Best PSU for ATI X1900XTX and 3 HD's?

J

jpinard

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 10, 2004
Messages
194
I have a Seasonic 500W... but I'm concenred it may not be powerful enough based on something my reseller told me. So, I thought I should come here and find out what PSU you suggest for the foolowing system:

AMD FX-53
2 Gig RAM
3 Hard Drives and 1 DVD
ATI X1900XTX
Asus A8R-MVP motherboard
several fans

Thanks for the help!
 
dchrsf said:
In other words..pleanty :)
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So it truly does have plenty of power for my system? So I was mis-informed... Kind of what I thought.
 
jpinard said:
So it truly does have plenty of power for my system? So I was mis-informed... Kind of what I thought.
Click to expand...

Yeah it should....what were you told?
 
wait a minute... I thought that the psu in my rig (havent bought yet) was just about right for the whole setup:

x2 4400+
2gb g.skill pc4000
x1900xt
74 raptor
a8n-e
535watt enermax
DVD +- RW
+lights and stuff
(prob oc everything lol)

Does this mean I could drop down the psu.. to something like say

1) Thermaltake Xaser Silent Purepower 480W
or
2)NZXT PF500 500WATT PERFORMANCE POWER ATX 2.0 psu

What should I do?

-jcll2002
 
Spectre said:
Yeah it should....what were you told?
Click to expand...

My X1900XT squeals and clicks sometimes. During the RMA process the reseller told me it was most definatley the Seasonic PSU, that they were the worst PSU's on the planet. They suggested Coolermaster, Thermaltake, and Antec. Ironically I'd heard of lots of issues with Coolermaster and Antec PSU's... and they wanted me to go up to a minimum of 550 Watts - preferably 650 Watts (even though I will never be adding another card or drive to this computer). This was told to me despite the fact I'd already 99.9999% identified the sound as coming from the video card not the PSU.
 
jpinard said:
My X1900XT squeals and clicks sometimes. During the RMA process the reseller told me it was most definatley the Seasonic PSU, that they were the worst PSU's on the planet. They suggested Coolermaster, Thermaltake, and Antec.
Click to expand...

Oh well that is intersting. No....Seasonic would come in ahead of all of those in terms of quality. They are trying to blow smoke where the sun don't shine.

Ironically I'd heard of lots of issues with Coolermaster and Antec PSU's... and they wanted me to go up to a minimum of 550 Watts - preferably 650 Watts (even though I will never be adding another card or drive to this computer). This was told to me despite the fact I'd already 99.9999% identified the sound as coming from the video card not the PSU.
Click to expand...

Yeah maunfacturers like to pass the buck as much as possible. DFI being a prime example with the 24pin 480w mins :rolleyes:
 
jcll2002 said:
wait a minute... I thought that the psu in my rig (havent bought yet) was just about right for the whole setup:

x2 4400+
2gb g.skill pc4000
x1900xt
74 raptor
a8n-e
535watt enermax
DVD +- RW
+lights and stuff
(prob oc everything lol)

Does this mean I could drop down the psu.. to something like say

1) Thermaltake Xaser Silent Purepower 480W
or
2)NZXT PF500 500WATT PERFORMANCE POWER ATX 2.0 psu

What should I do?

-jcll2002
Click to expand...

NO WAY. Do not go below 500 Watts. And you need to look at volts on the rails too.

You need at least 30a on the 12v.
 
jcll2002 said:
wait a minute... I thought that the psu in my rig (havent bought yet) was just about right for the whole setup:

x2 4400+
2gb g.skill pc4000
x1900xt
74 raptor
a8n-e
535watt enermax
DVD +- RW
+lights and stuff
(prob oc everything lol)

Does this mean I could drop down the psu.. to something like say

1) Thermaltake Xaser Silent Purepower 480W
or
2)NZXT PF500 500WATT PERFORMANCE POWER ATX 2.0 psu

What should I do?

-jcll2002
Click to expand...
If I where YOU I would keep the enermax psu. Thermaltake and NZXT are shit.

edit lmao good timing^^^^^
 
Well, I guess those were the answers I was looking for>>no indecision there lol

So what do you think of the setup as a whole? (And you think im good with the psu ive selected?)
 
jcll2002 said:
Well, I guess those were the answers I was looking for>>no indecision there lol

So what do you think of the setup as a whole? (And you think im good with the psu ive selected?)
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Good system, personally I'd dump the raptors. WD drives continue to get worse and worse. Get Seagates. Check the 12v rail on that Enermax.
 
jpinard said:
Good system, personally I'd dump the raptors. WD drives continue to get worse and worse. Get Seagates.
Click to expand...

No SATA Seagate is gonna touch a Raptor or even some of WD's 16MB models, are you serious?
 
I have aways owned western digitals ive never had any problems (including raptors).
 
Wasn't speaking about speed... I was speaking about death raptors. I have too many firends (plus myself) who've had them just chunk themselves to death in 1-3 years use. Over a period of 7 years. I've never had a problem with Seagate drives (and they have a great warranty). Also, don't get Hitachi... they have the old IBM Deathstar design (slightly redesigned. You couldn't pay me to run a Hitachi drive. If I ran a raptor again - I'd have to do friggen incremental backups every stinkin night... fearing that all too-famaliar platter crash ughhhhh :eek:
 
jpinard said:
During the RMA process the reseller told me it was most definatley the Seasonic PSU, that they were the worst PSU's on the planet.
Click to expand...

