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It's been 5 years since my last upgrade, need some advice

Z

zooted

Junior Member
I am currently running an Athlon 64 FX-55 with 2GB RAM, and a Nvidia 7900 GTO. The last game I played on this was the Deus Ex 3 leak D:, the cutscenes couldn't play properly (horrible fps, audio out of sync) but the game itself was tolerable except for some exterior sections. I've been gaming on my PS3 but now that Witcher 2 is out and games like Deus Ex 3 and BF3 are on the horizon, I need an upgrade. My budget is $600, the main focus is gaming but I occasionally do some audio/video encoding.

I am reusing:
Antec P150 (Solo) case
Antec NEO HE 430W Modular PSU
Yate Loon and Nexus fans
Samsung 500GB HD
NEC 20WMGX2 LCD (1680 X 1050)
Monitors + USB sound card
Keyboard + Mouse

I've purchased:
Intel Core i5-2500K
G.SKILL Ripjaws X 8GB 1600 (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL)
GIGABYTE GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 mATX
Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner SATA AD-7260S-0B

Total spent is $400 so I've got $200 to spend on a video card and a heatsink that will accommodate a 4.3 - 4.5GHz overclock. Noise is an issue, so I prefer quiet components. Also, I don't mind dealing with rebates. Thanks for your time.
 
Why the heatsink and overclock? I'd suggest spending the $35 on the video card instead, so you can afford a Geforce 560 ti.

Games won't need the OC with an under-$300 video card, and you can always do some overclocking with the stock HSF.
 
DaveSimmons said:
Why the heatsink and overclock? I'd suggest spending the $35 on the video card instead, so you can afford a Geforce 560 ti.

Games won't need the OC with an under-$300 video card, and you can always do some overclocking with the stock HSF.
Click to expand...

This. Use the heatsink you have for now, and leave it stock even. Just spend the money on the best GPU you can.

If you want to overclock, buy a Hyper 212 plus when you have the funds. But I definitely wouldn't split the 200 over a GPU and cooling system.
 
Ok, I'll leave the heatsink, I have a Thermalright XP120 that is probably better than the stock heatsink, I just wish I could mount on the new mobo. At the $200 range I am looking at a 560 Ti or 6870?
 
mvbighead said:
This. Use the heatsink you have for now, and leave it stock even. Just spend the money on the best GPU you can.

If you want to overclock, buy a Hyper 212 plus when you have the funds. But I definitely wouldn't split the 200 over a GPU and cooling system.
Click to expand...

Thirded.

For $200 (AR), this Palit GTX 560 Ti is a good deal.
 
Don't re-use a low wattage PSU.

Especially considering you've got a 2500K.

I'd say go for a 650-700W, but make sure that you get a quality brand and perhaps look for a high-efficiency level such as 80PLUS Silver, or higher! 😀
 
d3fu5i0n said:
Don't re-use a low wattage PSU.

Especially considering you've got a 2500K.

I'd say go for a 650-700W, but make sure that you get a quality brand and perhaps look for a high-efficiency level such as 80PLUS Silver, or higher! 😀
Click to expand...

Why Silver? Doesn't that just mean you get 85% Eff? For less money you could get just the regular 80 cert. But Im not a PSU expert, just wondering....5% doesn't seem like much unless you are talking about 1kW or higher.
 
z1ggy said:
Why Silver? Doesn't that just mean you get 85% Eff? For less money you could get just the regular 80 cert. But Im not a PSU expert, just wondering....5% doesn't seem like much unless you are talking about 1kW or higher.
Click to expand...

I'm not the best on PSUs. But think about it... efficiency is a way of rating how much energy is 'efficiently used'. For example, if the user needs 200W, and the efficiency is 80%, then they're getting 160W. So, more power draw is needed to gain the 200W. (I read that from another source, although I'm not sure how accurate that is. This source has great info: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=548862).

Anyhow, you may think that higher-efficiency PSUs cost more, but really... overall, you save a lot more on electricity than it costs for the difference in price of PSUs.

Erm, well it doesn't mean 85% [for Silver], it's just the lowest efficiency it gains (the lowest number... [afaik]) from different power draw percentages of PSUs. It will vary from PSU to PSU, but they all have to meet minimal standards to gain the ratings.
Of course, the higher the power draw, the more overall difference in comparison, the efficiency number will make. But, it all adds up fairly quickly anyway (my personal view).

Hope that helps 😀
I'm not the best at doing quick descriptions.
Mind checking my post please? http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2175180
 
d3fu5i0n said:
I'm not the best on PSUs. But think about it... efficiency is a way of rating how much energy is 'efficiently used'. For example, if the user needs 200W, and the efficiency is 80%, then they're getting 160W. So, more power draw is needed to gain the 200W. (I read that from another source, although I'm not sure how accurate that is. This source has great info: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=548862).

Anyhow, you may think that higher-efficiency PSUs cost more, but really... overall, you save a lot more on electricity than it costs for the difference in price of PSUs.

