Posts by Robin Brooks2

crimsonstag84 As if anyone could have predicted this exact turn of events.
So, we've suddenly switched genders, have we? 😬 🍿

My brother was the one who wrote this, so I mentioned to him that he could just reach out to me if anything else comes up. 👍
We’re planning to head over to the AMD store tomorrow morning to huddle up, so we'll just pick the salesperson's brain while we're there; they might actually have some inside track on what's coming with those newer graphics cards.
Thanks to everyone for all the help.

graniteharbor85 said:There's still no official word on the actual power draw for the new AMD series, so you won't find a straight answer to that just yet.

But let's play hypothetical for a second—if we assume the draw hits somewhere around 250W, would this power supply actually hold up?

From what I can gather, my PSU provides 44A on the 12V rail, which works out to about 528W based on my math. If we take a GPU pulling roughly 250W and a processor overclocked to 4.5GHz taking maybe 150W, plus another 60W for everything else, we’re looking at a total load of approximately 460W. In my view, this unit should handle that without breaking a sweat, even if the card ends up drawing closer to 270W. I came across some discussion on an American tech forum suggesting that staying within 80 percent of a power supply's capacity is perfectly safe. What's your take on that logic?

graniteharbor85 said:Even if you're overclocking, you're still gonna need a beefier power supply.

Could you give me a rough idea of what the power draw will look like for those upcoming AMD cards? For instance, if I went with an R9 390, would it pull at least 50-70W less than current models? If that were the case, would this power supply be sufficient—and if so, would I have any breathing room to overclock, or would I be stuck strictly with stock settings on my i5?

Larry Ortiz5 As if I hadn't heard it all before, someone mentioned:
If he decides to go with the GTX 970, he’ll definitely have some peace of mind regarding that power supply. 😉

He's certainly aware of that, but he tends to lean more toward AMD anyway. $200 I was looking into getting a cheaper R9 290, but I wasn't sure if I should pull the trigger. Could you help me out with that? It looks like graniteharbor85 doesn't have much to say on the matter.

graniteharbor85 said:Nah, if it were 650W, you’d be totally fine. An XFX unit could probably handle it, but it would be working way too hard—we're talking higher temps, the fans spinning like crazy, and just a ton of noise. Plus, pushing it that hard long-term is a recipe for blowing out the power supply. Honestly, just check out a Fortron Hyper 700 w or maybe a Raider 650 w—those would handle an AMD R9 290 without breaking a sweat.

And if he isn't planning on overclocking anything, would that change the math enough to make it sufficient?

Edit: Out of curiosity, what’s the actual power draw difference for an i5 when you bump it from roughly 4.2GHz up to 4.5GHz?

I have one more question regarding my brother's PC. As we touched on yesterday, I’m looking at picking up a brand-new rig for myself, but since he actually has a pretty decent setup already, he’s decided he wants to tag along to Micro Center with me to grab a new graphics card. His main concern right now is whether his current power supply can handle an AMD R9 290, especially since he’s aiming to push some overclocking to around the 4.5-4.6GHz range. To be honest, I don't really grasp the technical side of this stuff; he just asked me to post the specs here so you experts could weigh in. We're sitting here together waiting to see what you think, so feel free to ask any follow-up questions—he's right here and ready to answer.

Here are the specs for his build:

Intel Core i5-4690k
Gigabyte Z97X gaming 3
thermaltake frio extreme
8gb ram HyperX
550w XFX core pro
Fractal define r4

I honestly think it’s best to just save myself the headache right from the jump and go with this MSI R9 280, because if I don't, I’ll probably just spend the entire night overthinking it and driving myself crazy.

@Robert Rodriguez2
1. So, just to clarify, the LGA 775 socket won't support DDR3 memory at all, right? It’s strictly limited to DDR2?
2. Could you give me a breakdown of what each of these individual components is worth on the used market? Thanks!

Regarding these two builds, I'm looking for some advice on which direction to take. Is it a better move to go with the stronger graphics card now—even if it means eventually swapping out the CPU and trekking down to a repair shop to pay for the service $67 though I have my doubts about anyone doing that for free—or should I stick with the i5 and just handle the GPU upgrade myself later on when I feel like it?

Good evening, everyone. I’m looking to put together a new PC capable of handling all the upcoming big releases, with a budget of about $1667 in cash. Since I’m not exactly an expert in this field, I figured I’d borrow a moment of your time to pick the brains of the enthusiasts here; I’m hoping to build something that stays relevant for at least the next three or four years.
I also have an old machine gathering dust, so I was wondering what its current resale value might be and whether it's possible to swap in some DDR3 memory.

ASUS Nvidia 9800gt ddr5
Intel e4300 soc 775
4gb ram
500w power supply
motherboard unknown
case is just some junk
LG optical drive
HDD 360 GB