New Build thoughts

[Suppressor1137]

Hey guys, The issue I have is this:

I am currently using a 530 watt PSU(Raidmax) I know it is crap, and I will replace it once i go to build my new system.

The question is as follows: Is it strong enough to run a Geforce GTX 560 Ti?

I know the requirements for the card is 30 amps, and it has 35 amps on the v12, But considering how cheap it is, I don't want to take any chances.

Another note, Is it powerful enough for the next step up, the 570, and is it worth it? I couldn't get any ampere information on the 570, only wattage use. I figure if the 570 is only $30 more than the 560, might be worth going with that.

I am asking this because I'm going to buy my video card before the rest of my new system to lower the costs of building the entire rig.

Eventually, I'll be using a Kingwin Mach 1 1000 watt psu:

Would I be able to SLI 2 560's, and use my current 260 as dedicated Physx?(with the 1000 watt of course)

If so, Might be worth getting a triple slot pcie board.

Also, on a side note, Has anyone gotten the EVGA Geforce GTX 560 Ti DS series yet? any acoustic info? Thermal info compared to single fan?

*edit: Current CPU is a Core 2 duo e7200(going to temporarily replace with a Core 2 Quad q8800 from a friends old pc)

merged posts
-mbentley

Hey guys, Let my give you a run down of what I am currently using.

Current System:
======================================
Intel Core 2 Duo e7200 @2.93 GHZ

ASUS Pk5/se-epu Mobo LGA 775

WD Caviar Blue 250 GB

EVGA Geforce GTX 260 875 MB

Raidmax 530 Watt PSU

Raidmax Smilodon Case
=======================================


System of interest:

Intel I5 2500k

Tuniq CR-T120-EX-SV 120mm Magnetic Fluid Dynamic Bearing Tower cooler

ASUS Sabertooth P67 Or GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD5-B3 (If what below works*)

WD Caviar Black 1 TB 64 bit cache

OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB OS boot drive

EVGA Geforce GTX 560 Ti SD x2(eventually) +*Geforce GTX 260 Physx
*=Will this work with SLI enabled? Going to use as physx for sure until SLI card comes in. use sli and physx dedicated card? possible??

Cooler Master HAF X case

Either Kingwin Mach 1 1000 watt PSU, or a 850 watt gold, dont really know yet.

================================================


Couple questions on the build.

1: Can I use Physx enabled card with SLI cards enabled?

2: If above question is yes, then will I need 1000 watts for the three?

3: What is a Good, reliable board that has 3/4 PCIE slots that isn't overly expensive?(budget of $1500 +/- 75)

4: Acoustics...How loud is the new EVGA GTX 560 ti DS?\

5: Would I be able to "get away" with a 560 ti with the 530 watt early?

Luckily I don't have to buy a monitor/keyboard/mouse, so cuts my costs a bit.

Thoughts?

 

[theELVISCERATOR]

I would not use the first psu for anything. I am SLIing two 560's on my 750 corsair without issue running a fully loaded computer with a crapload of fans.

 

[Suppressor1137]

Thank you for the reply.

Yeah, I understand what you mean. At the moment, however, I am on a very strict budget. Normally, I would wait until I could do the full build, But my GTX 260 was partially fried in a stess clock, and it has issues rendering objects in games: invisible terrain in games until vid card renders them

Makes it rather difficult to pathfind when running from cops in games like GTA IV.

Buying a new PSU AND a new Video card isn't really an option at the moment, as I would not buy another crap PSU ever again.

I could go for gold, get a 850 watt PSU for $150, or Go for power, and get a $159.99 1000 watt bronze PSU. The problem for me is this: Future builds.

As technology increases, power needs increase as well.

As this system is 4 years old, the warranty is out on my EVGA KR(dont ask why I bought the KR series) 260, so i can't get it replaced...besides, OCing would void any warranty.

