Trying to cheaply build a smaller, quiet DX10 LOTRO rig
Rolanberry and I started up LOTRO accounts not too long ago, and we've decided it's time to upgrade her 4 year old Dell Inspiron with its Geforce FX5200.
So I'm building a new system.
Here are my Goals:
- Case on the smaller side ( trying to keep it around or under 20" x 20" x 8" HxDxW )
- Quiet
- Components wise - trying to hit the current price/performance sweet spot
- Single GPU (no intent to SLI)
- Possibly running Vista + DX10 for LOTRO
- Budget $600 to $1000
The comp will really only be used for Web surfing, LOTRO, and web development work (Illustrator + Photoshop).
I'm only considering Vista so that she can use DirectX 10. I'm only considering DirectX 10 because it seems to have some noticeable benefits in LOTRO, and if we're paying for a new comp, then hey, why not? Otherwise, she's currently happy with XP, and I see no reason to open up that can of worms.
I am willing to spend the time tweaking Vista to reduce its annoyance levels to that of XP. However I don't think I'd be willing to spend much time at all trying to overclock the system. The process of purchasing a non-stock Heatsink/Fan for the CPU, installing it, getting it to fit in the case seems like too much effort to me. That being said, if I can get away with a stable oc'ed system by doing nothing more than fiddling with the BIOS, then I'd be willing to shell out any extra cash necessary for the motherboard that would allow it.
So far, from looking at the other threads in this forum, I've come up with this rough sketch starting point of what to include:
Motherboard: ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard ($130 after MIR)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E7200 ($132)
Video: 8800 GTS? 9600 GT?
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) ($85)
Sound: Onboard
Case: Antec P182 ($140)
Power Supply: Something good
Hard Drive: SATA, 7200 or 10000 RPM, >400 GB
Optical Drive: CD/DVD +/- R/RW (no need for Dual layer)
No monitor
Will this be feasible? Regarding the case, I may also simply use an old Lian-Li PC60 USB Aluminum case if it will fit everything.
Any suggestions are appreciated. I'm not sure where the price/point ratio falls for the video card. And I'm not sure how big a PSU I'm going to need.
I don't see a reason at this time to shell out more for a quad core, although a Dual core would be nice so she could comfortably ALT+TAB out of LOTRO if need be.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
The best way to go quiet, without case modding, is to go with a larger tower and more fans. Lots of slower moving fans means quiet with solid cooling. Computers get noisy when the fans spin up to full speed, as the temperature inside increases.
If you are intent on smaller size, you may need to cut out holes in the case to mount more fans(I had a friend drill out all available spaces on a Micro ATX cube, and ran 5 fans, it was super cold, and very quiet.
The good news is that quality fans are cheap, rarely more than 5 bucks. But if you want quiet, you need more, not fewer fans.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you really want more AND bigger fans. The bigger they are the more air they can move and lower RPMs and lower dB levels?
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
The P182 is really big! Have you checked your clearances? Remember you need a good six inches of empty air in front to open your drives and stuff -- or open the door if you leave the door on the case.
It is, however, a most excellent case for noise levels. If you replace the stock fans with a pair of Scythe Ninja SFF21s, it'll be quieter still. There are three models of SFF21: D, E, and F. The D blows the least air and is quietest; the F blows most and is loudest. I went with the E models, and dialed the speed back with the included regulators. They're much quieter than the stock Tri-Cools. Note that the Tri-Cools have a special switch built into the case that you also have to pull out, and then you may want to poke the speed regulators for the SFF21s out the water cooling hole -- it looks a bit hokier, but gives you the same functionality, and better noise levels.
I used a Seasonic 430 in my P182. It just _barely_ works; the motherboard power cable is _just barely_ long enough. If you get one, get a 24-pin motherboard power extension cable. You probably want to do that with any power supply that doesn't explicitly say it has extra-long cables, as the 182 has the supply quite a bit further away from the motherboard than most cases. Seasonics are an excellent choice for low-noise builds, btw.
What resolution do you want to run LOTRO at? That'll help with the video card and DX10 choices.
I have one of these and it is an excellent case ... plus it looks good. With the four stock 80mm fans it won't give you quite the cooling you'll get with some of the newer cases but you shouldn't need it with the build you are contemplating.
