Official GIGABYTE Forum
Questions about GIGABYTE products => Motherboards with AMD processors => Topic started by: littledigger on January 22, 2011, 04:40:54 pm
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Hi all, I'm a newbie to this so be gentle.
I am assembling a new build PC, list of what I have so far below:
Mobo – Gigabyte M52L – S3P
CPU – AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
2 x 2 gb – 240pin DDR2 PC2 – 6400 RAM (with view to doubling this to 4 x 2gb)
HD 1 - Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB - SATAII 32MB Cache 7200RPM – OEM
HD 2 - Western Digital Caviar 500GB - SATA II 32MB Cache Dual Processor - OEM
Case - Elite 330 Mid Tower Chassis
Monitor - Samsung B2430L/24 inch Widescreen LCD 1080p DVI
Running Windows 7 Ultimate
What I'm after are suggestions for a graphics card and decent PSU for the above specs.
I'm not a gamer, but usually have lot's of apps open at one time. WWW surfing, Photoshop, music etc.
So much info out there - really confusing for newbie.
Any help will be most appreciated
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Well if you are not into playing games, unless you are planning to do a lot of rendering or graphics or video then there really is no need to go for a powerful card. Probably the AMD cards would be best for your setup something like a 4870 should be more than enough. It depends on your budget as well as what you need it for.
I certainly would go for the extra memory but make sure that you get the same make and model as you already have. Otherwise sell them and get a couple of 4 GB sticks. The more memory the better for Photoshop etc.
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Hey DM,
Was not planning to do much rendering or video. I mainly www surf, do lots of Photoshop N' Arty Farty stuff, play music and video etc.
The 4870 is a bit pricier than I expected to go, was trying to keep it below the £90.00 mark.
Was looking on Amazon.co.uk at ATI cards beforehand, Saphires and stuff. Came across one that I liked the look of but without knowing why - VTX3D ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB DDR2 PCI DVI HDMI Silent Low Profile.
If you are using DDR2 memory on MOBO, do you stick with DDR2 graphics cards and not mix with DDR3 or GDDR5 (whatever that is) cards? ???
Also, although my mobo has max of 16gb RAM, 4x4gb, but I found very very little info on compatible 4gb sticks of memory for my board, certainly not on Crucial site, so stuck with 2x2gb to start me off.
Thanks
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The memory on your motherboard has no bearing on the memory you use on the graphics card so no worries there.
No I quite agree there is no point paying for more than you are going to use. To be fair any of the four series upwards will do for what you want.
I am surprised that you can't pick up a 4870 under the £90 mark now though. The Sapphire cards are the ones I tend to go for mainly because of the noise levels. The Vapor-X is almost silent. Gigabyte do some nice cards as well and they generally have a well designed cooling system on them which is very efficient.
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Have looked again for a 4870, have seen nothing under £120 in Uk. Seen one from the States under £70, but thinking of returns service.
Have found a few Sapphire HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 VGA HDMI DVI PCI-E Low Profile Graphics Cards, just over £60 from UK.
Or
GIGABYTE ATI HD4650 OC 1GB 128BIT DDR2 FAN PCI-E GRAPHICS CARD DVI/HDMI/VGA
Think any of these would be adequate?
I think that is the sheer amount of choice that does me in.
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I can understand that! Sometimes it just seems to be so confusing trying to weigh up the pros and cons of each. The thing is I am sure that either woulkd do for surfing and watchiing video etc. I would just decide on your budget and go for the best you can buy for that price. Generally as they go up in series they are more powerful.
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I think that I Will go for the Gigabyte card.
Also, I've found 4gb memory units for my mobo. Will plump for 2 of those to start with and add more when I can warrent them.
Just one more thing.... I put all my stuff into a 'Power Supply Calculator' and it went just over the 400 watt recommendation for a PSU.
Would it be wise to go for a 550w or even a 650w PSU, if so have you any recommendations on brands... Coolermaster, CIT, Corsair?
I did read that buying cheaper brands can impact on performance (same as everything I suppose).
