New build soon

Feb 4, 2009
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9yr old machine starting to bsod. One error seems like hard drive, another appear to be motherboard. Seems kind of silly to swap parts out given it’s age.

Few general questions:
What sort of power supplies do New i5’s or Ryzen’s require, how many watts and what rails?
Are Asus boards still the most reliable in general?
I’d like to add a closed loop water cooler any suggestions?

I’ll Likely keep my current:
P180 case
Video card amd 280x

Used 50-50 between works stuff that’s mostly web and mid range gaming.
No budget yet but more than $500 less than $800 is a guesstimate
 

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
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Modern systems are generally power sippers. AMD and Intel's mainstream platforms have mostly 95w and 65w CPUs, which draw <10w at idle. Motherboards are usually another 10-20w. The biggest power consumers are video cards, and your 280x is relatively power hungry at 250w TDP. I'm willing to bet a quality 350w unit would work. I'd probably opt for a 400-450w as long as you're not doing very heavy overclocking.

Asus are fine, but there are plenty of other solid manufactures these days and nearly everyone makes better boards than anyone a decade ago. I find ASRock makes fantastic inexpensive boards and usually opt for them. It's hard to go wrong with Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, MSI or even EVGA.

I personally don't like closed loop watercoolers. They're usually twice as expensive as an equivalent air cooler, and their pumps are more noisy and an additional point of failure. Expect the pump to last 3-5 years tops, at which point you'll need to toss the entire cooler. Depending on if you plan to overclock, an aftermarket cooler may not even be necessary anymore, since CPUs draw so little power these days, and AMD's chips come with half decent coolers to boot. Plus, you can generally expect to only get another 5-10% out of a CPU anyway.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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Modern systems are generally power sippers. AMD and Intel's mainstream platforms have mostly 95w and 65w CPUs, which draw <10w at idle. Motherboards are usually another 10-20w. The biggest power consumers are video cards, and your 280x is relatively power hungry at 250w TDP. I'm willing to bet a quality 350w unit would work. I'd probably opt for a 400-450w as long as you're not doing very heavy overclocking.

Asus are fine, but there are plenty of other solid manufactures these days and nearly everyone makes better boards than anyone a decade ago. I find ASRock makes fantastic inexpensive boards and usually opt for them. It's hard to go wrong with Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, MSI or even EVGA.

I personally don't like closed loop watercoolers. They're usually twice as expensive as an equivalent air cooler, and their pumps are more noisy and an additional point of failure. Expect the pump to last 3-5 years tops, at which point you'll need to toss the entire cooler. Depending on if you plan to overclock, an aftermarket cooler may not even be necessary anymore, since CPUs draw so little power these days, and AMD's chips come with half decent coolers to boot. Plus, you can generally expect to only get another 5-10% out of a CPU anyway.

Thanks man, water cooling is just a nerd project. Something I want but definitely don’t need.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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Few general questions:
What sort of power supplies do New i5’s or Ryzen’s require, how many watts and what rails?

Your GPU really determines that, as Yuriman pointed out, CPUs don't need much. From what I have seen, most PSUs are multi-rail now, but as long as you buy a quality unit like a EVGA G3 / Seasonic Focus Plus / Seasonic RMx, etc., you won't have any thing to worry about. These mid-range units often go on sale, so you can get them for $60 - $90 if you catch a good sale.

Are Asus boards still the most reliable in general?

Asus generally makes good boards, but personally I've been a little partial to Asrock boards the last few years.

I’d like to add a closed loop water cooler any suggestions?

@aigomorla is the person to get advice from on that.

At your stated budget, you're looking at an Intel i5-8500 (or similar CPU) build, or a Ryzen 2600 build. DDR4 prices (especially fast DDR4) are high, and will eat a good chunk of your budget.
 
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DaveSimmons

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Aug 12, 2001
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My Z370 board in the gaming PC is an ARSock Extreme4 which replaced an ASRock Z68. Both have been problem-free and the Z68 is still working perfectly as a Linux desktop.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
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They're usually twice as expensive as an equivalent air cooler, and their pumps are more noisy and an additional point of failure. Expect the pump to last 3-5 years tops, at which point you'll need to toss the entire cooler.

were talking about AIO's and not a full custom right?
AIO's i agree with you unless we look at small cases where they give you very little room to fit decient air sink.

Remember that pump block has a height clearance smaller then that of the stock solution, and will cool decently well any processor.

If were talking about a full custom, like a hobby grade custom... then no...
Because a D5 is very quiet... put it on PWM its darn near silent.
D5's are industry grade pumps designed for long term operation in solar water heaters and other area's that need to move water in an industrial setting.

