[Fury]

Take a look at Seasonic S12II-500, Corsair HX620, Antec EA 650-EC EarthWatts or any other power supply manufactured by Seasonic. Corsair and Antec ones earlier are also manufactured by Seasonic. If you pick Seasonic, you can't go wrong.

[Tyrian]

@Fury -- Thanks for the input.  I think I'm going to stay with the 1kW Corsair though.  When I looked at comparable 1kW models from those manufacturers, none seemed to have the same current drive capability.  I want the higher output, mostly because I want to be able to SLI in the future without having to worry about power issues. 

@JGZinv -- So if you put the PSU in the lower slot, it vents out the bottom of the case, then?  I like that positioning.  If I put it there is there any conflict with the Noctua cooler?

[JGZinv]

I don't think there would be any problem in the bottom slot.
My mobo and optical won't arrive till monday, so don't know for sure yet.

[WeatherOp]

Just a warning, fall in love and you will likely regret every penny you put into it. 

[JGZinv]

With the computer or something biological?

[Fury]

I want the higher output, mostly because I want to be able to SLI in the future without having to worry about power issues. 

It's just me but I think SLI and CrossFire is a waste of money. A single card always beats them in price for performance. And to be honest, do you really, really ever want to have a system that could in theory need up to 1kw to operate? Think of your electricity bill. And you're overestimating how much power dual cards need, nowhere close to 1kw. If you want 3 or 4 cards, you're nuts, rich or more likely both.

[Tyrian]

@Fury -- Power supplies are one area that I don't keep up with really well.  Given that the GTX 285 spec states that it needs at least a 650W power supply, what wattage / rail amperage would you suggest, given my setup and future plans?

@Weather -- Have you had personal experience in that area? 

[CP5670]

This looks pretty good, but get a cheaper motherboard and PSU. A $400 board is a huge ripoff even by X58 standards, and a good 600-700W unit will easily run two video cards for half the price. You can ignore the official requirements, which are meant to cover the low quality PSUs out there.

It's just me but I think SLI and CrossFire is a waste of money. A single card always beats them in price for performance. And to be honest, do you really, really ever want to have a system that could in theory need up to 1kw to operate? Think of your electricity bill. And you're overestimating how much power dual cards need, nowhere close to 1kw. If you want 3 or 4 cards, you're nuts, rich or more likely both.

I think a bigger problem than any of that is that such setups don't actually work like a single card from the user's point of view. A single card is still the way to go if you want a hassle-free experience across a variety of games.

[Tyrian]

I'm actually having trouble finding a motherboard with the specs I want.  What I'm gearing towards is an i7 board with support for non-OC'ed DDR3 1600 and PCIe 2.0 x16 slots.  I've been all over NewEgg, but the Classified is the only one I can find.  The one listed in my first post as the "Old MoBo" has DDR3 1600 support, but the PCIe slots are 1.0 x16.  With a GPU that powerful, I'm not willing to cut my bandwidth in half, even to save $100. 

As for the power supply, I've done some further research which seems to indicate that the GTX 285 needs to be supplied with 20A of current on both of its inputs.  I've looked at lower wattage (and cheaper) supplies in the suggested ranges, but I can't find anything that delivers that amperage.  Most of what I find at lower wattages is either multi-rail, driving 18A, or single rail driving +30A.  I'm reluctant to go single rail, as others indicate it's not great for OC'ing (should I decide to do so in the future, and knowing me, I probably will) and it seems to draw more power from the wall socket.  Also, with regards to my electric bill with a 1kW supply, I'll be at university 75% of the year, which means it's their bill, not mine. 

I'm also already aware of the differences between single card and SLI, including compatibility with older games and microstuttering.  That's why I opted for an extremely beefy single card, as opposed to SLI.  I remember you going into great depth about that on the last rig I posted here.

[CP5670]

The PCIE 1.0/2.0 specification makes essentially no difference on current video cards. In fact, only the current generation of cards have started to see differences between even 8X and 16X speeds on PCIE 1.0. In any case, all of the X58 boards support PCIE 2.0.

There is no practical advantage to the higher speed DDR3 either except for overclocking. That's the main reason to buy that stuff, and any decent board will support it through overclocking.

The 285 definitely does not need 20A on each input by itself. The PCIE connector can't even carry that much. I have an older 280, which uses slightly more power, and its total power usage is always under 200W, so it uses at most 16-17A in total (and a third of that comes from the PCIE slot).

There is no real difference in practice between current single-rail and multi-rail units. Modern multi-rails are set up so that the "trapped power" situation Fury referred to earlier is very unlikely, and there never was any difference with overclocking or power usage. Actually, some multi-rails are internally just single-rails but marketed differently, like the Corsair HX models.

[WeatherOp]

@Weather -- Have you had personal experience in that area? 

Yes, spent $500 last summer on a new motherboard, cpu and graphics card. 

[General Battuta]

I don't think love and awesome hardware are exclusive...

