Suggestions for budget "supercomputer"

bikerdude on 6/8/2015 at 22:38

Quote Posted by zombe

I have no idea what that means :/ ... which is why i cry for help. PSU list: (http://www.ordi.ee/EPood/Products.aspx?MC=KOMP&I...ItemID=1300-1432&IC=1810&PSize=9998&PGC=PSU)

What's the max you want tp pay for a PSU..? as this is the single most importatn part of any PC.

zombe on 7/8/2015 at 13:13

Thanks for the opinions/consideration expressed - had, again, stuff i needed to dig a bit deeper on than i initially thought. Cheers!

Decision time:

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PSU matter. Did a educate-myself-tour around the internet ...

Rail conf needs a bit of googling as the shop links tended to be quite unsatisfactory - that was annoying (majorly so). One rail PSU's are rather rare to say the least and cost more (which actually makes no sense - i assume it is from enthusiast market forcing).

Now, search for, what difference it indicates and does it matter, was a bit more easier. Short story: it does not really matter. For example the selected PSU:
(http://www.fsp-group.com.tw/pro/7/FSP500-60HHN85.pdf)

Both 12V rails give (DC) 12V*18A=216W -> about 3 times more than actually needed for what is on them.
Combined for 12V was not listed, but similar (well, 4-rail) models from same manufacturer listed ~408W.

There was time when GPU manufacturers went a bit nuts and even made cards that needed way over 300W per piece ... well, i could not care less about thous. Sure, i can see some SLI/XF cards to still need more to be comfortable, but the Mobo does not even support thous to begin with.

Info about PSU-rail saga in the last (almost) 10 years is largely conveyed the same way (ie. consistent) with varying degrees of technical details given - and i agree with the bottom line:
* actual multi-rail units are not really a mass market thing - so, hard to even find and definitely not something one buys accidentally.
* the safety from splitting a single rail into multiple - does not amount to much, but does not hurt to have either.
* single rail is useful if the stuff you attach to them would otherwise exceed what the rail can comfortably give - not an issue for the wast majority of people (assuming the PSU stats conform with reality oc. - generally not a problem with 5y or younger PSUs).

Verdict: The selected PSU has the connectors needed and can comfortably supply teh power needed with reasonable headroom for expansions/replacements. Manufacturer is fine. The usual efficiency / PFC / power-off / etc stuff looks also fine. It is ok.

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Memory matter: with current prices the total loss for immediate 8GB->16GB would be ~30€ (mobo diff included as a starting point of course - assuming the cheapest 4-slot mobo in the list is a go). Watching 18month MEM price tendencies for all the module sizes/speeds being produced and taking into account that it is not a particularly lucrative market - i still expect the 8GB kit to see a small fall and 16GB kit to see a comparatively considerable fall. Ie, the price diff will be even smaller when the time comes -> not worth to burn braincells over at this time.

Verdict: 2 slots is ok.

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Gave the order in, and complained about the ridiculous CPU price (total quite a lot over budget) - that did not fly, but got the non-single-item-pricelist-not-to-be-confused-with-storefront-pricing (in english?) for all the stuff - oh, well, good enough i guess.

Final total (+12€ for assembly and testing, +10€ for different HDD, no other changes): 493€, just below the budget line.

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Now comes the time everyone tells me what a huge mistake i made here'n'there x_x :D

bikerdude on 7/8/2015 at 17:31

Thats a budget no-name PSU if ever I saw one, I would suggest trying to find some reviews of it if at all possible. Whats the price of that PSU and where are you getting it from..?

zombe on 8/8/2015 at 08:38

It sure is a budget one. Would not call it a no-name tho.

Company: Fortron
OEM (ie. the important part): FSP (ie. Fortron Source Power Group - the fifth largest PSU manufacturer in the world)

All the 500W PSUs in the shop are in 40-45€ range (the one i picked is 41€ [sold at 38€ from non-single-part-price-listing]) - either Fortron or Chieftech. There is nothing else.

Everything from the shop comes with 2y local warranty (and the reminder [ie. additional warranties, if any, from OEMs] they will forward internally). The shop is largely a PC shop, so they do not stock random junk. Focused on large clients nowadays whenever they can (ie. thousands of PCs per sale).

edit: looked around what i could find about the PSU, not much. But a slightly different 500W version (tested variant has more 12V rail splits and slightly higher concurrent total for them and, obviously, a bit different connector-set) from the same series is included in many reviews. Including this 40-PSU one:
(http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/5777/500-550-watt-power-supplies-review-40-models-tested)
All results withing the top 1/2 or 1/3. While not the exact same model - it is a variant from the same series and possibly fairly similar internally (at least till the final split into multiple rails).