$600 build

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jmreye

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hey guys, I want to build a computer to be able to play BFBC2 at decent settings, 30fps+ at medium settings would suffice, maybe some WoW and old source games

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
gaming, want to play some of the newer games but dont have a problem with low fps as long as it hovering in the mid 30's upper 40's (would prefer 60 fps of course), web browsing, music, videos

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$600 USD

3) Where do you live?
US

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, RAM, Mobo, Vid Card, Power supply, Case

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Ill be reusing my LG 22" LCD (16x10 res), OS (Vista 32), Mouse, Keyboard and Headphones, hard drive

6) Will you be overclocking?
Have never done it before, if I decide to, it would be a very mild oc, I am looking for stability mostly

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
LG 22" LCD 1680x1050

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
next couple of weeks

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
pretty standard I guess, dont need xfire or sli

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
yes, Vista 32
 
What CPU do you have now? You might just want to get a 5850 and maybe a power supply and case for now, as an i5 750, mobo, and 5850 already cost $633 by itself (5850s are $300, so no big surprise).

Settling for a lower spec system and a 5770 would be a mistake as 5770 barely handles BC2 even at your resolution (I played BC2 with a 5770 @ 1440x900 and was let down).
 
my main computer right now is a netbook with an atom processor so not much upgrading can be done in that front
 
576.50 Shipped

163.98 Mobo CPU Combo // AMD Athalon 2 x2 240 (2.8Ghz) & ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X
149.99 HIS H577FM1GD Radeon HD 5770 1GB
74.99 CORSAIR XMS3 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
79.99 Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W PSU (15 dollar off promo code listed on newegg)
49.99 Antec TWO HUNDRED S Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
19.99 SAMSUNG Black 22X Optical
44.99 SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD253GJ 250GB 7200 RPM

Complete system minus OS.. This is a very bang for buck orientated system with a lean towards gaming.
 
 
I say spend a little more and get a REAL system. A 5770 will leave you with a limp willy. Check out this $744 (shipped) system, with 5850:

600bux.png
 
NoForgiveness said:
I say spend a little more and get a REAL system. A 5770 will leave you with a limp willy. Check out this $744 (shipped) system, with 5850:
Click to expand...

For 1680x1050, the HD 5770 is more than enough. Also, you're missing a HSF from that build list.
 
Danny Bui said:
For 1680x1050, the HD 5770 is more than enough. Also, you're missing a HSF from that build list.
Click to expand...

Ah good eye, he will need to spend about $30 more on a Hyper 212+ =)

Um as I stated, I have first hand experience playing BC2 @ 1440 with a 5770 and it was disappointing. Getting a 5770? Get ready to not run maxed out. Thumbs down.
 
NoForgiveness said:
Um as I stated, I have first hand experience playing BC2 @ 1440 with a 5770 and it was disappointing. Getting a 5770? Get ready to not run maxed out. Thumbs down.
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Well first of all, never saw you state that before. Second, the OP only asked for and only has the budget for "decent settings" with BF:BC2. I doubt his version of decent settings means "maxed settings"
 
Danny Bui said:
Well first of all, never saw you state that before. Second, the OP only asked for and only has the budget for "decent settings" with BF:BC2. I doubt his version of decent settings means "maxed settings"
Click to expand...

Well look, one thing we know is that BC2 is optimized for more than two cores, so a tri-core system comes in handy. Another thing we know is that the 5850 is almost twice the GPU that the 5770 is, and that it runs BC2 all high at 60FPS @ his resolution vs 5770 running it at 45FPS. 45FPS to me is unplayable for real-time FPS, I can actually see and feel the difference up to 60FPS, no matter what scientists say about the 'human eye'. I am basing this on this review, by the way, where they state:

We found it possible to play Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with an average of ~45fps [5770], but at this rate there were still moments of laggy gameplay every now and then, generally when something was exploding, which was quite often in this game as you can imagine.

