Need advice on a harddrive and ram please

[Cid Highwind]

Hey guys, I've been looking for a new Harddrive since this 30GB apart from being too small, is showing signs of age as well.

I've heard from a friend who builds a lot of computers that Western Digital seems to be a good bet, so I've been looking at the 320GB ones of WD.

The only problem that now has arisen is that I have the following mobo.

It's got SATA support, but at the same time I also see SATA2 harddrives. What's the difference, and would those SATA2 drives also work on my mobo or not?

Another thing that I wanted to upgrade is my ram, currently there's 512 megs of unknown DDR400, bought it in kenya and so far it works great. I wanted to add another 512 to it, and would like to know what would be a good brand. From what I know Kingston is a solid brand, but please correct me if I'm wrong. My motherboard does not support dual channel, so don't take that into consideration. I'm considering buying "Kingston ValueRAM 512MB DDR400" for about 40 euros.

Finally, I might as well buy myself a new PSU, just to be sure I'm not going to blow when I throw something heavy at the 7800. At this moment I'm running games like Neverwinter Nights, The new Settlers and Serious Sam 2 just fine with most things maxed out (except HDR) and 4x AA, without any stability problems. My current PSU is an MTek 400W with 20 amps on the 12v rail. So I'm kinda low in that respect, especially seeing how the box demands 26. Yet I've read reviews claiming that a solid 20 would be enough for my card.

Anyway, seeing the current one is doing just fine, I'm thinking of sticking with the brand and upgrading to their 460W PSU, which comes with 30 amps on the +12v rail. This way I can buy all three upgrades for less than 200 euros, which is still more than enough to me seeing how I also spend 220 on the videocard.

I would really like to hear the advice of some of the hardware gurus here

Btw, I also heard things about fluctuations in the PSU should not be more than 5% or something, is there a way to monitor this for my current one?

[industrian]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Hey guys, I've been looking for a new Harddrive since this 30GB apart from being too small, is showing signs of age as well.

I've heard from a friend who builds a lot of computers that Western Digital seems to be a good bet, so I've been looking at the 320GB ones of WD.

Last month I got a 320 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 3.0 Gb/s (or SATA2). It does it's job and was quite cheap. If you can get a major brand (Seagate/Western Digital/Maxtor) drive fairly cheaply, go for it.

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

The only problem that now has arisen is that I have the following mobo.

You poor bastard. PC Chips = last wrung of the latter. If my Gigabyte GA-8IG1000MK doesn't sell tomorrow, then it's yours for £30. It's only SATA 1.5Gb/s (or SATA) but it's served me fine during the first quarter of the year.

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

It's got SATA support, but at the same time I also see SATA2 harddrives. What's the difference, and would those SATA2 drives also work on my mobo or not?

SATA2 is marketed/called SATA 3.0 Gb/s and is technically twice as fast as normal SATA. I think it's backwards compatible.

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Another thing that I wanted to upgrade is my ram, currently there's 512 megs of unknown DDR400, bought it in kenya and so far it works great. I wanted to add another 512 to it, and would like to know what would be a good brand. From what I know Kingston is a solid brand, but please correct me if I'm wrong. My motherboard does not support dual channel, so don't take that into consideration. I'm considering buying "Kingston ValueRAM 512MB DDR400" for about 40 euros.

I had Kingston ValueRAM 1GB DDR400 dual channel in my P4 rig for years. It's cheap and does the trick.

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Finally, I might as well buy myself a new PSU, just to be sure I'm not going to blow when I throw something heavy at the 7800. At this moment I'm running games like Neverwinter Nights, The new Settlers and Serious Sam 2 just fine with most things maxed out (except HDR) and 4x AA, without any stability problems. My current PSU is an MTek 400W with 20 amps on the 12v rail. So I'm kinda low in that respect, especially seeing how the box demands 26. Yet I've read reviews claiming that a solid 20 would be enough for my card.

Anyway, seeing the current one is doing just fine, I'm thinking of sticking with the brand and upgrading to their 460W PSU, which comes with 30 amps on the +12v rail. This way I can buy all three upgrades for less than 200 euros, which is still more than enough to me seeing how I also spend 220 on the videocard.

I would really like to hear the advice of some of the hardware gurus here

Btw, I also heard things about fluctuations in the PSU should not be more than 5% or something, is there a way to monitor this for my current one?

Hiper Type-R FTW. Refraction and myself can't be wrong.

I'm not sure about fluctuations in the PSU, but the trick is to buy a good one to negate the need to worry about them.

[Cid Highwind]

Well so far the mobo is working just fine actually, what would be a reason to upgrade to that one?

And the PSU you linked to, it's got 2 +12v thingies, but both do not go over 20A, I'm a newb to this, but wouldn't that mean that if I can only plug one of those into my video card, it would run low? Well read some reviews, seems like I shouldn't worry about that. Anyway, it's a good 40 euros more expensive, so I have to consider it...

[DaStinger77]

For the PSU youl'll want the +12v rail to be at least 20A if yer planning on putting a high end video card in the machine. For a harddrive, any major brand will work but I recommend Seagate for their 5 year warranty. With RAM, if your going to go with 2 512MB sticks then pretty much anything will do, if your going to buy bigger sticks (1GB or larger) then I'd recommend not buying cheap as the CAS latencey on them is slow, buy some Kingston Hyper-X or some OCz enhanced latency.

