Antec Neo or Truepower ?

Hi all,

Which is better, a 650 Antec Neo or a 650W Antec Truepower trio ? I'm
looking to replace my generic PSU with a real one at a reasonable price.

Is an Antec Neo Power 650 Blue for $140 a good deal ?

Ideally I'd like to spend no more than $150 before shipping.. any other
suggestions on power supply ? I'm basically looking for the best 650W I can
buy (or as near to it as possible). 650 looks to be the sweetspot - enough
power for what I need but not off the wall in price.

I'd like to kill two birds with one stone too - I have a hard limit of $200
and I'd like to get a decent PSU and a nice CPU cooler. I'm looking for low
noise and more cooling power over flashy leds.. (I'd actually prefer not to
have leds on the cooler).

I bought an Asus silent square, but it's not the pro version and won't fit
AM2 mountings. I found a 939 to AM2 mounting adapter but it's not worth $15
+ another $15 shipping (I should add this adapter is merely two strips of
metal with holes and spacers - worth about $5 and iit would fit into a $2
envelope).

My setup:
---------------------------------------------------------------
M/B: MSI K9N4SLI
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2600Mhz, 13 x 200, stock values)
RAM: 2x 512MB Kingston HyperX DDR2 800Mhz
Gfx: PCI-E RADEON X1600
HDD1: Western Digital WD800JB PATA 7200RPM
HDD2: Western Digital WD2000JB PATA 7200RPM
DVD: Sony/Optiarc AD5170A DVDRW

RAM and CPU are running at stock speed/voltage.
--------------------------------------------------------------

I should add that newegg is out of the question - they don't ship to Canada.

Chris

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:04:43 -0400, "Skeleton Man"
wrote:

Hi all,

Which is better, a 650 Antec Neo or a 650W Antec Truepower trio ? I'm
looking to replace my generic PSU with a real one at a reasonable price.

Is an Antec Neo Power 650 Blue for $140 a good deal ?


I suppose the Canadian to US exchange rate is pretty close
right now so it's $140 either way but I don't know the going
rates of parts in Canada, yet $140 seems like overkill for
the system described below.



Ideally I'd like to spend no more than $150 before shipping.. any other
suggestions on power supply ? I'm basically looking for the best 650W I can
buy (or as near to it as possible). 650 looks to be the sweetspot - enough
power for what I need but not off the wall in price.

None of the above? Your system isn't anywhere close to
needing a 650W PSU. How about a reasonable quality 500W for
$72 delivered?

http://www.ca.buy.com/prod/Antec_Ear...203477216.html

I don't know about it's noise level, but the general idea
should be that you can about cut the price in half getting
something that still has more power than your system needs
going with a name brand 450-550W unit, maybe even cheaper if
Canada has some of the rebate deals that the US has. Maybe
at Tiger Direct?




I'd like to kill two birds with one stone too - I have a hard limit of $200
and I'd like to get a decent PSU and a nice CPU cooler. I'm looking for low
noise and more cooling power over flashy leds.. (I'd actually prefer not to
have leds on the cooler).

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro. You don't need anything more
unless going for an extreme overclock (can handle your CPU
at stock speed with plenty of margin) and be reasonably
quiet doing so. I don't know where the best place is to buy
one in Canada but often it's about $20 USD plus S/H.



I bought an Asus silent square, but it's not the pro version and won't fit
AM2 mountings. I found a 939 to AM2 mounting adapter but it's not worth $15
+ another $15 shipping (I should add this adapter is merely two strips of
metal with holes and spacers - worth about $5 and iit would fit into a $2
envelope).

My setup:
---------------------------------------------------------------
M/B: MSI K9N4SLI
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2600Mhz, 13 x 200, stock values)
RAM: 2x 512MB Kingston HyperX DDR2 800Mhz
Gfx: PCI-E RADEON X1600
HDD1: Western Digital WD800JB PATA 7200RPM
HDD2: Western Digital WD2000JB PATA 7200RPM
DVD: Sony/Optiarc AD5170A DVDRW

RAM and CPU are running at stock speed/voltage.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Frankly the best upgrade you could make with the rest of the
money you'd save getting above suggested parts is to add a
pair of 1GB memory modules. Next decide if you need the
full 3GB at slower timings or 2GB at faster if doing
something where memory bandwidth matters more than memory
amount (but IMO, usually the larger amount of memory is
worth the slight penalty, if any, when running 4 modules).
Of course I'm assuming the board has 4 slots, if not then
the answer is simple, to only use 2 x 1GB modules -OR- 2 x
2GB modules if it supports that.

