Slightly OT: which case for p4c800 deluxe-e

[ftran999]

I have decided to build my own pc (just waiting for the p4 3.0 to come down
a bit) and after much research have pretty much decided on the p4c800
deluxe-e. Now I realize that the decision regarding which case to buy is
dictated by more the just simply the motherboard, but I just wanted to get
some recs from you guys.
Personally, after some net research the Antec Cases look good to me. For
the most part I'm torn between the Plus 660AMG and the Plus 1080AMG. On one
hand the 660 has just the right amount of drive bays I'm looking for. I
don't see myself needing 3 hard drives (I'm not even sure about 2 yet).
However, what makes me unsure of the 660 is that it has been stated a few
times here on this NG that this board needs at least a 400w ps. The 660
only has a 330w ps. The advantages I see of the 1080 is a better ps and
better cooling. Like I mentioned before I'm not sure I need all the drive
bays (although I guess you could say that too much is better than not
enough). Also what concerns me about the 1080 is that it is described as a
file server. My pc is a standalone. For what its worth here are some other
components I plan on adding. I will be definitely adding a p4 3.0
processor, 40-60gb hard drive, 9700 video card, cd-rom drive, dvd+-rw/cd-rw
drive, and a floppy drive. I MIGHT be adding a tv tuner card with timeshift
recording capability and if so will add a second hard drive of about 200gb
to store the recorded files. So far the only USB device I will be using is
a printer, though I would like to keep the possibility open for a few more
USB devices and maybe firewire devices. The pc will mainly be used for
gaming and net surfing.
So, what do you guys think:
1. Go ahead and get the 660. Don't listen to what other people say about
this board needing more than 400w.

2. Go for the 1080. Although, you may note need all the drive bays, you
will be better off with the higher ps rating.
3. For the same money you can get a better case than Antec such as ?????

Thank you very much in advance for your responses.

 

[jaeger]

However, what makes me unsure of the 660 is that it has been stated a few
times here on this NG that this board needs at least a 400w ps.

Ah, no. No desktop board on the planet requires 400W. If anyone told
you that, stop listening to them.

The 660 only has a 330w ps.

Perfectly fine.

1. Go ahead and get the 660. Don't listen to what other people say about
this board needing more than 400w.

The smart choice.

Personally I like to buy a case and PSU seperately, but if you don't the
660 is fine.

 

[DaveW]

Get the 1080AMG. I built a system for my brother-in-law using the 1080 and
the P4C800deluxe and he's really enjoyed it. The mere fact that the 1080
comes with the Antec 430 Watt 'True Power' power supply makes it worth it
for that caliber of system.

 

[i'm_tired]

That is technically true but there is nothing you can put in a desktop
ATX system that would require more than a *QUALITY* 330W ATX12V PSU.

LOL. On my A7N8X-Deluxe with an XP-2800 (non barton) I have an SX-6000
running 6 120 Gb WD drives. I have two more HDDs on IDE 1 and I have a
combo burner/dvd and another HDD on IDE 2. (yup that makes 10 IDE
devices). I have an FX-5900 video card (a serious power hog when in 3D by
anyone's estimation) pushing a pair of monitors. I have a Hauppauge Digital
TV/FM tuner. I have a Canopus DVStorm2 and I have an M-Audio Delta
1010-LT. Furthermore, there are 6 controllable speed 80mm fans in my case
and a high speed 80mm fan on my CPU as well as a pair of 12" red cold
cathodes and a couple of other lighting mods. That list discounts the small
amount of juice that can be grabbed by any one of the number of USB devices,
or the juice used by my onboard firewire when transferring DV and even
leaves out the juice used by my printer and my smart card reader and other
external devices.

Tell me again how I have no further power needs than a "quality 330 w
supply". I have a brand new Antec True Power 400 w supply here that won't
even boot this machine unless the cathodes are turned off and I turn down
all my case fans with my baybus. Currently it has a Startech 450 w 10 molex
that is in perpetual high fan mode due to the power draw, and I'm
considering moving to an Antec 550 w.

 

[jaeger]

Tell me again how I have no further power needs than a "quality 330 w
supply". I have a brand new Antec True Power 400 w supply here that won't
even boot this machine unless the cathodes are turned off and I turn down
all my case fans with my baybus. Currently it has a Startech 450 w 10 molex
that is in perpetual high fan mode due to the power draw, and I'm
considering moving to an Antec 550 w.

Read what I wrote again VERY carefully. Then think about it for a few
seconds. The fact that you're even using an ATX 12V PSU for that
monstrosity tells me you don't know what he hell you're doing, but
that's another argument.