Your dealer is either completely clueless or a liar. I would look for a new place to purchase your hardware from.
 
jpinard said:
Wasn't speaking about speed... I was speaking about death raptors. I have too many firends (plus myself) who've had them just chunk themselves to death in 1-3 years use. Over a period of 7 years. I've never had a problem with Seagate drives (and they have a great warranty). Also, don't get Hitachi... they have the old IBM Deathstar design (slightly redesigned. You couldn't pay me to run a Hitachi drive. If I ran a raptor again - I'd have to do friggen incremental backups every stinkin night... fearing that all too-famaliar platter crash ughhhhh :eek:
Click to expand...

Those Raptors that died in 1-3 years were under warranty right?
 
MetalX said:
Those Raptors that died in 1-3 years were under warranty right?
Click to expand...

Nope, I happened to be in at ther time warranties were 1 and 2 years. Only 1 of about 12 drives happaned to be "in warranty". Really pissed me off when they woudn't go 1 month past the warranty date. I was like, "but look at all the ones I've called you about in the past". I have a damn file with you guys! She said sorry, and I said, I'll go get something else. And surpruse surprise Seagate's been 100% (this was way before their 5 year warranty went effective). I"ll take slower "hard drives" for "reliability" any day.
 
Uh... the Raptors, even the very first ones, came with 5 year warranties. I bought 2 36's the day they hit, and the same for the 74's. All carried 5 year warranties.
 
I think there are some Dell OEM's around with 1 year, but I'm not sure.
 
Fistandantilis said:
Is this PSU enough for a 1900XT I hope so. please let me know. thanks
Click to expand...

The general answer will be yes of ocurse....but when you ask a question like will this PSU be enough for component x....well it depends on the rest of the system components. Need a frame of reference.
 
Spectre said:
The general answer will be yes of ocurse....but when you ask a question like will this PSU be enough for component x....well it depends on the rest of the system components. Need a frame of reference.
Click to expand...
^^what he said
 
sorry, here it is,
ASUS A8NX5
AMD 3500+
1900XT (needs 30a?)
1 gig ram
2 HDD's
prolly 2 cathodes
DVD DL burner
CDRW

also, are these 1900XT's really running super hot, or not?
 
Fistandantilis said:
sorry, here it is,
ASUS A8NX5
AMD 3500+
1900XT (needs 30a?)
1 gig ram
2 HDD's
prolly 2 cathodes
DVD DL burner
CDRW

also, are these 1900XT's really running super hot, or not?
Click to expand...

Ok now I can give some suggestions.

1) Dump the cold cathodes. The inverters they use are cheap and will "dirty up" your 12v.
2) The Antec should be sufficent.

As for the 1900xt's not real sure...haven't had one in my hands yet.
 
what do you mean they "dirty" up the 12?

I mean, theyre so cool. They add to the whole effect... *drool*
 
jcll2002 said:
what do you mean they "dirty" up the 12?

I mean, theyre so cool. They add to the whole effect... *drool*
Click to expand...

The inverters are really pure crap and introduce a lot of fluctuation on the 12v rail whcich they power off of. The fluctuation is the dirty up part....we have had people have systems lock up and video artifact because of them here i nthe forum.

Que jonnyGURU for a rant...........
 
I want it to be like you walk in the room and you see a non-strong blue glow from the corner of the room...when you look in the case you can see everthing with a blue glow

Those two blue lighted fans will do it?
 
jcll2002 said:
I want it to be like you walk in the room and you see a non-strong blue glow from the corner of the room...when you look in the case you can see everthing with a blue glow

Those two blue lighted fans will do it?
Click to expand...

I have one 80mm in a ePower PSU in a cavalier 1 and when the 2005FPW isn't on it is pretty blue. I would guess using that as a metric the two would give a nice bright blue......but again if not use an LED based solution.
 
jpinard said:
Wasn't speaking about speed... I was speaking about death raptors. I have too many firends (plus myself) who've had them just chunk themselves to death in 1-3 years use. Over a period of 7 years. I've never had a problem with Seagate drives (and they have a great warranty). Also, don't get Hitachi... they have the old IBM Deathstar design (slightly redesigned. You couldn't pay me to run a Hitachi drive.
Click to expand...

If you want the most reliable drive, go with Seagate. If you wan't the least expensive drive go with Maxtor. Where does that leave Western Digital? Somewhere in the middle. Where does that leave Hitachi? Eh... don't ask.

If you want the best performing drive, definately a Western Digital 150GB Raptor. If you want the best performing drive larger than 150GB, definately a Seagate with Native Command Queing and 16MB of cache. Personally, I'd like to have some 150GB Raptors in RAID 0 for my applications and 500GB Seagate's for bullk storage but for cost concerns I have 2 Seagate 160GB SATA Segates with 8mb cache and NCQ in RAID 0 and a 400GB IDE Seagate on another computer for bulk storage.
 
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