I think an 8800GT is still the price sweetspot in video cards. Should be able to get one in the $160-170 range if you look hard enough. For a few dollars less the 9600GT is also a fine card and should run LOTRO just fine in any resolution but perhaps 1900x1200.
I think your build looks solid. You should have no problems running Vista64 with that build. I would suggest a 430W power supply unless you plan to SLI or go quad core at some point down the road, then I would shoot for 550+. You can get a number of good quality 430W Power Supplies for $30-40.
Did I forget to mention that you want them big? My bad. But yeah, as many 120 mm fans that you can put on there.
Currently her max available resolution is 1280x1024, though I don't know if that's capped by the video card or by the monitor. Her monitor is a 17" Sony SDMS74. It has a native res of 1280x1024.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
I asked the same question in another thread a few months back right before building my new system. The primary reason as I understand it is that Vista32 will not support more than 3.5GB of RAM. I'm sure Malor can elaborate and/or correct me if I am wrong. Another good reason is that Vista32 won't support 64-bit programs.
I run Photoshop and a host of other program with Vista64 and I have yet to have a single program not work.
Vista64 needs 64-bit drivers, but should run almost all 32-bit userspace programs. There are likely a few with problems.
Vista32 should not exist as a separate product. It's solely to extract money from you, and then force you buy the same thing again. It has the exact same limitation XP does, in that it's limited to 4gb of total address space period. With any reasonable build these days, you'll START with that much RAM... with a 32-bit OS, you'll stop there, too.
If you buy a RETAIL copy (not an OEM) of 64, you should be able to transfer it from computer to computer for years. With the expandability in 64-bit, you should be happy for a long, long time. If you buy OEM, or if you buy 32-bit Vista, you'll probably end up buying 64-bit in a couple of years anyway, and if you already spent $350 on Vista32 Ultimate, I imagine that's gonna piss you off pretty fiercely.
Good for Microsoft, though. I imagine a Smithers voice, "Exxxcelllent", every time a cash register rings up a Vista32 sale.
It should be the same product. You should be able to buy it just once, and then run it in either 32- or 64-bit mode. But you can't, and 32-bit is already obsolete, so avoid that product unless you're prepared to buy it again in two years.
Also note that, in general, DX10 is pretty slow. It looks nicer, but there aren't any cards that do it very well. Does anyone know, offhand, how well LOTRO will run at 1280x1024 in DX10 on an 8800GT?
Ah, I see. So it just doesn't make sense to pick up the 32-bit version.
I'm already sitting on a copy of Vista Ultimate (Retail), so at least I won't have to spend any more cash to try it out. I guess if DX10 and LOTRO can't handle that res, I can try a different res or go back to DX9.
I just noticed that her current Dell Dimension 4600, obtained over 4 years ago, contains a 2.8GHz Intel P4. If I get her something like a Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz, the clock speed is lower on the newer chip. Obviously there's twice the number of cores, but for purely single-threaded processing, is she actually going to see a performance decrease? Maybe I missed the company memo somewhere in the past several years that says that higher clocks do not necessarily give better performance, due to internal architecture improvements in the cores themselves?
Then again, I guess with regard to LOTRO we're definitely loosening up the video bottleneck, and so we should see improvements there. And then in Windows (XP), I'm postulating that the system boot up processing can be readily split up between the two cores, such that two 2.53 GHz ones will boot up faster than a single 2.8 GHz core. Might it be too much to ask that Vista boot as fast as or faster than XP in this new comp?
I think I need a headcheck!
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
Performance decrease? Oh, god no. The P4s are hot and inefficient chips; the Athlon kicks their ass eight ways from Sunday, even clocked slower. Then the Core and Core2 lines shipped, and they wreck the Athlon in much the same way.
A 2.53Ghz Core2 will destroy a 2.8Ghz P4. And it only gets better as you crank the clockspeed up.
I don't think dual core will change system bootup times much. That's a fairly serialized process, choked mostly by the speed of the hard disk. Generally speaking, it takes specially written multithreaded apps to take advantage. Alternately, you can run two single-threaded apps, like burning a CD while playing a game.
In general, dual-core is a big performance boost, because even when the computer is busy, there's usually a CPU free to run the UI and make the system feel responsive. Going to quadcore is far, far less important. Unless you're a very heavy multitasker, four cores mostly won't do much for you, at least at present. In another year or two, once games are written to support that much CPU power, you may see some real benefit.
