about to order this rig I was wondering if the Antec1650 350w is ample for this system and a bit of future upgrading or should I pay the extra $83 and get a Antec Sonata2 450w?

Please note I have only very moderate gaming habits and only upgrade every few yrs.

Thru umart:

Intel ATX E6400 CORE 2 DUO /2.13GHz/2MB CACHE/1066FSB/LGA775

Asus P5B 775, CORE2EE, P965, 1066FSB, PCIEI6, AUDIO, GbLAN, ATX

DDR2 1024MB(Single stick)PC6400 800Mhz

Seagate SATAII NCQ 250GB 7200RPM 16mb Cache

Asus GF7300GS, 256MB, HDTV-OUT, DVI-I, PCI-EX

LG DVD18X+- Super Multi DVD Rewriter with Software(DUAL LAYER)Black

10/100 PCI network card

Antec 1650 350w case

pay the extra $83 and get a Antec Sonata2 450w?

yes

even if the machine will run on a 350w psu, you're better off getting something with a little bit of room to move (so you ain't strappin it) and room for upgrading too. cos you know you will.

Even that "upgrade" psu isn't all that flash. I'd look at the OCAU PSU wiki for some quick guidance.

PSU Calculator under "support" link

I'd go at least 500W

System Type: Single Processor
Motherboard: Regular - Desktop
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2400 MHz Conroe
CPU Utilization (TDP): 100% TDP
RAM: 2 Sticks DDR2 SDRAM
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
Video Type: Single Card
IDE HDD 7200 rpm: 1 HDD
SCSI HDD 10,000 rpm: 1 HDD
DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive: 1 Drive
USB: 3 Devices
Fans
Regular: 1 Fan 120mm;
LED: 1 Fan 120mm;
Keyboard and mouse: Yes
PSU Utilization: 100 %
Total: 233 Watts

LOL

Ive got an Antec ATX TrueBlue 2.0 480watt psu.

Thanks for the link Lynx, powercalc

I couldn't find a direct link, I failed you...

Which is weird cause I used that link first in my post before I change it, and it sent me to some random website

last edited by Lynx at 21:22:40 07/Mar/07

Antec PSU's lately have been utter s***, especially the 350's. I should know as I swap these steaming heaps of crap on a daily basis.

You'd be better off tossing the 350 out and buying something better. If you went through CA the sales guys can subtract the PSU from the build giving you credit for it to go towards something that doesn't eat balls.

If you insist on buying from umart, see if they will do that for you.

I highly recommend Tagan, otherwise Zalman, Enermax or e-power have all proved fairly reliable.

^ so If i have to go with antec, stick with the 450w you reckon?

^ so If i have to go with antec, stick with the 450w you reckon?

A while back I read a list of the most returned PSUs from many brands, and several specific Antec models were listed:

"For Antec, the SmartPower 2.0 range including the 500, 350 and 400 Watts versions has very high failure rates: respectively 21.6%, 18.1% and 17.3%. Not a single product has a rate below 2% and the best one is the Neo HE 430 watts at 2.6%."

Luckily the specific 450W model that comes with the Sonata II was not listed, so I think you should be fine. I own a Sonata II myself and had no problems (Intel E6600, nvidia 7950GT, etc).

( Source: http://www.behardware.com/news/8550/power-supply-failure-rate.html )

From personal experience the out of the 350, 450 and 500 Antec's the least prone to failure is the 450.

These are all the smartpower PSU's with the rear fan that only spins under load. Probably has something to do with why they die so much. I'd steer clear of them all together unless you enjoy headaches.

I see a lot of Antec SP350's with squealing caps too, even ones straight out of the box.


Just remember this is the heart of the PC, without it NOTHING works. Bottom line - DO NOT SKIMP ON THE PSU! Too many people make this mistake...

^ Holy s*** I had no idea that the Antec PSU's were so crap!

Well I was thinking about a Thermaltake Sopranao 430watt. It seems that Thermaltake have much lower PSU failure rates. Although is the Soprano a quiet box or is it noisy? Anybody here have one?

Who do u work for Rubba? CA?

Can't agree with rubba any more vehemently
With PSU's you most definately get what you pay for. Flaky PSU's can cause insane issues that just don't happen with decent units.

Seen it here on LAN's many times
eg
Persons PC works fine at home
Comes over to LAN where heaps of PC are in use
System has random issues (restart, crash, won't post at a)
Spends all time at LAN trying to sort it out an usually takes out at least one or two other peoples time as well
Goes home, no probs at all

CAUSE: Cheap ass PSU can't handle minute power fluctuations which occur under load
CURE: Three spring to mind actually.

