New Desktop questions

[Malc]

I just want to confirm before the PC is actually built and I can still modify my options:

Is a 450w FSP PSU unough power for an Intel i5, 4GB RAM and Radeon 6770?

I don't want to skimp on power and then find that my PC keeps crashing/resetting during hardware intensive games.

[Brad]

Fill this in and see!

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

Personally I think it's a good idea to invest in a branded PSU with more power than you imagine you'll ever need.

[Malc]

It gives me some headroom for upgrades (even though I wont be overclocking the cpu) down the line and hopefully the corsair will be even quieter.

It's only an extra ?43 as well.

[FelixofMars]

If you know what your looking for and get one with a decent amount of rails that is good quality and reliable then its usually fine. Problems come from cheap power supply's usually not how many watts you have unless you have a few beasts of graphics cards in there or want to power lots of external stuff or raid drives etc.

[FelixofMars]

Yeah you may as well if you want to add stuff to the system later.

It gives me some headroom for upgrades (even though I wont be overclocking the cpu) down the line and hopefully the corsair will be even quieter.

It's only an extra ?43 as well.

[Malc]

The only thing I can actually see myself upgrading is the graphics card down the line.

On Corsair's official website it says the same model comes with a 4 year warranty or something. I presume that would still count even though I've bought it through PC Specialist.

[Brad]

Yep. Corsair stuff usually comes with 5 years I think? Also, there's 450 watts and there's 450 watts. Some of the budget PSUs quote peak performance rather than sustained. I went for a 600w Corsair for ?50 from scan.co.uk. Gives me a fair bit of room to o/c and crossfire, extra drives and stuff.

[abigsmurf]

I can't see a 6770 not having a huge amount of headroom on a branded 450W. Power supply issues will be covered by the warrenty from PC Specialist so long as they give it the thumbs up at the time of building.

Although it's ?43 to upgrade the PSU, you can buy a branded 550-600W PSU (enough to comfortably run any single slot card) for ?45ish. So long as you're fine with swapping out the PSU yourself at a later date, you're better off just buying a PSU as/if you need it. You won't waste money if you never upgrade and if you do upgrade, you'll have a shiny new one rather than a 2-3 year old one with worn fan bearings and slightly lower capaicty due to age.

[Malc]

Yeah, PC Specialist calculate that my setup will need something like 402w of power, which includes a 20% allowance. So it thinks a 450w PSU will cover it fine.

Makes sense what you said as well smurf, that I should upgrade as I need to, not in advance.

[Malc]

By the way, how can you tell what graphics cards can be used with your motherboard?

[abigsmurf]

Pretty much any modern graphics card can be used with any modern motherboard now.

It's pretty standard to have a 16x PCI-E slot and all but an extreme minority of legacy graphics cards use PCI-E.

The only factors that can limit where a graphics card can be used nowadays:

Physical size of the card. May not actually fit in the case (only tends to be an issue for small MATX cases and the top end cards). May be too long or may take up two slots at the back of the PC.

Power requirements

In the next few years, the ultra top end cards will use more bandwidth than a 16x PCI-E slot can provide but that'll only be the mega expensive cards and they'll likely still be backwards compatible.

[eastyy]

the slot on the motherboard aslong as its pci express should be fine

the only other two things that might be needed to take into account is physical size but thats dependent on the space available in the case and the power supply connecters (some graphics cards need 2 of the 6 pin connecters would imagine most modern psus would have them (they do come with graphics cards normally though)

got to say though though as long as you get a half decent mid range card should be ok for most games (dont see the point of spending a fortune for only a extra 10fps not worth it

[Malc]

So out of these GPU options, what would be the best? Or is it best to stick with the 6770?

[eastyy]

judging by this the best card looks to be the gtx 560 http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/409...w/index12.html

[Malc]

That's a different version of the 6770 isn't it, they're talking about a Vapour X version?