Thanks all for your input so far. I took a short break from working on this, but now I am back into it.
I've got a firmer grip on what I'd like to put in this now, and I'll admit to taking directly from the comments in this
thread and from *Legion*'s June $750 Build post. (LINK) Thanks!
I'm really pushing to make this a quiet build. Also, I figure that if I'm going partly out of the way to make it quiet,
then I should go all the way, or else I'll just be disappointed. I'm still not looking to overclock. However, I'd be
willing to install an aftermarket CPU heatsink to reduce noise.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz LGA 775 - Retail
GPU: EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
RAM: WINTEC AMPX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
PSU: SeaSonic S12 II SS-430GB ATX12V / EPS12V 430W
MOB: GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA
DVD: Pioneer Black 20X DVD+/- RW SATA Burner
SND: onboard
Sub-Total: $595 before shipping and $20 of MIR
Case: see below
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
I also can't make the call between two Antec Cases: the $100 Solo (LINK) and the $140 P182(LINK).
First off, the Solo caught my attention because it's supposedly as quiet as the P182 (LINK). However, it is a bit smaller, that's a good thing, and $40 cheaper. It also sports elastic HDD suspension mounts designed to absorb the spinning vibrations. I think that's pretty nifty and would like to try it, but I don't know if I'll even be able to tell the difference if I'm still using stock HSFs for the GPU and the CPU.
Unfortunately, one part of SPCR's review (LINK, halfway down the page) of the closely related P150 pointed out that a high power build containing a passive aftermarket CPU heatsink (with no fan) brought the CPU temp to dangerously high levels. The close proximity of the PSU chamber to the CPU explains this.
The P182 doesn't have this problem because it isolates the heat from the PSU in the lower part of the case, far away from the motherboard and CPU. Plus, as said before, it's roomier and can support more fans. However, it is bigger. It doesn't have the nifty HDD suspension mounts, and I'm also concerned about the PSU intake fan. If it's at the bottom of the case, and it's pointed down expecting to take in air through some holes in the floor, then will I be suffocating it by putting it on the carpet?
If I went with the Solo then I'd be getting a SFF21E 120mm rear fan and a couple of quiet 92mm fans for the front panel. If I went with the P182 I'd just be looking at 4 SFF21E's.
To boil it down as much as I can, I think I'm still walking the three-sided line between size, noise, and cooling/system stability. Which case should I go for? Should I be considering one other than these two? I've already forgotten what the differences are between the updated P180 and the P182. Should I consider replacing the stock CPU and GPU HSFs? Will I be able to run this system in the Solo while steering clear of a morass of heat problems? Are there any other issues I'm not seeing? You all (and in particular Malor) have been a great help so far. Please help me bring this baby home!
EDIT: Now that I look at the numbers, the P182 doesn't seem THAT much bigger than the Solo.
SOLO: 17.5"(H) x 8.1"(W) x 18.5"(D)
P182: 21.3"(H) x 8.1"(W) x 19.9"(D)
3.8 Inches taller, 1.4 inches deeper. Well, that's a 22% increase in height and an 8% increase in depth.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
The P182 has very nice drive decoupling with these squishy grommets that the screws go through. It rendered my fairly loud Raptor absolutely silent, and my EXCEEDINGLY loud Hitachi 1TB is only just audible.
The air intake for the PSU chamber is on the front, not the bottom. There's a fan midway through the chamber. The drives mount in front of that fan, which works with the PSU fan to pull air from front to back in that chamber. It produces steady, quiet airflow, and keeps everything very cool.
I don't think you'll want to replace the HSF on the 8800GT; my older 8800GTS, which is hotter and SHOULD be louder (also from EVGA) is very quiet. I have no complaints about it at all. You MIGHT want to put a good CPU cooler on there. I used a Zalman, but I know that they're not as well regarded as some -- it was just easy to get quickly, because it was in the Fry's locally here. Thin_J has one he keeps recommending that sounds good, but I can't quite remember the name. If he doesn't chime in here, I'll try to find it.
As far as size goes: do you have any particular limit on what you can handle? Remember that bigger is almost always quieter.
Alright, that sounds good. I mean, I think it will sound good.
Ah, also I just found this:
And other pictures on the next page confirm that there aren't any of those "holes" I was imagining on the bottom. There is a cage for the PSU that gives the 120mm fan a couple mm of clearance if I point it downwards.