No doubt the OP can settle for a dual-core system with a 5770 at around $600, but for a measly $175 more he can build a tri-core with a 5850 and blast that baby to all high with smooth FPS, even if he upgrades to a 1080 monitor... decisions, decisions...
 
NoForgiveness said:
Well look, one thing we know is that BC2 is optimized for more than two cores, so a tri-core system comes in handy. Another thing we know is that the 5850 is almost twice the GPU that the 5770 is, and that it runs BC2 all high at 60FPS @ his resolution vs 5770 running it at 45FPS. 45FPS to me is unplayable for real-time FPS, I can actually see and feel the difference up to 60FPS, no matter what scientists say about the 'human eye'. I am basing this on this review, by the way, where they state:

We found it possible to play Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with an average of ~45fps [5770], but at this rate there were still moments of laggy gameplay every now and then, generally when something was exploding, which was quite often in this game as you can imagine.

No doubt the OP can settle for a dual-core system with a 5770 at around $600, but for a measly $175 more he can build a tri-core with a 5850 and blast that baby to all high with smooth FPS, even if he upgrades to a 1080 monitor... decisions, decisions...
Click to expand...

So your saying that the OP should spent HALF of his whole system budget on 1 component.. That doesn't make sense at all.. & a measly 175 as you put it.. Thats what about 30% of the overall budget.. Inst the point of having everyone answer that questionnaire so that the answers apply to the post?

@ the OP.. Dont believe that you cant game on a 5770.. Especially with your monitor. You should be more then fine.
 
The Neo ECO 620W for $65 listed above is a better deal than the Corsair VX550 for $80 (not including the $10MIR that each unit has as well).

Yah, he's not expecting high settings, so the 5770 should do fine considering his budget constraints.

@OP, I'd go for a cheaper case. Newegg has several on sale this weekend for $25 to $35 shipped.
$25 - Rosewill R223-P-BK 120mm Fan ATX Mid Tower (Promo: EMCYPNT22; Free shipping)
$35 - Gigabyte GZ-X8BPDX-400 Black SECC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower (Promo: EMCYPNT23; Free shipping)
 
I7-920 - $180 from microcenter
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0302727

Asus socket 1366 motherboard w/ dual PCI-E 16x graphics slots -$125 shipped from me (PM me)

750GB 32BM cache drive - $60 shipped from newegg
http://bensbargains.net/deal/135141/

CoolerMaster CM-360 case - $30 from CoolerMaster's website
http://cmstore.coolermaster-usa.com/product_info.php?products_id=313

CoolerMaster 460 watt PSU from newegg - $30 shipped -
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171046

4GB PC 1333 RAM from me - $80 shipped (PM me)

DVD-RW from Newegg - $25

ATI - 4850 shipped from Newegg - $85
http://bensbargains.net/deal/135126/



Total = $615


This system would destory all the other system's in general processor preformance and play games just fine at 1680x1050 resolution. If you wanted to upgrade a component it would be the video card, but the 4850 is no slouch for the money either, the resolution you are driving is not that big a deal - you don't need a $300 graphics card. A $100 or at max $150 graphics card should delight you! The other bonus with my rig configuration is that you'd have plenty of CPU life left for the future.


Good luck in your system build! I didn't get you under $600 - but I'm close and I didn't skimp on hardware to get there! You could get under $600 by buying a lessor processor, a smaller hard-drive, no DVD-RW -- but you mind as well cough up a bit extra and be full featured!
 
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An i7 won't really do much noticeable difference to an i5 or Phenom II X3 outside of encoding.

IMO you built a weak system, a 4850, a weak PSU, you added a hard drive which the OP doesn't need and ignored the case, which he does need... I mean damn.

OP wants to game, not encode. If he wants to save money and get a gaming beast, I'd rather see him with an Athlon II X2 or i3 and a 5850 or at least 5830.
 
this might have been answered, but do you have a Fry's around? a mobo/cpu combo from Fry's will go a long ways towards getting that better GPU and PSU.
 
