I find it weird that the 5 pages I checked (including NewEgg), not a single one gave an RPM speed for the Hard Drive.
I've never seen that before.
It probably means it's a 5400. You need at least a 7200.
The "Green" WD is slower than the regular ones, that is correct. It uses less power but is slower.
For a main drive a regular one (or a Seagate) is better, the green drive is best for media drives. Most people I know who uses it have a small SSD for the OS and all stuff they don't need to run as fast on the WD drive.
So, that means it's probably even slower than 5400rpm. I looked up "Green WD" and still couldn't find an actual speed. To me, it looks like it's guaged on the load and it's peak speed is slow, which would be really bad for gaming..... or pretty much anything really.
To the OP, the min any DESKTOP should have is 7200. A laptop can get by with a 5400, simply because it increases battery life.
Listen, to actually get a PSU under the recommended power is not a great idea and even if it runs the computer he will have to upgrade the PSU if he changes GFX card, puts in more harddrives or something else that uses power. Sure, Corsair usually actually give out 400W when they say so unlike many others but that still is a big risk to save a couple of bucks.
It is also my experience from my old server that if you max out your power your harddrive risk dying, I lost 3 HDs (1 Maxtor, 1 WD and 1 Seagate) in that server during 3 years, that is as much as I lost in 15 years otherwise.
It is not that much money and it is far better to be safe than sorry. The only reason to use a PSU under 500W today is if a buddy have it lying around and gives it to you for free. Most computers actually changes GFX card once during their life time and with 400W PSU (that I'm not 100% convinced is enough to even boot it up) he will also have to change that too.
Well yes, if you push a power supply to its limits, that does tend to harm the voltage regulation. But we're not talking about pushing a power supply to its limits. We're talking about a system that may or may not ever draw 200 W from the power supply, and debating whether 400 W is enough. If it can't safely deliver 200 W, then they shouldn't call it a 300 W power supply, let alone 400 W.
And he'll be able to upgrade the video card in the future without the power supply if so inclined. A hypothetical Radeon HD 9770 with 4x the performance of the card he gets today and a TDP of 130 W would fit quite nicely. (I'm not going to guess on an Nvidia card, as their naming scheme is incomprehensible.)
He won't be able to get a high end card, but if he's looking at an Athlon II X2 today, that's out of his budget anyway. A high end card would be hamstrung by anything that will fit Socket AM3 by then (Bulldozer will take a new socket, and Llano might, too), so he'd have to replace the machine if he wanted that level of performance, anyway.
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Whether larger and slower or smaller and faster is better depends on how much capacity you need. That's why I said he should ask his friend. If he's never going to use more than 100 GB, then a smaller, faster drive is easily better.
Seagate's modern lineup is 7200.12, not 7200.11. That particular drive seems to have racked up some rather bad ratings on New Egg.
I wouldn't put too much stock in New Egg ratings, when 48 out of the 55 7200 RPM SATA 3 hard drives on New Egg with ratings are 4 eggs or higher average, and that one isn't--and has well over 1000 ratings, so it's not an odd fluke that it isn't--it makes you wonder.
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So, that means it's probably even slower than 5400rpm. I looked up "Green WD" and still couldn't find an actual speed. To me, it looks like it's guaged on the load and it's peak speed is slow, which would be really bad for gaming..... or pretty much anything really.
To the OP, the min any DESKTOP should have is 7200. A laptop can get by with a 5400, simply because it increases battery life.
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Well yes, if you push a power supply to its limits, that does tend to harm the voltage regulation. But we're not talking about pushing a power supply to its limits. We're talking about a system that may or may not ever draw 200 W from the power supply, and debating whether 400 W is enough. If it can't safely deliver 200 W, then they shouldn't call it a 300 W power supply, let alone 400 W.
And he'll be able to upgrade the video card in the future without the power supply if so inclined. A hypothetical Radeon HD 9770 with 4x the performance of the card he gets today and a TDP of 130 W would fit quite nicely. (I'm not going to guess on an Nvidia card, as their naming scheme is incomprehensible.)
He won't be able to get a high end card, but if he's looking at an Athlon II X2 today, that's out of his budget anyway. A high end card would be hamstrung by anything that will fit Socket AM3 by then (Bulldozer will take a new socket, and Llano might, too), so he'd have to replace the machine if he wanted that level of performance, anyway.
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Whether larger and slower or smaller and faster is better depends on how much capacity you need. That's why I said he should ask his friend. If he's never going to use more than 100 GB, then a smaller, faster drive is easily better.
Seagate's modern lineup is 7200.12, not 7200.11. That particular drive seems to have racked up some rather bad ratings on New Egg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337
I wouldn't put too much stock in New Egg ratings, when 48 out of the 55 7200 RPM SATA 3 hard drives on New Egg with ratings are 4 eggs or higher average, and that one isn't--and has well over 1000 ratings, so it's not an odd fluke that it isn't--it makes you wonder.