Sweet. It looks like it would be even more of a pain to replace the HSF on the GPU than it would be on the CPU. I'll look for this as well and post it if I can find it.
So we've kinda covered this already, but I'm still wondering. Does bigger translate into quieter because thermodynamics says that a larger volume of air requires less CFM of air moving through it to keep it cool? If I compare two nearly-identical cases, each with the same number of fans (say one rear 120mm and one front panel 120mm), but with one case larger, will the larger one be easier to cool? Or does the size matter simply because it allows you to fit more fans that can run slower and therefore produce less noise? Perhaps the acoustics say that a larger case absorbs more noise or reflects (echoes) less of it?
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
You may want to check out the new AMD/ATI HD4850 line. Very nice price to performance ratio there, and the reviews I've read say it is very competitive with the 8800GT, if not even better.
I'm always happy to see ATI compete with NVidia.
"I have not supped of Buffy, nor have I supped in any wise during the absence of Firefly. When Firefly returns again in glory, then shall I sup at the table of Whedon." - Fedaykin98
Mostly, it's because you can fit big fans. You need to move a certain volume of air to cool the system, and the bigger the fan that's pushing it, the more air it can move without causing turbulence, which makes noise. Consider a box fan, for instance; most are nearly silent on low speed, but they push A LOT of air.
Larger interior air space is also a bit of a factor -- more space to dampen sound -- but that's very small. Case damping will matter a lot more.
The biggest reason the P182 can be so quiet is because of the 120mm fans. The Mac Pro is similarly quiet for the exact same reason.
I think, if you do that build, replace the CPU cooler, install SFF21Es, and tinker with the BIOS settings for fan speed, you'll end up with a machine so quiet you won't believe it. When I first power mine up, I can hear it, but as soon as the BIOS gets going and spools the fan speed down, it becomes the next closest thing to dead silent. It's a little louder than the Mac Pro -- just, just barely audible -- at total idle, but when working it's quieter, because the drive sound isn't transmitted well.
Don't forget to get a motherboard power extension cable with your order. Also get one of those motherboard 4-pin extenders as well. The Seasonics come with short cables, and I was just barely able to make it work. If you get nice long extensions, (24 or 30" would be about right) you can route the power cables through a special area underneath the motherboard, and then loop back around to the connection point near the top edge. I have to go straight through, which is awkward for routing.
Oh, as far as the power supply goes: IIRC, you mount the power supply so the intake's on the bottom, and blowing out the back. There's about a half-inch of clearance. The fan in the middle pushes the air back toward the supply, and then the supply sucks it up from the bottom and blows it out the back. It'd probably be a little better if it were a straight-through path, but in actual practice, I don't think it impairs airflow any. There's plenty of clearance, and it's all nice smooth metal.
Your final result will, I think, be really excellent. It's a big case, but I think your significant other will be VERY impressed at the noise levels.
BTW, you're probably fine with two SFF21Es. I don't think you need four. The one in the power supply chamber can be a little noisier, because it's in an enclosed, damped space. If you just replace the top and back fans, and stick the dial-a-speed controls out the water cooling hole, you can get it tweaked without much effort. If you end up wanting to mount the fourth fan, you probably can use one of the Tri-Cools you replaced, because it's also internal and hard to hear.
I set my BIOS up as 'max silent', and then put the dial-a-speeds on fairly high; the BIOS then runs them very slowly at idle, with the ability to ramp up under load. I think I've heard the 8800GTS a couple of times, but I don't remember ever hearing the case fans speed up. If the BIOS is tweaking them up, it's doing it subtly enough that I don't notice.
Make no mistake: this is a BIG case. But small, quiet, and powerful are extremely difficult to do all at once.
The closest thing I could find on Newegg was this (link), a 12" extender, connecting 24 pins to 24 pins. I think that should work?
It confuses me that there are converters to go from 24 pins to 20 pins as well as converters that go from 20 to 24 pins. It makes it seem like the 4 pins are optional.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
I would check out the NZXT Rogue if small is important. It is a SFF case (requires a microatx mobo) but it has 3 120mm fans. It is 16.6x10.9.14.5.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146044
I'd also check out the NZXT Tempest. Size is pretty big but it has 4 120mm fans and 2 140mm fans.
