Upgrading Computer For Good Price

[nosebleedXD]

uhh ima just use my old hd and dvd drive, and like i said from the beginning, this was originally just an upgrade of a gfx

this is way over my budget =[

 

[Dr. Vader]

Personally, I wouldn't go with a PSU that has two 12v rails, it's already been proven that it's not nearly as efficient, and I'd pick this over the x2 12v PSU's.

It's your choice in the end, the 9800 seems to work with PSU's with a 12v rail of 26A or over, and the Apevia is 34A, so...

Not to mention, that in the end, you'll have 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB if you order that PSU. ><

Just a suggestion.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Eh? Care to explain how two rails are not as efficient as one? Two rails usually have MOSFET switches for each of them which stay closed when power isn't being drawn from the rail. Since most good-quality PSUs will use high-quality MOSFETs (>95%, whether or not they're multiple-rail ones), you have a higher overall efficiency, because each rail has its own switches which will be open or closed depending on the amount of power being drawn. Thus, a multiple rail PSU with some open and some closed switches will be more energy efficient than a single rail one where the MOSFET switches are always open.

That being said, I wouldn't trust Ultra PSUs over any FSP-made PSU, unless it was a low-wattage budget model of the latter.

 

[raybay]

There are plenty of studies which disprove the argument about the efficiency of two rails. Enough said. In power supplies of equal quality otherwise, the single units work better in doing the job they are supposed to accomplish
As for the Ultra PSU', they are right up there with Bestec and TigerPro on the list of junk power supplies.
All power supplies have to be some good in order to get their UL approval and number.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

There are plenty of studies which disprove the argument about the efficiency of two rails.

Can you link me to any raybay? I'm not looking to prolong the argument, it's just that it's related to my field of study, so I'd be interested to read any of these studies. I've tried Google, but most of the information isn't explained with enough detail.

 

[nosebleedXD]

ok turns out the price of 9800gtx has increased and the sale was over....

is there another good model like 8800gt for a lower price which will probably perform the same but not as good

and i was thinking, should i go with core2duo 3.0ghz or core2quad 2.4ghz?

both the same price for 199.99

 

[Dr. Vader]

Can you link me to any raybay? I'm not looking to prolong the argument, it's just that it's related to my field of study, so I'd be interested to read any of these studies. I've tried Google, but most of the information isn't explained with enough detail.

http://www.pcpower.com/technology/myths/

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/189573-28-single-dual-rail

There's two links, I'm sure if I spent more time, I'd find more.

I've done my research on these things.

And why the hate on Ultra? They're cheap and work well. No blowups like DiabloTek and other **** like that have I heard of.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok as for the 9800GTX it's still on sale in USA, I don't know whether or not you could order from there, but let me browse the .ca site.



8800GT $179.99 w/o rebate

Radeon HD4850 $231.99 w/o rebate

After browsing the site for a bit, I noticed USA prices are quite a bit cheaper. You may want to browse there a bit. Tigerdirect.com or w/e

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Here are the facts: A large, single 12-volt rail (without a 240VA limit) can transfer 100% of the 12-volt output from the PSU to the computer, while a multi-rail 12-volt design has distribution losses of up to 30% of the power supply's rating. Those losses occur because power literally gets "trapped" on under-utilized rails. For example, if the 12-volt rail that powers the CPU is rated for 17 amps and the CPU only uses 7A, the remaining 10A is unusable, since it is isolated from the rest of the system.

Since the maximum current from any one 12-volt rail of a multiple-rail PSU is limited to 20 amps (240VA / 12 volts = 20 amps), PCs with high-performance components that draw over 20 amps from the same rail are subject to over-current shutdowns. With power requirements for multiple processors and graphics cards continuing to grow, the multiple-rail design, with its 240VA limit per rail, is basically obsolete.

What marketing BS! Anyone with experience in electronics can tell you that isolated power only occurs in superconductive materials. All PSUs below 1kW do not have truly separate rails with separate transformers feeding them. There's usually one transformer that delivers the power, which is split across two rails. This is why the maximum combined amperage of both rails is less than if you were to add their individual maximum amps together.

Also, the multiple rail design was implemented so as to have the video cards and other power-hungry components on their own separate rails, which would ensure that they wouldn't pull power from a rail powering the rest of the system and consequently overload it. The last part about overloading a rail would only occur if you somehow had a lot of power-hungry components on the same rail. For example, if you bought a graphics card that required two PCI-E connectors, and your PSU, although adequate, provided only one. This would push you towards the idea of using a Molex-to-PCI-E converter to get a second PCI-E connector for the card. However, by doing this, you'd be putting the card on the same rail powering your HDDs, DVD drives and other components, which will likely lead to the PC shutting down during heavy load on the video card.