No Forgiveness

I have the CM360 case and like it a lot.
Here is a pic of mine in the dark -
33tpl50.jpg


Here it is with the light on-
zodl36.jpg



There is nothing wrong with the cooler master PSU - newegg's five star average reviews speak to that doubt. Lots of your recommended and higher priced PSU's in this thread don't even have a true five star (perfect) average! And you can't disagree that the I7-920 has far more potential than the i5 and phenom II X3. If he drops the hard-drive and cd-rom I'm a lot under his budget, however the OP says he only currently has a netbook - so it stands to reason he needs a full setup. An OS purchase is going to tip the scale back over his max limit though for anyone's price configuration here. The 4850 can play anything at 1680x1050. It is comparable or surpasses a 9800 GTX in many games.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338&p=16
Review conclusion:

For starters, the Radeon HD 4850 looks to be the best buy at $199, even better than NVIDIA's price-dropped GeForce 9800 GTX. What's also unbelievable is that compared to the 4850, our beloved GeForce 8800 GT seems downright slow in a number of benchmarks - and the 8800 GT is only 8 months old. It's also very refreshing to see this sort of competitive pressure at such a reasonable price point, while it's fun to write about 1.4 billion transistor GPUs it's a dream come true to be able to write about this type of performance at under $200.

Take two 4850s, put them together and now you've got something even faster than NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 280 in most cases. It shouldn't be too surprising since 8800 GT SLI and 9800 GX2 both outperform the GTX 280 as well.

That kind of preformance at $85??? How can you go wrong? The OP is not a hardcore gamer - he says he'd like to play an occasional game. Look at that anantech article. The 4850 is MORE than capable. Couple with a I7-920 CPU -- that system would be a rock solid machine for that resolution in gaming and quite capable for anything else he could throw at it. Rebuttal?
 
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Archaea said:
There is nothing wrong with the cooler master PSU - newegg's five star average reviews speak to that doubt. Lots of your recommended and higher priced PSU's in this thread don't even have a true five star (perfect) average!
Click to expand...

That Coolermaster 460W PSU has been shown to be barely capable of 400W or so of power in a proper review. In addition, PSU reviews on Newegg should be taken with a grain of salt as the majority of them are written by the "I plugged it and it worked!" crowd. By that star metric, even Apevia PSUs are good quality if they're 4 stars right?:D
 
Danny Bui said:
That Coolermaster 460W PSU has been shown to be barely capable of 400W or so of power in a proper review. In addition, PSU reviews on Newegg should be taken with a grain of salt as the majority of them are written by the "I plugged it and it worked!" crowd. By that star metric, even Apevia PSUs are good quality if they're 4 stars right?:D
Click to expand...

Danny B.

Agreed on the newegg reviews --- to a point. But you must also consider the other side of the coin - that half the non technical people on newegg buy stuff and screw it up because they over stress it, install it wrong, and just generally have no idea what they are doing around hardware. So for that crowd to give it five stars is actually a boon. That being said I know your half kidding -- but lets be realistic. Exactly how many watts is the OP going to need. His system will probably pull 225 watt from the wall under load. I'd wager that 400 watts is way more than adequate as it wouldn't even be a 50% load on the PSU. The guy isn't building a tri-sli showcase system with an overclocked CPU and three fermis --- he's building a budget rig, and that budget PSU is adequate for his initial request.
 
Archaea said:
... Lots of your recommended and higher priced PSU's in this thread don't even have a true five star (perfect) average! ...
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I hate to say this, because newegg user reviews of PSUs are mostly useless, but your statement is just flat out false. All 3 PSUs suggested above have 5 "star" ratings, but that doesn't matter -- I just had to point out how wrong your statement was, lol.