If you haven't already looked at it, the Antec Sonata is fairly compact and is engineered for quiet computing. I have a sonata 1 and it's filled with a Q6600 (clocked at 3.07ghz), 8600 GTS (silent), 2 250gb hard drives, a 750gb hard drive, a sound blaster fatality pro, and 2 gb of ram. It's getting a bit rickety but it's still fairly quiet even with the stock intel cooler.
NZXT makes a hush that is quite similar to the sonata. It has dampening materials built in.
Getting killed, though? In a way that you don't like? Suck it up, Gertrude.
Well, the 24-pin extender should be enough. I'm confused about what boards need what, to be honest. Some take 20 pins plus a separate 4-pin adapter (not a drive adapter), some take a 24-pin, some take both, and some need some other oddball connector. PROBABLY, a 24-pin extender would be enough. That one you linked should be fine.
I think the four pins are semi-optional... they carry extra power, but sometimes you don't need them. I just connect them if they're on the motherboard, and ignore them if they aren't.
Evil's cases might work well. It's the fan size that's the single most important issue. If his cases have good squishy drive dampeners and good case damping on the outside, they might work well. I haven't heard them myself, so I don't know how they compare. All I can tell you with certainty is that the P182 is a really quiet case, if you put some time into tweaking. It's also very large.
Thanks EvilHomer, for the case suggestions. I spent the weekend looking, reading, and researching, and it seems like the P182 is pretty popular with silent PC fanatics. I was able to gather good data points about what will work when building the system. Those do look like some pretty nice cases though, and the NZXT Rogue looks pretty unique.
Thanks again for all your help. I finally pulled the trigger on the order real early yesterday morning. Here's what I ended up with:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz LGA 775 - Retail ($130)
HSF: ThermalRight HR-01+ (from SVC, not Newegg) ($50)
GPU: EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB ($169-20 MIR)
RAM: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 ($87-20 MIR)
PSU: SeaSonic S12 II SS-430GB ATX12V / EPS12V 430W ($80)
MOB: GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel ($90)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA ($60)
DVD: Pioneer Black 20X DVD+/- RW SATA Burner ($31)
FAN: 2xScythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm Case Fan - Retail(2x$15)
SND: onboard
Case: Antec P182 Gun Metal Black ATX Mid Tower ($150)
Extensions: Athena Power 12" EPS (24Pin) connector Extension Cable ($6)
SubTotal: $883
- $40 MIR
+ $26 S&H
-----------------
= $869
I'm hoping I'll be able to cool the CPU without attaching a fan to the ThermalRight heatsink. Combined with the SFF21E, I'm hoping that all the noise that's left will be the video card's fan and the hard drive.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
If you don't put a fan on the CPU heatsink, you might need the internal optional fan on the back of the drive assembly, to get enough air movement over the CPU cooler. Just move one of your Tri-Cools over there, after replacing them with the SFF21Es.
BTW, you want both of the external fans (on the top and top-back) to be blowing out. And I just remembered that the dial-a-speed controls don't quite fit through the watercooling hole themselves; you start with them outside the case, and thread their cabling back inside.
This P182 isn't quite dead silent, but it's extremely quiet. It's two feet from me, and both the house A/C and the server in the room across the hall (thirty feet away) are much louder at this sitting position.
That heatsink looks pretty nice. I'm using a stock intel cooler right now and it works but I'm not sure it's cooling as well as I'd like. It isn't loud but a silent heatsink would go nicely with my silent gpu heatsink. My hard drives are, by far, the loudest thing in my system.
Looks like a nice system overall. Hopefully the psu will power everything well. 430 watts isn't a lot these days but it's a very nice quality psu and you've got 2 12v rails pushing 17 amps each.
Getting killed, though? In a way that you don't like? Suck it up, Gertrude.
He'll be fine. According to Ars, their very very similar Hot Rods only need 300W supplies.
Even if you don't want to get the ATi cards because they're new, you may want to grab a 9800 GTX. They're basically just suped-up 8800GTs (Both G92 based), so you don't have to worry about it being new and unproven. For Nvidia to compete with ATi, they've been lowered to $199 just about everywhere. This EVGA 9800 GTX at Newegg is a quick example, but you can probably find an even better deal.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130339
My 8800 GTS 512 with the dual-slot cooler is very quiet, and I also have the P182. I can't imagine the 9800 GTX being much different. My previous ATi X1900XT sounded horrendous in comparison.
