Building new PC, any suggestions?

[Kamoflarjii]

This is what i currently want for my pc, This is a tight budget... And i'm not from US so no cheapy newegg prices

RAM: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC10600/1333MHz CL9 4GB
CASE: Antec Three Hundred (Black) CASE
HARD DRIVE: Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ 32MB 1TB
PSU: Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU
MOBO: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD6850
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz


Thanks!

 

[E4g1e]

This is what i currently want for my pc, This is a tight budget... And i'm not from US so no cheapy newegg prices

RAM: Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC10600/1333MHz CL9 4GB
CASE: Antec Three Hundred (Black) CASE
HARD DRIVE: Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ 32MB 1TB
PSU: Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU
MOBO: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD6850
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz


Thanks!

Several not-so-good choices for the money right off the bat:

1) The case is very cramped on the inside, especially from front to rear. This means that long graphics cards will eat up two to three hard drive bays in that case. And with any hard drives installed in the upper internal 3.5" bays, an HD 6850 just barely fits in the space between the backplate and the hard drive(s).

2) Speaking of the HD 6850, that Sapphire model is priced a bit too close to an HD 6870 for its own good.

3) Since RAM is cheap right now, why not go for 8GB of RAM (via 2 x 4GB sticks)? Plus, 2 x 2GB sticks will not only restrict your future RAM upgrade options, the 4GB total matched pairs all cost too much money for their amount.

4) ASRock does not offer as long of a warranty as other brands of motherboards that sell for the same price. In addition, ASRock's quality control has been very inconsistent from board to board.

5) The Samsung F3 hard drive is a good drive but a poor value. In addition, it is now no longer the fastest-performing 7200 RPM hard drive on the market: Newer-design 1TB hard drives from Hitachi (7K1000.D) and Seagate (7200.14) are faster than that Samsung due to their use of a single 1TB platter (the F3 still uses two 500GB platters).

6) There have been two different EarthWatts 650W PSUs from Antec in the past couple of years: The original version (which is relatively weak on the +12V rail relative to newer 650W PSU designs) and the Green (which has a claimed 54A on the +12V rail versus 45A in the original EA650).

In addition, answer the questions in the sticky "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST" before we can recommend parts.

 

[Kamoflarjii]

The PSU im looking at has three rails and a total of 69 A output. Is that ok? The 6870 where i live isn't cheap.... In fact everything here is expensive you can get a 6950 for the same price as we get the 6870.

 

[c0nfused2]

good choice on the cpu heard good things of the i5 2500k sure thats why you picked it

 

[E4g1e]

The PSU im looking at has three rails and a total of 69 A output. Is that ok? The 6870 where i live isn't cheap.... In fact everything here is expensive you can get a 6950 for the same price as we get the 6870.

Never add up all three "rails" like that! It just does not add up that way at all. 69A on the +12V would have already exceeded the 650W total rating. In fact, 69A on the +12V already equals 828W! So something's wrong with the addition.

Fortunately, there is a total combined wattage for the three +12V "rails": 540W total, or 45A. This means that the original EA650 that you're looking at has a single 45A +12V rail with three separate OCP circuits. In that PSU, you have three separate connections between the primary +12V transformer and the +12V outputs; two of the connections each have an OCP set to 22A and a third connection has an OCP set to 25A. And the circuitry is smart enough to redistribute the extra current to one or both of the underutilised connections if one of the connections hit its set OCP limit.

So, the total combined +12V capacity of that PSU is not 69A - but 45A. (This is based on the total combined +12V power output of 540W, as listed in small print underneath the chart on the PSU's label.)

As such, you were looking at the older version of the EA650. The current Green version has two 38A "rails" - but again, its total combined +12V capacity is 54A (based on the total +12V combined wattage of 650W, then rounded to the nearest integer amperage.)

 

[Dangman]

Please answer the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!" so that we can help you better.

Though I concur with E4g1e's assessment so far. I would not bother with an AsRock mobo at this point in time when Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte all have options available

 

[Kamoflarjii]

Never add up all three "rails" like that! It just does not add up that way at all. 69A on the +12V would have already exceeded the 650W total rating. In fact, 69A on the +12V already equals 828W! So something's wrong with the addition.

Fortunately, there is a total combined wattage for the three +12V "rails": 540W total, or 45A. This means that the original EA650 that you're looking at has a single 45A +12V rail with three separate OCP circuits. In that PSU, you have three separate connections between the primary +12V transformer and the +12V outputs; two of the connections each have an OCP set to 22A and a third connection has an OCP set to 25A. And the circuitry is smart enough to redistribute the extra current to one or both of the underutilised connections if one of the connections hit its set OCP limit.

So, the total combined +12V capacity of that PSU is not 69A - but 45A. (This is based on the total combined +12V power output of 540W, as listed in small print underneath the chart on the PSU's label.)

As such, you were looking at the older version of the EA650. The current Green version has two 38A "rails" - but again, its total combined +12V capacity is 54A (based on the total +12V combined wattage of 650W, then rounded to the nearest integer amperage.)

very informative, thanks. But should it be ok for running a single 6850? the 6850 requires a minimum 500w but in the average system only ends up to around 400w total ddraw? I'm sorry just trying to understand this stuff

 

[Dangman]

Duplicate thread. Closing this.