34 replies to this topic

[Vincent Vascaul]

So true Cata about consumer ignorence cycles. As for the original topic I am just going to go with listen Cata Vulpe and Barbaric, between the 3 you will get a pretty honest and realistic picture of things.

[JackDeth]

The power formula for wattage is volts X amps.
So...if a PS is rated at 20Amps on a 12V rail that equals 240Watts.
The sticker on the side may say otherwise...but I always check just in case.
I have seen PS units rated at ridiculous numbers...when asked..the manufacturer claimed it must have been an error in the printing of the sticker...yeah...right!
Before building computers using anyone's PS...I always put the first box of them to the destruction test.
We loaded them to 100% rated capacity and let them burn in for 72 hours.
If they passed that test...we loaded them to 120% rated and timed them to destruction.
Never did find a unit that would last at 120%.
We did however weed out a lot of bad suppliers.
I like to think that we helped the industry by doing these tests...we certainly weeded out a bunch of "wannabees"...LOL
Jack

[Jenin]

hmm, I was liking what I saw until I decided to check online reviews of Cyberpower. While most are glowing reviews, it seems like about 1 in 10 reviews are a freakin nightmare experience. I sure would hate to be that 1/10th unlucky *******.

[Vulpesveritas]

Eh every OEM has some issues. But if you order any extras like having your OS installed for you and professional cabling, there shouldn't be much to worry about as I don't know of a way they can have a part be dead and they install the OS.
And then too every OEM I'm aware of gets that for the most part, save Puget, but they cost a lot more.

Oh, and there's also ibuypower and AVAdirect, but for the most part Cyberpower is one of the better assemblers as far as cost/selection goes.

[Catamount]

AVAdirect has a better selection by far on many parts, but when I priced out the machine in question here, they cost slightly more.

As far as quality, there's always a risk of someone building your machine wrong. They don't care if it's right or not; you're just part of a statistical cost of warranty claims to them for incorrect machines. Beyond that, they just want you to pay them their money with your machine going out the door as quickly and for as little money as possible. If that means that the machine isn't checked well for solid wiring, hey, like I said, they really don't care. It's not their computer after all

That's not specific to Cyberpower, but rather to anyone who builds computers. It's not really one in ten being bad; that ratio is simply grossly biased by an effect in reviews of bad experiences being more likely to be reported than good ones (since a good experience is merely the expected outcome, and therefore unremarkable), but just the same, no company really cares if your computer, specifically, works or not. Most companies are even worse. The HP, Dell, Gateway et al crowd are even worse, because they'll not only happily do shoddy construction work to cut corners and save money, but they'll package your machine with a shoddy PSU as well. If your computer fries in two-three years? Oh well, not like it's likely under warranty anyways; they don't care.


So among the vast list of companies that don't care, at least Cyberpower gives you the option to care a little more, because you can hand-pick your PSU, and I think there's even an option to pay them $10-$20 to actually given a damn about their wiring. So don't sweat it; you're going with the best option, imo.

[Brazo Izquierdo de Muerte]

well you can check out Origin PC and DigitalStorm. They both have a pretty good base system you can get for about 1400 or so. i spent a lil time with them on there sites and put together a computer that would fit your buget i wont go in to details as far as what i used im sure your smart cat you can figure that out for thos 2 sites.

Now with that being said i did use another site called Ibuypower.com good site and have delt with them before and the Cs is good.

So for the build on that site i used

Nzxt Alpha gaming case Black
AMD FX-8150 8 core proc at 3.60 Ghz
Processor cooling is a FREE up grade to a liquid colling system
Ram was 8 gig Corsair ddr 3 at 1600
Video card i used was 2 Nvida GTX 560s in sli with 1gig of ram but they free upgrade them to 2gigs of ram so you would have 4 gig total
Mobo was Gigabyte GA-990FXA
Power supply was thermaltake TR2 TRX 750m (750 watt) but that getsa free up grade to 850 watts
Hard Drive was 1TB 32 MB cache and from what i see if you want to get that plus an ssd it would run you an extra $19 for a corsair SSD
Optical Drive was the LG Blu ray reader (no write)

and thats it none the extra stuff . Grand total 1374

Hope that helps

[Koshadows]

mmm its not a bad build, but i'd just like to point out that SLI config would mean they share memory. Its not additive for those type of memory so you have a total of 2 gig.

[garx8]

I agree with the above posters. Good info all around. One thing to keep in mind if you don't already have one a good battery backup/surge is essential.I recommend apc. I've seen a comp pop due to line spike and it was a shame.apc actualy guarentees your equiptment after registering.compared to the cost of your comp its cheap piece of mind.jmho.

[Brazo Izquierdo de Muerte]

as far as the graphics cards i ment that each card would come with 2 gig per card. so 4 gig for the total but how sli sees it is a big hell if i know lol.

[Barbaric Soul]

Jenin, on 10 April 2012 - 03:45 PM, said:

hmm, I was liking what I saw until I decided to check online reviews of Cyberpower. While most are glowing reviews, it seems like about 1 in 10 reviews are a freakin nightmare experience. I sure would hate to be that 1/10th unlucky *******.

That's why I build my own

[LordDeathStrike]

Alisyn Chaynes, on 11 April 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

as far as the graphics cards i ment that each card would come with 2 gig per card. so 4 gig for the total but how sli sees it is a big hell if i know lol.

sli and crossfire split the load between multiple cards. if you run with 2, each card draws a frame alternating. so 2 gigs per card = 2 gigs max resolution textures. having 4 gigs total does nothing for you.

if running tri fire or quad sli ect, it further reduces the load on each card, but because of the bus traffic and sloppy *** codeing that most of the time doesnt use 2 cards very well, the performance increases on 3 and 4 card systems are rediculously weak (4th card on sli adds like 5% performance to system graphics power with bleeding edge tech).

i have crossfired ati cards in my laptop, they work nice and i run everything on ultra max graphics, but with everything theres always caveats, like witcher 2, have to run in single card mode, on another login account for windows because it hates sli/xfire and system admins.

[Catamount]

The second card, memory-wise, in a Crossfire/SLI configuration is very strange. The slaved card really doesn't seem to do much of anything with memory. In fact, the second card in my setup has extremely faulty memory (was constantly getting BSOD 116, 0x50 parameter - PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA which the debugger identified as referring to the GPU memory). Despite that fact it works perfectly fine as a second card in Crossfire /shrug

[Brazo Izquierdo de Muerte]

thanks for clearing that up lord and cata. though i have to say that seams a lil nuts to me that it wont double it for you. but then i again a vid card and mobo enginer i am not.

any ways thanks again

[Jenin]

Thanks for all the insightful info in this thread. I will be making my own decision by the middle to end of May on which direction to go.

[Catamount]

Sounds good; let us know what you pick out