For A Pentium D 820?

digitalfeed · Post by **digitalfeed** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 6:25 pm

I've been away from computers for a little bit now (seems like ages has passed with all this new technology) and I'm finally building myself a new computer to replace my aging 500MHz AMD K6-2 computer. (I know, it's really old

)

I really liked the Antec Aria's SFF style case so I based the computer from that. I've got the parts already on the order but now I'm starting to wonder if PSU will be enough to power this sucker. I've heard these CPUs needing a lot of juice especially when under load and I'm not sure what will happen.

Here's what's on order:

Pentium D 820 2.8GHz
Asus P5LD2-VM Socket 775
OCZ GX XTC PC2-5400 1GB 2X512MB DDR2 CL4-4-4-12
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB SATA2 7200RPM 8MB
ATI Radeon X800 XL
BenQ DW1655 Lightscribe DVD+/-RW

Does anyone have a similar setup with a CPU that draws this much power and running it off of a 300W PSU?

duality · Post by **duality** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:08 pm

It's late at night, and I'm sleepy, so I'll answer quickly.

Answer? Probably.

Pentium is about 95W, mobo+ram should be... 40W with a liberal estimate, hard drive with 15W, optical drive at 15W, X800 XL at 50W.

Even at peak it shouldn't top 300W. No, don't try and use all the hardware running at the same time; that's... just dumb. As a matter of fact don't even read what I just said. But Aria's PSU will probably suffice with your rig.

Oh, and... I did have a rig with Celeron D overclocked, 512MBx2 RAM, 6600GT overclocked, 2 hard drives, 2 optical drives... all the good stuff, mated to Seasonic 330W. Worked like a charm. By the way, if you were wondering, that was before I bit the silent PC bug.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Wed Jun 28, 2006 11:48 pm

Can I ask why you have chosen that particular CPU? Cooling all that in an SFF case is going to be a nightmare. An AMD CPU will run cooler and perform just as well.

Post by **MikeC** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 12:34 am

From both acoustic and thermal perspectives, there are better cases than the Aria. In fact, today, far better. Ah, he**, I'll just say it: Don't do it! It was never a great case for cooling or noise, tho it was interesting and stylistically quite nice. The PSU is not great, no comparison whatsoever to any Seasonic.

The new Antec NSK3300 is a much better case. So is the NSK2400.

The CPU is very hot, but probably cheap.
I'm sure the Asus board provides no undervolting options for the CPU.
The 800xl can probably be cooled passively.
The 7200.9 is loud. You'd be much better off with a Samsung or one of the new WD SE16s.

All the above assumes you want a quiet system. If not, ignore everything I've written. It will be noisy, but if you turn all the fans up high, it will keep things cool enough (with a big but low profile CPU cooler).

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:42 am

I'll second MikeC's comments.....you'll be sorry if you use the Aria in it's stock configuration.The PSU is the main culprit. It is in a poor location, and the airflow through it is horrible. I doubt any amount of modding to the PSU would fix it.

For this case to run quietly, it needs an external power supply. FWIW....I spent almost two months making my Aria quiet enough to live with. It's in the gallery section.

digitalfeed · Post by **digitalfeed** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:56 am

jaganath, I chose the CPU since I wanted to get a dual core processor for the type of programs I would be running (mainly multiple display programs for presentations that required videos and the like). I saw it on eBay for cheap so I decided, why not? I've now seen that the 9xx series on the 65nm core run more efficient in terms of heat, so I'm considering selling my auction item it to get one...

MikeC, are the 7000.9 really that loud? This news kinda sucks. I've read that they run fairly quiet. Then again, I guess that was subjective to the person who said it was "quiet".

Bluefront, Yeah, I read your extensive posts about your case modding (which, btw, was very informative) but if it's as bad as you all are saying, it's too late now. But, I'm okay with that since I'm up for a challenge! I already had plans on perhaps scrapping the PSU for a standard size one and mounting it externally out of the case.

I've done a bit of reading on force cooling, I believe that's what they called it. Cramming as much cool (ambient) air into the case and letting it exhaust wherever it may go. I also like the idea of duct cooling by having fresh air hit the heat generating components. We'll see what happens. I might as well scrap the whole Aria idea and find something else. I guess I'll have to weigh the costs of modding to the lost of costs in selling and getting something better.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:30 am

I've done a bit of reading on force cooling, I believe that's what they called it. Cramming as much cool (ambient) air into the case and letting it exhaust wherever it may go

On SPCR this is called the "positive pressure" approach. Some people swear by it, others say it's too noisy. The proof, as always, is in the pudding.

digitalfeed · Post by **digitalfeed** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:35 am

Ah, that's it, positive pressure.

mmm, pudding.