$65 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W
$80 - CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W
$110 - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W

Archaea said:
... I'd wager that 400 watts is way more than adequate as it wouldn't even be a 50% load on the PSU. The guy isn't building a tri-sli showcase system with an overclocked CPU and three fermis --- he's building a budget rig, and that budget PSU is adequate for his initial request. ...
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You suggested running an i7 system on it. There's 27A supposedly available on the +12V rail (324W). The i7 alone takes up 130W. The 4850 another 110W. That's already 240W on the +12V rail alone, which is, needless to say, already past the 50% mark or the entire PSU -- and thats assuming that unit can even pump out that much power (especially on the +12V rail, where it will be drawing most of it) -- also, don't forget about the other parts of the system! Sorry to break this to you, but it's a very poor PSU recommendation for the build you listed, and you'd lose your wager -- hope you didn't bet big. ;) Again, I'd pass on that CM PSU.
 
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touche,

I admit I assumed that the others would not have the atypical and elusive five star rating. I don't really buy into the whole elite PSU requirement. I've bought a couple mid priced PSU's that were highly recommended in the PSU forum here and both died within a year. By name, an Xclio 450 (HIGHLY PRAISED PSU) and an antec earthwatts 500 PSU (praised in the PSU forums) My wife has an Ultra 350 watt PSU in her AMD 64 3200 powered (Mach Speed (no name motherboard)) system. That PC is like 6 years old and is still running like a champ on that dreaded ultra psu. People at that time said things like the ultra PSU's will kill any system you attach them to. They'll catch fire or explode - small children will die.

Just speaking from one man's opinion and exp!

And none of this changes the fact that the more expensive PSU's are likely overkill for a budget system. :)

I'm going to bed. Why am I up at 2:15am arguing with strangers over the internet?

GL to the OP!
 
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Archaea said:
Danny B.

Agreed on the newegg reviews --- to a point. But you must also consider the other side of the coin - that half the non technical people on newegg buy stuff and screw it up because they over stress it, install it wrong, and just generally have no idea what they are doing around hardware. So for that crowd to give it five stars is actually a boon. That being said I know your half kidding -- but lets be realistic. Exactly how many watts is the OP going to need. His system will probably pull 225 watt from the wall under load. I'd wager that 400 watts is way more than adequate as it wouldn't even be a 50% load on the PSU. The guy isn't building a tri-sli showcase system with an overclocked CPU and three fermis --- he's building a budget rig, and that budget PSU is adequate for his initial request.
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according to thermaltakes power calculator the system as you spec'd would be 285 minimum.. So 400 max leaves 115 to cover any over-clocking & load difference from idle.. I would say your incorrect in your assumption that a low quality PSU could power that system.
 
Don't believe me? What about believing HP? I recently bought six e9180t and e9150t systems to part out and sell. Check out my for sale thread here if you need verification. They put Delta 460 watt PSU's in every single one of these similiarly configured machines. Note these machines can come loaded with 12GB RAM, 4850's, TV tuners, Blu-Ray drives, DVD-RWs, wireless cards, creative labs X-Fi sound cards. That's quite a bit more required power than OP's build.

Yeah - what was HP thinking???

Bastage - 460 - 285 = 175 watts to spare. WAY more than enough (yes assuming the rails are appropriate - which they are in this case). If HP can do it safely in a system - the OP can do it safely. You don't use your assumed 400 watt number. Those tolerances are already built into something like the Antec calculator. Furthermore - I just verified your work at the Antec PSU calculator and that number you came up with is under the default 90% load recommended setting - NOT at idle. At 100% it's about 310 watt draw, at 60% it's less than 190 watts. Both WELL below the 460 watt rating (yes total power output ratings aren't everything) of the Cooler Master PSU. In any case - I noticed in looking at your post history that most of your posts are recommending builds for people.

So it begs the question - how many PC's have you built anyway? If you've got a lot of exp in this arena great. If not, this is a good place to learn more.

I have two of those e9180t machines at my house right now ready to put on ebay. They are FULLY loaded and I mean to the gill - every slot filled, 12GB RAM, Blu-Ray, 4850, etc. I7-950 as the CPU. I'll hook one of them up to my P3 Kill A Watt tool tonight and report back just on how many watts this PC uses at idle. We can compare notes on theory vs. fact. The number I provide will obviously be higher than original poster's needs because again this machines are loaded to the gills with a max configuration...



