D
Deleted member 211220
Guest
...
Last edited by a moderator:
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
-
Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
At your stated 1080p resolution, you will need to increase your budget by about $50 to $100: The HD 6850 might not keep up with forthcoming newer games at that resolution unless you are willing to turn the quality settings down to Medium.
In addition, the Storm Scout is not one of Cooler Master's roomier cases: It is relatively cramped from front to rear. This will restrict the length of usable graphics cards to about 10.5 inches, making the HD 6950 that we normally recommend for this resolution a tight squeeze in that case.
If you can't increase the budget, you should consider omitting the SSD at this time. While an SSD loads programs and games faster than a 7200RPM HDD, it doesn't improve frame rates in games as much as a better video card would.
For 1080p gaming, the HD 6950 is the bare minimum we'd recommend today.
For 1080p gaming, the HD 6950 is the bare minimum we'd recommend today.
Insula Gilliganis
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2007
- Messages
- 1,470
Hey P-Unit.. from a cursory read of what you have configured, it looks like a fairly good build you have listed (nice to have a Micro Center nearby.. lucky you).. and not all that dissimilar to PCPer's "Mid Range System" build.. so anything I mention here is just nick picking and/or my own personal preference, and not a criticism of anything you have written.
When I build a system, I try and build something that I believe will be serviceable for around 3 years. I know this isn't always possible but it is my goal, so in saying that, my first advice is that you might want to put your build on hold until AMD's Bulldozer is released. It is NOW suppose to occur on October 12th. Bulldozer prices are suppose to not be far from what you are spending on the 2500K so it just might be worth waiting the 3 weeks or so until benchmarks come out on those new CPUs. If nothing else, perhaps the price of a 2500K will drop some or make the 2600K now affordable for you to purchase.
From ZDnet..
I have always stuck with nVidia cards ONLY because my teenage son has found a few games that didn't render his games correctly using an AMD card. 99.8% of the time not a problem, but once in a while some scene wouldn't render correctly using AMD so now I just always use nVidia, and my son has never complained since.
I would spend a little more and get a 2tb hard drive unless you don''t clutter your hard drives like I seem to do!
Power supplies and cases are 2 items I usually keep, if possible, when rebuilding so putting some $ into these items makes good sense to me. You might want to boost your power supply up to 750-850 watts.. I know.. easy to say spend more $ but again I think you won't regret the decision a couple of years from now. I do have a problem with the Storm Scout.. your MSI motherboard has a USB 3.0 internal I/O connector but the Storm Scout doesn't seem to offer front mounted USB 3.0 ports. This is something I would really want on my case.
I do agree with tiraides assessment that if gaming is your top priority and you can't stretch your budget any more, then a better video card over a SSD would be $ well spent.
Hope I gave you a few things to think about and I haven't steered you wrong.. just my free opinion. Good luck!
When I build a system, I try and build something that I believe will be serviceable for around 3 years. I know this isn't always possible but it is my goal, so in saying that, my first advice is that you might want to put your build on hold until AMD's Bulldozer is released. It is NOW suppose to occur on October 12th. Bulldozer prices are suppose to not be far from what you are spending on the 2500K so it just might be worth waiting the 3 weeks or so until benchmarks come out on those new CPUs. If nothing else, perhaps the price of a 2500K will drop some or make the 2600K now affordable for you to purchase.
From ZDnet..
I have always stuck with nVidia cards ONLY because my teenage son has found a few games that didn't render his games correctly using an AMD card. 99.8% of the time not a problem, but once in a while some scene wouldn't render correctly using AMD so now I just always use nVidia, and my son has never complained since.
I would spend a little more and get a 2tb hard drive unless you don''t clutter your hard drives like I seem to do!
Power supplies and cases are 2 items I usually keep, if possible, when rebuilding so putting some $ into these items makes good sense to me. You might want to boost your power supply up to 750-850 watts.. I know.. easy to say spend more $ but again I think you won't regret the decision a couple of years from now. I do have a problem with the Storm Scout.. your MSI motherboard has a USB 3.0 internal I/O connector but the Storm Scout doesn't seem to offer front mounted USB 3.0 ports. This is something I would really want on my case.
I do agree with tiraides assessment that if gaming is your top priority and you can't stretch your budget any more, then a better video card over a SSD would be $ well spent.
Hope I gave you a few things to think about and I haven't steered you wrong.. just my free opinion. Good luck!
This.
Get at least a 6870 for gaming - but I agree that the 6950 is probably the best bang for the buck right now.