Many Thanks DM
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I'd go for the HD 5670. Runs cool and requires little power. It seems it even overclocks rather alright for ATI/AMD if you ever wanted to.
As for a PSU, 300-350W should cover your needs just fine. As for a particular model, I'd look for something certified to be 80%+ efficient and it should be perfect.
A nice tool I use to have an idea about my system's PSU requirements: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
I'm not really sure how you got over 400W? Adding a few things to what you listed gave me about 275W recommended. If anything, I'd consider 400W a maximum reasonable value for this system.
Put another way, I have a 4870x2 on the way and it'll run on a 650W PSU. Keep in mind that this card eats over 200W during gaming ( peak close to 300W ).
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I'm afraid I will have to disagree with bytheway_r on this one, although I am sure that his figures are correct. He's also right about getting a 80+ certified and I would also recommend a single 12v rail if possible. Size wise is where we disagree because although the figures might add up it is always better to have some headroom for future upgrades and also because PSUs do degrade a little over time and use. If it was me I would be looking at something around the 550W mark.
Make wise it doesn't really matter as long as the quality is good. Gigabyte do some nice ones but they tend to be a bit scarse over here. Corsair is what I am using now and I am very pleased with that. It also comes with a seven year warranty, shouts about the confidence the manufacturer has in it. ;D Seasonic, Enermax, etc there are too many to name.
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How's about I comprimise between you guys.
Bytheways "runs cool and requires little power" has swung it for me, so am looking at the HD 5670 and because I generally err on the side of caution, I'll go with DM on the PSU. Was looking at 550w PSU's on-line and checking brands out. You get good reports about CoolerMaster and Corsair, so will look more closely at these.
I used the NewEgg.com power supply calculator and cocked up 1st time around, entered wrongly. Second time around got 365w. Tried bytheway's eXtreme power calc and got 350w. Although have probs still put in wrong data (been a long day guys).
Many thanks guys, will keep you updated. ;D
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With a power supply it doesn't make any difference to be using one that is too big for your needs anyway as it only draws the power it needs to work. So you could be running a 1000W monster for your system and it would still only use the same electricty asa much smaller PSU.
I would say your compromise sounds good though. ;)
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With a power supply it doesn't make any difference to be using one that is too big for your needs anyway as it only draws the power it needs to work. So you could be running a 1000W monster for your system and it would still only use the same electricty asa much smaller PSU.
I would say your compromise sounds good though. ;)
Sorry Dark Mantis but I'm calling you out on this one. PSU's are only efficient when loaded between 20% and 80% of their capacity so a over sized PSU will use more electricity guaranteed. Does a over sized PSU waste a lot of power, not really. More than the cost of the PSU over its life time I'm sure. I say a 400 watt PSU is all he will need even if he adds two more ram modules and two more hard drives. I'm running a Q6600 at 3 ghz, 8 gigs of DDR2 (4x2), HD 5670 1 gig, Two 7200 RPM HD's, a DVDRW/ Blu-ray combo drive and 3 120 mm case fans off a Corsair CMPSU-400CX no problem. I'd say a 400 watt PSU would be way overkill for the system he is building but since very few quality supplies exist that are smaller a PSU around 400 watts is the sweat spot. A Seasonic S12II 430 looks like a great choice to me. Or a similar sized supply as long as its build by Seasonic or CWT. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151074
Oh I vote for the HD 5670 BTW. Nice low cost card. Very efficient and cool running while still having the nuts to run HD video in hardware and play most video games if needed.
Bill
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OK Bill I was propbably a bit over the top in my saying a 1000W PSU wouldn't be any more power hungry but I was just trying to make a point. You are quite right that most PSUs work most efficiently between 20 and 80+ % of their output capability. I think we will have to agree to differ on what is the best size to buy though. We all agree that whatever is purchased it should be a good quality make. :D
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Hi littledigger,
If I can throw my oar in here. For choice of Graphics card I would probably go for one of the ATI 5 series but only because they run DirectX 11.
For the PSU I would recommend one of at least 550 Watts. Although it might stretch your budget, investing in a good quality PSU at this stage will allow for future expansion over the next few years.
