my first pc build

[crispy_tofu]

If you're getting a graphics card, don't go for cheap ones like the HD 6450 (also called the HD 5450), R5 230, GT 210 etc. Their performance is horrible and it's honestly not worth getting one until you get into the ~$150 range.

[Galenbo]

...well what good graphics card could i get with this list in the future if any...?

Why would somebody that isn't a 3-screen-gamer want a graphics card with a loud little ventilator?
I3 or I5 graphics onboard does a fine job.

[crispy_tofu]

...well what good graphics card could i get with this list in the future if any...?

Why would somebody that isn't a 3-screen-gamer want a graphics card with a loud little ventilator?
I3 or I5 graphics onboard does a fine job.

I agree with this, but it might be worth noting that Arcamax will be using a G3258, which is about 60-80% graphics performance of Haswell i3s. 
Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8232/overclockable-pentium-anniversary-edition-review-the-intel-pentium-g3258-ae/3

[Berni]

Why would somebody that isn't a 3-screen-gamer want a graphics card with a loud little ventilator?
I3 or I5 graphics onboard does a fine job.

Well as long as you are playing old games or using the GPU just to decode video and such they do fine but when you run a modern game on it even on the lowerst possible settings (That usually look really really bad) it wont get to 30fps. As for running modern games on good graphics settings on a 1080p screen (Everyone has those now) it might start looking more like a slideshow where you can literally count frames. That sort of performance clearly makes games unplayable.

While yes a GTX 980 is overkill for current games out there on a run of the mill 1080p 60Hz monitor right now, but graphics cards are expensive and you can't just buy the latest one each year again and again. So when you buy a graphics card not only do you want it to run today's games smooth as silk you also want it to run the games that will come out in the next 4 or 5 years. You don't necessarily need to run the game with all the graphics settings glued to max, but if you need to start really turning things so low that it starts to look like a low polygon blury mess that does not count as running the game as it was meant to run.

[AF6LJ]

Without a graphics card that would be good enough.

well what good graphics card could i get with this list in the future if any...?
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/vnLyCJ
or are u saying i need a higher wattage psu.

Like I stated before you want a margin of overhead in your PC power supply I usually go for a hundred percent, but even fifty percent overhead is better than none.
You can do this one of two ways.
Measure your PC's power consumption after it is built bue before you buy your video card.
Make sure to have the CPU loaded with something to do.
(this is what I did for the last three computers)

You could research what similar configurations consume and go with that.

You could do what most folk do and get the largest power supply you can afford and move on.
This is not wise since a large power PC supply that is lightly loaded won't be as efficient as a power supply that has some overhead.

In regard to video cards you are best off following the manufacturers recommendations.  on what their power requirements are.  Some of those power supplies consume as much as four hundred watts. The card I aM CURRENTLY USING (AN OLDER gtx560 tI) consumes about 180W when I am gaming and conisderably less when posting on forums, browsing etc... Playing back video it consumes more.

Someone mentioned noise;
 Thankfully noise isn't so much of an issne modern cards are smart enough to control on board power consumption add to that fan profiling and management software that many cards come with allow the user to have a fair amount of control over the noise generated by the fan / fans.

[Berni]

Like I stated before you want a margin of overhead in your PC power supply I usually go for a hundred percent, but even fifty percent overhead is better than none.
You can do this one of two ways.
Measure your PC's power consumption after it is built bue before you buy your video card.
Make sure to have the CPU loaded with something to do.
(this is what I did for the last three computers)

You could research what similar configurations consume and go with that.

Both CPUs and Graphics cards have a TDP(Total Dissipated Power) spec in Watts. Its supposed to tell you how much heat it makes, but since all of it comes from electrical input power means that its also roughly how much power the component uses in the worst case scenario.

So to get a good idea of how much power you need you sum up the CPU and GPU rated TDP spec plus add in 20 or 30W or so for the other components like the motherboard and drives. The number should be somewhere between 200 and 400 watts in most gaming PCs.

Okay so you come to the conclusion your beast of a PC needs 350W to run and you don't give a crap about overrating the PSU, it was cheep, if it dies il buy another one so a 400W PSU will do right?... Nope, it most likely wont. Power supplies are limited to providing a certain amount of current. Supplies that have more than one output voltage like a PC power supply have a individual maximum current for each voltage rail. The way they get the 400W number they proudly stamp on the box is by adding up all the maximum output powers of all the rails. So in practice you can only get those 400W from it only with just the right balance of loading on the right rails. If all the other rails are under low load you might be able to squeeze a bit more current out of one heavily loaded rail but no where close to all 400W from just that single voltage rail.