Beyond that, $200 is a lot to invest in an aging system but
we don't know what your primary needs are.

I suppose the Canadian to US exchange rate is pretty close
right now so it's $140 either way but I don't know the going
rates of parts in Canada, yet $140 seems like overkill for
the system described below.

Yes it's overkill for the system I am powering, but is it off the mark for
that particular PSU ?

None of the above? Your system isn't anywhere close to
needing a 650W PSU. How about a reasonable quality 500W for
$72 delivered?

That looks like an excellent deal, but I'm also looking to future
compatibility. What happens if I throw in 3 or 4 WD Raptors for example ?
(or even two)
Also if I upgrade later on to a quad core system is 500W going to cut it ?
(kinda hoping to keep the PSU beyond my next upgrade in a year or so)

I don't know about it's noise level, but the general idea
should be that you can about cut the price in half getting
something that still has more power than your system needs
going with a name brand 450-550W unit, maybe even cheaper if
Canada has some of the rebate deals that the US has. Maybe
at Tiger Direct?

Noise is another factor in both PSU and CPU cooler, as is heat.. the theory
is if I run a larger PSU at 2/3 capacity it will produce a lot less heat and
noise than a smaller PSU at 3/4 capacity.

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro. You don't need anything more
unless going for an extreme overclock (can handle your CPU
at stock speed with plenty of margin) and be reasonably
quiet doing so. I don't know where the best place is to buy
one in Canada but often it's about $20 USD plus S/H.

The quieter the better.. the stock 80MM fan is running at 4300RPM most of
the time, and that's with thermal control enabled (if I let it run full
speed it's like 5500RPM and sounds like a Jet engine!) My PC runs 24/7 in
the bedroom so I'd like to get it as quiet as possible..

Primary requirements are high res image editing (Photoshop) and VMWARE -
they're the two most intensive things.

Chris

Just noticed buy.com requires a CC. I was hoping for Paypal but no such
luck.

Chris

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:48:56 -0400, "Skeleton Man"
wrote:

I suppose the Canadian to US exchange rate is pretty close
right now so it's $140 either way but I don't know the going
rates of parts in Canada, yet $140 seems like overkill for
the system described below.

Yes it's overkill for the system I am powering, but is it off the mark for
that particular PSU ?

I don't know Canadian prices. One reference to US prices
would be pricewatch,
http://castle.pricewatch.com/s/searc...upply+for+Case



None of the above? Your system isn't anywhere close to
needing a 650W PSU. How about a reasonable quality 500W for
$72 delivered?

That looks like an excellent deal, but I'm also looking to future
compatibility. What happens if I throw in 3 or 4 WD Raptors for example ?
(or even two)

Well... are you going to do that? Personally I'd prefer
putting a bunch of drives in a gigabit linked fileserver,
but yeah if you want to add 4 Raptors than a larger PSU
seems more worthwhile. I think two would be ok but it's a
grey area adding a little at a time, 1 vs 2 vs 3, etc.
Without overclocking you really ought to have enough current
to support 4 Raptors with a 500W, though if you were to
switch to a higher powered video card and overclock, or
switch to a quad core then you'll have to recalculate.


Also if I upgrade later on to a quad core system is 500W going to cut it ?
(kinda hoping to keep the PSU beyond my next upgrade in a year or so)

If all you did was swap in a quad core phenom and add 2
Raptors I think the 500W would do the job. Anything more
and it seems like 600W+ would give more margin, but
ultimately if you start replacing a lot of stuff you'd then
have enough leftover parts for another system, so it could
still make sense to get the 500W for that purpose, switching
to 650W when you really need to.


I don't know about it's noise level, but the general idea
should be that you can about cut the price in half getting
something that still has more power than your system needs
going with a name brand 450-550W unit, maybe even cheaper if
Canada has some of the rebate deals that the US has. Maybe
at Tiger Direct?

Noise is another factor in both PSU and CPU cooler, as is heat.. the theory
is if I run a larger PSU at 2/3 capacity it will produce a lot less heat and
noise than a smaller PSU at 3/4 capacity.