Actually, that advice is not so good unless the OP wants to use two identical higher-end GPUs: With only a single GPU, the higher-wattage PSU will be operating at less than 20% of full capacity most of the time. This results in the higher-wattage PSU consuming more power than a slightly lower wattage PSU from the wall at an equal wattage. At 120W idle (typical for an entire system with an i5-2500K, a single HD 6950 and a 23" 1080p monitor), the 850W PSU will draw almost 200W from the wall while a 550W PSU will draw only about 150W. This is because PSUs are much less efficient below 20% of maximum rating than above that percentage.
On the other hand, there are quite a few systems that draw so little power from the PSU at idle but an astronomical amount of power from the PSU under load. That type of system makes it very difficult to balance energy efficiency with power capacity.
Insula Gilliganis
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2007
- Messages
- 1,470
Aww I hate giving bad advice! Let's see if I can redeem myself!
E4g1e is correct.. having a PSU that is too large, thus not running in the optimal 20-80% load range, means you will be using a bit more electricity to run your rig. But I do feel that this could be overblown. E4g1e makes the comparison of an 850 vs 550 watt PSU both powering a rig that need 120 watts at idle.. and E4g1e asserts that, since the 550W unit is pulling a load that is about 22% of it's capacity, it would be running at about 80% efficiency making it pull 150 watts from the wall. But I feel E4g1e errors in giving the 850W a 62% efficiency rating (this would equal 195 watts from the wall) for creating that same 120 idle watts. JohnnyGuru's review of a similar PSU that P-UNIT was looking at except larger in size, a Corsair TX850 V2 850W http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story2&reid=218, that has as it's lowest efficiency rating tested (at 14.9 watts or about a 2% load) as being at 74.1%. If I replace E4g1e's 62% efficiency with a more "realistic" 74.1%, then the 850W unit is only pulling about 162 watts from the wall, or only 12 more than the 550W unit would be pulling. Not much of a penalty for having a larger PSU. And again this example is only for when the computer was at idle. Also, the 74.1% efficiency was tested when the PSU is cold.. when warm/hot, most good quality PSUs are slightly more efficient.
What about if the rig is actually being used to play a game. Since well build PSUs seem to have their best efficiency between 20 and 80% loads, and efficiency mostly flat lines between those loads (using the cold test numbers, the TX850 from above is between 83.2% and 86.1% when at 20-80% loads.. and the recently tested Corsair TX750M 750W Bronze http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=254 was between 84.1% and 86.8% for the same loads), it would behoove any rig builder to use at least a 20% load. For a 850 watt unit this means 170 watts; 750 unit needs 150; 650 unit needs 130; and 550 unit needs 110. If each of these 4 units had the same 20% load efficiency, like 80%, and when playing a game the average power the rig needs is, say 170 watts (only 50 more than the 120 watt idle watts), then there no penalty for using any of the largest units over the 550... and even if we assumed the 550 unit had a slightly higher efficiency rating (which I will give as 86%) when at a 31% load vs the 850 at a 20% load (using an efficiency rating I will give as 83%), then the penalty between using the 850 watt PSU over the 550 watt PSU is only 7 watts!! (850w unit at 83% would need 205 watts from the wall to make the 170 watts; the 550w unit at 86% would need 198 watts from the wall to make the same 170 watts) - Doing the same calculations for each the 850 and 550 unit needing 220 watts to power a rig and keeping the efficiencies the same, the penalty is now 9 watts (850 PSU using 265 wall watts vs 550 PSU using 256 wall watts). And at 400 watts, the penalty is just 17 watts in favor of the 550 unit.
OK, unless my math is really wrong (and it could be.. I was NOT a math major in college) as well as my logic not being sound, there doesn't seem to be much of a electrical penalty at idle or during 20-80% loads for using a larger PSU over a smaller PSU. The only substantial cost difference is in how much it is to purchase one unit over another. The unit P-UNIT was looking at was a Corsari TX650 V2 for $70 ($85 at Newegg) and the two other Corsair units I referred to in the JonnyGuru articles are $130 ($115 with rebate) for the TX750M and $136 ($120 with rebate) for the TX850 V2. Since I like to keep my PSU units for a long time and what is considered the average size of PSU units have gotten larger over time*, I think spending the extra $20-40 for a larger unit, which might mean you can keep the same PSU unit through another rebuild plus give you overhead for adding additional drives/extra video card, is a fairly wise move. I do agree that if someone is more incline to not keep their PSU unit as long as I usually do and/or isn't planning on upgrading their rig until their next rebuild is probably better off buying the smaller size PSU.