Also, if you want to save some money on fans, these Yate Loons are extremely quiet and apparently exactly the same as Nexus fans. I have two and they're great. $5.99 each with free shipping here:
http://www.xpcgear.com/d12sl12.html
There's a review on them at SilentPC if you need:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article695-page2.html#nexus
Your power supply is too small.
You are going to want some room to grow. I would suggest a 550 or 600 PSU. They shouldn't be that much more than the 430 in your current spec.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Not necessarily. I can't seem to find my Kill-a-watt right now, but last year with a system slightly less powerful and with 3 hard drives and a sound card on top of the listed components I ran at 131 watts idle and 206 watts load. That may have been without stressing the video card at all, however. A quick search can show various power consumption tests:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-9800gtx-review,1800-1...
Here's the configuration they used with the video cards.
* Asus P5E3 Deluxe (Intel X38)
* Intel Core 2 Quad QX6850 (3 GHz)
* Crucial 2 x 1 GB DDR3 1333 MHz 7-7-7-20
* Western Digital WD5000AAKS
* Asus 12x DVD drive
* Coolermaster RealPower Pro 850W
As you can see, the 8800 GT ran the system at 255 watts load and the 9800 GTX pushed it to just 265 watts. The system we're discussing will probably use even less power, but even so, I agree that it's better to be safe than sorry and probably go with something a bit higher that will last for years. The current trend seems to be making more efficient parts though, and the extra power may never be needed for typical non-SLI computers.
I've also heard some people have trouble with multi-rail PSUs and properly distributing the power among the rails. I have an Antec NeoHE 500 with 3 12v rails and my system has been modestly overclocked for a year with no issues, but it's something to be aware of.
He wanted it to be quiet. The Seasonics are extremely quiet, and 430W is more than enough for this machine, plus probably his next expansion. The tendency of late has been sharply away from higher power consumption, and that 430 is likely to last a good long time. And, by running closer to the rating on the PS, he'll get better efficiency, and a slightly lower power bill.
As Ars Technica says, these builds really only need 300W.
He's buying it to be quiet and run LOTRO really well. Nothing about that says 'overbuy on power supply', especially since they seem to come up with all new connectors every year or so anyway.
I agree with not overbuying here, but where have you read about this? I'd like to learn more as I've never heard a claim like this before. I thought that a beefier PSU wouldn't have to work as hard as one running at full capacity, and would therefore be cooler and more efficient. I haven't read about them in a while though.
Thanks for the suggestions and concerns. Regarding the other case, fans, and video card suggestions, perhaps I'll become jealous and convince her that I need my own new quiet LOTRO rig.
I received the packages today, minus the ThermalRight CPU heatsink. I've got it all together now, and nothing is dead on arrival, hurray! I was really concerned about receiving a stillborn motherboard.
Also, since I'm too impatient, I put it together using the Intel stock heatsink/fan, even though I intend to swap it later. The installation for that thing is a harrowing experience of blind faith. Yeah, that's right new owner of this motherboard, push down real hard on it until the plastic clicks! Yikes. After installing it, I could kinda see the motherboard was slightly bulging below the CPU.
Currently I am feeling my way through my first install of Vista. So far the only problem seems to be a loose SATA connector to the HDD.
I'm still using the Antec Tri-Cool fans, but when I set to them low, the whole system is pretty damned silent. Right now I'm very pleased with the level of noise, and I'm sitting much closer to it than she will be once she starts using it.
I can see how the power supply might not seem like enough when considering upgrades in the future. However, I find it unlikely I'll ever want to go in and upgrade anything in the box, just because I'm lazy. The last time I built my own machine was in 2002, and I bought a nice case with the idea that I'd keep it for a while and upgrade it continually. It wasn't until 2006 that the desire to upgrade the video began to stir deep in my belly. By that time, I was still stuck in AGP land while all the cool kids were already running around in their snazzy PCI-E clothes. I had the "well you'll have to upgrade everything" or in other words the "just get a whole new comp" problem.
So, thanks for the concerns, but unless something breaks or it proves itself unstable, I'll probably never change the components in this system. Did I mention I'm lazy?
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
Grats on the new system! I didn't realize you had already bought everything. Regardless, you ended up with a bunch of great stuff for good prices.