[Tyrian]

The PCIE 1.0/2.0 specification makes essentially no difference on current video cards. In fact, only the current generation of cards have started to see differences between even 8X and 16X speeds on PCIE 1.0. In any case, all of the X58 boards support PCIE 2.0.

This is the spec sheet for the EVGA E758-A1, (the old motherboard in my spec) which is listed to have no PCIe 2.0 slots.  Even if PCIe 2.0 is overkill for this generation of cards, I can't help but think a couple of generations ahead.  I guess I'm torn between future-proofing and my budget.  I once overbuilt a machine 5 years ago for what my friends considered a ridiculous amount of money (but that included monitor, printer, speakers, keyboard, mouse, etc.) and I've only had to do one upgrade because of hardware failure.  They bought 3 new machines in the same period of time for a total of more money than I spent.  This one is just the box, keyboard, and speakers.  I already have everything else.

There is no practical advantage to the higher speed DDR3 either except for overclocking. That's the main reason to buy that stuff, and any decent board will support it through overclocking.

While overclocking is definitely something I want to do, I'm not sure that I want to do it immediately.  I could get a board with DDR3 1333 standard support and DDR3 1600 support on OC, but then wouldn't I need to initially buy DDR3 1333, since I don't want to OC immediately?  Wouldn't that also mean another purchase for DDR3 1600? 

The other problem with incremental upgrades is the fact that I'm at university.  Where I live during the school year doesn't accept FedEx or UPS packages.  (I don't know why.)  But it makes getting parts difficult. 

As for the PSU, I'll do some more research.  I'm also reexamining my RAM choice for no other reason than I have a bad feeling about it.

Also, thanks for all the advice.  I'm just trying to make sure I get something that does exactly what I want now, and in the future.  It's a fairly major investment.

[CP5670]

This is the spec sheet for the EVGA E758-A1, (the old motherboard in my spec) which is listed to have no PCIe 2.0 slots.  Even if PCIe 2.0 is overkill for this generation of cards, I can't help but think a couple of generations ahead.  I guess I'm torn between future-proofing and my budget.  I once overbuilt a machine 5 years ago for what my friends considered a ridiculous amount of money (but that included monitor, printer, speakers, keyboard, mouse, etc.) and I've only had to do one upgrade because of hardware failure.  They bought 3 new machines in the same period of time for a total of more money than I spent.  This one is just the box, keyboard, and speakers.  I already have everything else.

Your link seems to be broken, but all the X58 chipsets support PCIE 2.0, so my guess is that they just forgot to say so in the sheet. It says PCIE 2.0 for that board on Newegg as well.

If you upgrade after more than a year, chances are that you will want change your board at that point too. Motherboards have a short useful lifespan in general and the expensive ones have no performance advantage over cheaper ones based on the same chipset, so it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money on them.

Your friends would have been better off if they sold their old components. If you have the time for it, it's always better to buy cheaper stuff and upgrade in increments, but do it more frequently.

While overclocking is definitely something I want to do, I'm not sure that I want to do it immediately.  I could get a board with DDR3 1333 standard support and DDR3 1600 support on OC, but then wouldn't I need to initially buy DDR3 1333, since I don't want to OC immediately?  Wouldn't that also mean another purchase for DDR3 1600?

No, the 1600 memory would just run at 1333 speeds in that case (and the performance difference would be trivial in any real program). The main point of the higher memory speed is to allow a higher base frequency for the CPU when overclocking.

The other problem with incremental upgrades is the fact that I'm at university.  Where I live during the school year doesn't accept FedEx or UPS packages.  (I don't know why.)  But it makes getting parts difficult.

That sounds really odd. One more reason why it's best to avoid university-run housing.

[Tyrian]

That's good to know about the memory, at least.  I also didn't realize the lifespan on mainboards was so short.  I'll have to consider it in more detail later, though.  I have to do study for a final.

Also, I fixed the link to the spec sheet in the prior post.  Copy and paste error. 

[JGZinv]

T - the cooler is fine in the HAF... I got mine built.

There's some things that I find as a bit of a pain with the case design
and the mobo. But overall it works well.

The case is very quiet... even more quiet than my Dell mid tower.
I'd imagine it's cooler inside than ambient from how it feels.

Can't get any hard figures until XP installs, but otherwise it's ok.

[Polpolion]

This is my rig. Like it?

[asyikarea51]

Nice dreamer's setup!

An i7 920 instead of the higher ones due to budget and/or overclock reasons? Just curious... really.

Bit of suck nobody can do those crazy SLI setups without "stepping up" to Vista, and that's already ignoring the money issues

[colecampbell666]

The higher priced models are too high priced with barely any gain. Unless you're getting paid to get the highest clocks or something, they're not worth it. THe 920 can go super high, over 4Ghz in cases.

[JGZinv]

Just a FYI... after getting the thing setup, my temps off the CPU and probes are about 23-30 degrees C.
Which is around 77 F.

Ambient temp is about 73 F...

So I think it's cooling is doing very well and it's darn quiet, so HAF + noctua worked out nicely.