My Two New Builds (Primary and Secondary)

[shovenose]

Primary PC:
AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core CPU
16GB (2x8GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3 RAM
ASRock 970 Extreme3 ATX Motherboard
WD VelociRaptor 300GB SATA 6Gbps Enterprise Storage
Geforce 550Ti 2GB for displays one and two
Radeon HD 4350 1GB for display three
3x 22" LCD @ 1680x1050
Liteon SATA DVDRW
Corsair Carbide 200R case
Seasonic 360W PSU

Secondary PC:
Intel Celeron G540 2.5GHz Dual Core CPU
8GB (2x4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3 RAM
MSI H61M-PC31(G3) MicroATX Motherboard
Seagate 500GB Hard Drive
Intel onboard graphics
Cooler Master 430 Elite case (modded)
Seasonic 300W PSU

[HammerON]

Welcome to TPU
Are you looking for some advice on your two new builds?

[shovenose]

yeah I'm just wondering what you guys think I could do to improve, if anything.
Also what you think as far as whether it's rounded out well.
Thank you.

[BarbaricSoul]

two things

I've never heard of running a AMDand Nvidia video cards in the same computer as display adapters,and have them work together.Is this possible?

360 watts, even for a seasonic, is not enough wattage for a dual video card system, especailly with a power hungry CPU like the 8350.

[shovenose]

Originally Posted by BarbaricSoul

two things

I've never heard of running a AMDand Nvidia video cards in the same computer as display adapters,and have them work together.Is this possible?

360 watts, even for a seasonic, is not enough wattage for a dual video card system, especailly with a power hungry CPU like the 8350.

thanks for your response!
No it is no problem at all to run both NVIDIA and ATI/AMD at once. but I recommend you install NVIDIA then get drivers and then turn it off and put ATI/AMD and then boot up and install those drivers
Don't just install two in one go if you understand what I mean

As far as the PSU I am sure it will be fine. I can test with my Kill a watt meter for you to be assured

[Xenturion]

To really be able to help, we'll have to know what sort of usages you intend for both systems. They're both pretty curious setups. Would you mind indicating which parts you already have and which you've yet to purchase? That might enable us to be a little more helpful.

[jboydgolfer]

I see the title,,I see your build's. But what's the question/Topic??

"yeah I'm just wondering what you guys think I could do to improve, if anything.
Also what you think as far as whether it's rounded out well.
Thank you. "

Found it. My bust.

[shovenose]

Originally Posted by Xenturion

To really be able to help, we'll have to know what sort of usages you intend for both systems. They're both pretty curious setups. Would you mind indicating which parts you already have and which you've yet to purchase? That might enable us to be a little more helpful.

It would help if I even know what I needed help with.
I just want to make sure they will last some years without upgrades or trouble. I love computer related projects but I can't have downtime and oops i fucked it up sort of situations on my main pc because i do my work on that, the secondary i dont care so much but anyway...

typical usage of main pc:
three firefox windows with about two dozen tabs open in each window
two chrome windows with about ten tabs on average open total
three instances of filezilla
several putty ssh logins
skype
live chat software staff end, for hosting customers
voip software to talk to hosting customers
many things open in notepad plus plus for working on websites
in between work i play minecraft and gta san andreas

no i am not kidding, sometimes it can get a bit crazy on there!

secondary pc usage:
single browser window with less than five tabs
one or two instances of putty ssh
my friend might come over occassionally and play gta san adreas or minecraft on that one as well, but i will not use it much personally...
might put all my music on there since it's got bigger disk...

anyway feedback on that? and what you mean they are both curious thansk

[Xenturion]

It's not often you see an enterprise VelociRaptor in a build. The 2 different cards are interesting as well, but considering there's no onboard with the FX series and the Geforce 500 series are limited to 2 monitors, I guess it's expected if you want to drive 3 screens for productivity. 16GB of RAM isn't too common, and not a lot of people go for the 8350, preferring to get the 8320 and bump it up instead. The 970 chipset limits a second card to 4 PCIe lanes, but, the 4350 isn't going to be doing any 3d work, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

If you haven't purchased it all yet: If it were me, I'd drop the 8350 down to the 8320 and use the money to buy a 990X or 990FX based motherboard. I'd drop the 550Ti and 4350 for whatever Geforce 600 series card I could get and use that to drive the 3 monitors. That way, I could play games if I wanted to across all 3 (albeit, at low settings, but hell, I'd bet Minecraft could be fun at 5040x1050) and I could still enjoy the productivity boost. It'd drop power consumption, too. I was going to say switch the hard drive for an SSD, but it's actually cheaper than I thought. The same money only gets you 120 maybe 180GB in SSDs, which I suspect might not be enough storage for you. Perhaps a 90 or 120GB SSD and a 300GB 7200RPM might be a good compromise. SSDs are amazing.

As a backup computer, the second build makes sense. 8GB of RAM is quite a bit, but then again it isn't really expensive.