 

[EarthDog]

Yikes. If its actually putting out the power it supposed to or close to it (and that is questionable) you should be fine for the 560ti. Your next upgrade should be a new PSU though, PERIOD.

As far as which PSU to buy, look at the PSU guide in my signature. I would suggest a Corsair 550VX. So long as you have one CPU and one GPU, that will power anything for the next few years with a very heavy overclock.

Let me address some things too:

I know the requirements for the card is 30 amps, and it has 35 amps on the v12...

This is for the entire SYSTEM, not the card.

Another note, Is it powerful enough for the next step up, the 570, and is it worth it?

It still should be, again IF its able to put out its rated power or close to it. As far as which card to get, get the best one you can afford.

Would I be able to SLI 2 560's, and use my current 260 as dedicated Physx?(with the 1000 watt of course)

There isnt a point. With a single monitor at 1920x1200 or lower, 2 560ti's can handle gaming + physX.

I havent heard of the 560ti DS, but I did review the regular 560ti and that thing is pretty silent really if you keep the fan down to 65% or so.

 

[EarthDog]

I thought we were already discussing this in your other thread? You have 3 threads created that are quite similar in nature. I answered these questions in the 560 ti thread.

 

[Suppressor1137]

Yikes. If its actually putting out the power it supposed to or close to it (and that is questionable) you should be fine for the 560ti. Your next upgrade should be a new PSU though, PERIOD.

As far as which PSU to buy, look at the PSU guide in my signature. I would suggest a Corsair 550VX. So long as you have one CPU and one GPU, that will power anything for the next few years with a very heavy overclock.

Thank you for the reply. I'm steering away from the >600 watt PSU's, as I am somewhat of a modder, and a little bit of headroom is always nice. Eventually I'll be running 2 way sli with either 560 ti, or 570(580's are way to expensive imo, and bottlenecks the CPU quickly) I got the PSU with the case, so I didn't really complain, and it has lasted me 4 years, so It has done its job.

As to the power output of the box, probably about at its max limit now, because when I OC'd the vid card from 576 to about 680 on the core, randomly shut down, but i can't know for sure, i wasn't able to modify the vcore for stability.*one of the first off the line*(I have NEVER managed to make that card go above 70C, even with that OC) But the power requirements of the 560 and 260 are about the same, 260 being 295, and 560 being 285 at max load. That isn't Overclocked, so its less power by 10 watts.

 

[mbentley]

merged threads

 

[Suppressor1137]

Sorry, Re-read them, and realized they contained alot of the same info.

Thanks for the merge!

 

[Ethan E]

I would upgrade your power supply BEFORE you add any new components. With a 4 year old PSU that was bundled with your case, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the PSU that fried your video card. I fried a video card, mobo, cpu and two sticks of ram using an old crappy psu one time. Now I avoid cheap PSU's like the plague. I understand you are tight on cash, I am the same right now, but I would urge you to buy a new PSU first, or risk frying any new video card you get.

 

[Suppressor1137]

When i said fried, I meant it was damaged. It works, but it doesn't run things at the frames it used to. With the system I have, 12 fps in dragon age 2 on minimum, and on dragon age origins, i used got get about 26 fps on max, now its about 19-21 , same settings. Not much difference, but sign of electronic fatigue.

As I have said above, this build won't be built for another 3 months or so, But trying to get a temporary fix for the frame issues, as they have gotten unbareably low(I'm used to being able to max everything, and have at least 26-28 fps, not anymore T.T). $240 for vid card; $150-$180 for a quality 850 watt PSU, or a not-so-top-notch 1kw. 850 is sufficient for 2 way sli GTX 560 TI's coupled with a 2500k(which it wont even be 2 way until a month after the build is made.)

Now...

Kingwin Mach 1 1kw PSU
OR....
Kingwin Lazer 850 Gold PSU...

I would select others, if they had blue led's and good ratings, but these are the best from what I've seen available for the price, And they coincide with Earth Dog's Guide.

