Dealing with those idiots. You've got to be kidding me. I basically just told them to get lost because they seem to think they've mastered everything under the sun, when in reality, they don't have a clue.
Every time I try to start a thread, this guy deletes it. So I repost it, and he does it again. He doesn't bother explaining why or pointing out where I messed up; if you actually ask him what the hell is going on or why he's deleting stuff, he just drops a link to the rules and leaves it at that. Good luck figuring out what's wrong with your post then.
It’s apparently too much effort for him to just say, "Hey, fix the title," or "Fix the content," or even "This part isn't quite right." Instead, it's just a link—no context, no nothing—so you're left guessing.
I really hope this kind of thing doesn't become the norm, because if it does, I might just have to blacklist this entire forum.
They might be a bit too much for your GPU and setup, honestly. Since they both have pretty similar specs, I guess it really comes down to what you're working with—I'm not entirely sure about your Dell, but I know the Samsung ones are usually decent enough, so you'll probably just have to make the call yourself.
So, you see, Gemdos was basically the ancestor of the OS Microsoft builds their Windows versions on. Those were essentially the very first Windows interfaces.
Back when Atari had those windowed systems, the modern PC didn't even exist yet. If you strip away all the windows, you can see the foundation of the desktop we use today. Instead of having to type out commands manually, you could just click on icons to open things.
In that era, the big players were Atari, ZX Spectrum, and similar machines, while gaming consoles were what everyone was really obsessed with.
So you say I'm talking nonsense? Fine. If my experience with builds like this is that they're unreliable, then whatever you say.
Every single configuration similar to this one I've seen worked perfectly fine—no freezing, no stuttering, nothing.
I’ve been messing around with computers for over 20 years now. I actually started with my very first machine that ran real Windows; it was an Atari where the OS was baked right into the ROM, so you couldn't even change it unless you booted a different OS from a floppy disk.
Secondly, saying that buying a 650W power supply is just throwing money away is complete nonsense. If I personally HAD to buy a unit like that just to get my system to finally stop choking and actually breathe with these components, then I'll say it straight—watch your step, because you might just trip and break your neck.
All those online wattage calculators? They basically tell you to take the results with a grain of salt.
Even these threads claiming a 400W unit is plenty... well, sure, it's plenty if you're running a card from five years ago in a rig with a third of the RAM, a tiny 20GB hard drive, and an old CD-RW drive, or whatever.
Look, if a 400W unit shows up $133 whereas a 600W one arrives $183 you can't really buy anything meaningful with that price gap, but for that extra bit, you’re basically buying peace of mind.
Then you go ahead and tell the guy, "Hey, just grab the 400W; take the money you saved on my power supply and put it toward a better GPU"—and what actually happens? The whole system just freezes because it doesn't have the juice to stay running.
I probably wouldn't advise someone to jump up to a 650W unit unless I was absolutely certain they wouldn't end up needing it anyway.
Okay, so maybe a 400W unit works fine for a top-tier Pentium 4 setup or a single-core rig hitting 3GHz. But for anything else, I guess you should bump it up by another 150W. So, for those single-core builds at 3GHz or higher, or maybe dual-core setups up to around 7GHz, or even triple-core rigs averaging 1.6GHz per core, you're looking at 550W. For everything else, I'd say stick with 650W.
Thomas Martin4 said:I mean, I'm pretty sure a GTX 460 and a Phenom II will be perfectly fine with this VX unit. If a CX400W can handle a 5830 paired with an Athlon X4, then this should work too. I guess if I were actually buying high-end gear, then maybe I'd bother looking at a new power supply. Under load, my current setup doesn't pull more than 250W—or maybe 300W if you want to be safe (though those numbers are based on overclocked builds, which isn't really what I'm doing here). So, I suppose that means new components won't cause any issues since they don't draw much more than what I've already got... "I don't really get why" they put dual 6-pin connectors on some cards while others don't need them, but it doesn't change the fact that a CX400W can easily run something like a 9800GTX. I actually put a card like that in a friend's rig using that exact PSU, and it's been running flawlessly for about a year and a half now. Even though the box for the card might recommend a minimum of 550W, they never specify the manufacturer. It’s not the same thing when you're comparing MSI to Seasonic.
Well, it's true that MSI isn't quite the same as Seasonic, but even within Seasonic, you have different tiers that act like two totally different products. And obviously, price plays a role in all of this.
The reason is simple, really—when it comes to electronic parts like capacitors and resistors, there are various levels of tolerance. Higher-end devices use better quality components, which drives the price up, whereas a device built with cheaper components will naturally cost less.
Then you have voltage regulators that can smooth out the power perfectly, versus regulators that just can't manage it (looking at you, budget manufacturers).
In all of this, the transformer plays the most significant role, and it's usually the most expensive part of the entire power supply.
If anyone here happens to have compared these two or actually owned them both, I’d love to hear which one comes out on top and just how big the performance gap really is.
So, we're looking at an ATI 5750 1GB versus an 8800 GTS 320MB.
Thomas Martin4 said:Well, I guess it all depends on what you’re actually upgrading to... if you try to slap a 5970 on a CX400W, obviously it isn't going to cut it, but if you're looking at a 6850, who knows if it'll even run? That's why people always ask what your plans are for the build—you really want to find the best possible solution for whatever budget you have. All these newer cards seem to have a better performance-per-watt ratio. My current card pulls over 150W when it's actually working hard, and I think the newer stuff would just eat it for breakfast while pulling about the same or maybe even less. So, I suppose my power supply should be able to handle an upgrade to a new GPU and processor, assuming we're talking about mid-range cards, of course.
