CPU utilisation query???

[camieabz]

I'm thinking about a system with a PIII 1GHz CPU, 1 x 60GXP 40Gb (system) & 2 x 60GXPs 40Gb RAID 0 (games & swapfile).

I saw this link <A HREF="http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=ibm60gxp&page=4&mscssid=&tp=" target="_new">http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=ibm60gxp&page=4&mscssid=&tp=</A> and thought
"what happens to my CPU power here?"

Anyone think this set-up will draw too much from the CPU?


<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[Pettytheft]

I dont intend this as a flame or anything. But Raid 0 is useless for games. You game will install faster but that is about it. If your doing any video editing or moving large files on a regular basis you'll see a performance boost from Raid 0.

Buy more Ram. Buy a faster processor and vid card. Those will boost your performance far more than any Raid 0 config.

Blah, Blah Blahh, Blahh, blahh blah blahh, blah blah.

 

[camieabz]

Well a Ghz PIII is the highest (without overclocking).
512Mb CAS 2 PC-133
Radeon 64Mb DDR

What else?

<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[Pettytheft]

For gaming, DVD's, websurfing and such, your set. Looks good to me. What are you using the system for?

Blah, Blah Blahh, Blahh, blahh blah blahh, blah blah.

 

[Guest]

What a fukin idiot.

"no kelder....you can't shoot goblins in wordpad"

 

[Guest]

Jeez, there's the pot calling the kettle black.

I will dog you till you admit you're a fraud.

<i>Cognite Tute</i>
(Think for Yourself)

 

[Guest]

Dog me all you like, not that I even care. Your the fraud, you call yourself an areospace engineer yet your too stupid to see the holes in a crumby Polar Coordinates test. That'll teach you to go opening your big mouth before testing something. You fukin idiot.

"no kelder....you can't shoot goblins in wordpad"

 

[Guest]

Where is it tonestar?
Where is your explanation for your <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=faq&notfound=1&code=1" target="_new">lying and fraud</A>?

Does your friend really work for McDonnell Douglas as a "REAL Aerospace Engineer"? Please explain how that is possible. Or just admit that it was a fabrication you created.

I'm still waiting for that link to a university catalog showing a freshman level class in composite materials.
Or is that another fabrication?

Why should anyone believe you tonestar?


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[camieabz]

Hello [-peep-] for brains.

Whats your problem? Too difficult a question for ya, or couldn't you work out how to get to the link???

Keep flaming me asswipe, please do!

I'll take the grin right off yer ugly face!

<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[camieabz]

To the other members with a modicum of ability...

I'll be using it for gaming, surfing, apps, I might partition the non-RAID drive for a second OS.

What I meant by the original query was:

Is the draw on the CPU by this drive set-up of an amount great enough to warrant not using this set-up. (Versus the supposed gain of using a RAID system).

<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[Guest]

Wouldnt worry about it the cpu utilization. If you're only running one app, it doesnt matter even if cpu where at 100%, since the app is just waiting for the data from the drive. If you run Seti in the background, it might slow down during disk intensive work.. Might be a problem if your ripping a DVD and copying gigabyte files at the same time. You want SCSI for that sort of stuff, but not for running games. Remember the cpu utilization only goes up when something is accessing the drive, usually meaning a program needs data from it.

I'll tell you this: ever since I added a second drive to my setup, and configured a RAID 0 stripe set (2x20 Gb Maxtor 7200 rpm), this system *flies*. No, it wont improve FPS scores in Q3, but boottimes of Win2k improved *big* time, and if you ever played Black & white, you'll appreciate a RAID setup to cut your safe and load time by almost 50%.
Also, hibernating and resuming goes twice as fast.. really impressive.

not sure if it matters, but i use a Duron600@933 on a KT7 T Turbo Raid.. oh.. installing in Win2k isnt really smooth, but it works.. Prepare to get 'inacessible boot partition' errors though, even with stupid things as a bios upgrade (admitedly, a beta bios) on my promise controller.

---- Owner of the only Dell computer with a AMD chip

 

[camieabz]

Thank you, thank you very much.

A candid and helpful answer.

See tonestar, it can be done.

<b>
"Now drop your weapons or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby."
</b>

 

[Guest]

I wouldn't worry to much about the CPU utilization for the drives. The only time you'll see that big CPU utilization is when you're doing heavy disk io (not [-peep-], right? ), at which point you're app is probably waiting on the disk anyway. In the balance, RAID 0 will help a lot.

If you do a lot of multi-tasking, etc. it could be a hassle. But modern CPUs are so powerful wrt what most people use them for that you probably won't notice.

some things you can do to help this:
-Get lots of RAM so that the OS can cache frequently used data.

-Put your swap space on a seperate drive from where most of your normal disk usage occurs. Preferably on a seperate IDE channel. Unless that space is significantly slower of course.

-Get a hardware based IDE RAID solution like 3ware.

-Get SCSI

I'd suggest you just try it first though. You may be happy enough with the performance.

BTW: sorry for crapping on your thead earlier.


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