i7 build - couple of questions

[Bharat]

Current setup is as below :

AMD Opteron 165 CPU
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce x16 Motherboard
XFX GeForce 7900GTX PCI-E 512MB 665MHz card -> currently replaced by a Gigabyte HD4850 1GB GDDR3
Tagan EasyCon TG530-U15 530W Modular PSU
Corsair TwinX2048-3200C2 DDR4000 (2x1GB kit)
Zalman CNPS 9500
Creative X-Fi Gamer Edition
Eclipse - 62 black case
74GB WD Raptor, 500GB Samsung Spinpoint
Windows XP Pro.

I do play the occassional games, but because I do various other testing of software, browsing, usual Office applications, etc., this PC stays on 24/7 as I need to be able to go back to exactly the point I stopped doing what I was doing a couple of hours ago, for example.

Wife's PC is falling apart, so decided to give this setup to her to keep her happy, minus the new Gigabyte card, the Creative sound card, and the Eclipse case.

I intend to set it up as it was originally, using the GeForce card (changed a couple of months ago as I was getting a lot of chopping of frames in games for some reason), on-board sound, and buy a new, decent case (use the Tagan PSU in that) to put this setup into, so I can use the Eclipse for my new i7 build.

Moving to an i7 920 D0 stepping (more for cooling reasons that OC), ASUS P6T Deluxe (not sure if I should go for the Deluxe V2), 6GB RAM, probably a 1TB HD. Will be using VMWare for virtual machine testing (all sorts, from Windows 7 to Server 2008, Sharepoint, etc, <- one of the reasons I decided to go for a new setup).

Now, what I cannot figure out is what PSU to use. The machine will pretty much stay on 24/7 as mentioned above. Concerned about the energy use, and bills, what with the current financial mess.

I will 'probably' OC a little bit, doubt I will push it to the extreme, as I don't want to then run more/louder fans, so will be sticking to air-cooling. Haven't been in touch with the happenings in OC, so would not know where to start with water-cooling, and whether the Eclipse will be a good case for it.

Also not sure whether I should bother looking at a SSD as the boot drive or not. Read about the issues with the JMicron and the fact that I cannot afford to go OTT with the budget.

Would like to point out - sticking with Intel platform partly for work-related reasons, as much as AMD is a cheaper alternative.


Advice/suggestions/criticisms welcome. Thank you :roll:

 

[Blain]

If you're "concerned about the energy use, and bills, what with the current financial mess", then a SSD drive is kind of pointless for you.
You get much more bang for the buck running spinning platters.

Buying bleeding-edge hardware is more for users, where energy bills aren't an issue.

As far as PS go, sure efficiency is good. It indicates a higher design and build quality.
An efficient PS at a good price point is the PC Power & Cooling S75CF.

 

[Bharat]

Point taken.

I live in the U.K, and sadly, we get ripped off royally in every way possible, so with the current financial mess, we are having to watch pennies closely off late, especially with energy bills. Sounds a bit pathetic, but sadly, the situation out here has made many sit up and think, hence my concern.

I wasn't aware of the power draw of SSDs - just thought it was a nice technology to probably use as the boot drive, but I'm not entirely convinced I'm ready to go for it right now. So yes, I'll stick to a couple of SATA drives for now.

Hmm. That is a good PSU - not sure about the colour though But I see they make it in black, and it is available here in the UK, so might go for that.

How about this one from Corsair ? Or will it not be powerful enough ?

Or even this, actually certified for i7 ?

 

[theAnimal]

Enermax Modu82+ or Pro82+ 425W would be most efficient for that system. 80Plus Bronze certified and would run near the 50% load sweet spot.

 

[Bharat]

Surely a 425W won't be enough for an i7 build ?

 

[Blain]

My personal view on power supply sizing is that I...
* Buy more power than the rig needs. Most power supply peak efficiency seems to hit at about 50% load.
So if a PS is sized more than needed, it runs efficiently, cool and has excess capacity to allow for component aging and degradation.

Obviously this view can be pushed to utter extremes, like a 1.2kW power supply for running a P3-800 system, etc.
I'm not suggesting any such extremes as that.

 

[theAnimal]

Originally posted by: Bharat
Surely a 425W won't be enough for an i7 build ?

Power consumption shouldn't top 300W when gaming.

 

[Lunyone]

Originally posted by: Bharat
Surely a 425W won't be enough for an i7 build ?

Yes it would be more than enough. If you doubt me, look in my signature for a link that takes a Antec 380w Earthwatts PSU and mates it up with an OC'd e6600 and an 8800gtx GPU. Now I'm not saying that you should run your PSU at those extremes, but it goes to show you that you don't necessarially need to buy a 750w PSU. I'd probably consider getting a quality 450w PSU and up for your build. The main thing that I look for (other than quality) is whether or not the PSU supplies the right connectors for my build. Mainly I look at the PCI-e power connectors. I would seriously consider getting a PSU that has at least 1 x 6pin PCI-e and 1 x 6+2pin (8pin) PCI-e power connectors. That way you can power up just about any GPU that is out on the market. The Corsair 550vx or even the 650tx are good options to consider. They are both built well and have 5 yr warranties too. The 650tx is a bit more popular right now, since it's usually priced about the same as the 550vx. It usually comes with some rebate too, so it becomes even more of a deal. Your choice on the PSU is up to you, but don't skimp out on one.
Things I look at in a PSU:
1) Is it an efficient and quality PSU?
2) Does it have enough 12v amperage? (important for power hungry GPU's)
3) Does it come with all of the correct connectors?
4) Are the reviews good/bad?
5) Does it fit my budget?

After answering those questions, I can usually narrow down the selection.