Here's my new pc

[Gary V.]

I am just waiting on a couple of parts to come in at Newegg to place the order.

FX-53 socket 939(keeps getting sold out)
Asus K8T800 Pro mb
Geforce 6800Ultra
Lian-Li PC-60 Tower Case
Western Digital Raptor 10,000rpm 74gig hd
2 x 512 Mushkin PC-3200 222 special
Viewsonic 21" perfectflat monitor
Vantec 520 watt ps
Creative Audigy 2 sound card
Klipsch Promedia Ultra 5.1 speakers
Sony DVD/RW drive

Total cost: I really don't wanna say. :eek2:

I won't be upgrading this pc for quite some time. :crash:

Crap; just realized I posted in wrong forum.

[Ojnod]

:hot::hot::hot::hot::hot::hot::hot::hot::hot::hot: :hot:


Wowzors, there is nothing I can argue about on that computer. The only things I can say is I have heard that power supply is louder than some, and you may need another hard drive (larger and can be slower) for extra storage.

You mention newegg, did you decide to build it yourself? Or are you having a friend do it, sorry I wasn't listening earlier if you said it.

[Kalbrecht]

Not bad, Gary. Not bad at all.

Now get that sucker together and start taking pics/screenies!

Oh hell, just start up them games!!!

[Terry Penrod]

.

VERY cool new rig Gary.

Enjoy the ultrasonic speed, silky smooth framerates and amazing screen resolutions in even the latest bleeding edge 3D games.

Cheers, Terry

.

[DanTheManPR]

Cool! Now, what are you going to do with you're "aging" 9700pro?

[Mr. Natural]

Yes very nice and the Viewsonic monitor will display stuff really well.

[Feuerwizard]

WOW, nice rig Gary! My only complaint is that u may need another HDD. Enjoy it!

[Gaim Mastr]

Very nice system !!

Question: Why not go with two Seagate 120Gig SATA drives on a RAID 0 array? Most motherboards for high end processors, like the one you have, already have integrated hardware support. Some have the Promise R20378.

You'd get very fast drive access, 166Gigs more space, it'd run quieter, put less of a load on the CPU, and it would cost a few dollars less than that $200 single WD Raptor.

[Gary V.]

Thanks for the suggestion Gaim. I'm still learning how to slap all this stuff together. I may have to make that change.

I was at Newegg today and they had the FX-53 939 in. I browsed around for a few minutes making sure I had everything I wanted and went back to make the purchase and the FX-53 had just sold out. Probably lucky. Now I can implement Gaim's suggestion.

[Gaim Mastr]

The deal with Raid 0, 1, 0+1

Many months ago one would have to purchase a PCI RAID card. Now, many boards for high end CPUs have RAID hardware right on them. Also, Windows XP Pro has software support for RAID, which means that you don't need any special hardware support.

However, WinXP Home does not have RAID support, so you'd need a hardware solution for it. And while WinXP Pro does have RAID support, meaning that you don't need any specific RAID hardware, it puts a little bit more of a load on the CPU. Other than that one little thing, there is very little difference between using WinXP Pro or some hardware to implement a RAID array.

I haven't looked at your specific motherboard yet, but odds are that it does come RAID compatible. So no need to buy a RAID PCI card. Just hook your drives up and you're ready to go.

RAID 0 = striping
This means that two or more drives are considered a single drive by the operating system. So data is written and read onto both drives, with some on one drive and the rest on another. This is what makes it so much faster than a single drive. So two 120Gig drives are considered a single 240Gig drive.

Also, you should buy two drives with equal space on them. If you were to use an 80Gig drive and a 120Gig drive, the system would recognize up to the least amount of space per drive. In other words, your system would think that you had a total of 160Gigs (80Gig X 2 drives).

RAID 1 = mirroring
This means that all data is written onto one drive, as normal. However, it is also simultaneously written onto the second drive. This means that you always have a complete backup of your 'primary' drive. Data is also read from both drives (primary and backup), so this does increase the speed that data is read. So two 120Gig drives are considered a single 120Gig drive.

RAID 0/1 = stripping and mirroring
This means that you have four or more drives. Read and write data is shared between two drives as in stripping. It also means that both of the stripping drives are backed up to their own mirror drives. So four 120Gig drives are considered a single 240Gig drive.


Personally, I'd go with RAID 0. This is because I simply put more trust in a removable backup of my system (ie. CD or DVD backups). If my system were to burst into flames, I'd have those disks to return myself back to where I was. If a virus or something nasty infects the primary drive of a RAID 1, then it also is mirrored on the backup drive and infects it as well.

One of the biggest slow-downs for us gamers and hard drives comes by way of virtual memory. With a single drive, Windows has to read data from one place, while writing virtual memory data onto another place on the same drive. This is where the big slowdown takes place when playing games. As far as hard drives are concerned.

With a RAID 0 setup, it's easier for the system to read game data and write virtual memory data at the same time, since two drives are being used at the same time with read & write data split between them.

You could also get slightly faster HD speeds if you were to buy a 40Gig SATA drive and let's say a 102 Gig SATA drive. Have your Windows OS and virtual memory run on the 40Gig drive and your games run off of the 120Gig drive. This way the virtual memory is written onto the 40Gig drive while the game data is read off of the 120Gig drive.

It's kind of like a 'cheap' RAID 0, in the most loosest terms. Much better to go with an actual RAID 0.

Like I said, you could get set up a RAID 0 array, without buying any extra hardware or software, with two 120Gig drives giving you a total system HD space of 240Gigs. It'd run cooler and quieter than a single Raptor 74Gig drive. And, it would put less of a load on the CPU. That means more CPU power for any game's AI or such.