 

[snowbrd]

Wow, Kingwin? Try seasonic and you don't need the blue leds. I was able to snatch a 1000watt gold plus certified sparkle psu for 150 from microcenter a few months back. Great deal.

 

[EarthDog]

Those are good PSU's, check out the guide (not mine BTW).

Are you going multi monitor? If not, get a single 570. SLI sometimes isnt worth it, and especially at resolutions 1920x1200 and below.

As far as your FPS issues, I havent heard or experienced the 'electronic degradation' of which you speak. I would try uninstalling and updating your video card drivers or try a reformat of the OS before I go blow money..especially with that potential bomb of a PSU you have there.

 

[Suppressor1137]

Got it. It just occured to me that the Processor I was using before was different from my current Processor.

E6550 to e7200(upgraded because of heat problems with 65 nm tech, to 45 nm tech, lower cache.)

 

[EarthDog]

I dont think the cache matters so much as the process does as far as heat goes.

There wasnt any heat problems with the 65nm chips either...where did you hear that?

 

[Suppressor1137]

There was, it was in the form of LOW critical temp of 64 C. 72c critical temps with the 45 nm

 

[EarthDog]

Sorry, maybe I missed the boat on that one (doubt it though to be honest). Maybe Im mis understanding what you mean by 'heat problems'. That to me means they run warm. And chips on a larger process do tend to run warmer than a smaller process, but there was nothing wrong with the 65nm process.

i7 920 for example says 72C and people say to keep it under 80. Mid 80s when stress testing etc. People ran e6750 up into the 70's as well.

I guess I dont understand what you are saying.

 

[Suppressor1137]

Alright.

I'm not saying you don't know what you are talking about. On the contrary, I believe you have much more experience than I do in building and overclocking computers. I must sound very technologically inept, but contrary to what I am portraying, I know what I am doing to where I could put a computer together, get it up and running, overclock it, cool it better, and test problems. The issue I had with the old processor, probably due to stock cooler, was an idle of 18c, and a load of 75c. room temp was 16c That is why I replaced it with a e7200, the 6550 had a much larger heatsink, so using that with the e7200 makes it better for me, load temps of 63c idle of 37(sensor is stuck at that for minimum). What I don't understand very well, and not many people do, Is what Power supply is needed for your system. Like, for instance, the fact that I didn't know that the amperes on vid cards were attributing to the entire system as a whole. That makes things much easier now that I know that.

What my question should have been is this: For a 2500k overclocked to about 4.4-4.8 with the tuniq tower(the new one with the 1155 bracket)(not sure what the top end is for the 2500k, whereas the 2600k, i know it hits 5 ghz) and two Geforce GTX 560 ti's, What PSU would be best for me: 850, or 1000, but seeing as to how they are the same price, Headroom is probably a safer bet, but with the 560's, you don't need to OC them, they already have an insane clock on em:the Gigabyte SOC 1 GHZ)
My original question has been answered as well, and I will go with your suggestion, Wait on the card, get the PSU first.

PS: Eventually going dual monitor or triple monitor(I know it isn't wise with those cards for three, because the memory required is rather insane. However, I find the 580 to be a bit too much for a non-extreme gamer like myself, and the 570's are good, but hate the fact that the 560's are pretty damn close to them. only advantages is 3 way or 4 way SLI, and increased memory, probably a few more advantages(bus width and such) But I'm on a budget, and really only plan to do a max of 2 way SLI.)

All I would be Overclocking would be my CPU and RAM(which i'm not sure how that even works) On air cooling with a HAF X case.

 

[Ethan E]

850 watts would be plenty for that system. If the two are truly equal in quality and price, then go for the 1000 watt unit, but 850 should do it just fine.

 

[Deathntaxes]

Seriously, replace the PSU first. I have the same case/PSU and it died about a month after I bought the thing. It's a turd. Thankfully it didn't take out any of my system with it.

 

[Suppressor1137]

Bought the 850, Thanks guys. next month comes the video card XD