I have 8 Gig of RAM on my own system (4x2Gig sticks) and have yet to run out even when editing some very large images in Photoshop. To access more than 3.5Gig of RAM you need to be running a 64 bit OS and have 64 Bit applications. If your version of Photoshop or other editing software is not 64 bit then it won't see the extra RAM anyway, so bear that in mind when making your purchases.
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To be honest the price difference at that end of the market is negligable anyway for the different sizes.
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I'm willing to jump on the 550W bandwagon as long as the OP is thinking about upgrading to something more power hungry within ~2 years. Certainly a 550W PSU gives you the headroom to play around with your build later on. Now, the problem may be that everything's heading towards lower power consumption as of late. Who knows how much power you'll need to run a PC in a year or 2. If the current trend continues at the same speed as now we may not have much use for PSUs over 500-600W soon.
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I guess we will see a lot of them converted to welders then! ;D
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Hey Guys,
Thanks for all the input, makes very interesting reading. :)
As a novice to hardware (more a software man myself), I am having good fun watching you more or less agree on just about all things, but slog it out on the finer points. Some looking to the future, some to the here and now. Great stuff guys and I mean that in an un-patronising way. I really do appreciate your expertise. Right! enough of the flannel.
I found a pretty good review on the HD 5670 at this address: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/graphics-cards/354787/ati-radeon-hd-5670, have made up my mind to go for this card.
As for the PSU, I've decided not to scrimp on price as you do have to pay for quality. I totally understand that if I am only pulling 300w at the moment, it seems a bit of an overkill to splash out on a much bigger wattage unit. But....... I was looking to add on at a later date, probs make it into a home theatre system. Not guarenteed but probs.
Therefore, without the aid of experience on my side, I have set my heart on a - Corsair VX Series, 550 Watt, ATX, PS/2, Power Supply, UK Version.
Having read what DM wrote about a single +12V rail and finding that another grey mist was rising, I spent an hour or so Googling single rail vs multi rail PSU's and decided to go with DM on this. This Corsair has the single +12V rail.
So there we go.... it's the HD5670 and the Corsair VX Series, 550 Watt PSU for me. ;)
Thanks again all you guys for all your input on my project, I will continue to read your stuff with admiration and a chuckle. Will let you know how it all pans out when I've assembled it all.
Adios
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I think you have made a good decision all round and your new hardware should last and serve you well. Good luck with the build. ;)
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Been a while but have assembled my first build and am well chuffed. It was not plain sailing though.
When I had assembled it, I turned on the power and........ nothing...... no fans no lights, I was gutted! Took it apart again, laid it all out on a sheet of cardboard and tried the bent pin thing on my PSU, it worked the fan spun. Phew! I was thinking that I had fried my mobo, but when I plugged an old MP3 player into a usb on the mobo, it lit up.... we have power. Now I'm flummoxed!
To cut a long story short.... I had put a couple of the case wires on the wrong connectors, Pwr LED on the Pwr Switch and visa versa. Assembled it correctly, worked fine. It is running like a dream now, well almost.
Anybody any idea why there might be a 30 second delay between pressing the power on button on the case and it booting? No fan sounds, no black screen, nothing. I have tried different Bios settings, but to no avail. Have looked on web, not much stuff makes sense on there. It's not a real problem, but it can get a little annoying.
Am thinking of my next build now, am having to reign myself in though. Am off on a great holiday in Sept and can't justify the money yet. Hard though, keep seeing special offers on bigger n' better mobo's, processors etc. Defs learned a few things though, great feeling, gotta do it again.
Thanks guys in advance.... Take care
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Hi good news then. I see that you kept a cool head and managed to faultfind on your own. It's all logical.
I expect in the BIOS you haven't disabled the floppy drive so do that. Also make the hard drive yopur primary boot device and disable the full screen logo while you are there. You can enable quick boot too. They are the main things that tend to slow down booting so do them first.
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Hey DM, not so sure about the cool head, nearly blew my top once or twice and was very dubious about sticking pins in electrical thingys, but managed not to throw it all in the bin. Will try your suggestions. Many thanks.
