A8N32-SLI Deluxe power supply

[~~~AAA~~~]

My current plans are to put together this mobo with an AMD Athlon 64 X2
4800+. I purchased an Antec case with a 400W power supply. Is this power
supply sufficient or will I run into problems?

 

[kirbalo]

Depends more on what type of Video card, and if SLI?

 

[bowgus]

Download the manual ... e.g. page 2-24 of the my a8n-sli manual gives
some sample configurations and power requirements. If you're going SLI,
maybe browse through here
http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_build.html . I planned for sli
(have 1 bfg7800gtx, 4 drives, 4 DDR400) so went with the Seasonic 600W
(atx12V V2.0) ... has the power/pcie connectors ... very nice supply

 

[~~~AAA~~~]

I was able to locate the section in the manual. It suggest a PS of 500W or
more for a "fully configured system". I am using an MSI NX6600-TD256E card
and only this one card so I think that means no SLI. That being the case,
will I run into any performance or other problems with a 400W PS? I am not
a gamer if that matters. If you say it will be a problem, what is the
average cost to get a 600W PS? Thanks a lot!

 

[~~~AAA~~~]

PS The manual for the video card suggest a PS of 350W or more...

 

[bowgus]

You may get by with the 400W supply ... depends on peripherals (load)
and the practical such as does it have sufficient connectors for all
your disks etc.? I went with the 600W Seasonic because I am looking at
powering 2 7800s down the road ... and because it was in stock .

OT: You know, you don't seem to need the features of that SLI Deluxe
(although I guess it's a done deal now) ... why not say the A8N-E?

 

[~~~AAA~~~]

Hi. Yeah, I figured I wouldn't need a board with all those bells and
whistles but money was not too much of a consideration so I wanted to get a
board that would have most, if not all, of what I wanted. I looked in PC
World and saw that this board was rated very high.

Actually, it is not really a done deal since I am building two of these
computers and have only received one board to date, in addition to the two
4800+ CPUs. If I wanted, I guess I could eBay the board I got and cancel
the other. Then go and get two others that are sufficient, but not
overkill. Do you know of a board that will give me all that I need, taking
into consideration that I am not a gamer, but would like a state of the art
board. What I don't want to have happen is to get a board and then one year
from now realize that I should have gotten a better one with some certain
feature(s) that I am lacking.

Thanks a lot for your help and if you can point me in a direction I would
appreciate it. As you can see, I am not too knowledgeable about these
topics but would like to have a nice setup.

 

[Natéag]

Why not the A8N-SLI Deluxe.
You will get more SATAconnectors, so that
you can replace all your IDE devices later on
with SATA.

 

[bowgus]

Well, first you need to figure out "all that you need". I went with the
A8N-SLI because first I wanted to upgrade my graphics (from agp) to the
7800gtx (which is pcie) with room for a future upgrade to SLI (an
additional 7800gtx) and that's also why the 600W Seasonic. My existing
disks are IDE which I'm ok with bandwidth wise because my PC use is not
quite high end gaming (1/2 life, quake 4, ... ) browsing,
ripping/playing DVDs ... the A8N supports 4 IDE. I had 4 DDR400 RAMs
(512MB) ... the A8N-SLI supports 4 and runs 4 way interleave so that
worked out well. And the AMD 4000+ I decided on is very adequate
performance for me ... i.e., don't need a dual core because I'm mostly
only doing one thing at a time. And I still don't have a case ... all
the parts are stacked up here on my desk. I will say one thing ... I am
very impressed with the obvious quality of the A8N-SLI and the AMD
4000+ (inc heatsink and fan). I've been an Intel buyer the past 2 PCs
because the old AMD stuff was obviously clocked to the max, hot, noisy.
My current system is clocked at 220 with the HyperTransport at stock x5
(which gives 1.1G) and the DDR400 RAM is at a safe 3,3,3,8 ... and the
current temp is 28C while browsing and will go up to 41-43C at 100% cpu
usage. So ... I thought about my requirements, did a lot of browsing
and relearning about AMD ... and I'm quite satisfied with my current
system.

 

[Clas Mehus]

Why not the A8N-SLI Deluxe.
You will get more SATAconnectors, so that
you can replace all your IDE devices later on
with SATA.

....and you get a little noisemaker of a chipset fan. There is quite a
lot in the design of these boards that makes the A8N32-SLI a better
board (at least on paper for some of these elements...).

 

[Natéag]

Well for a bit more money, one can get a A8N-SLI Premium,
which does not have a chipset fan.

 

[bowgus]

.... and the "32" chipset is worth looking into for an SLI configuration
because it does 16 for both video cards vs 8 and 8 for the "older" non
32 boards, but I understand there's not that much difference in
performance. I guess it all comes down to $$s which for some is not a
constraint. I looked into and thought about waiting for the 32 but
decided my $$s would be better spent put towards the bfg7800gtx
(performance, drives my monitor and projector). As to noise, my PC
itself will eventually be on the other side of a drywall wall, outside
the home theater room ... that power up on spacebar bios feature is
handy ... my main problem right now is a slight 60hz hum in the audio
system