Historically computers used to consume the most power on the +3V3 and +5V rails so PC supplies are designed to put quite a few of those Watts there. But todays computers use by far the most power from the +12V rail. So what happens is if you buy a PC power supply that has only like 10 or 20% headroom what will often happen is that the 12V rail will get overloaded while the lower voltage rails are under little load.

The simplest way to get around this problem is to simply overspec the PSU so much that it survives even if the computers pulls all the power from just one of the rails. This is why you see 600W or even larger power supplies in gaming PCs and why graphics cards manufacturers generally recommend using 500W or even 600W supplies with there cards. There is no way in hell you are getting a regular single CPU and single GPU PC to use anywhere close to 600W no matter how much you overclock it, but it makes sure none of the rails will overload.

If you still want to put a small wattage PSU in there then you can still add up the TDP of the CPU and GPU and check the specifications if it can provide that many watts on the 12V rail(Vcore for both comes from +12V rail). If you have at least 10% headroom there it should work. Idealy you want to over spec the PSU by 50% to make sure its running happy and at that point you might end up with that 600W PSU anyway.

So if you don't know what you are doing just stick to what wattage Nvidia or ATI tells you to use, otherwise do your homework to confirm the lower wattage PSU will work in your particular configuration.

[AF6LJ]

Like I stated before you want a margin of overhead in your PC power supply I usually go for a hundred percent, but even fifty percent overhead is better than none.
You can do this one of two ways.
Measure your PC's power consumption after it is built bue before you buy your video card.
Make sure to have the CPU loaded with something to do.
(this is what I did for the last three computers)

You could research what similar configurations consume and go with that.

Both CPUs and Graphics cards have a TDP(Total Dissipated Power) spec in Watts. Its supposed to tell you how much heat it makes, but since all of it comes from electrical input power means that its also roughly how much power the component uses in the worst case scenario.

So to get a good idea of how much power you need you sum up the CPU and GPU rated TDP spec plus add in 20 or 30W or so for the other components like the motherboard and drives. The number should be somewhere between 200 and 400 watts in most gaming PCs.

So far so good

Okay so you come to the conclusion your beast of a PC needs 350W to run and you don't give a crap about overrating the PSU, it was cheep, if it dies il buy another one so a 400W PSU will do right?... Nope, it most likely wont. Power supplies are limited to providing a certain amount of current. Supplies that have more than one output voltage like a PC power supply have a individual maximum current for each voltage rail. The way they get the 400W number they proudly stamp on the box is by adding up all the maximum output powers of all the rails. So in practice you can only get those 400W from it only with just the right balance of loading on the right rails. If all the other rails are under low load you might be able to squeeze a bit more current out of one heavily loaded rail but no where close to all 400W from just that single voltage rail.

Exactly, In the case of the higher power Antek power supplies. all but the +12V rails carry one rating, the 123V rails carry their own rating and the combined ratings are what the supply is rated for, be weary of language like "up to XX watts".

Historically computers used to consume the most power on the +3V3 and +5V rails so PC supplies are designed to put quite a few of those Watts there. But todays computers use by far the most power from the +12V rail. So what happens is if you buy a PC power supply that has only like 10 or 20% headroom what will often happen is that the 12V rail will get overloaded while the lower voltage rails are under little load.

The simplest way to get around this problem is to simply overspec the PSU so much that it survives even if the computers pulls all the power from just one of the rails. This is why you see 600W or even larger power supplies in gaming PCs and why graphics cards manufacturers generally recommend using 500W or even 600W supplies with there cards. There is no way in hell you are getting a regular single CPU and single GPU PC to use anywhere close to 600W no matter how much you overclock it, but it makes sure none of the rails will overload.

If you still want to put a small wattage PSU in there then you can still add up the TDP of the CPU and GPU and check the specifications if it can provide that many watts on the 12V rail(Vcore for both comes from +12V rail). If you have at least 10% headroom there it should work. Idealy you want to over spec the PSU by 50% to make sure its running happy and at that point you might end up with that 600W PSU anyway.

So if you don't know what you are doing just stick to what wattage Nvidia or ATI tells you to use, otherwise do your homework to confirm the lower wattage PSU will work in your particular configuration.

Well done 

[Marco]

Nowadays pretty much the entire rating is 12V (you really want a single rail, multiple rails rarely give you an exact fit).

If you get an AMD videocard be ready to get a huge power supply. I got a R9 390 8GB because I wanted a relatively cheap card with lots of memory, but damn does that thing consume. I had a pretty good brand old power supply which was rated for 350 Watt on the 12V rail which I used to power just the GPU and it went up in smoke a couple minutes into running a benchmark (I spliced the enable signal from the ATX power connector to turn on/off the two power supplies simultaneously). Only the power supply luckily, turns out that GPU can use >500W peak.