 

[Paul]

That is technically true but there is nothing you can put in a desktop
ATX system that would require more than a *QUALITY* 330W ATX12V PSU.

The reason the Antec 330W Truepower is better for this, is the limits
on the outputs are more independent of one another. If you are using
an old motherboard that draws CPU power by converting from +5V, the
330W has a good +5V rating. For a newer motherboard which draws CPU
power by converting from +12V, the Truepower has a good +12V rating.
There are still combined power limits, but a desktop board shouldn't
be maxing out on +5 and +12 at the same time.

In a perfect world, every component in the computer would have a
published power spec. Since many of the components in the computer
don't have a rating, you have to take your best guess.

Here are the specs for the Truepower 330W I have handy -

VOLTAGE +5V +12V +3.3V -5V -12V +5VSB
MAX. LOAD
TRUE330 30A 17A 28A 0.5A 1.0A 2.0A

The products at PC Power and Cooling are high quality and are
rated for operation at up to 50C. The Antec doesn't list the
max temperature for those current limits, and most PC power
supplies cannot supply full power at a case temperature like
that. Still, you can see with these examples I selected at
random, that a 350W or 425W would give me an equivalent PS
to that Antec.

VOLTAGE +5V +12V +3.3V -5V -12V +5VSB

Turbocool 300ATX PFC 30A 12A 14A 0.3A 1A 2A +5 & +3.3<150W
Turbocool 300 Dell 30A 12A 14A 0.3A 1A 2A +5 & +3.3<150W
Turbocool 350ATX 32A 15A 28A 0.3A 0.8A 2A +5 & +3.3<215W
Turbocool 425ATX 40A 20A 40A 0.3A 1A 2A +5 & +3.3<300W
Turbocool 510ATX 40A 34A 30A 0.3A 2A 3A total<510W

To get a rough idea of how much +12 you need, for example, add
processor + fans + drives (idle_current) + high_end_video_card_+12V

(82.5W/12V)/0.80 + 1A + 2A + (30 to 60W)/12V = 8.6 + 1 + 2 + 3 = 14.6

Here, the first factor takes the processor "thermal power" rating under
some artificial 100% load, and assumes the Vcore on the motherboard
converts power at 80% efficiency. The 1A for fans assumes three fans
inside the case. For the drive current, you can look up a number
for most of the drives being idle, and 2A is pretty generous for two
or three drives. The video card is a big unknown, and I am only
guessing as to what it might be.

So, you see it is pretty easy to get to 15A on +12V. The True330 would
seem to be a good fit, as would a Turbocool 425W. You can do similar
arithmetic for the other power supply vendors.

So, this kind of comparison is how you determine the "quality" of the
power supplies on the market. And apparently, the shipping weight is
a good indicator of power supply quality as well - heavy is better

HTH,
Paul

 

[John]

Sure. You said (and I quote) "That is technically true but there is nothing
you can put in a desktop ATX system that would require more than a QUALITY
330W ATX12V PSU."


Think about what? You said that nothing that could be built from an ATX
system could possibly require more than a good 330w. (which leaves me
wondering why so many companies make larger PSUs and why people would buy
them if there was no need as you say) Most people who are serious about A/V
and DV editing/production have real drive space needs and anyone doing any
of that professionally has a need for redundancy and cooling. My system is
really a rather common configuration among the people I do business with or
share my hobbies with. In fact, I've seen more than a few ATX systems built
bigger than mine with a pair of SX-6000s or even SCSItoIDE SX-8000s etc.
The only thing very common that I don't have is dual processors (even more
power consumption). Instead of using dual processors to smooth out
multitasking, I use multiple computers on a KVM switch and task out
different parts of each job to different machines (much in the spirit of a
renderfarm).


Why? What would you suggest? I suppose I could knock out the switch notch
in my Lan Li and go redundant ATX, but a 450 powers it up alright and I
think a 550 won't break sweat. But hell, I'm open to suggestions. If you
have a better plan for an enclosure and PSU system for my ATX board and all
the gear I already described, by all means, speak up.

Re: your renderfarm - how do you get the big video files to the other PC's?
(eg. do you keep all of the video files on one PC and the other PC's read
them using a network, or do you take the video files to the other PC's using
hard drive caddies, or ????)

I want to set up a very small farm myself. Hehe

 

[i'm_tired]

"i'm_tired" <[email protected]> wrote in message

Re: your renderfarm - how do you get the big video files to the other
PC's? (eg. do you keep all of the video files on one PC and the other
PC's read them using a network, or do you take the video files to the
other PC's using hard drive caddies, or ????)

