Questions before I buy new rig... What's a heatsink?

Gimaru

Gimaru

New member
Here is what I'm getting:

Phenom 2 x4 965 processor Black box edition
Quite cheap motherboard (R600)
Tower with 3 fans (buying fans seperately) - Front Rear and Back or something. LINK
Radeaon HD5770
Coolmaster Xtreme 550w power supply


Not good with hardware really, and I need to know what a heatsink is, and if I need to buy one for the rig I'm ordering later this week?? I thought it would be coming with the cpu or something. Also, I need to know if that power supply is going to be good enough? (Trying to go as cheap as I can with it).

Cheers for any help
 
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A heatsink is a piece of metal, either aluminium or copper, which helps dissipate the heat that chips give off. Generally the processors come with standard heatsinks that are more than adequate most of the time in managing the heat. You only really need to look at getting a standalone heatsink if you plan to overclock your chip astronomically. A heatsink is definitely necessary!

IMHO a 550w PSU is more than sufficient for the hardware you will be running.
 
Any idea if I'll be getting a heat sink with the black edition? Just concerned, because I'm already a bittt over budget.
 
550 watt if it's not a generic should be fine, as you forgetting HDD's and Optical drives on there too. Also the heat sink normally comes with the chip and a massive fan to aid cooling.
 
Howsit dude. I am surprised no one could answer this clearly. YES, when you buy a "boxed" version of a CPU it means you're getting the heatsink/fan that was factory made for it. That is the difference between a BOX edition of a CPU and a OEM edition. So your above quote stating "box edition" means you don't need to buy an extra one...you're getting the heatsink with the CPU...in the box.
 
I just googled, and confirmed it as well that you get a heat sink with the BE. That's a relief, thanks for help you lot!
 
Try and get a bigger psu. I've run into issues upgrading time and again because of wimpy PSU's. Sure, you may not need it now, but if you ever replace that 5770 with something bigger, you will.
 
Skurm said:
Try and get a bigger psu. I've run into issues upgrading time and again because of wimpy PSU's. Sure, you may not need it now, but if you ever replace that 5770 with something bigger, you will.
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A bigger PSU would be useful to help future-proof you a bit, but remember this, NEVER buy a cheap/noname brand PSU no matter how high the rating is. Always buy a name brand, tried-and-tested PSU. It's the LAW.
 
That is actually not a bad PSU, but if you can, get a 650w for future proofing. Also I did answer his question, I said he won't need to buy one as most chips come with them.
 
IMHO, I think money would be better spent getting a better MB, than a stronger PSU. The PSU is important, but with a junk MB your pc just won't work as well as it could. Like wise, don't go for unknown names when buying MB, rather go for one of the big names, like MSI or ASUS, or even Gigabyte.
 
Yes because skimping on the powersupply to get a slightly better motherboard is going to really make a massive difference... Especially when a couple of months down the line it is not working due to a power surge, or the simple fact that your PSU just won't spin up. Power is more important then anything else in a PC, skimping on that is the stupidest thing to do.
 
Lupus said:
Yes because skimping on the powersupply to get a slightly better motherboard is going to really make a massive difference... Especially when a couple of months down the line it is not working due to a power surge, or the simple fact that your PSU just won't spin up. Power is more important then anything else in a PC, skimping on that is the stupidest thing to do.
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Okay, firstly, I said rather spend extra money on a MB, rather than a PSU. I did not say he should just get a generic power supply and skimp on power. And as for Power surges, its called a UPS. But some how, I don't think thats what you mean :P

Secondly, its not only the PSU that manages how power gets to the CPU. The motherboard actually plays a more important role with regards to power in the cpu and voltage levels in the CPU. A better MB would give the person much better control if they wish to OC the chip (which, being a BE, I don't see why they wouldn't want to tinker a bit)

I have seen a Core2Duo with a 9800GT (okay, it was the Synergy version) running perfectly okay with 1 hdd and a dvd writer on a generic 250W PSU, with only the occasional restart due to low power. Now the machine is running perfectly on a 450W Isonic PSU. I run a core2quad Q6600 (one of the most power hungry c2q) with a 9800GT (OC version by MSI) with a raid 0 setup on a 400W Aopen PSU and haven't ever had any power problems.

I really do not see why everyone has to have these "gamer" PSUs that are actually created more for people doing SLI and Crossfire, when they are just running a single GPU with single CPU setup. Also this pc only has a HD 5770, which as far as I am aware, is quite a low powered midrange card compared to the top of the range cards created by AMD, thus even less power required. So unless this person intends to build a really high spec machine (HD 5770 isnt the way) then they really don't need such a high spec'd PSU

Also, with regards to the graphics card, I would rather go for a HD 4890 than a HD5770.
 
I know Motherboards also control a lot of power distribution, and with different phasing it controls what gets more or less power when needed. It's not a gamers power supply it is a more reliable power supply. Yes you can get away with playing with a generic 400w fine for many years, but you can also get away with driving drunk for many years? Why risk it, if you want a stable pc rather spend a bit more on a PSU getting a decent brand, check up reviews and find out what is rated best at your price range. This is the same case for motherboards, also the 4890 is a great card to go for as well.
Remember if your PC components are not getting a steady supply of power you can be causing more problems, I had it once where Windows would take ages to boot, I ran tests etc and it turned out the generic 500w I was using was not supplying enough power to the HDD's, causing them to spin at lower rpms, switching out to a more expensive known brand with a rep fixed that problem.
 
The motherboard I'm going to get is trashy... But as I said I'm already a bit over budget and really can't squeeze any more out. Here is link to motherboard I'm getting. It's Jetway.
 
One more question. I see people using some thermal cream on the processor and heatsink. Never seen this stuff before in computer shops, any idea where can get it locally in pta?
 
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