[Arcamax]

A 450W PSU probably will scrape by if you don't put in a massively power hungry card like a GTX 780.

But this supply has a trap in it that i thought was gone by now. It has split 12V rails. Usually you don't want that.

    ATX 12V v2.3
    RoHS
    110VAC - 120VAC, 220VAC - 240VAC +/- 10% 50/60 Hz
    +3.3V@24A, +5V@15A, +12V1@18A, +12V2@18A, -12V@0.3A, +5VSB@2.5A

Notice that there are two 12V rails. Usually the 2nd rail (Usualy has yellow wire with black line) is seen going to the CPU power connector. So this leaves only 18A for all the rest including the graphics card. It might work for low power usage cards but i know it would not be able to run my GTX 770 for example.

You want to see at least 30A on a single 12V rail. If very powerful components are going in then even more(Like an power hungry AMD octocore CPU with a GTX 780 Ti you are looking at more like 50A).

Ok so then a single 12v rail psu is what i want, and is a 500W one good

(this one has good reviews) http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438016

[Marco]

That restrictive fan grill can't be good for noise (not that I would care, I put my PC in a closet).

[Arcamax]

That restrictive fan grill can't be good for noise (not that I would care, I put my PC in a closet).

oh ok, does this one look better for the fan grill.

[AF6LJ]

That restrictive fan grill can't be good for noise (not that I would care, I put my PC in a closet).

The above mentioned power supply should be fairly quiet.
The fan is mounted so ht pulls air in from the bottom of the computer is installed in a case that allows for bottom mounting of the power supply. It pulls in cool air from under the computer, the air is exhausted out the back of the power supply.

[Galenbo]

I agree with this, but it might be worth noting that Arcamax will be using a G3258, which is about 60-80% graphics performance of Haswell i3s. 
Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8232/overclockable-pentium-anniversary-edition-review-the-intel-pentium-g3258-ae/3

Forgot about that, because I always start with a I3/I5 to build something.
The cheaper g3258 processor gives the ability to have a cheaper PC now, and a possibility to upgrade later with a graphics card, I guess.

[Galenbo]

Someone mentioned noise;
 Thankfully noise isn't so much of an issne modern cards are smart enough to control on board power consumption add to that fan profiling and management software that many cards come with allow the user to have a fair amount of control over the noise generated by the fan / fans.

As a non-gamer, I had bad expieriences before with ventilators on graphics cards.
I don't follow the latest trends, but I remember many were like 4-5-6 cm diameter.

That's the main reason I now choose a big processor with internal gpu: They have a big fan, makes no noise.
The same for the CPU: 120 mm fan.

[AF6LJ]

Someone mentioned noise;
 Thankfully noise isn't so much of an issne modern cards are smart enough to control on board power consumption add to that fan profiling and management software that many cards come with allow the user to have a fair amount of control over the noise generated by the fan / fans.

As a non-gamer, I had bad expieriences before with ventilators on graphics cards.
I don't follow the latest trends, but I remember many were like 4-5-6 cm diameter.

That's the main reason I now choose a big processor with internal gpu: They have a big fan, makes no noise.
The same for the CPU: 120 mm fan.

I understand; things have changed, you can profile not only the video card, but all the fans in your computer.

[Galenbo]

So what do you guys think about this build http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/rMfcD3 , i already have an external 3TB hard drive that im using.
So then i would just stick the OS on the 120gb SSD and a few average programs.

As i said what are your guy's opinions

I recently upgraded from SSD120GB to SSD250GB.

120GB was (just) too small for all my programs + recent actual data, so the hard drive turned all the time.
Now everything is on the SSD, HDD turns only for backup or accessing archive files.

[Berni]

As a non-gamer, I had bad expieriences before with ventilators on graphics cards.
I don't follow the latest trends, but I remember many were like 4-5-6 cm diameter.

That's the main reason I now choose a big processor with internal gpu: They have a big fan, makes no noise.
The same for the CPU: 120 mm fan.

I understand; things have changed, you can profile not only the video card, but all the fans in your computer.

Yes setting up custom fan profiles is very important in making a PC quiet.

 My PC has 8 fans if you count them all up, but all of them are temperature controlled so that when its not under much load they all pretty much go at the slowest speed and because they are nice third party fans they are pretty much silent. A single hard drive is easily louder than the whole system combined. When its working particularly hard (Like running a game) it does get quite a bit louder as the fans spin up, but still quieter than a lot PCs at idle.

I can't kick my harddrives out the door since im holding on to over 2TB of junk. I had the idea to build a NAS server but that never materialized.