I want to set up a very small farm myself. Hehe

Both, actually. I have 4 PCs under my desk (one of them is mass storage
with eight 120 Gb drives in RAID 5, two 120 Gb drives on IDE channels - one
is in a hotshoe, and lastly an 80 Gb WD with my OS, partitions for swap,
rendering programs and etc). One PC is almost exclusively audio. It has
wavelab, CEP, some midi programs, and etc installed. Another has the DVD
burner and does the final render and burn on such projects. The mass
storage machine has the Canopus capture and mpeg hardware/software and the
4th machine also has a hotshoe so I can swap in my back-ups while I work for
several purposes. Mostly, when rendering different parts of a project on
another machine, I do it over the network and the changes are made on the
mass storage machine, but it all depends on the size of the project. It is a
lot easier to handle 10 or 12 minutes of DV over the network than say, an
hour of DV ;-)

Oh, also mentionable is the fact that all of these machines have firewire
and I have an external HDD enclosure with a 200 Gb WD. That gets a lot of
use sometimes. I find it particularily useful for my laptop, but I've had
occasions to transfer large files with it when my network is busy or when I
want to bring a project to another site (already mentioned I do this
hobby/business with other people)

 

[i'm_tired]

Your system is not a desktop system,

I'm thinking you might be high, but that's "another argument" <wg>. Of
course it is a desktop system and it is built entirely from ATX compatible
parts. The only thing that isn't common among 'your average PCs' is my
capture card and my SX 6000. However, many video cards come with capture
capability (eg all in wonder ATI and VIVO nVidia cards) and lots and lots
and lots and lots of people use PCI ATA-RAID cards of one kind or another.
Technically, the Promise cards that sell with Maxtor drives (among others)
are RAID cards to create JBOD arrays. How many people do you know who have
a promise card for extra drives? Heck, look back at the IDE-RAID boards
that were available just before SATA came out. That is a promise card
on-board which allows RAID 0 or 1 or can be used for 4 extra drives as JBOD.
You could have 8 IDE devices with all of those boards.

and should not have been built on
an ATX platform. You'll note the the ATX 1.3 spec calls for a max 12V
current of 19.5A. You also chose an Athlon for a DVE workstation,
which
is beyond me since this is probably the one area where the P4 slaps
the Athlon around and calls it Susan.

Well, there is more than one reason I choose AMD for most of my systems.
I've found that an "equivalent" P-4 will be faster with Adobe Premier, but
my Athlon will be faster with the Ulead products. I've had the opportunity
recently to compare a 2.8 P-4 533fsb side by side with one of my XP-2800s
non-barton 333 fsb. MPEG conversion with CCE or Tmpgnc from DV is faster
(noticeably) with the XP-2800. Render and re-render in Adobe was faster
(noticeably.. quite a bit really) with the P-4 2.8. The XP had an edge in
render or re-render in all of the Ulead products I use. It was about a tie
when rendering 30 second projects in Ulead Cool3D. - - - That all said,
there are other things I do with some of these systems than just DV/av. All
of my systems donate spare CPU cycles to the UD project. My XP-2800s bench
as 236% compared to the UD comparison system (which was a P-4 1.5 I think)
and that P-4 2.8 I had here for awhile only benched as 190%. There are
other things, too, but for now in all but my PIIIs and my laptop, I'm an AMD
customer for the time being.

You're obviously not on a
budget so
I'd have likely gone with something like the Supermicro P4SCA, which
takes an EPS12V(24 pin) PSU.

Uhhh. You've confused your part numbers I think. That is an ATX board and
is now available in both 533 and 800 fsb models, but both are ATX. Did you
mean to direct me to a P4DME or other Extended ATX Xeon board? Really the
only other boards I remember from Supermicro are rackmount and that simply
won't suit my needs.

I mention all of this because there are few things that annoy me more
than people giving misleading advice that leads others to waste money
on things they don't need.

Ever since the GeForce 3 and the Radeon 8500, even a quality 330 w PSU can
come up short if someone has a few other devices. Things have changed from
the AT days and from the beginning of ATX. Really, the trend lately is to
create server system boards as ATX form factor with ATX requirements. Just
take as an example the PR-DL and NRL-LS offerings from Asus. These are
listed as server works boards but they are ATX and take ATX power.

 

[yellowmoon]

I'm in the process of building a similar system to the one you
describe. Originally I was going to use an Enermax power supply, but
heard lots of good things about Antec, so I went for the 1080 case.
It comes with 3 fans as well as the True 430 power supply.

