Recommendation of Hardware

[ripken204]

Hey I just have another question regarding PSU.

What is the SATA connectors for. Aren't the HDD's using SATA normal pheripheral connectors like the IDE HDD's?

some sata hdds have only sata power connectors and some have both sata and molex type connectors. if they have both then only use one, its your choice, it doesnt matter which one you pick. personally i use the sata connectors so i can free up my molex connectors for whatever i need.

[jcarle]

some sata hdds have only sata power connectors and some have both sata and molex type connectors. if they have both then only use one, its your choice, it doesnt matter which one you pick. personally i use the sata connectors so i can free up my molex connectors for whatever i need.

It does matter. The SATA power connector provides the hard drive with 12V, 5V AND 3.3V power, which allows the hard drive to use less power when it can. The molex connector only provides 12V and 5V.

[weEvil]

How do you calculate how much W'ts you need anyway for a system?

Would 450W be enough for 3 HDD's, 3 DVD/CD-ROM's, a Gf 8800 serries, and a 2.4GHZ Dual/X2 processor intel/amd with 4 GB ram?

You running them all at the same time? And do you plan to upgrade to a SLi setup? In that case, save a trip to the store and buy a 500W PSU (read some reviews, higher is not always better since it depends on the manufacturer) so you have headroom for later.

ANd what are you using 3DVD/CD-ROMs for? That's overkill.

And I wouldn't worry about the Ram. Doesn't suck up much energy. I'd be more worried about the cooling and the number of fans in the case rather than ram.

[Zxian]

In that case, save a trip to the store and buy a 500W PSU (read some reviews, higher is not always better since it depends on the manufacturer) so you have headroom for later.

450W is plenty for that setup. Many computers have far over specced PSUs. Read here for more info

Just as a follow up to the "amps per rail" question. Intel specced this out as part of their ATX standard for "safety requirements". The premise is that very high currents lead to high temperatures. Without limitations on how much current you can have per rail (IIRC the limit is 18A) then you could theoretically end up drawing all 400 or 500W through a few thin strands of copper. Before long, the sheathing would melt under the heat, and bad things would happen after that...

However, many manufacturers don't actually have independent rails. Chances are they simply use breakers that trip when the current gets too high, but all of the separate "rails" are feeding off the same source. I've seen this all too often when testing PSU's for SilentPCReview.com - when you load a single source, the other 12V lines drop as well. They're all interconnected inside.

[Messerschmitt]

Probably I will only use a CD-Rom and a DVD-RW Rom. I have the CD Rom's for a long time so why not use them instead of using the DVD Rom all the time and shorten it's life.

So basicaly the best option would be to chose a power source having 4 SATA connectors in case I plan to have 2-3 HDD's and maybe in the future a SATA connected DVD-Rom (I heard these exist too right?). A bit confused here since I never seen HDD's or DVD/CD Rom's using something else than a molex connector for it's power.

[Zxian]

I honestly don't think you need to worry about the lifetime of the DVD drive. I used my old laptop CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive all the time and after two years, it was still fine. Never a single read error, and by that time, DVD-burners were common for a very reasonable price (I was contemplating upgrading it).

I'd suggest using a single DVD-RW drive, running over PATA. SATA DVD drives exist, but AFAIK they aren't quite as reliable as you'd hope they'd be.

The more SATA power connectors you can have, the better. You'll never know when you might want to upgrade. It's one thing I wish I had more of in my main server...