*Just to see how power supply unit sizes have been going up, I went back through my collection of MaximumPC mags and listed what power supply was used during some of their annual September Dream Machine builds.. yes these are very specialized builds but does point the fact that over time the size of PSUs they have used has increased (in just 13 years the size they used increased 500%)
1998 - 300 watts
2002 - 475 watts
2005 - 850 watts
2006 - 750 watts
2008 - 1200 watts
2011 - 1500 watts
E4g1e is correct.. having a PSU that is too large, thus not running in the optimal 20-80% load range, means you will be using a bit more electricity to run your rig. But I do feel that this could be overblown. E4g1e makes the comparison of an 850 vs 550 watt PSU both powering a rig that need 120 watts at idle.. and E4g1e asserts that, since the 550W unit is pulling a load that is about 22% of it's capacity, it would be running at about 80% efficiency making it pull 150 watts from the wall. But I feel E4g1e errors in giving the 850W a 62% efficiency rating (this would equal 195 watts from the wall) for creating that same 120 idle watts. JohnnyGuru's review of a similar PSU that P-UNIT was looking at except larger in size, a Corsair TX850 V2 850W http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story2&reid=218, that has as it's lowest efficiency rating tested (at 14.9 watts or about a 2% load) as being at 74.1%. If I replace E4g1e's 62% efficiency with a more "realistic" 74.1%, then the 850W unit is only pulling about 162 watts from the wall, or only 12 more than the 550W unit would be pulling. Not much of a penalty for having a larger PSU. And again this example is only for when the computer was at idle. Also, the 74.1% efficiency was tested when the PSU is cold.. when warm/hot, most good quality PSUs are slightly more efficient.
What about if the rig is actually being used to play a game. Since well build PSUs seem to have their best efficiency between 20 and 80% loads, and efficiency mostly flat lines between those loads (using the cold test numbers, the TX850 from above is between 83.2% and 86.1% when at 20-80% loads.. and the recently tested Corsair TX750M 750W Bronze http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=254 was between 84.1% and 86.8% for the same loads), it would behoove any rig builder to use at least a 20% load. For a 850 watt unit this means 170 watts; 750 unit needs 150; 650 unit needs 130; and 550 unit needs 110. If each of these 4 units had the same 20% load efficiency, like 80%, and when playing a game the average power the rig needs is, say 170 watts (only 50 more than the 120 watt idle watts), then there no penalty for using any of the largest units over the 550... and even if we assumed the 550 unit had a slightly higher efficiency rating (which I will give as 86%) when at a 31% load vs the 850 at a 20% load (using an efficiency rating I will give as 83%), then the penalty between using the 850 watt PSU over the 550 watt PSU is only 7 watts!! (850w unit at 83% would need 205 watts from the wall to make the 170 watts; the 550w unit at 86% would need 198 watts from the wall to make the same 170 watts) - Doing the same calculations for each the 850 and 550 unit needing 220 watts to power a rig and keeping the efficiencies the same, the penalty is now 9 watts (850 PSU using 265 wall watts vs 550 PSU using 256 wall watts). And at 400 watts, the penalty is just 17 watts in favor of the 550 unit.
OK, unless my math is really wrong (and it could be.. I was NOT a math major in college) as well as my logic not being sound, there doesn't seem to be much of a electrical penalty at idle or during 20-80% loads for using a larger PSU over a smaller PSU. The only substantial cost difference is in how much it is to purchase one unit over another. The unit P-UNIT was looking at was a Corsari TX650 V2 for $70 ($85 at Newegg) and the two other Corsair units I referred to in the JonnyGuru articles are $130 ($115 with rebate) for the TX750M and $136 ($120 with rebate) for the TX850 V2. Since I like to keep my PSU units for a long time and what is considered the average size of PSU units have gotten larger over time*, I think spending the extra $20-40 for a larger unit, which might mean you can keep the same PSU unit through another rebuild plus give you overhead for adding additional drives/extra video card, is a fairly wise move. I do agree that if someone is more incline to not keep their PSU unit as long as I usually do and/or isn't planning on upgrading their rig until their next rebuild is probably better off buying the smaller size PSU.
*Just to see how power supply unit sizes have been going up, I went back through my collection of MaximumPC mags and listed what power supply was used during some of their annual September Dream Machine builds.. yes these are very specialized builds but does point the fact that over time the size of PSUs they have used has increased (in just 13 years the size they used increased 500%)
1998 - 300 watts
2002 - 475 watts
2005 - 850 watts
2006 - 750 watts
2008 - 1200 watts
2011 - 1500 watts
D
Deleted member 88227
Guest
With a budget as tight as the OP, a 650W V2 Corsair is plenty for a single GPU setup.
I gave only an extreme example, in my previous post - a not-so-good-quality 850W PSU that barely meets 80 Plus "standard" certification.
