[millard]

Hello all!

I have been building a 64 bit SLI P.C and have found myself stuck on the following question... "Which PSU do I get?!"

The specs of the P.C are:

Asus A8N-SLI MoBo
AMD 3800+ (2.4GHZ) CPU
2GB (4 x 512MB 400MHZ) Corsair RAM
x2 IDE HDD's (120GB each)
x2 SATA HDD's (120GB each)
nVidia 7800 GTX GPU
CD-RW Drive
DVD-RW Drive
Floppy Drive

It will also ave a water cooling system - I have not decided on a specific system yet but it won't be an expensive one!

Nothing will be overclocked at first but will also need enough power to handle overclocking at a later date.

ANY ideas you guys have would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks, Steve Millard

[TimoneX]

Nice setup, but why all the HDs and Dimms? I'd probably favor 2x300GB Sata drives and if you really need 2GBs of memory then I'd look into 2x1GB dimms.

Neway to answer your question about PSUs you can look at this PC P&C unit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817703001

You can probably find a better pricetag if you look around, but that's the class of unit you should be looking into if you intend to run two of those vid cards in SLI.

[millard]

I have a certain way that I ALWAYS set up my P.C's - i.e: I always install the OS twice (on 2 seperate drives) in case something goes wrong with the first etc. - after carefull planning I decided on the HDD's specified...

As for the RAM - I have been told that 512mb chips are more stable than the 1gb's?

I haven't got ALL components yet, they are going to be order next month (pay day! so I can always change the components around.

I'll put a post in the memory section about 1gb chips.

Thanks TimoneX!

[millard]

I forgot to ask...

The link given in TimoneX's post shows that the PSu is an american model (the plug is a dead give away!)... I'm in England? I have searched google but NOTHING is found whern I search U.K pages.

If I were to go with this PSU, would I be able to use it over here???

[darksparkz]

I'd say 2x1GB performs better then 4x512MB. The 2x1GB also allows for a bit of future upgrades.

An OCZ PowerStream 520W is also fine for your system. It'll also be stable and as reliable as the PCP&C ones, but maybe just a little bit under. It'll still work great for OCing and many and many people have them and it's never failed.

[TimoneX]

The OCZ power stream is a very nice unit and is oft compared to the Blue Storm. Without re-hashing old debates I just prefer the FSP unit because it can be had cheaper, but both are excellent units IMO. The FSP unit has a voltage switch for global applications, and I can't recall for certain if the OCZ unit does, but I'd be very surprised if this simple feature was overlooked.

So you install your OS to both drives? You don't mean Raid 1 mirroring but you actually install it 2x? That's very unusual. I just set everything up, get all the updates, install the MUST HAVE programs then create a ghost image of each system. If disaster strikes it usually takes no more than 20mins to get any system right back to the way it looked on day 1. To each his own I guess.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Originally Posted by millard

64 bit SLI P.C

Fortron/Sparkle FSP550-60PLG, OCZ PS520 (avoid the 600), PC P&C 510, Etasis EPAP-560, Zippy HP2-6500P 500w or PSL-6701P 700w.

The Etasis can only be found at a place like www.powersupplypartner.com (who also carries Zippy), however the rest can be found at Newegg. eWiz carries the Fortrons much cheaper than Newegg does.

The Zippy 700w is the strongest I have been recommending for SLI - it has a single 45A 12v rail. However, it's not really necessary to have that much power just yet.

[Burner27]

Originally Posted by darksparkz

I'd say 2x1GB performs better then 4x512MB.

You have numbers to back up this claim ?

[Know Nuttin]

Originally Posted by Burner27

You have numbers to back up this claim ?

they're probably going by the fact that you have to do 2T to have 4 sticks, and can do 1T on 2 sticks (most times).