The failure rate for a real D5, is very small, infact i still have all my d5's still kicking and working, but fans not so much.

Custom closed loops cost $$$$... forget about double or triple. Lets say if you want a proper setup going you will need to at least consider investing ~$400 and on top your p180 case will make you have lots of head ache when routing the tubing, so i wouldnt recommend it unless you intend to change cases.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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were talking about AIO's and not a full custom right?
AIO's i agree with you unless we look at small cases where they give you very little room to fit decient air sink.

Remember that pump block has a height clearance smaller then that of the stock solution, and will cool decently well any processor.

If were talking about a full custom, like a hobby grade custom... then no...
Because a D5 is very quiet... put it on PWM its darn near silent.
D5's are industry grade pumps designed for long term operation in solar water heaters and other area's that need to move water in an industrial setting.

The failure rate for a real D5, is very small, infact i still have all my d5's still kicking and working, but fans not so much.

Custom closed loops cost $$$$... forget about double or triple. Lets say if you want a proper setup going you will need to at least consider investing ~$400 and on top your p180 case will make you have lots of head ache when routing the tubing, so i wouldnt recommend it unless you intend to change cases.

Darn nerd project killed before it began but seriously thank you for the heads up.
I don’t OC other than to screw around a tiny bit. I think I’ve OC’d my 9650 3 or 4 times when it was new.
Some kind of AIO closed loop is just something I wanted to try out but as I get older I appreciate simplicity.
 
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Yuriman

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Jun 25, 2004
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You're honestly probably fine with the stock heatsink, unless you're buying a chip that doesn't have one - note that Intel's unlocked CPUs are something like $50 more than their unlocked counterparts, and there's a ~$40+ premium on motherboards that allow overclocking too. If you're just buying the cooler for aesthetics, that's another matter, but in my opinion it would be cheaper and more reliable to put some dummy tubing throughout the case to fool your friends than to actually run water through them. :p

I'm exaggerating, but from a functional value standpoint, watercooling falls very short at every price point except the very top.
 

BonzaiDuck

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Jun 30, 2004
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I've used power calculators like Outervision to choose a PSU.

I no longer bother even looking at 1000W PSUs, and I discovered that some PSUs of the most reputable manufacture can exceed their rated maximum load. For instance, one XFX 750W was really a rebadged Seasonic, and tests showed that it would sustain an 850W load. Cheaper PSUs may perform short of their maximum load rating.

So I tend to pick a 650W unit with superb specs, like the Seasonic Titanium or PRIME models, and my system PSUs are still bigger than necessary. Running full-out stress-tests and measuring power draw with the UPS battery-backup software, my system builds usually fall 100W short of the maximum load limit.

ASUS boards? I've bought and used nothing but ASUS boards since 2008. This time around, for Intel i5/i7 CPUs and the Z370 chipset, I'm keeping my eye on reviews and customer-review comments. For instance, my Skylake uses a Sabertooth Z170 S board -- often touted with the "TUF" label. Sabertooth has been discontinued, and now there are a few boards in the ASUS inventory with the "TUF" label. The "TUF Gaming" board presents "uncertainties" to me. So I'm looking at boards that are a notch higher in the model-line.

And . . . "There are many boards of different manufacture" which are also very good. I think I looked at an EVGA board that had favorable mention recently.
 
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Flayed

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Nov 30, 2016
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I've always tended to overspend on PSU's as I don't want the hassle of having one fail. I'm using a 3 year old Seasonic 660W Platinium one now hopefully it will last a long time.
 
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I've always tended to overspend on PSU's as I don't want the hassle of having one fail. I'm using a 3 year old Seasonic 660W Platinium one now hopefully it will last a long time.

My Corsair HX620 has lasted 9 years and 3 months without problem until recently. I’m pretty satisfied with that.
I almost bought a 650(?) watt seasonic fabless model it was platinum efficiency I almost bought it last week but chickened out.
 

DaveSimmons

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Aug 12, 2001
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My Corsair HX620 has lasted 9 years and 3 months without problem until recently. I’m pretty satisfied with that.
I almost bought a 650(?) watt seasonic fabless model it was platinum efficiency I almost bought it last week but chickened out.

I still get their fan versions. The Titanium Prime models can run fanless until their temperature hits some trigger point, giving you the best of both worlds.
 

Flayed

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Nov 30, 2016
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My Corsair HX620 has lasted 9 years and 3 months without problem until recently. I’m pretty satisfied with that.
I almost bought a 650(?) watt seasonic fabless model it was platinum efficiency I almost bought it last week but chickened out.
The model I have has a switch to turn off the fan. I couldn't tell the difference with it off so I left it on.