That's not necessarily true, 2/3rds vs 3/4ths won't make
much difference if they were otherwise equivalent 80-plus
rated PSU. As for noise, 4 Raptors isn't exactly quiet
either so you seem to have conflicting goals.

However, you wouldn't be running the 500W at 3/4 capacity,
that'd be 375W. As the system sits now you might be around
150-200W, add 4 HDD and you're up nearer 200-250W. With a
more demanding processor let's say 40W more at load and
still you're under 300W. A power hungry gaming video card
would seem to be the final part to replace if you're getting
up close, but as for noise since either wattage PSU will
have close enough efficiency then either would create about
the same noise if all else is equal, though actually it's
often that higher wattage PSU have their fans set to spin
faster because it'd have to in order to maintain acceptible
cooling at full load.




Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro. You don't need anything more
unless going for an extreme overclock (can handle your CPU
at stock speed with plenty of margin) and be reasonably
quiet doing so. I don't know where the best place is to buy
one in Canada but often it's about $20 USD plus S/H.

The quieter the better.. the stock 80MM fan is running at 4300RPM most of
the time, and that's with thermal control enabled (if I let it run full
speed it's like 5500RPM and sounds like a Jet engine!) My PC runs 24/7 in
the bedroom so I'd like to get it as quiet as possible..

That seems pretty high for having thermal control, is the
case lacking good airflow or have you set the thermal
control threshold awefully low? Regardless, back when I ran
an o'c Athlon 64 @ 3GHz I used one of those and it stayed
under 1300 RPM at full load, under 1000 RPM idling. I can
only assume in Canada your average ambient temp will be as
low or lower, I don't try to live in a refrigerator.




Primary requirements are high res image editing (Photoshop) and VMWARE -
they're the two most intensive things.

I'm not seeing where 4 Raptors play into this, but hey it's
your toy. :-)

You're going to be able to find deals in Canada better than
those who don't live there, offhand I only know a handful of
Canadian sellers like NICX, Tiger Direct, eCost... it'd take
a while for me to remember any others.

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:52:15 -0400, "Skeleton Man"
wrote:

Just noticed buy.com requires a CC. I was hoping for Paypal but no such
luck.

Chris


They do take Google Checkout, at least in the US, so you
might see what kind of payments Google Checkout accepts.

Skeleton Man wrote:
Hi all,

Which is better, a 650 Antec Neo or a 650W Antec Truepower trio ? I'm
looking to replace my generic PSU with a real one at a reasonable
price.


http://canadacomputers.com/index.php...2&cid=PS. 808
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...ture= CORSAIR

Skeleton Man wrote:
Hi all,

Which is better, a 650 Antec Neo or a 650W Antec Truepower trio ? I'm
looking to replace my generic PSU with a real one at a reasonable price.

Is an Antec Neo Power 650 Blue for $140 a good deal ?
snip...
Chris


As others have said that looks like overkill unless you are aiming for
multi-gpu overclock future. Adding a couple of Raptors and a quad cpu would
still seem to be relatively minor in my book. But, that said, my current
(pun intended) favorite power supply maker is Seasonic. Since you seem set
on a 650W unit, you might try this on for size:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...%20Electronics

They are Canadian so the business dealings should be simplified. Even from
the US they are easy enough to deal with and they are a major distributor
so it seems unlikely they will take your money and head for the tropics...


--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

kony wrote:

.... snip ...

You're going to be able to find deals in Canada better than
those who don't live there, offhand I only know a handful of
Canadian sellers like NICX, Tiger Direct, eCost... it'd take
a while for me to remember any others.

Are you implying that Tiger Direct has reformed its evil practices?

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: http://cbfalconer.home.att.net
Try the download section.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Skeleton Man wrote:

Just noticed buy.com requires a CC. I was hoping for Paypal but no such luck.

With companies like Buy.com, you want to pay only with a credit card,
because it's a lot easier to get your money back through the card
dispute process (Fair Credit Billing Act) than through other means if
the merchant goofs up, cheats, or goes bankrupt. One neat provision
of credit card law is that it obligates the card issuer to act as your
collection agent, and they have to honor your dispute unless they can
prove that it's wrong, but few admit this.

I'd avoid Antec TruePowers because they're made by Channel Well
Technology, which uses junky Fuhjyyu capacitors that don't last very
long. The good Antecs are by Seasonic, like the Trio, EarthWatts, and
I think Quattro.