I wouldn't say you're 100% sure about that.
There was a chart posted here on the forum regarding GPU power consumption, and those graphs actually showed the exact opposite—that newer cards are drawing more power than the old ones.
Logically speaking, your argument would hold water if manufacturers weren't constantly cramming more and more components onto the boards that require more and more juice.
If a card from twenty years ago had the same component layout as one today, then maybe we could say they're getting more efficient, but if you compare a card from ten years ago to one released a few months back, you're looking at a massive amount of new hardware packed onto that little piece of silicon.
I mean, why do many modern cards have two sets of 6-pin power connectors on the end while the older ones only needed one? To me, that suggests these things are definitely pulling more power.
Alexander Martinez said:I’ve had an identical setup running on a 380W power supply for nearly two years now without a single hiccup. I can think of plenty of people who have pushed much more demanding rigs on power supplies in that ~400W range without running into any issues at all.
That isn't just my opinion; those are just the facts.
You're basically just gambling, and I once ran a rig for two years straight before I decided to upgrade, and then—poof—everything just gave out.
The power supply is really the foundation of everything, much like the motherboard; if you pick something that works fine today, it might not be ready for whatever comes next.
He could probably get away with that 400W unit, but once he starts getting into upgrades and actually tries to beef up his PC, that's when he's going to feel the squeeze.
If he just goes for a 550W or 650W unit, he'll have enough headroom for everything, including future upgrades with higher-end components, without constantly worrying about running out of juice.
Alexander Martinez said:Look, you're famous for suggesting someone grab a thousand-watt power supply for a build like this, but there are actually people out there who own things called power meters. They have similar setups right in front of them, so a manual reading probably carries a bit more weight than your sarcasm.😉
It’s a 100W rig, like I said, and honestly, I don't really care what your take on it is.😁
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if it happens to be wrong, I suppose. It would just be a shame if something happened to someone and I felt responsible because I told them everything was fine when it wasn't—like, maybe they could have gone for something slightly higher quality to avoid a total system failure.
Then you guys can come after me and say, "Hey, you messed up, you ruined his machine."
Has anyone here actually defended using a 400W unit like it's some holy grail? I mean, has anyone admitted fault when a PC crashed because the power supply was overcompensating by pumping out way more juice than needed just to stay alive?
Nobody has. I once had a 550W unit that was supposed to deliver 400W from a reputable brand, but as soon as I swapped out the CPU, motherboard, RAM, and GPU, the whole thing started freezing constantly. I went out, picked up a Seasonic or one of those generic ones that looked like it was just rebranded 650W junk from Best Buy, and everything worked perfectly right away without any freezing.
And what's the alternative? Just tell everyone not to buy off-brand power supplies and stick to the big names? You might as well laugh at that suggestion.
Here is a little correlation for you regarding Grundig Germany (which doesn't exist anymore) versus Grundig Turkey (which does).
It's like the name Bernd; what do you call Vivax, which is just a generic name? Both are sold in our market. There isn't much difference between a brand name and a generic one, except that with a brand, you're basically paying about 60% of the price just for the logo.
All of this stuff is manufactured in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and various other Eastern territories used by Western manufacturers.
The price gap between a 400W and a 600W power supply is basically $47
I'd say just grab the higher wattage one; you probably won't run into any headaches down the road when you're using it long-term or eventually decide to throw in some extra components.
Someone above mentioned that we're only talking about a 100W difference, but I can't help but laugh at that. Sure, everything is optimized and parts are what they are, but power draw isn't actually going down—if anything, it's rising because hardware keeps getting more powerful, and component performance is always tied directly to current and voltage.
So, yeah, just get the beefier unit and don't listen to those people who claim you can take a chassis meant for a compact sedan and expect it to handle a heavy-duty truck engine.
Man, just stay far away from Protis—I mean, sure, their prices might look competitive compared to something like Amazon, but they are lightyears away from actually operating like a decent business or showing any shred of respect to their customers.
They’re lightning fast when it comes to grabbing your cash, but once you actually try to exercise your consumer rights, they turn out to be even more stingy than a billionaire in a recession.
Honestly, if you just take a second to scroll through the endless threads about this company, you'll see that maybe 99% of the feedback is negative.
Yeah, you nailed it—looks like you're dealing with some driver issues.
Did you install all those drivers from the motherboard manufacturer's disk, or are you just running the standard Microsoft ones that come bundled with macOS?
You don't even need specific drivers anymore since they were already baked right into Windows 7.
I guess you could just go to where your Start menu is, click to open the tile, and then search there to have it install or update your drivers; if it can't find them on the machine, maybe just let it run an online search. And that's basically it.
It isn't that it's broken, you just probably don't have the drivers installed for it. I guess you should check the hardware list under My Computer to see if there's a little yellow exclamation point hanging around somewhere.
Look, I’ve got the exact same drive, and honestly, none of the cables I had lying around at home would work with it—except for the original one, which is just painfully short. I ended up heading over to Best Buy today and picked up a high-quality cable from a brand like Belkin, and now the drive works perfectly. It seems like this thing is just incredibly picky about its cabling, so you might want to double-check that your current setup isn't the thing actually screwing you over.