New board / PSU

The_Biggles

The_Biggles

The_Biggles

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14 Jul 2005
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176
Having problems with mobo (and i think PSU) so decided to finally upgrade. Running Asus K7 with a cheap PSU. Looking for a decent board that will support the following :

6800GT AGP
AMD Athlon 64 Venice (939)
3 x 512 DDR
3 x IDE HDDs

I only need LAN and sound PCI slots, but the both can go onboard if i ever need more cards.

Regarding the PSU, i'm not really that fussed. Would like to get the pair for under £100 if possible. Got the Antec 180 case so want to keep things quiet. Possibly an Antec PSU to pair things up nicely?

tia
 
ASRock Dual SATA, the PCI-E and AGP board, will give you option to get a PCI-E card later. £43.42

PSU - Akasa Ultra Quiet 460W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.0 PSU £53.99
 
Clark the White said:
For the PSU i would recommend
the Qtec 650watt

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Q_Tec_139.html

its only £23 and i have a qtec 550watt and have been running that for years and had no problems what so ever.

I'm not to "up to speed" on socket 939 boards though
Click to expand...

I would not recomend a Qtec because they are over rated specs by the manufacturer, to get 650 watts, im pretty sure a review said it had to draw over 1kw which means it's a very inefficient PSU.

Running that on load, would probably mean the PSU will fail and Qtecs are known to let surges through to the motherboard and other components they are connected.
 
The Enermax Noisetaker 535W is on special this week at OcUK and is just under £53. It's not my top choice PSU, but at that price it's excellent value, reliable with lots of power.

With the sort of system you've posted, you should be ok on a decent 400W PSU however, which would make the £30 400W Fortron good enough. I <3 Fortron. If you use your PC a lot (like perhaps leave it running 24/7) then Fortron's £53 400W Green power supply would be a good buy as it's very efficient and the extra money would be saved over the time you owned the power supply. Just don't buy a Qtec. They have a horrible failure rate and have a habit of taking out other hardware when they die.

As for motherboard, I like the Asrock Dual Sata. It's a good motherboard, with an upgrade path and overclocks fairly well too. But if you want maximum performance and are prepared to NOT move to a PCI-Express graphics card before next time you upgrade motherboard and processor, then I'd recommend an NF3 based board, such as the DFI LanParty UT NF3 Ultra.
 
Cheers guys given me plenty to think about. Prob go for the Enermax and Asrock but that will prob all change by tomorrow (pay day).

Shame i cant see the MM yet. Ahh well.

Tnx chaps
 
Mekrel said:
I would not recomend a Qtec because they are over rated specs by the manufacturer, to get 650 watts, im pretty sure a review said it had to draw over 1kw which means it's a very inefficient PSU.

Running that on load, would probably mean the PSU will fail and Qtecs are known to let surges through to the motherboard and other components they are connected.
Click to expand...

errmmm ok that scares me, i havent had any problems with mine yet but after reading this thread im changing psu! (i need a spare one for the other system im building anyway.

rather than start a new thread can anyone recommend the best psu for £40 tops? for my atx athlon xp3200 barton system
running gf 7800?
 
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Reading the above posts and having a look about today i think £50 would get you something decent. For a £10 saving its not worth buying a PSU which isnt up to the job, which i sadly discovered.

The Enermax and Akasa listed above look very good.
 
Clark the White said:
{snip}rather than start a new thread can anyone recommend the best psu for £40 tops? for my atx athlon xp3200 barton system
running gf 7800?
Click to expand...
PSU is not something you really want to skimp on :eek: Calculate how much power your PC needs here - PLEASE NOTE that those figures are worked out at everything drawing 100% which I doubt can reeally happen (correct me if i'm wrong), but if it does (or even if it doesn't) you want a capable PSU.
The total Watts is important but the Total Amperage Available on the +12V Rail(s) is the most important, followed by the +5V amperage and then the +3.3V amperage. Because of the increased power consumption of the new high-power video cards the recommended minimum for +12V is 26A, for SLI 35A.
Click to expand...
That's where I recommend any of the Tagan's ;)
 
:eek: thanks for the advise guys!
i have one more question about psu's

could someone tell me how good/bad this one is
Hiper HPU-4M580 Type R 580W ATX2.2 PSU - Black (CA-009-HP)

its currently in the this week only section for £46.94 Including VAT at 17.5%

thanks
 
Well I have seen a few people recently saying that their Hipers broke but there are others saying that it is a brilliant PSU, one of the Akasa Paxpower psus should do you nicely or a Tagan if you can stretch to it.
 
Went for:

Akasa Ultra Quiet 460W PSU
Asrock 939 Dual Mobo

Delivered for £104 which is pretty good i suppose.

Tnx for the help guys. Just got messing about with the 180 case to look forward too :(
 
man this thread is cursed!!!
as soon as i have been informed q-tecs are rubbish psu's and now my system has gone down - you guessed it its the psu!!!

it won't switch on for more than a few seconds and if i somehow get passed that it randomly powers down.

i've already ordered a new psu thanks to the advice on this thread.

tested my brothers psu in my machine and it works fine

ok...i really should have touched wood before my 1st post in this thread :D
 
I read this on Q-TEC's

Verdict: Steer well clear of this Q-TEC

Q-TEC power supplies are very popular because they're so much cheaper than other brands, but, as our testing shows, they're cheap for a good reason.

This particular Q-TEC is rated at 650W, but even before we switched it on we had our doubts, as the case is nearly empty. Q-TEC claims its PSU has a 30A 3.3V rail, 45A 5V rail and a 30A 12V rail. The Q-TEC doesn't follow the guidelines of the latest ATX spec, which recommends a second 12V rail if the load is greater than 18A. As the name suggests, there are three cooling fans: one 120mm and two 80mm. It supports both 20- and 24-pin motherboards, and has six Molex, two FDD and two S-ATA connectors, but no PCI-E.

The Q-TEC passed the 50 and 75 per cent voltage stability tests, although its efficiency at the latter setting dropped below the ATX spec to 68 per cent. This means that it was drawing a quite ridiculous 725W from the mains to produce 498W. The Q-TEC barely managed a few seconds at 100 per cent load before the voltages on all the rails started jumping up and down by as much as 20 per cent. After approximately a minute, it triggered the trip-switch of the testing lab.

As this PSU cannot even deliver 75 per cent of what it claims while adhering to the ATX spec, and will go bananas and shut down if you attempt to draw anything higher, we recommend steering well clear of it.

I have to add tho, there are worse PSUs than that out there which I think is criminal.
I have always found you get what you pay for with PSU's even tho I had an OCZ powerstream die on me in 20 mins. <motherboard had fault.
 
Did I hear someone mention Qtec? I thought obscene & vulgar language was banned on this forum. :p
 
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