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I can't imagine that...Gort being uncool! Never, it's not possible!
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Good job I'm not Gort, I'd probs have blasted the machine with my heat ray after the first balls-up. Luckily I'm a Taurean (very patient apparently).
Have done all the things that DM suggested, but then I read through my explanation of the problem and guess what..... I described that wrongly. I should have said that it's 30 secs between pressing power button and the appearance of the POST screen.
Was thinking about that last nite and finally realising there was a single beep before the POST screen appeared, I realised that it must have done a self test taking 30 secs, so all I had to do was disable this feature.... ye har I worked through it logically......
Guess what, I've been all the way through the bios settings and there is no power up self test feature. How the hell can this be? On my earlier versions of bios it was always there, but it is not in the phoenix award bios F6 (I upgraded). Would it be too much trouble for the bu**ers to keep the feature in the bios settings? If only for us semi-techies?
Ah well, back to the interweb and hours of trawling I suppose. Do any of you older peeps remember the infancy of the web, when you could get pretty accurate information when searching, rather than 16,000,000 pages of completely unrelated rubbish? God I'm getting old.
Hang loose guys :-\
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Being a really old peep, I can remember when there was no internet, and everything was sent by carrier pigeon ::)
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I remember the days when the internet was called a book!
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Engraved on stone tablets!
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Looks like none of us are spring chickens then ha ha! :D
1,000,000 pages of gunk later and I'm still no wiser as to why my bios has no quick POST setting. Anybody any ideas......PLEASSSSE? Have got Phoenix Award BIOS 6.00pg.
Have googled bios version, checked images and I find that there are differing advanced bios feature settings accorded with this version. In one there is the quick POST setting and a virus check thing and in others, they are the same as mine, no quick POST or virus check thingy.......... confused is an under-statement. Not losing my cool..... but just cannot believe there's nothing on interweb on this.
Why can't Phoenix just tell us if they have discarded the damn Quick POST - enable/ Disable setting?
Sorry guys starting to rant - later dudes
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The problem is with all these BIOSes they basic BIOS is supplied by Phoenix, AMI, Award or whoever and then they are customised to suit the particular board the manufacturer is putting them in. Again as new versions are released they can have different attributes and sometimes you will find things added and sometimes taken away. It is not down to the BIOS chip manufacturer but the BIOS engineers of the motherboard manufacturer.
I hope that makes things a bit clearer for you.
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Thanks DM, yes much clearer now. Like I said at the beginning, it's no problem waiting 30 secs for a POST, it would be annoying if there was an easy way to rectify it, but there isn't, so no probs. Thanks for all your advice DM, much appreciated.
Will keep my eye on the forum now and again to see what's happening, but you probs won't hear from me until after Sept when I will start planning my next build.
Just to throw a little teaser into the mix..... AMD vs INTEL
What's the verdict? I suppose it is what you wish to do with the machine, but people generally have preferences. I have built an AMD based machine and am very happy with the result, but I am now wondering 'what about an Intel'?
Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense
;D
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What's this Latin you are quoting at us ? Are you trying to say that you are a member of the "Order of the Garter" or just using their motto ?
I really don't think there is much to choose between the two platforms now. If you really need the ultimate power house then probably go with Intel but as at the moment hardware is driving the software forward either will do just about anything you can throw at it and then some. I would say personal preferrence and size of wallet to be honest.
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Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense is indeed the latin motto for the order of the garter, but I just like its meaning .... Roughly translated into english it means
'Evil Be To Him Who Evil Thinks'.
At the moment I am thinking Intel for my next build, I don't need a power house, am thinking of a good multimedia machine, I'm still not into gaming.
But by the time it comes round buying the parts for another build, I may have changed my mind because of a special offer on an AMD mobo or processor. I just feel like having a go at an Intel at the mo, probs just to balance the builds up 1xAMD & 1xIntel.
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That makes the most sense really. Just make the decision on what is around for what price at the time you want to make the purchases. As you know things can change so fast in this field that it isn't worth making any decisions ahead of time.