EDIT: Did some hunting around. Check this article (http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=830&page=1) out for some good info on RAID arrays. It's called the "Begginer's Guide to Installing a RAID on Desktop PCs".


SATA = Serial ATA = 150MHz
ATA 133 = 133MHz
ATA 100 = 100MHz

So you see that for a little more money (compared to ATA 133 or 100), the SATA drives on a RAID 0 array would greatly increase the speed of the slowest part of most any gamer's system.......... the hard drive.

[Gary V.]

Thanks Gaim. Raid 0 does make a lot of sense know that I understand it better. I have to consult my computer building friend on how we will go about this. Thanks again, I really appreciate the effort you put into that explanation.

[Gaim Mastr]

No prob.

And if 240Gigs is way more than you'll use, you could always go the cheaper route with two 80Gig SATA drives.

I've been reading that Seagate drives are quieter then Wester Digital drives. And Seagate drives also come with 8Mb buffers.

:thumbup:

[DanTheManPR]

Seagate rocks! (says the ignorant fool)

[Gary V.]

It is now officially ordered and should be put together next Wednesday or Thursday. I found a 6800Ultra at Fry's. It should be on its way to my house Monday and be here by Wednesday. Everything but the motherboard(Mwave) and videocard is coming from Newegg.

The total cost of the system including shipping on some items and taxes on some items is $3,354.36. I configured this system as closely as I could at Alienware; it would have cost over $4500.

I hope everything works.

[DanTheManPR]

It never works right the first time, Gary :D:

[Chylde Roland]

See, it defnitely pays to build your own system! (and what a system that is, dude!)

You shouldn't have any problems with the assembly. I've built about 12 systems in the past couple of years (I do it for myself and for family and friends) and the only problems I've ever run into are silly little things, like not plugging a cable in or something like that. I've never had a problem getting things running smoothly within a couple of hours. It's actually pretty easy, and it gets easier every time. And one thing you'll really appreciate is the knowledge you'll gain because you will be better equippend to upgrade and do a LOT of your own mods and work. I love building computers, it's a lot of fun for me.

[Gaim Mastr]

Here's (http://www.tomshardware.com/game/20040529/game_machine-02.html) a good little spiel about why building your own system is better than buying one.

[0x64657200 0x6A61636B616C00]

Right on Gary, glad to see you decided to brew your own. Nothing like the satisfaction of getting your hands dirty for a good cause ;)

Just make sure you RTFM (the motherboard manual) when it comes to chip installation and any additional BIOS configurations, everything else is just "tab A in slot B".


edit: parenthetical statements are only parenthetical when paretheses are involved, otherwise, they are just babbling incoherencies...much like this

[DanTheManPR]

How are those speakers, Gary? Them are the ones I want to get for my next PC.

[bluE_Neon]

thanks for the heads up explanation of RAID array GAIM :thumbup: i am currently waiting for my new parts as well! here are the specs:

AMD 3500+ (still waiting for it!!)
Asus A8V Deluxe >> lets just say its LOADED with options
OCZ Dual Channel PC3200 EL Platinum ED 1GB
80GB Seagate 7200.7 IDE Hard Drive

i will purchase 2 more SATA Hdd's, the WD Raptor 74GB and put them in RAID 0 and those will be for gaming/music/movies only :) video card i have currently is the Geforce FX 5600 MSI, which is a good card but i will get this time around the ATi x800 series! upgrading later on to a 19'" Viewsonic.

[Gary V.]

I placed my order on Wednesday; I received the case Friday. Everything else is in a warehouse about 100 miles north of me, so I'm sure I will be getting the rest Monday. Newegg is the best. They called about 15 minutes after I placed the order to let me know the credit card was denied(Visa said I normally don't spend that kind of money), within minutes the problem was straightened out.

[Cap'n]

Good luck Gary, I'm trying to get my parts ordered today.

I'm just stuck on the SATA thing. I understand it, but just don't see where the big performance boost is. You have to buy two drives in order to get the speed boost. Plus it sounds more difficult to set up.

[Kalbrecht]

SATA is actually easier to set up, IMO. The cabling is dead simple unless you need to get all sorts of adapters.

[Gaim Mastr]

I'm just stuck on the SATA thing. I understand it, but just don't see where the big performance boost is. You have to buy two drives in order to get the speed boost.

I don't think you quite understand it fully.

No, you won't see a "big" speed boost with SATA over ATA133. You'll get a good 50% increase over ATA100 and about a 12.75% increase over ATA133.

You don't need multiple drives for a SATA hard drive setup.
The multiple drives comes in for a RAID setup. And a RAID array will give far better performance than just a single SATA drive will.

In short, SATA merely means better bus speed with the ability to use longer cable. It can be anywhere up to one meter long. Compared to the short (18 inch, 45cm) 40 or 80 conductor ribbon cables of parallel ATA.

SATA is supposed to also offer hot-swapability. That is the ability to exchange things without turning the system off or rebooting. Although, it's never recommended that you attempt to swap hard drives while the system is plugged in, much less up and running.


SATA is actually easier to set up, IMO. The cabling is dead simple unless you need to get all sorts of adapters.

Agreed, the convenience of Serial ATA is unbeatable. Simply connect the power and data cables, and you're done.

[0x64657200 0x6A61636B616C00]

come on guys, you're missing the biggest plus of SATA; the cables are SMALLER!!!!!

[Kalbrecht]

come on guys, you're missing the biggest plus of SATA; the cables are SMALLER!!!!!

Smaller AND easier to manipulate to create a better airflow!

:)