Need some advice on RAM + PSU choices

[DOOManiac]

Hey guys. I don't post here much, because I tend to only really keep up with hardware whenever it's time for me to upgrade. I haven't upgraded since right before DOOM 3 came out, and I'm finally getting around to building a new tiny god. However I'm so out of touch w/ the hardware scene I could really use some advice in narrowing down my choices for excellent RAM and a good PSU. In the past these forums have always been helpful, and so I'm hoping you guys will still be kind to my dumb n00b ass.

I never really spent my Christmas bonus money, nor my tax money, but now that I can't run STALKER or Supreme Commander, or LOTRO, I'm getting pretty much a whole new system. Since I've got a rather large budget this time around, I'm wanting to go for almost overkill stuff. Quality is very important to me, as one of the reasons I haven't upgraded in so long is because my current system is rock-solid stable. I've had maybe a dozen BSOD's ever with the exception of a bad NIC and a buggy written program. I will be using stock cooling on everything and do not plan on overclocking.


I'm having trouble deciding what RAM to get. All the brands I hear people talk about I have never heard of before. OCZ, G.Skill? Who are they? Are they any good? Or is Corsair on top? I've been recommend the following 2GB kits but am unsure which (if any) are the best:

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
CORSAIR XMS2 DOMINATOR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit

I'm okay with the price on any of these; I just whichever is best for me. Or if none of the above, what should I go with?



Likewise, I'm in a similar situation with a PSU. I've been recommended:

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad (Black) EPS12V 750W
Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 700W
SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT ATX12V / EPS12V 550W
I was also recommended some OCZ one but I can't find the URL right now. :/

Thermaltake is the only brand I recognize of those, but I've also been told that the PSU is really loud. Brand issues aside, I'm also unsure how much wattage I need. I don't mind a little extra, but there's no sense throwing money into something excessive that I'll never need. I know this depends on the rest of the rig, so I've included the below list of the rest of my stuff.




Components I'm pretty sure I want (unless these set off red flags to any of you guys) are:

Antec Solo Black/Silver

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775

MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i

BFG 8800 GTX

Western Digital WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA

Black Samsung 3.5 floppy. It's only $7.

At some point down the road when 8800GTX's get cheap I may throw in a 2nd card for SLI, so I guess that is also something to take into consider for PSU purposes.

Components I'm bringing over from my old PC are:
- Creative SB X-Fi sound card
- Plextor DVD Burner



Planning all this out when you've been out of the loop for so long is pretty stressful. I'm almost about to just pick something and hope it's good/works.

Again, thanks in advance for any sort of help you guys can give me with my choices. I would really, really appreciate it.

 

[Ruptga]

I've heard nothing but good things about PC P&C, ie their PSUs are perform above what you'd expect for their wattage, high power efficiency, and they use solid-state caps so you don't ever have problems with them leaking. Granted, this is what I've heard here on AT, I've never dealt with them personally

 

[DOOManiac]

Wait... leaking?


I didn't see anything about this being a water-something in the product description...

Or did I just say something really dumb?

 

[jkresh]

DOOManiac when ADDAvenger said leaking he didnt mean water, he meant an issue with motherboards and some psu's that used cheap capacitors which would leak ultimately frying the board/psu and sometimes other hardware as well (frying not because of liquid but because the voltages changed when the capacitors failed).

 

[myocardia]

Pics of leaking capacitors. You have to click on each picture, to see what it contains, BTW. Quite a few cheap/cheaper psu's use cheap capacitors, instead of good capacitors, like PC Power & Cooling & Seasonic use in their power supplies.

 

[DOOManiac]

Man, do I feel dumb. I've never heard of leaking capacitors before.

Thanks for the help though.

Guess I'll go w/ the PP&C as that's the most consistently recommended, though I'm still a little unsure of how much wattage I need. And again, I'm still not sure about the RAM...

 

[Ruptga]

I don't think leaking caps are a problem for normal users, but for those that want to keep their components for a long time, especially at a nice overclock, it becomes important quickly.

Anyway, DDR2 is quite mature by now, and you should be fine with any of the memory. I'd give a real recommendation if I had any idea which kit is better, but to me it's minutia so I don't pay attention to that kind of thing when it's mentioned

As for wattage, especially with PC P&C, I'm pretty sure you won't need anything over 650W, and may not even need more than 550W, but since you're looking at SLiing a GTX down the road I wouldn't go that low (also, you need four PCIe power cables, two per GTX). Talk of 1KW PSUs is just FUD, you absolutely do not need that just to SLi GTXs, throw in eight HDDs or something crazy like that and it might be needed, but you don't need it. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2870&p=18

Something I'm not certain about is PCIe 2.0, it uses a different connector (8-pin instead of 6), and I think GTXs use the regular 6-pin connector, but again I'm not entirely sure on that.

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp or http://web.aanet.com.au/SnooP/psucalcnew.php will both allow you to calculate how much W or Amps you need, I recommend the second one. I just hope it ain't outdated, but it doesn't look like it.

If I were to take an educated guess, I would say you need abt 550-600W if you are gonna go SLI in the future.

 

[cmdrdredd]

As far as memory...

The G.Skill offering out of what you listed is the best. They use D9GMH ICs 100% guaranteed and will easily do DDR2-1000 4-4-4-12 speeds with only a slight voltage adjustment. G.Skill has one of the best track records of any memory manufacturer since the introduction of DDR2 memory types. They never change their ICs from week to week or revision to revision like Corsair will. Even the Corsair Dominator you listed doesn't use Micron D9 ICs...at that price there is no excuse because D9 IS superior to Promos and Elpida.

 

[DOOManiac]

I think I'll go with the G.Skill RAM since everyone speaks either as high or higher of them than the others. Plus I hear they have a lifetime warranty, so that's good. I was just a bit anxious about them because I had never heard of them before last week.

Since 8800GTX SLI's are a definite probability, I guess I'll go ahead w/ the PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad (Black) EPS12V 750W. Thanks for pointing out that the other ones didn't have enough connectors, as I didn't know each GTX needed two of em.

Thanks again guys, you're all awesome.