Help with choice of case/ps/video card

helper94

Junior Member
Jan 30, 2006
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Hello,

After waiting a while, I'd like to finally graduate up from my 5 year old Dell Dimension 4100 PIII 800mhz, and recently picked up the following parts at a Fry's sale:

Athlon 64 3500+ with HSF (serial number ends with "CG"?)
ECS KN1 SLI Extreme (lite) motherboard
Mushkin 2GB (2x1GB) DDR400 dual channel RAM
Seagate SATA 300GB HD, 7200RPM/16MB buffer with NCQ

I already have a DVD burner and another optical drive, as well as an old 80GB ATA drive. I have a firewire PCI card. I'll be using Windows XP home. Other parts I can get from the old Dell (that still works!!)

I'd like suggestions for a reasonable case, PSU and PCIe video card (I think that's all thats left). I'm not particularly into gaming, but I plan to do a lot of miniDV recording/editing and encoding to DVD. Since I'm overseas military, it'll be stuff that needs to be sent to me - I believe newegg will send to FPO addresses. Thank you all in advance.
 

Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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PSU: Go for a FSP PSU of any type, great entry level PSU maker. Alternativly an Antec Truepower II is good, for the rating you don't need more than 400W. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an idiot and should be shot at dawn. The 400W would give you a lot of spare room to add HDs, upgrade CPU, GPU etc. There are other brands that are better PSU makers, but i doubt it's worth spending the extra in your case.

GPU: If gaming isn't a priority for you then you're either looking at a 7300 or one of the ATI cards, i think the X800T is alright.
 

helper94

Junior Member
Jan 30, 2006
2
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bobthelost,

Thank you for your quick response. Any idea if any of those video cards you mentioned comes without a fan? I'd prefer to keep noise to a minimum. Also, any idea if those power supplies you mentioned are relatively quiet? (doesn't need to be top-of-the-line, whisper-quiet, just not a high pitch whine, like my Dell used to be before I replaced its case fan.)
 

Ike0069

Diamond Member
Apr 28, 2003
4,276
2
76
Fortron 450W PSU is $50. The best deal for a solid PSU IMO.
Or you could go with the Sonata II case/PSU combo. For a ~$100, it's an excellent value.
 

Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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Ah, noise freak!
Seasonic s12 380W PSU. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151022
May well be better prices out there. The seasonic range is one of the quietest made, you could go for a passive solution, but the HD will be louder anyway and the price premium is excessive imo. If you want info on how PSUs are for noise then i'd look at http://www.silentpcreview.com. They do very indepth writeups of the PSUs they review.

The TPII range isn't bad for noise, but it's not as good. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103927 Here is the SPCR review of it:http://www.silentpcreview.com/article289-page1.html
Overall, the fan is above average and the fan controller is quite good. Together, they make for a power supply that is likely to be quiet in most systems. A truly silent system may require a more exotic solution, but many users will be happy with the level of noise offered by the TruePower 2.0.

Fortron are also going to be a world of difference better than your Whining dell, i've got one in my computer at the moment and it's quiet with a very smooth noise, no whine at all.

Video cards with passive Heatsinks are more exotic, again SPCR is the place to look for that. It's uncommon to find them with passive heatsinks from the factory, i think BFG or gigabyte make some with Zalman 700Al coolers which are very quiet. However you may well be able to survive the stock cooling system, if you're not a gamer then a 7800GT is a waste of money, but the stock HSF mine came with was fairly quiet and you can always add a 3rd party cooler afterwards.
 

imported_killuminati

Senior member
Jun 12, 2005
260
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get the 6800GS , the best economical price/performance card .
or
Get the 7800GT for $275 , 8 motr pixilpipelines then the GS and definately worth the Gaming and SLI experience .

for PSU get FSP , Antec , Seasonic , Thermaltake , Enermax .
moslty well known reputated PSU and SLI compatiable .

Peace & ciao !!!
 

Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
4,360
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Ooooooh Case.

If you can afford it then you could skip all this mucking about with PSUs and get the Antec P150. It's the quietest stock case there is. It also ships with the Antec NeoHe 450W PSU, which is pretty damned quiet itself. However you do pay for the premium, many people condsider it to be excessive for what you get.
 

Tostada

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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It's unreasonable to suggest a 6800GS (a $200 video card that isn't particularly quiet) to someone who specifically said he isn't particularly into gaming and wants to keep sound to a minimum.

Personally, I have a GeForce 6600 that doesn't have a fan, but it's an XFX that they stopped making without a fan. NVidia seems to have trouble making quiet cards.

A Radeon X1300 is a good 128-bit DX9 card and you can get a passive one that doesn't run hot for $84:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102001

That'll play current games if you don't turn all the features on max and crank the resolution up past 1024x768.

But then again, if you're not into games, why did you get a SLI motherboard?
 

KeithP

Diamond Member
Jun 15, 2000
5,662
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I was just at Fry's today and they have Antec P150 for $129 which includes a PS as Bobthelost mentioned. Should be a nice quiet case.

-Keith
 

Boztech

Senior member
May 12, 2004
782
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Personally I'd go for

- X600 All-In-Wonder ~$120
- Coolermaster Centurion ~$50
- Antec Smartpower 2.0 500w ~$70

The Seasonic S12s are quiet, but they are weak on the 12v rails, e.g. the 380w has only 25a on the +12v rails. The Smartpower 500 is modular and has over 30a on the 12v, and is marginally just as quiet (fans turn off as needed).
 

Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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Would 25A be a squeeze on the system though? If it's only going to draw 15A then there's no point in getting a 500W SP2, might go for a smaller one instead.
 

alimoalem

Diamond Member
Sep 22, 2005
4,025
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WHAT'S YOUR BUDGET?????????????

there's the 7300 for <$100, 6800GS for $200, 7800GT for $275-315, 7800GTX for >$500 and also the x1900xt

CPU: CHANGE IT!! get the 3200 or 3700
MB: ECS sucks, period.
i know the combo you're looking at and my friend has it. it shows approximately the same amount of lag as my 2 year old intel 2.8 and the cpu should be better.
PSU: i'd go with a fortron 400w (450w maybe...it's ony $10 more)
 

Boztech

Senior member
May 12, 2004
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Originally posted by: Bobthelost
Would 25A be a squeeze on the system though? If it's only going to draw 15A then there's no point in getting a 500W SP2, might go for a smaller one instead.

Why get less power at the same price point? For a PSU that's 4-5dba more quiet? Either of the units in question are going to be overcome by the noise from the AMD HSF and/or the case fans being used.

Plus the SP 500 is modular, which is a very nice feature to have.
 

Bobthelost

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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Modualr is very nice to have, but to the rest of it, a 380W s12 will be able to handle pretty much anything non SLI, non ultra high end, including moderate upgrades for at least three years or more. If your PSU is going to die of age before there is any need for the higher wattage then you're just wasting money, or in this case adding to noise instead.
 

Boztech

Senior member
May 12, 2004
782
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Originally posted by: Bobthelost
Modualr is very nice to have, but to the rest of it, a 380W s12 will be able to handle pretty much anything non SLI, non ultra high end, including moderate upgrades for at least three years or more. If your PSU is going to die of age before there is any need for the higher wattage then you're just wasting money, or in this case adding to noise instead.


Well, I personally think more power and modular cabling is worth the few extra decibals. Like I said, the difference will not be noticeable at all because the retail HSF will overcome it, if not the case fans. Having sufficient power for your system is arguably more important than how quiet and efficient the unit is.