Hi
Went out and brought a new PC yesterday from 1-mind media in Birmingham.
It was meant to have a 650 coolermaster PSU but in fact in the box is a
NorthQ 500
What are the consequences of a 500 psu? The rig is mainly for games, and
after a little bit of searching most people seem to suggest that anything
less than 650 is just not powerful enough, and the GPU will not run at its
full potential, is this correct??
What you have described below (of your system) should run
from a good 500W PSU. The problem is that this generic
"NorthQ 500" is not likely to be good, probably a generic
piece of junk, and I think it a very bad idea to use this
PSU even if you had less valuable parts.
If it were a good, trustworthy brand of PSU, rated for
enough current on it's 12V rail as some 500W are, the GPU
will run at it's full potential. For that matter it would
try to run at it's full speed, potential, no matter what.
We phoned the guy up who sold us the rig and he insists its totally adequate
as its a very good make PSU in the box, and equally as good as the
coolermaster, if not better!.
1) Coolermaster is not exactly a good brand either, but a
650W Coolermaster is bound to be better than a generic
NorthQ 500.
2) If this is a complete system with a fixed price, a
substitution of a lower wattage generic brand PSU is
completely unacceptible regardless of whether the guy says
it's "totally adequate".
I would tell him you either insist on the originally spec'd
part, or to knock $100 off and you'll supply the PSU
yourself.
He has offered to refund us the difference etc by the way, but still, i need
to know whether the 500 is good enough or I need to get it replaced
What exactly does refund the difference mean? You don't
want to pay him for this lesser PSU then have money invested
in it only to have to replace it too. If the system were
delivered without a PSU then there is the question of what
would happen if the system doesn't work properly after you
have added a PSU, that there could be some problem with it
unrelated to the PSU but he might balk at handling the
problem.
I don't know the PC market there, whether the system has a
good price for what's in it or not, but I'd ask for either
the originally spec'd part or pass on the system, buying it
elsewhere.
As mentioned above, a good 500W PSU would be sufficient for
the system, but it's about as low as one would want to go
and really inappropriate considering the link below puts it
at about $2320 USD, which is fairly expensive in the US
market for those parts.
Basic System specs -
Quad Core 6600
4 Gig RAM
Nvidea 8800GTX 768MB
here it is on ebay -
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....m=290154124038&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=019
Any info is greatly appreciated
Unless your market is worse than I realize, I'd see about
getting out of the deal. That's way too much to pay to have
the seller making substitutions. I'm making a rough
estimate of the parts below, looking at Pricewatch.com and
Newegg pricing.
$500 video
$100 hard drive
$40 DVD drive
$130 Case
$290 Q6600 CPU
$220 motherboard
$160 4GB PC2 4200 (for the price of the system I would want
PC2 6400 not 4200)
$0 - "Software" (these CDs come with the parts bought)
$0 - Sound card (integrated, but you should want a Creative
Labs gaming oriented card for this class of gaming system
instead)
$110 Windows Vista Home Premium
$0 - Cables, mic, bracket connectors, etc (included with
motherboard, case, video card, etc)
-----
$1550 (USD)
Granted, these are just parts, give 'em $50 for assembly,
$50 for testing, $30 (?) shipping and you're still at only;
$1680, a fair bit under $2320
The NorthQ PSU is probably about $70, the Coolermaster about
$110. For use in a system costing upwards of $2320, a
$130-$150 PSU seems more appropriate. I would get a cheaper
case before skimping on the PSU. What I'm saying is, it's
not just about wattage, there are some corners that are
often cut to arrive at lower cost high wattage PSU and that
is not a gamble you should take in this class of system,
especially not if you do not have good/full-retail
warranties on parts like the motherboard and video card
(primarily, not to negate the value of other parts
warranties but 1 year on these two is not long enough, not
when a generic PSU can be a ticking bomb waiting to go off
in a year or two when subject to heavy loads as with
gaming).
Ebay page also reads "Belkin wifi card". What is this? The
motherboard, if it's the -Premium Wifi version as listed,
has it's own network controller, jack and antenna with it.
There would be no need for a belkin wifi card, I would
wonder if the seller has made another substitution and it's
not the wifi version of the board but rather the cheaper
version with a $10 PCI card installed. IMO, you don't want
a PCI card for wifi when it can be avoided, at least not
until there is some real gain to doing so, like buying a
802.11n card at a later date, not for mere 802.11g
functionality.
Maybe my math above is not reflective of the UK market
prices, but the PSU is not well matched for the system.
Even the Coolermaster is a bit lower quality than I'd accept
if paying this much.
