Is the Antec Sonata useless?

[Craig234]

I have an old original Antec Sonata sitting around - it has only a 350W PS.

What's about the best gear I can use it for, MB/CPU/Graphics card? Would the new Intel chips (6600 preferably) be ok?

 

[mshan]

The original Antec Sonata had a single fan version of the Antec TruePower 380 in it.

I used it for quite a while (I'm not an overclocker, though) and always thought it was a very high quality power supply.

Can't give you any specifics, though.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Also keep in mind that there were two versions of that PSU, one with 18A on the 12V rail and the updated model with 24A on the 12V rail. But I also believe that the original Sonata's PSU was 20pin whereas almost all new motherboards are 24pin.

 

[Craig234]

Thanks. It has 18A and the 20-pin connector on the power supply, yay.

Any suggestions, or should I just chuck it?

 

[sjwaste]

Are you kidding? 18A is enough for an HTPC. Has the marketing gotten to everyone over power requirements?

I run an Opty 165 @ 2.2GHz, 2 tuners, 2 HD's, 7900GT on a 350W Superflower PSU. Voltages are rock steady and within spec.

If you don't want it because its too low end, give me a low end price and I'll be happy to buy it from you.

 

[Craig234]

Thanks for the encouragement that it's still useful. It's not so much marketing as ignorance.

I'm looking for a setup that would fit this - what M/B would be compatible, what CPU for that, what graphics card can be handled... 1 or 2 120GB hard drives...

Ideally a Core 2, if not the higher end Athlon the better...

As for selling it, it's a bit tempting, bit it sounds like it might be usable, and by the time of the hassle of shipping and everything...

Though if anyone wants to help rebuild a PC into the Sonata in the bay area, let me know

 

[sjwaste]

Well, I only threw out the HTPC example. I don't know if you could do an SLI gaming rig or anything.

But if you wanted to build an HTPC, a couple of tuners, a pair of 300 gig HD's, DVD-R, and a mid-range video card you would have a pretty nice system. Could probably support a couple more HD's.

 

[soydios]

380 watts will run a pair of hard drives, 2 gigs of RAM, any processor you want (other than an Intel Extreme Edition, AMD FX, or Intel pre-Conroe), most graphics cards (only one high-midrange board, so no 7950GX2, no X1900 or 7900GTX, but a 7900GT would be fine), but NO OVERCLOCKING.

PSU power ratings are more of a marketing tool nowadays. The only reason I have a 550W PSU is that I have an X1900XT, I will be overclocking in the future, and I might want to get an X1900 CrossFire or DX10 graphics card.

 

[Shadowknight]

Also go to the cases and cooling forums at SPCR. There's a stickied thread on modding Sonata's to making them cool more efficiently as well as sound a little quieter.

 

[Craig234]

Thanks. What's SPCR?

 

[Shadowknight]

spcr is silentpcreview.com Here's the thread I was talking about http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=7720

 

[sjwaste]

Check out the reduced price Opty 165's in hot deals. One of those, Asrock 939Dual, 512MB of memory, midrange vidcard, tuner(s), big HD, and BeyondTV. You then have a really nice HTPC that can transcode video for archival, to/from DVD, etc in reasonable amounts of time. Could also be an HTPC/gaming rig with a little more memory and a 7900GT. The latter is how I use my Opty 165 machine, in fact.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Has the marketing gotten to everyone over power requirements?

I run an Opty 165 @ 2.2GHz, 2 tuners, 2 HD's, 7900GT on a 350W Superflower PSU. Voltages are rock steady and within spec.

Yes, PSUs enjoy a larger markup than most other hardware, which is why so many companies (BFG, Mushkin, Corsair) are getting into the game.

I run my Opty 144, 7900GT and single HDD on a 270W Enermax with 16A on +12v. Of course CPU and GPU are overclocked.