[Galenbo]

I understand; things have changed, you can profile not only the video card, but all the fans in your computer.

Yes setting up custom fan profiles is very important in making a PC quiet.
My PC has 8 fans...

Yes, like 15 years ago, click click Bios and some PID controlls them.
Just the user interface has changed, you can use the mouse now.

But a little fan with speed controller is no substitute for big fans. (with also speed controller/limiter)
The needed airflow will be passed, little or big, but a 60mm fan will have to turn 4x faster than a 120mm fan (simplified)

[Marco]

My recipe for silence, no fan should go over 500rpm.

PS. well that was my initial recipe, then GPUs became impossible to run that way without watercooling and then my recipe became drywall and long wires.

[AF6LJ]

My recipe for silence, no fan should go over 500rpm.

PS. well that was my initial recipe, then GPUs became impossible to run that way without watercooling and then my recipe became drywall and long wires.

Liquid cooling is perhaps the best way to go. Pumps can be quieted down easily enough and you don't have to use a fan and a radiator if you are handy with shop tools.
My first liquid cooling PC project used a large enough radiator I could have left the pump unplugged and let convection do the circulation, the CPU under 90% load for a half hour would idle at just above 50C. With a low speed AC fan (all three fans in the case were low speed AC fans) the CPU sat at 5C above room temp. That made me quite happy, the only problem was cleaning the dog hair out of the radiator once a month. The fans were controlled by a modified Antek 500W power supply, the second power to go in that twelve year old computer, which was built in a highly modified Mini ATX case.

[Galenbo]

Liquid cooling is perhaps the best way to go. Pumps can be quieted down easily enough and you don't have to use a fan and a radiator if you are handy with shop tools.
My first liquid cooling PC project used a large enough radiator...

I never did liquid cooling in a PC, a littlebit scared of the mess it could make, but I especially like the solutions I saw with a big cooling colon, without radiator and fans.

[Berni]

I never really bothered with liquid cooling since its pretty expensive when you include the GPU in there (Just doing the CPU is kinda pointless since they don't get quite that hot)

Doing air cooling properly can get you a nice and quiet PC while costing very little. Where watercooling makes more sense is when you put 2 or 3 high end graphics cards in there. At that point you might be looking at nearly 800W of heat just from those and that is quite a challenge to properly cool with air without making it sound like a vacuum cleaner.

But i guess you can't deny that watercooling makes the inside of your PC look properly badass.

[Arcamax]

Antek power supplies are good.

I second this, have one in my computer and it works very well. Also Corsair, Seasonic, Enermax, XFX, NZXT...

EDIT: also EVGA 

How is Rosewill Psu's

[crispy_tofu]

How is Rosewill Psu's

According to a senior member of another forum:

Lightning = SuperFlower (Great & modern)
Green Series Gold = ATNG (Good, but 5v ripple gets high at 45mv)
Bronze Series Modular = Sirtec (Decent/Passable)
Xtreme Series (Very Good, old now)
Libertas = ATNG (Good, but *check the 24pin cables pins as they can be loose)
Green Series = ATNG (Avoid the 700w as it's 12v ripple climes out of spec, but the 430, 530, & 630w units are great budget units.)
Stallion Series = Solytech (Passable units that do not perform bad, they are just out of date for the modern world.)
Performance Series = ATNG (Same as the Green Series except these units will enter thermal shutdown at 45*C, they're not bad and they won't break anything, but for anyone in a warm environment, be careful of such things.
v1 of these guys had issues with transient response and 100v loading, but v2's fixed the issues.)
Rosewill Value Series RV = Deer + ATNG (ATNG only made 1 unit, which is an ATX 1.3 unit called the RV350 but it was replaced by a Deer made RV350-v2. This whole line is to be avoided.)
Rosewill Value Series RV2 = ATNG (This is where things picked up for Rosewill after the original value series. Decent ATNG units based on older ATX v2.2 designs with some slight updates done to them. They're cheap for a reason as performance is only on that Passable level.)

The only unit I left out was the DER-A400 which is another Deer made one. It doesn't really fit into any of the series but also to be avoided.

*Note, no matter what, this can and usually is an issue with all fully modular PSU's. Though, because of Rosewill's budget prices, people like to dog on them for something like this as usually only the "Enthusiasts" are buying Corsair AX and Silverstone Strider units.

Source: http://www.overclock.net/t/1090069/are-rosewill-psus-any-good

[Arcamax]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438014&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL101915CA&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL101915CA-_-EMC-101915-Index-_-PowerSupplies-_-17438014-L08C&_ga=1.178740256.503018935.1439426654 Is this good for my build also with enough watts for future upgrading? Or will it currently be overkill