[industrian]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Well so far the mobo is working just fine actually, what would be a reason to upgrade to that one?

NM, I just saw "PC Chips" and thought you wanted a new one.

[refraction]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Well so far the mobo is working just fine actually, what would be a reason to upgrade to that one?

And the PSU you linked to, it's got 2 +12v thingies, but both do not go over 20A, I'm a newb to this, but wouldn't that mean that if I can only plug one of those into my video card, it would run low? Well read some reviews, seems like I shouldn't worry about that. Anyway, it's a good 40 euros more expensive, so I have to consider it...

correction the amps are added together, as it has 2 12v rails instead of 1, you will be hard pressed to find a dual 12v rail with stupidly high ampage.

system req's state you need roughly 30A on the 12v rail for everything on a high end system, but as these rails are split you are getting a total of 40Amps for everything.

also the 12v lines are seperate to the PCI-E connectors, it comes with 2 of them so no need to worry

n trust me, i have an Oc'd dual core Opteron 165, a GF 7900GTX, dvd drive, 2 WD SATA drives, SBLive on a DFI Lanparty, and its solid as a rock

[Cid Highwind]

Well I haven't got PCI-e, so I hope I can still connect the card

Thanks for explaining the stuff a bit Ref.

@Dastinger: Well at this moment I have a 400W Mtek PSU, which has got 20Amps on the 12v rail, but I am afraid it's on the edge, and with soon to have a SATA harddrive attached to it, and some additional ram, I prefer to be sure. And I might even try overclocking the card because from what I've read there seems to be a lot of room for it. Might give my P4 a little boost as well, it isn't a Prescott so heat is somewhat less of an issue I think.

Only thing left is the confimation about the HDD working on my SATA1 mobo.

[industrian]

It should, as long as you use a jumper switch:

[Cid Highwind]

Thanks a million

*hands Industrian a Grolsch*

[refraction]

if you dont wanna get that powersupply, theres a list of good ones here

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10854

the recommended ones are basically ones that will give pleanty of power for a high end system i dont totally agree with it tho due to it saying my PSU isnt recommended for Dual Core or SLi systems, but it works fine and im O/C'd by 800mhz ;p

[Cid Highwind]

http://www.perfect-systems.nl/info.asp?info=59681

This one seems to be highly interesting to me, it's a bit more friendly in the financial department.

I don't mean to go SLI, hell they don't have that on AGP

I do want to OC my P4 and my 7800 a bit, just for trying. Think I'll be safe with this one?

[refraction]

Enermax make pretty good PSU's, you should be safe with that one

[DaStinger77]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

@Dastinger: Well at this moment I have a 400W Mtek PSU, which has got 20Amps on the 12v rail, but I am afraid it's on the edge, and with soon to have a SATA harddrive attached to it, and some additional ram, I prefer to be sure. And I might even try overclocking the card because from what I've read there seems to be a lot of room for it. Might give my P4 a little boost as well, it isn't a Prescott so heat is somewhat less of an issue I think.

Only thing left is the confimation about the HDD working on my SATA1 mobo.

I currently have a GeForce 6600GT which has a seperate molex connector cause its AGP. My PSU us 420watt and only has 13Amps on the 12V+ rail, run 2 hard drives, a cdrom, and a dvd burner, and prolly about 8 fans with no probs at all. Its only a single rail psu too. You should be absolutely fine, especially with a duel-rail psu.

[refraction]

i would NOT recommend that, a cheap PSU is a quick ticket to frying the whole of your PC.

saw this on newegg as the comments for that psu

Pros: Definately lasted longer than I thought. I bought this power supply as a temporary. Lasted me about 9 months and then died. Provided lots of cables....


Cons: Loud. Low amps on the 12V.... More »


Other Thoughts: Good power supply for the $$

doesnt really sell it for me, and for $19.99 i wouldnt recommend putting it on anything better than an athlon xp. A P4 or A64 is out of the question there. But hey if you want a system that could be possibly unstable and might blow up in a couple of months, go for it

[Cid Highwind]

Heh, I prefer not to take it any further than exploding cd's, thank you

Btw, for the Ram, I found this stick to be only 10 bucks more expensive than the Kingston Value Ram, will it be worth it? link

[refraction]

certainly! has a nice low CAS latancy.

dont be afraid to check out OCZ or Geil memory, even Corsair. they are all very good makes (i personally run Geil)

[Cid Highwind]

Well it will be paired up with, probably, slower memory, is there a good way to measure the speed and latency of my current ram stick?

[industrian]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Well it will be paired up with, probably, slower memory

I don't recommend that.

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

is there a good way to measure the speed and latency of my current ram stick?

Doesn't memtest do that?

[DaStinger77]

The Hyper-X RAM is great for the price, If ya have the cash Id suggest OCz EL Platinum. But for $10 the Hyper-X is definitely worth it!

[refraction]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Well it will be paired up with, probably, slower memory, is there a good way to measure the speed and latency of my current ram stick?

i agree with industrian, mixing ram is bad bad, even if its the same stuff, they might give you single sided instead of double sided, depending what you need, it can cause alsorts of problems ev