1: Buy decent PSU
2: Buy crap PSU an UPS
3: Buy decent PSU and UPS and win win!


slaps, yeah, he works at CA an so do I (now)

last edited by HERMITech at 23:16:42 07/Mar/07

^ well what do you guys suggest?

All I need is a quiet,reliable PSU/case package at an affordable price.

^ As we said, Sonata II is perfectly fine. Very damn quiet, PSU not among those known for failing.

Suprisingly the Thermaltake 430w PSU's have had a much lower return rate than the Antec PSUs.

I had a soprano, have since replaced it with a Gigabyte Aurora and given it to my bro. They aren't too bad, they at least have 2 x 120mm and 1 x 80mm cooling fans.


The Gigabyte Posiedon @ $129 isnt too bad. If you threw that together with an Enermax 485w PSU @ $119.


Also from looking at your spec at the start, 7300gs for gaming will be pretty horrible. You'd at least want to be looking at a 7600GT unless you want to run everything in ass mode.

The other thing is running 1 stick of ram in the p5b will be single channel mode. Forget the 800mhz, just get 667 if u aren't going with a fairly high spec.


It might be worth waiting a bit longer and saving a few more pennies and doing it right the first time.

Also network card? Whats wrong with the P5B onboard LAN?

last edited by rubba-chikin at 08:08:59 08/Mar/07

I had a Antec 400w, it died a month before the warranty was up, lucky. The capacitors had cooked and sploded.
Within 3 months the replacement had black charred caps just waiting to pop.

^^ yeh if you havent already guessed I've been out of the loop for a while. I think Ive learnt more in this thread than I have in a whole week of trolling thru online price lists, which don't tell you much.

I might still go the sonata2, like I said I wont be flogging the s*** out of it.

Props for the gfxcard tip.

slaps, yeah, he works at CA an so do I (now)

Really? Time to start shopping at Gamedude then! :P

Well folks after a 3 day build, my new pc had a dud Enermax 1000GWL from first boot.

that's after all the usual trouble-shooting, and rtfm, and swearing, and skin, and sacrificial kittens.

Time to rip out all those cable ties and start again. So much for the 'take your time and make it a nice stealth cable job inside your case' theory.

Another mate of mine had his enema-max die within a month, just goes to show that even the more expensive psu's still can be built on mondays by underpants gnomes....

Now where's that blunderbuss Edna ?

Cheers

Das Meat/-\xe.

go 1kw, just DO IT

My antec smartpower 2 which came with sonata 2 quiet case burnt out, but was quickly replaced so no big deal.

^ if you google Antec Smartpower 2.0 you read lots of scarey stories. It seems nearly every Antec Smartpwr2 PSU has burnt out or is about too.

well i should actually add that a lot of smoke started pouring out of it, and the computer didn't shutoff - it kept smoking. Luckily i was home at the time.

It also fried some wires from the case front panel to the m/board which was odd.

but i was also running my power thru one of those backup batteries/surge protectors at the time so maybe that had something to do with it

Here's an interesting one, slightly off topic so apologies if I am asking inappropriately. Looking for advice from the learned , and if it's not appropriate to post here, please email me noosapara@hotmail.com thnx.

This has been my joyful day so far
Enermax psu + BFG680 = no boot + 2 beeps of death . Rtfm sez not enough devices attached to psu - (2 x sata +2 x dvd means ich don tink so!! ). reset sw override does not do jack. Other indication for 2 beeps is wiring fault, but I digress.

TTAKE 600w + BFG680 = boot ok (loan psu and not enough for what I want to do with this one.)

so back to shop I go thinkin my EGA 1000 GWL has a dose of constructional herpes.

Enermax tested ok at shop with full boot of their bench system.

/me returns home rather sheepish, and reinstalls psu to again get beeps of death
and steam from ears

- start usual problem solving process and identify that if the molex for the graphics part of the mobo is not plugged in but the 24 pin and cpu plug are......voila ! boot to bios ok, but naturally wont go further as cannot find power connected to gfx section of mobo. Bit of a shame that as I'd like to hook up some decent nvidia lovin. I even tried to trick it with a fan or two in between so the psu thinks it isnt an open connection but no joy.

mobo has latest bios, and I have even tried different power sockets around the house, with and without circuit protectors.

A mate has same psu mobo combo and no probs so far.

Am I missing a simple solution here ? I've googled and searched and found nada, zip, zero.

Would appreciate any sensible advice from the sages prior to me returning to supplier late next week with case to 'demonstrate the fault' as they are a little skeptical to exchange because of my scenario - fair enough , they have a business to run.

If nothing else , it shows even the high end psu's can play up.

thanks for your time.

Das Meat/-\xe

I've said it once, I'll say it again. Look for a brand name "ACBel" they're my most highly recommended power supplies. Very few failures.