I'm using it for a standalone pc, not as a server. It has plenty of
room to work in, I've got expansion capability if / when I need it,
and some 'headroom' on the power supply. If the extra cost is not a
problem, I would recommend the 1080.

 

[jaeger]

I'm thinking you might be high, but that's "another argument" <wg>. Of
course it is a desktop system and it is built entirely from ATX compatible
parts.

I'm sorry, but any system with 10 drives isn't a desktop machine. It's
either a server or elaborate workstation. Desktops don't measure
storage in terabytes. 10 drives is also likely destroying the PSU's
efficiency, although if it hasn't burned up yet you're probably OK.
It's a vicious circle, the hotter the PSU runs the less efficient it
gets, and the less efficient it is the more heat it puts out.

Uhhh. You've confused your part numbers I think. That is an ATX board and
is now available in both 533 and 800 fsb models, but both are ATX. Did you
mean to direct me to a P4DME or other Extended ATX Xeon board? Really the
only other boards I remember from Supermicro are rackmount and that simply
won't suit my needs.

Sorry, when I say "ATX" I'm referring to power, not size. The physical
dimensions are largely meaningless now that everyone has huge cases.

Ever since the GeForce 3 and the Radeon 8500, even a quality 330 w PSU can
come up short if someone has a few other devices. Things have changed from
the AT days and from the beginning of ATX.

That just isn't true. The era of ther "big" PSU came about when CPUs
moved to a 12V rail, and quite simply many of the first ATX12V PSU's
were just relabeled 2.03 units. But as long as the unit can sustain ~
13A on the 12V rail it can power a non-server or workstation class
system. Dell puts 330W units in it's P4C, Radeon 9800, dual HD, dual
optical, 875P based systems. Hell, read Intel's config guidelines
sometime. I know a guy who works for them and powers a system like the
one above with a 250W Lite-On that cost $19. If we go by the
conventional measurements that several hardware sites use to help you
"pick your PSU", not even a 550W unit would meet your demands. So
obviously these tables and guides, and the "common knowledge" they claim
to reflect are flawed.

Really, the trend lately is to
create server system boards as ATX form factor with ATX requirements. Just
take as an example the PR-DL and NRL-LS offerings from Asus. These are
listed as server works boards but they are ATX and take ATX power.

I can't find the PR-DL, but the PR-DLS does NOT take an ATX PSU, neither
does the NRL-LS. ATX is 20 pin, these are 24 pin. 24 pin is commonly
called "EPS 12V", although this is not carved in stone like regular ATX.

 

[John]

Both, actually. I have 4 PCs under my desk (one of them is mass storage
with eight 120 Gb drives in RAID 5, two 120 Gb drives on IDE channels - one
is in a hotshoe, and lastly an 80 Gb WD with my OS, partitions for swap,
rendering programs and etc). One PC is almost exclusively audio. It has
wavelab, CEP, some midi programs, and etc installed. Another has the DVD
burner and does the final render and burn on such projects. The mass
storage machine has the Canopus capture and mpeg hardware/software and the
4th machine also has a hotshoe so I can swap in my back-ups while I work for
several purposes. Mostly, when rendering different parts of a project on
another machine, I do it over the network and the changes are made on the
mass storage machine, but it all depends on the size of the project. It is a
lot easier to handle 10 or 12 minutes of DV over the network than say, an
hour of DV ;-)

Oh, also mentionable is the fact that all of these machines have firewire
and I have an external HDD enclosure with a 200 Gb WD. That gets a lot of
use sometimes. I find it particularily useful for my laptop, but I've had
occasions to transfer large files with it when my network is busy or when I
want to bring a project to another site (already mentioned I do this
hobby/business with other people)

Ok. Thank you.

 

[i'm_tired]

(e-mail address removed) says...

Just an addition. I have two APC 700 VA UPS for this machine. One has the
monitors and all the peripherals (printer, scanner, camera docks, cable
modem etc etc etc) attached and the other is just this machine. At rest (no
D3D, no encoding, no TV tuner, no heavy applications) the UPC software
reports that it is feeding this machine 356 Watts.

I have a 1500 VA with all three other machines connected and it is feeding
them 440 Watts. Another dual monitor system with an Asus KT4, an XP-2200,
and a GeForce 4 TI-4400 (one hard drive, two CD, and a couple of PCI cards)
reports that it is drawing 300 Watts at idle and 320 in D3D, but the monitor
is plugged into the same output so one would have to subtract the power draw
of the 19" CRT (I really don't know what that is for this one).