OP has probably long since left this thread cause he likely doesn't care about us squabbling over power supply stats.
 
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Archaea said:
So it begs the question - how many PC's have you built anyway? If you've got a lot of exp in this arena great. If not, this is a good place to learn more.
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I will simply say that I stopped counting when it broke into 4 digits & that was in 1998..

My 400 that I used was based on that cheapo PSU you linked is lucky to sustain 400 & if you really dont think 115 or even 175 watts to spare is enough maybe you should google it before calling someone out on it.
 
I have personally argued in favor of a CM 460 before, but not for running something like an overclocked quad core gaming system with a GTX200/400 or HD5000 series video card. My CM460 took my system as it is now plus a 9800GTX+ that I had for a while without a hitch. Now when stepping up to modern systems that will really see up to 400+ watts of peak use, I'd say the end user needs 100+ watts of wiggle room.

I've been building systems since the mid 90s and it wasn't until about 4-5 years ago (basically with the release of SLI and 3800/8800 series cards, it appears) that people really worried about what power supply they were plugging everything into. Most PSUs of ~300 watts worked fine and could power anything you threw at 'em. But I admit that these days it's way different and that you really have to look at quality first. Just spend the extra $40 on a high quality Corsair unit that will deliver MORE power than it's rated for. Why not? Taking this precaution is likely to keep you from replacing or upgrading the PSU for a long time.
 
NoForgiveness said:
I've been building systems since the mid 90s and it wasn't until about 4-5 years ago (basically with the release of SLI and 3800/8800 series cards, it appears) that people really worried about what power supply they were plugging everything into.
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QFT

Thats percicely it.. Until modern GPU's the PSU never needed to be much.. 200 watts & most from pre SLI & CF were typically no name 300w & most worked fine.. But in the last 5 years there has been a HUGE boom in power requirements. a Mid range Gaming GPU now uses more then a complete gaming rig did back in 2000. & Now in some of these systems we have 2 or 3 high end cards & a CPU that is insane compared to what they used to be. That being said not everyone requires a 700 watt psu. Hell I am Putting a 400CX in my rig thats being built as soon as the parts get here. But every component was carefully chosen in it for power draw as well as performance since its a mini ITX & I still intend to do some gaming with it.
 
Yes, a good quality 460W would be enough for an i7 non-OC'd and an HD 4850, but the CM 460 Archaea listed simply isn't one -- its as simple as that.
 
bastage said:
I will simply say that I stopped counting when it broke into 4 digits & that was in 1998..

My 400 that I used was based on that cheapo PSU you linked is lucky to sustain 400 & if you really dont think 115 or even 175 watts to spare is enough maybe you should google it before calling someone out on it.
Click to expand...

If you weren't wrong, IMO, I wouldn't call you out. Your still wrong - so I'll comment again.

Those systems in your link are using 1100 watt PSUs, overclocked CPUs and vastly different more power hungry video cards - thus your linked comparisons is totally inappropriate for this discussion over OP's build specs. First efficiency questions can come into play with that big of a spread in PSU ratings ~500 watt vs. ~1100 watt. The video cards used in that tomshardware link are power hungry beasts and in NO way reflect what this thread or the original poster's request is about. What do I mean by power hungry beasts? Well the HD 4870 X2 actually just about doubles what the 4850 uses. Here why don't you take a look at a link more applicable to this thread, our discussion, and my recommendation of PSU and GPU.

Your link used a video card the 4870x2 that ran in a system at 254 idle and 423 load.
The 4850 I recommended ran in the identical system at 133 idle and 235 load.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/745/8/


Guys - I'm not in love with that particular power supply - It's got good reviews, a lot of reviews, and it's cheap - it meets the bill IMO. If you hate it - fine - nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything in this thread.
 
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Archaea said:
If you weren't wrong, IMO, I wouldn't call you out. Your still wrong - so I'll comment again.