[shovenose]

Originally Posted by Xenturion

It's not often you see an enterprise VelociRaptor in a build. The 2 different cards are interesting as well, but considering there's no onboard with the FX series and the Geforce 500 series are limited to 2 monitors, I guess it's expected if you want to drive 3 screens for productivity. 16GB of RAM isn't too common, and not a lot of people go for the 8350, preferring to get the 8320 and bump it up instead. The 970 chipset limits a second card to 4 PCIe lanes, but, the 4350 isn't going to be doing any 3d work, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

If you haven't purchased it all yet: If it were me, I'd drop the 8350 down to the 8320 and use the money to buy a 990X or 990FX based motherboard. I'd drop the 550Ti and 4350 for whatever Geforce 600 series card I could get and use that to drive the 3 monitors. That way, I could play games if I wanted to across all 3 (albeit, at low settings, but hell, I'd bet Minecraft could be fun at 5040x1050) and I could still enjoy the productivity boost. It'd drop power consumption, too. I was going to say switch the hard drive for an SSD, but it's actually cheaper than I thought. The same money only gets you 120 maybe 180GB in SSDs, which I suspect might not be enough storage for you. Perhaps a 90 or 120GB SSD and a 300GB 7200RPM might be a good compromise. SSDs are amazing.

As a backup computer, the second build makes sense. 8GB of RAM is quite a bit, but then again it isn't really expensive.

Interestinmg thoughts,
however i already have the computer assembled.
i dont overclock so i bought the best cpu i could. also is why i got the cheaper motherboard.
i have a 120GB SSD in my laptop but i wanted slightly more storage for a drive that is still very fast.

[shovenose]

OK I did some tests regarding power on my main PC. I have a Kill-a-Watt meter, so while not being the most accurate it will work fairly well to see how much power my computer is using.
It uses 0 watts when off, around 130 during boot, and 70 while writing this post. I ran 8 threads of Prime95 and a Furmark Burn In Test at the same time and my power draw at the wall hovered around 390w. Yes that means that I'm basically maxing out my PSU.
However, realistically when am I ever going to load all cores of my CPU to 100% and load my GPU up realistically crazy like that? Never!
So, given that it's a Seasonic, it's 80Plus Gold Certified, and I will keep everything clean and not dusty, It will be fine

[Bo$$]

Consider a single AMD card, they can drive 3 monitors alone, save money and power rather than shoving 2 cards in, less hassle, less noise

[shovenose]

Originally Posted by Bo$$

Consider a single AMD card, they can drive 3 monitors alone, save money and power rather than shoving 2 cards in, less hassle, less noise

exactly which card would you recommend?
budget: however much I can sell an EVGA GTX 550Ti 2GB for (about $130)

I came up with these after a quick search:
only 1GB:
HIS iCooler H777F1G2M Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1...
2GB yay!
ASUS HD7770-2GD5 Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 2GB 12...

[amp281]

If you can swing $20 more, go for a Radeon HD 7850. Real powerhouse. You can get them $170-220 depending on the manufacturer, ram (1gb or 2gb) and the rebates.

Example: SAPPHIRE 100355L Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 ...

[TheLaughingMan]

That PSU is not going to be a enough if you do anything system intensive like gaming. It will work for a while, but it will fail within a 6 to 12 month range.

A single ATI card for three monitors is fine if you game on one. If you are just productivity stuff, then the single 7850 with 2GB or a better card should be fine.

[shovenose]

My PSU will be fine for any card that only needs one 6-pin PCI Express.

[drdeathx]

Originally Posted by shovenose

My PSU will be fine for any card that only needs one 6-pin PCI Express.

360 watt? Your kidding right?

[shovenose]

Originally Posted by drdeathx

360 watt? Your kidding right?

What? I only pull about 400W from the wall :P

[andrewsmc]

Originally Posted by shovenose

My PSU will be fine for any card that only needs one 6-pin PCI Express.

You did come onto TPU.com asking for advice, right?

[n3rdf1ght3r]

Originally Posted by shovenose

thanks for your response!
No it is no problem at all to run both NVIDIA and ATI/AMD at once. but I recommend you install NVIDIA then get drivers and then turn it off and put ATI/AMD and then boot up and install those drivers
Don't just install two in one go if you understand what I mean

As far as the PSU I am sure it will be fine. I can test with my Kill a watt meter for you to be assured

Originally Posted by BarbaricSoul

two things

I've never heard of running a AMDand Nvidia video cards in the same computer as display adapters,and have them work together.Is this possible?

360 watts, even for a seasonic, is not enough wattage for a dual video card system, especailly with a power hungry CPU like the 8350.

I've got a gtx570 and a R6950 running in a single rig with no problems on a 600W(it hasn't blown up...yet). It works fine as long as you have the correct drivers and are not running xp or vista... I dont remembre which one it wont work on. It really dosen't give a big performance boost with gaming but it does make a difference for WCG. that and the older Nvidia cards only support 2 monitors.

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by drdeathx

360 watt? Your kidding right?

This.

Originally Posted by shovenose

What? I only pull about 400W from the wall :P

I've had friends who have had their PSUs damage other components as well, like GPUs and CPUs, and Motherboards. They all had 300-350 watt PSUs. Don't go testing your luck. Go get a new PSU before you do anything else because 360 watt is pushing it for the 8350 + any 6-pin GPU. Heck, it's pushing it for the 8350 alone.

[amp281]

Another thing is when you do look at buying larger power supplies, pay attention to the 80+ gold/bronze etc rating. If it unrated it probably really does not produce much power to rated specs because its a generic. Thats not the purpose of the rating however; Higher rated will also run more efficiently and also save you money.

Another important thing to look at is the amperage on the 12 volt rail. This matters as much as the wattage.

You should run a 600-700 watt minimum for the first system you described.

Heres an example: CORSAIR Professional Series HX650 650W ATX12V v2.2....

The Fx8350 is a very power hungry processor (125watt) and running two video cards is also very intensive.

[Cotton_Cup]

good 560/660 seasonic/corsair or something along the lines of those numbers and brand should do you well, ^_^