I'm planning a new rig and have most of it figured out. I want to move into an Opteron 165 dual core and plan to overclock it. What I'm not sure of is whether the Antec NEO 430 is going to be enough for me. Any experienced opinions to offer?

My rigs are generally modest. I'll never have 8 various drives or even SLI in this box. It's going to be a general purpose/gaming/cruncher.

Here's the gear list so far:
- Opteron 165
- DFI LanParty Ultra-D or Asus A8N32-SLI (for their ability to OC nicely on a 9x multiplier chip)
- 2 gig OCZ low latency (5-2-3-2) RAM
- Current X800 PCIe graphics
- Zallman CPNS9500 or another CPNS7700 cooler
- 2 optical drives from old rig
- 2 HD from old rig
- 2 or 4 fans

As you can see there's not a whole lot to send juice to. I'm more concerned with stability and use in future setups than I am in raw power. I currently have a TruPower 430 and a TruBlue 480 that do nicely with similar setups but will stay in other boxes. They're running A64 and Barton XP cpu's now. This will be my first dual core cpu and I want to do it right (and still eat).

Any help sure would be appreciated.

Jim

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Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking.
Equilibrium

I've been using an Allied AL-A400ATX for the last few years and it has worked quite well.

Computer's current configuration:

Supermicro full size tower case w\\ 4 fans
SuperMicro PIIIDM3
2x 800MHz P3 Coppermine
4x 256MB CL2 Reg ECC SDRAM
ATI all-in-wonder 7200 2x\\4x 32MB AGP video card
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Sound card
1x IBM DPTA-371360 ATA66 Hard Drive
1x Sony DWQ-30A multiformat CD\\DVD R\\RW
1x Teac CDR-56S SCSI CD-R
1x Toshiba XM-6201TA SCSI CD-ROM
3Ware 7500-4 4 port RAID ccontroller (JBOD\\0\\1\\5\\10\\)
4x IBM Deskstar DTLA-307015 ATA100 Hard Drives (RAID 10 array)

The price on their top model, AL-B500E is quite reasonable at newegg.

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Use the Termaltake 680w PSU.

It'll leave you with room to upgrade.

If you want the "Ultimate" PSU, you can go with a PC Power & Cooling model, but do expect to pay anywhere from 200-600 for a good PSU.

The Thermaltake works great.

Antec has been faltering as of late, stay clear.

Seasonic makes some good PSU's but are pretty new and unknown.

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I've been using an Allied AL-A400ATX for the last few years and it has worked quite well.

Thanks for the info! I'll look into Allied - hadn't seen them in my searches.

Jim

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Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking.
Equilibrium

Use the Termaltake 680w PSU.

It'll leave you with room to upgrade.

If you want the "Ultimate" PSU, you can go with a PC Power & Cooling model, but do expect to pay anywhere from 200-600 for a good PSU.

I've seen reviews about them. A bit beyond what I can reasonably spend at the moment and hit the timeframe I'm constrained to. I need to "parts out" some of the old one for my son in time for him to go back to college.

Antec has been faltering as of late, stay clear.

No kidding? I hadn't seen that anywhere. Thanks for bringing it up.

Seasonic makes some good PSU's but are pretty new and unknown.

I saw a really good review from Tom's Hardware about them. Their 600w got top mention on a large shootout for it's efficiency. They're on my research list.

Thanks for the input Aaron. I appreciate it.

Jim

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Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking.
Equilibrium

I'm planning a new rig and have most of it figured out. I want to move into an Opteron 165 dual core and plan to overclock it. What I'm not sure of is whether the Antec NEO 430 is going to be enough for me. Any experienced opinions to offer? My rigs are generally modest. I'll never have 8 various drives or even SLI in this box. It's going to be a general purpose/gaming/cruncher. Here's the gear list so far: - Opteron 165

I think that the Opteron board comes with a 12 lead power block on the MB, if irc then you will need to make sure you get one that has one of those. NOT all ps's do! I got a new machine last fall, a p4d 840 EE, and it has a 500 watt power supply. The shop that built it, I usually do my own but my wife was paying, said that the new faster chips can use alot under certain circumstances. Also it left room for the 4 other hard drives I put in it, I put in a 160 gig, 2 250 gig and a 400 gig drive, it came with an 80 gig sata drive and a sata dvd writer that are still in there. I need LOTS of storage space.
Yes that means I have over a terrabyte of storage space now. About 2/3 of it is used now and more use is already planned.

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I think that the Opteron board comes with a 12 lead power block on the MB, if irc then you will need to make sure you get one that has one of those. NOT all ps's do!

Thanks for the warning. I'll keep it in mind.

Yes that means I have over a terrabyte of storage space now. About 2/3 of it is used now and more use is already planned.

Holy crap! What do you do with that thing, record, make movies?

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Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking.
Equilibrium

Antec has been faltering as of late, stay clear.

I was surprised to see this and investigated further. Once again, thanks for the heads up, as the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe was one of my strong contenders. From the 6 reviews I've seen on the Neo series, this one included, it seems to be a great choice for a lot of reasons. I'm just not sure that there's been enough time yet to clear the retail channels of the "faulty" units.

Read the yellow colored addendum at the bottom.

Silent PC Review

Jim

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Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking.
Equilibrium

Holy crap! What do you do with that thing, record, make movies?

No, I store Genealogy cd's for quick access. My wife did get a video ipod for christmas so I have done a couple of movies for her. They take FOREVER!!

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Holy crap! What do you do with that thing, record, make movies?

No, I store Genealogy cd's for quick access. My wife did get a video ipod for christmas so I have done a couple of movies for her. They take FOREVER!!

Wow, what a cool idea. I had no idea they were so massive.
I back up the kid's movies for the car and I used to help render weekly training videos for my old company so I have an idea of what you're talking about with the movies. Though this new setup ought to smash through Lord of the Rings in about 45 minutes from what I've heard. Yahoo!

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Without love, breath is just a clock ... ticking.
Equilibrium