Erm, well it doesn't mean 85% [for Silver], it's just the lowest efficiency it gains (the lowest number... [afaik]) from different power draw percentages of PSUs. It will vary from PSU to PSU, but they all have to meet minimal standards to gain the ratings.
Of course, the higher the power draw, the more overall difference in comparison, the efficiency number will make. But, it all adds up fairly quickly anyway (my personal view).

Hope that helps 😀
I'm not the best at doing quick descriptions.
Mind checking my post please? http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2175180
Click to expand...

No no, you are right. I am just saying, for a higher cert. of gold or silver, the min requirement is only a few % higher. On a 500w PSU 3% is 15w. So you PSU is drawing 15 more watts than the higher rated ones. Obv the larger the wattage of the unit, the greater amount of power it will need to draw. Just saying, when a kWhr is only $.13 and the difference is 30w, I would prob rather save the 30-40 bucks upfront and turn a few light bulbs off in my house instead.
 
d3fu5i0n said:
Don't re-use a low wattage PSU.

Especially considering you've got a 2500K.

I'd say go for a 650-700W, but make sure that you get a quality brand and perhaps look for a high-efficiency level such as 80PLUS Silver, or higher! 😀
Click to expand...

Huh? The 2500k is not a power hungry CPU. If it fits the OP's needs for now, why not hold back and wait till he actually needs the power. Especially if he already has the current one.

Down the road, if he adds a beast of a GPU that is power hungry, then look at adding a bigger/better PSU. But most recommended 2500k builds with mid range GPUs have not much more than a 500watt suggested. A 430watt might be on the short side, but he can replace that later if need be.
 
Running my proposed configuration stock with a 560 Ti and capacitor aging of 30% through the calculator here yields a MINIMUM of 421 watts. I don't know if the capacitor aging % is right but that seems doable to me. Using the less powerful 6870 drops the minimum down by almost 30 watts
 
zooted said:
Running my proposed configuration stock with a 560 Ti and capacitor aging of 30% through the calculator here yields a MINIMUM of 421 watts. I don't know if the capacitor aging % is right but that seems doable to me. Using the less powerful 6870 drops the minimum down by almost 30 watts
Click to expand...

I guess the "capacitor aging" bit might do you in, but without that, it was looking at about 328watts.

Actually, I punched in your figures and am seeing 378watts as the minimum. I dunno. Personally, I would hang onto your PSU until you see a really good deal on a bigger/better unit. You can generally find a solid Antec/Corsair/etc. psu for less than $50 if you wait for the right deal. Anyways, my only suggestion here is to buy when the price is right, an don't fork out $80 for a PSU when you could get by for at least a year with what you have.
 
mvbighead said:
Huh? The 2500k is not a power hungry CPU. If it fits the OP's needs for now, why not hold back and wait till he actually needs the power. Especially if he already has the current one.

Down the road, if he adds a beast of a GPU that is power hungry, then look at adding a bigger/better PSU. But most recommended 2500k builds with mid range GPUs have not much more than a 500watt suggested. A 430watt might be on the short side, but he can replace that later if need be.
Click to expand...

Ah, I suppose I left out a bit of detail in my comment. 😀

I was suspecting that due to having a 2500k [I know CPUs will obviously become more efficient due to the die size], that he'd have a "beast of a GPU"; therefore guessing he'd have a 6970/570 or upwards! If you look at his old build, he pretty much had one of the most powerful GPUs of the time.

A 500W may do it, yes... but only with weaker GPUs. I'd say 600 Watts now, although when you make small upgrades, you may need a boost in wattage, therefore my strike of power efficiency comes into play, as you'll be drawing a lot more electricity from the wall.
One does not want to spend lots of money on a new PSU every time they realise that they need more energy/power.

Hope that clears up any confusion from my comment! :hmm:
 
zooted said:
Running my proposed configuration stock with a 560 Ti and capacitor aging of 30% through the calculator here yields a MINIMUM of 421 watts. I don't know if the capacitor aging % is right but that seems doable to me. Using the less powerful 6870 drops the minimum down by almost 30 watts
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that calculator gives bullshit numbers (as do most). Here's the real-world, measured numbers with an overclocked Bloomfield. A 4.4Ghz overclocked Sandy Bridge (stock volts) will have even lower numbers.

Also, 30% capacitor aging is just horrendous. We don't recommend PSUs that crappy around here.


d3fu5i0n said:
A 500W may do it, yes... but only with weaker GPUs. I'd say 600 Watts now, although when you make small upgrades, you may need a boost in wattage, therefore my strike of power efficiency comes into play, as you'll be drawing a lot more electricity from the wall.
One does not want to spend lots of money on a new PSU every time they realise that they need more energy/power.
Click to expand...

You are wrong on two counts. First, see above for real power draw numbers.

Second, efficiency isn't a flat line, it's a curve. A desktop system spends 95% of its lifetime in an idle state. A Sandy Bridge system will draw something like 60W DC at idle. If you have a 600W PSU, that is 10% utilization most of the time, so you're looking at ~70% efficiency even with a "Gold" PSU.
 
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