PC Peripherals Antec cabinets and power supplies

[astrix]

Are they horrendously expensive?

Is there an Antec cabinet + power supply available for a maximum of 3k... do let me know. Please mention the model number so I can look it up online and if possible where I can get it in Delhi.

 

[bottle]

i think you can get the slk 1600 with a low capacity psu for slightly under 3k

might be better to get an antec powersupply alone and get a generic cabby

 

[Rockyme2002]

Mayb the 1650 + 300w Psu....

Didnt c ur post bottle...sorry :cool2:

 

[hellfire]

Hey astrix, you can get Antec power supplies (dunno about cabinets) in Delhi from Surmeet Bhatia of S Paul Innovations, 21 B/9, New Rohtak Road, New Delhi - 5. His cell no. is 9899890167 and email surmeetb (at) hotmail (dot). Last I talked to him, he had True 480 (for Rs.5520) and Smart 350 (price not asked).

What I didnt like though...I asked for True 430 and he said there's no such model. When I told him to go and check antecindia.com, he called back and said True 430 is not in stock because its very old model. My question is, isnt the Smart power series older than any of the True power model? That felt like NP technology kudedaan type behavior to me :-[ .

Edit: There's one more, at NP itself - SMC International, Himanshu Jain, Mob.:98100-26658 Tel.: 26293001 (found from antecindia.com).

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Since the Antec Cabby + 300W PSU = 3K, would it be possible that the PSU alone would cost around 1.5K?

 

[JediMaster]

The Antec cabbies w/ the SmartPower PSUs didn't seem expensive when I checked with itdepot some weeks back while I was picking up a True480:

SLK 1600 (w/ SmartPower 300W) = Rs 2250
SLK 1650 (w/ SmartPower 350W) = Rs 2950

Both come with 3 years warranty and 1 80mm fan, and IIRC, a side vent too. Dunno what effect the budget might have had though !

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Thanks for the prices JediMaster
Leave alone post budget prices, there's VAT to factor in as well now!

BTW, knowing the Antecs are beefier power supplies, would a 300/350W still be underpowered or good enough for a mid-sized athlon 64 rig with some room for overclocking?

 

[deejay]

Thanks for the prices JediMaster

Leave alone post budget prices, there's VAT to factor in as well now!
BTW, knowing the Antecs are beefier power supplies, would a 300/350W still be underpowered or good enough for a mid-sized athlon 64 rig with some room for overclocking?

350W will be ok.but just barely. Personally i will go in for atleast "true" (not what is mentioned on the psu sticker)

400 ~ 450 watts psu.

 

[JediMaster]

Yup, forgot about this new annoyance called VAT !

I'll be very guarded and say that a 350W should be fairly OK ! And between the SmartPower and TruePower I'll recommend the latter ! A True380W has 24A on +12V line, while the SmartPower 350W has 16A on that line. That aside, the True has individual line regulation which will facilitate relatively better pure supply of power for the +12V line in particular.

Have you had a chance to look at this month's issue of the Chip mag ? It has an article on PSU selection. There are many such reviews on the net - the problem though is some go overboard and some tend to underplay. I have been at this +12V line thingy for a long time beginning with all my posts on Tech Arena. Chip's estimate is 20.5A on +12V line with a 6800GT and an Intel 3.0G CPU. So something like 17A should be fairly OK for a nominal A64 rig. In my personal experience, using a PowerSafe 400W which has just 17A on the +12V line, I was able to OC a skt 939 3200+ but never felt comfortable doing it. That's why I switched to True480.

BTW, Chip appears to insinuate that the local L&C PSU (guys know what it is ?) isn't upto snuff !

 

[JediMaster]

Here is some back-of-the-envelope math I posted on TA on Nov 01, 04', when I was looking to assemble my rig with a 6800. Still envy Stalker's BFG !

Well, decent 400W (many IIRC) and 500W (mostly) PSUs from what I generally see come with >20A on the +12V line. Now there is a lot of hand-waving involved in whether the total power is restricted to a combined max. or if the 3.3V and 5V are themselves restricted to a combined max. etc.

Now, a 6800 Ultra, one of the real top end cards, has additional power connectors for feeding off both the 5V and 12V rails it appears. And in "burn mode", as I gather from one of the online reviews, can draw a max current of nearly ~4.5A on the 12V line.

I know that one of the folks here, StalkerSoftware(?), is running a 6800 (Gawd I envy him) in a loaded rig and probably with a psu that has a < 20A 12V rail. So, in some respects, my evaluation below may be a little more on the very extreme, so take it with a grain of salt (all amps on the 12V rail).

So, here goes, for the fun of it ....

A Seagate HDD (SATA/non-SATA, 40-200GB): 2.8A
CDRW: 1.5A
A 6800-like card: 4.0A
Athlon 90nm CPU: (67W/12V) / 0.75 = ~7.5A
Athlon non-90nm CPU: (89W/12V) / 0.75 = ~10A

The 90nm and non-90nm have thermal design ratings of 67W and 89W according to AMD. I'm assuming that these are the actual watts consumed by the CPU when you're burning it. The 0.75 factor is to account for the efficiency (or lack of it !) of the cpu voltage regulator.

So, with 1 HDD, 1 CDRW, 1 nice gfx card, and a 90nm CPU, you need 15.8A on the 12V rail. Replace that CPU with a non-90nm one and you'll need 18.3A.
This still doesn't account for the overall efficiency of the PSU itself. Wonder what that usually is. Say 0.75 again. Now, the final Amps are 21A and 24.4A, resply.

Having said the above, however, you can manage to run such a system with a PSU that doesn't have such Amps on the 12V rail if you do not put all the components to 100% utilization simultaneouly. Either that or I should actually be giving more credit to the efficiencies of the PSUs than what I have above.

Be my guests and make corrections to the numbers if you feel like it....
But before you wimp out on the Amps for the gfx card, remember that the 6800s could be bought off the shelf here next year for a pittance...

AMD actually assumes an efficiency of 80% for the voltage regulator as against 75% above. And, the efficiency of PSUs is more like 70% unless someone knows better. I don't think Chip actually took into account the effficiency of the PSU in their math. And...6800 GTs can't still be bought for cheap, HeHe :ashamed:

Something like Antec TruePower 430W with the recently juiced-up Amps is a good buy !