OT: New PC!

AgentZero · #1 December 17th, 2005, 05:39 PM

Quote:

El_Phil said:
Customs duty can be an unpleasent surprise when it kicks in, there are various threshold beneath which it doesn't apply. Not being an expert on Irish duty I have no idea if it's the same there, but I'd imagine it's at least similar.

The US is 110v 60Hz while Europe has allegedly standardise on 220v 50Hz. I'm pretty sure Ireland has dropped down from 240v to the European standard. Regardless a US spec power supply wouldn't be happy in Ireland.

Don't have a clue bout customs either. Regardless, I'll be buying the power supply in Ireland since the one I have my eye on is eur40 cheaper. The only thing I'm concerned about would be things like sound & graphics cards; if I buy them from the States, and plug them into a mobo bought in Irleand, running off an Irish power supply, would they be OK? Currently the cheapest GeForce 7800s available in Ireland are eur120 more than the cheapest in the States.

Fyron · #2 December 17th, 2005, 08:42 PM

Careful about cheap PSUs... a malfunctioning PSU will fry everything in your computer. Make sure to do plenty of Internet research on the brand/model you are looking at.

El_Phil · #3 December 17th, 2005, 11:06 PM

Renegade while I appreciate the sentiment (who doesn't like cheap deals?) a Canadian PSU will get fried on 220v. While a candle burnt at both ends will live half as long, a PSU on double the voltage will last a couple of seconds before going boom.

That aside the rest of the bits should be utterly fine, the voltages for PCI, etc are all defined (3.3v rings a bell but I'm sure someone else know or can google the real answer). The components should, by everything I know and have heard, be fine. No power system in the world runs correct for a motherboard so transforming the voltage is a must, hence the only check is if the PSU will work on your countries voltage and frequency.

Fyron · #4 December 18th, 2005, 12:21 AM

That's assuming that the PSU doesn't fail by starting to put out significantly more than 3.3V on that rail... The standards are defined, but when electronics start failing, anything can and will happen.

Renegade 13 · #5 December 22nd, 2005, 11:28 AM

250 Euro's!?! Is it gold plated and encrusted with diamonds?!? There's really no need that I can see to spend anywhere near that much on a Gig of RAM. Something a little lower down the price spectrum should still do you just fine. Then again I'm not horribly knowledgable, so you'll probably want some better opinions than mine.