Those systems in your link are using 1100 watt PSUs, overclocked CPUs and vastly different more power hungry video cards - thus your linked comparisons is totally inappropriate for this discussion over OP's build specs. First efficiency questions can come into play with that big of a spread in PSU ratings ~500 watt vs. ~1100 watt. The video cards used in that tomshardware link are power hungry beasts and in NO way reflect what this thread or the original poster's request is about. What do I mean by power hungry beasts? Well the HD 4870 X2 actually just about doubles what the 4850 uses. Here why don't you take a look at a link more applicable to this thread, our discussion, and my recommendation of PSU and GPU.

Your link used a video card the 4870x2 that ran in a system at 254 idle and 423 load.
The 4850 I recommended ran in the identical system at 133 idle and 235 load.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/745/8/


Guys - I'm not in love with that particular power supply - It's got good reviews, a lot of reviews, and it's cheap - it meets the bill IMO. If you hate it - fine - nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything in this thread.
Click to expand...

ok.. lets do some basic 2nd grade math..

423 - 254 = 169.. So lets see what was my phrase.. here I will Quote it for you

My 400 that I used was based on that cheapo PSU you linked is lucky to sustain 400 & if you really dont think 115 or even 175 watts to spare is enough maybe you should google it before calling someone out on it.
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So assumeing that your PSU gives EXACTLY what it says & not a watt under you had a buffer of 175 watts & then under full load your buffer shrinks to 6 watts.. Damn I hopy you dont have a florescent blue light in your computer or your toast..

Edit: and the reason I used toms review was to show what the i7 920 used under the different conditions, not the video card that nobody has questioned as at 110w the 4850 isnt a huge power hog, although not to light on it either..
 
Bastage - haha...

I don't even know if I should respond. You, my internet warrior friend, need the math review.

Why would you be subtracting the load and idle scores of the 4870x2 overclocked beastly rig to come up with the magic number to add to the system I recommend? That makes no sense.

That 169 wat number doesn't tell you any single component individually and doesn't relate to any rig other than the vastly overpowered rig at tom's hardware (for the purposes of this thread), The system I setup for the original poster recommendation would not require approach 460 watts at load period.

Heck the power draw on it pretty closely matches the link in the legit review using the 4850 instead. If you look at the review it shows a nearly identical power draw system to the one I recommended that only pulls 235 watts at load. NOT 454.

I can see we aren't going to agree on this. So I've got one more post for you. I'm going to get the info right now. Be back in 10.
 
Okay - so here's the punchline to this whole thing.

I just fired up one of those systems I purchased from HP.

It is an e9150t

I did not boot it into windows because the machine is unregistered and I don't want to enter the user name, PC name etc on a machine I intend to sell. So I only booted it up to BIOS. At initial power on it registered on my P3 Kill-a-watt 4460 at a maximum load of 170 watts.

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4460-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B000RGF29Q


This system is ultimately much more strongly configured than the system I recommended for the OP.

It has

I7-950 at stock 3.0Ghz
12GB DDR 3 RAM (6 x 2GB)
ATI 4850
BluRay DVD-RW
1 TB 7200.12 Seagate HD
Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Audio
Wireless PCI-E 1x card
PCI-E 1x TV tuner card
Memory Card Reader
ASUS Pegatron Motherboard with Dual PCI-E 16x slots
two 92mm fans
460 watt OEM Delta PSU

Granted 170 watt is not absolute full power, because the machine is in BIOS and not running a benchmark or application, but it isn't at base idle power either. Power management settings are not fully utilized in the BIOS screen like they are in windows. If this was my machine or I didn't mind re-imaging it I would run a futuremark and prime95 power test for you on this setup. Which is pretty appliable because it's the same exact motherboard I recommended to the OP. ( I bought six of these systems and parted them out. I kept two to sell as whole configs on ebay - this is one of the two) Point is - this machine is not that power hungry --- all things considered, and this system has quite a few more power draw items on it than OP's system would have.