Still, a good single rail unit will beat a dual rail unit because:

lets say u have dual rails with 15 amps each. if you vid card uses all 15 amps, you will now overload ur PSU and there will be issues.

if you had a 30 amp single rail PSU then that issue wouldnt be there.

Again, BS. No video card can draw 180W on its own AFAIK. And as I stated before, the whole point of having separate rails is to have the video cards be on a dedicated rail, so as not to overload the rail(s) supplying the rest of the system.

 

[Dr. Vader]

That's why if you read the whole thing, it said that the only reason for multi-rail PSU's was for stability.


If you're so intended on finding out that Multi-Rail is better than Single Rail, google 12v Rail Single vs Multi.

You'll get plenty of results.

I personally don't care that much, I'll believe sites, if the majority of what I look at agree, and nearly every one I have read states that single rail is better performace, maybe less stable, but better performance.

I may be wrong, but that's from all the information I have seen.

And also the GTX280 Max draw is 236A.

Just an FYI. That's straight from the NVidia site, that's the worst case scenario though.

 

[nosebleedXD]

hmm any recommended psu ?

btw got any other deals? and would i need a new mobo if i wanta new gfx

and what processor core 2 quad, core2 duo

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

That's why if you read the whole thing, it said that the only reason for multi-rail PSU's was for stability.

You stated efficiency as being worse for a multi-rail PSU, not stability. Anyways, let's just drop this.

@nosebleedXD, the E8400 or E7200, along with the ASUS P5Q would be the best way to go IMO.

 

[Dr. Vader]

Okay, but I think you misinterpreted me.

I meant that Stability on multi-rail was better.

And yes, I agree with 3k on the CPU and Mobo recommendation.

 

[nosebleedXD]

so no core2quad? =[?

 

[Dr. Vader]

Your choice man, Core 2 Duo is cheaper, and has plenty of OC ability with plenty of room for future games.

Core 2 Quad is better really, if you have the $.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

I'd recommend only the Q9450 as an alternative to the E8400\8500, since all the other quads have much lesser cache per core compared to those CPUs, and since games are sensitive to cache size, it's best to have as much as possible. Even then, the Q9450 stock is at a lower frequency than the E8400 or the E8500 at stock, which limits the OC IMO.

 

[HappyGiraffe]

I bought 2GB of RAM from www.starmicro.net

They sell CPUs, HDD's, MoBo's, Fans and misc, and RAM.

I currently run 2.5GB of DDR RAM, mostly because I'm too cheap or lazy to upgrade my mobo. It wasn't really a problem until I noticed that I was buying games that my computer was clearly too inferior to play decently (See my post about CnC3). I went out and bought a brand spanking new ATI Radeon only to find out, I have no PCI-e. I'm using AGP, still better than PCI gfx cards. Also, quadcore doesn't play all games. My father built himself a new computer a while back, and called me one day, to complain that he couldn't play one of his favorite games ( the name escapes me currently, it was a FPS older game though...Starts with a C if I'm not mistaken) because he put a quadcore CPU in. I haven't asked him if he's been able to get it going or not.

Another place for discount and cheap parts is www.geeks.com
They sell refurbs and stuff, but always keep in mind, you get what you pay for ^.^

 

[nosebleedXD]

so those links are good for canada?

 

[HappyGiraffe]

As far as I know they should be. I haven't checked but you can check 'em out. I've never lived in Canada so as far as shipping goes and if rates are higher for out of States orders, I have normally over looked it. Cheers on a microscopic attention span!

^.^

 

[nosebleedXD]

any other sites??

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

http:\\www.canadacomputers.com and http:\\www.ncix.com are great IMO.

 

[nosebleedXD]

hahaha rawr thanks price range is alot different from canada computers and ncix than to tiger

screw tiger

and canada computers is near my area too, so ima go check it out

thanks dude

** whats a good case i should get btw =] price ranges 50 - 90

HMMM ok here is what i gathered

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?affiliateid=4352418&sku=30487&promoid=1046 [gfx]

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3564505&Sku=TSD-500AS5 [hd]

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3569869&Sku=S167-4514 [dvd drive]

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2206874&Sku=C13-2022 [ram]

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?affiliateid=4352418&sku=23934&promoid=1046 [psu]

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?affiliateid=4352418&sku=22211&promoid=1046 [cpu]

http://www.tddirect.ca/products/177247/ASUS/P5Q_Pro/ [mobo]

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=13210AC4468&vpn=LEXA-BLACKLINE&manufacture=NZXT [case]

total $764.45 CAD