Drop 15 watts for the TV tuner (I have another TV tuner from HP and have tested it in my own system with the P3 tool - it adds 15 watts)

so now we are down to 155 at the BIOS

RAM pairs are sometimes said to consume 10 watts per pair. I think that's high, but I've never measured, lets' assume 10 watts for loosing two pairs (4 sticks). Since OP will only have 4gb instead of 12GB.

Now we are down to 145 at the BIOS

Blu-Ray drives can use as much as 1 amp of 12 volt power over a standard DVD-RW drives. I've compared them hand in hand on several occasions. I did not look at the spec on this particular bluray drive one - lets assume a 1/2 amp at 6 watts (5 for ease of use)

140 watts at BIOS

I've no idea what the creative sound card uses power wise. Let's assume 5 watts

135 watts a BIOS

Wireless N PCI-E 1x card is probably negligable. I'll give you that one for free.




Now you see - a system configured like the one I recommended for the OP in the BIOS - without taking advantage of all the software powermanagement features is only using 135 watts. The numbers I've figured above seem reasonable with the legitreview numbers, and other I7-920 base configuration power consumption benchmarks. The overclocked CPU should only start taking up more power if voltage is increased right? I can't say i've ever read or tested on that one way or the other, but it seems logical. Assuming you didn't increase voltage you'd never even need to worry about exceeding your CPU's max TDP of ~120 watts.


I venture a guess that I have no way of proving easily on the above setup for prior stated reasons. I bet the most power draw you'd ever see out of the HP system I refer to would be 50% above the power draw of the BIOS max of 170 watts. That would be 255 watts.

The coolermaster psu has 27 amps on the 12 volt rail. Since we are most concerned about 12 volt with modern systems the cooler master provides max rating of 324 watts on it's 12 volt rail.

If our machine uses less than 80% of that maximu we are probably in okay shape. 80% is the coined max safe zone I've always heard of in regards to how hard you can continually push a PSU. IE if you have a 500 watt PSU, you shouldn't run a continous draw of more than 400 watts on it. (assuming all rail draws are within PSU's stated specifications).
 
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Archaea said:
So I only booted it up to BIOS. At initial power on it registered on my P3 Kill-a-watt 4460 at a maximum load of 170 watts.

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4460-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B000RGF29Q
Click to expand...

I was hoping to stay out of this PSU squabbling.......

Problem: You're basing your entire readings on an inaccurate tool. The KAW has been shown and known to be highly inaccurate. Straight from the PSU editor here at HardOCP:
Paul_Johnson said:
Yes and a quick search would turn up this topic a million times over. Here is the recap:

1) APFC can fool Kill-A-Watts into giving you abnormally low readings (some times giving better than 100% efficiency)

2) Power supplies derate with temperature anywhere from 2w/c above a nominal rated at value to 10w/c.

3) Kill-A-Watt's and most power meters sample too slowly to catch transient loads (the Transient load from our tests is 117w and is COMPLETELY missed by Kill-A-Watts).

4) Power supplies last longer if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

5) power supplies are quieter if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

6) Power supplies are cooler if you stay in the 40% to 60% range of their output.

The power meters in UPS software are just as bad. You have to spend some change before you get anywhere near an accurate power meter when your PSU has APFC.
Click to expand...
Since virtually every modern and ok quality PSU has APFC, that does mean that your readings may not be accurate at all. Also an actual picture showing how inaccurate a KAW is:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032190998&postcount=7

In addition, two other PSU experts backs up Paul Johnson's statement:
Oklahoma Wolf of JonnyGuru.com:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034843536&postcount=21

JonnyGuru of JonnyGuru.com himself as well as the senior PSU engineer over at BFG acknowledge the inaccuracies of a KAW (Post #7 in regards to Post #2):
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5977
 
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Good to know....

I don't have anything else to test it with, but when tested against a 60 watt lightbulb in a lamp it was pretty darn close - within a watt or two, and who is to say that the lightbulb consumes exactly 60 watts? As far as the APFC throwing it off...I guess I need to do some research on that - I'm not very familiar...but good to know - thanks Danny B.
 
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