my future gaming rig

[stealthg33k]

Hi

I am planning an upgrade soon, but after reading these forum posts and THG reviews etc, I am starting to wonder if its worth it. The 2 main considerations for the upgrade were:

1 - gaming performance
2 - data recovery/backup

Here is my current rig:

Athlon XP 2500 OC 3200 FSB 380
1.5GB Crucial 3200 (3x512)
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Sapphire 9800 Pro Atlantis
Vantec 480w
1xSeagate 120GB SATA - RAID 0
1xWD 120GB SATA - RAID 0
1xSeagate 120GB IDE
1x Seagate 80GB IDE

I am wanting to change it to this:

AMD 64 4000
*Keep RAM*
7800 GT OR next ATI card announced later this month
DFI nf4 SLI-DR
4xWD or Seagate 200GB SATA in SATA RAID 5 array

This little package would cost me around £1100ish, (approx $2100), so I really want to know if anyone has made a similar jump and thinks it was worth it? I have studied the benchmark results etc, but there is no substitution for real life!

cheers

 

[pat]

First, most socket 939 doesnt support 3 memory stick, like my Gigabyte mobo. Keep that in mind if you cannot have your system post at first. Then, if you want to go with ATI, SLI is useless.. Finally, choose Seagate for HDD..

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[stealthg33k]

cheers for your comments, useful to know!
I only really chose the mobo for the RAID 5 SATA functionality - SLI isnt really an issue for me, but I thought that ATI cards now have Crossfire? Does that require a different mobo?

 

[windgod]

I don't know about goin with that 4000+ especially with all the other dual core chips around the corner. If you're content to wait for the ATI alternative to the nVidia 7800, you may want to wait for a more price effective alternative than the 4000+. And with all honesty, I have the 6800 GT and you should check out the ATI Crossfire cards instead.

"If it ain't broke, fix it till it is."
AMD 2500+M@ 2.4 ghz, 6800GT

 

[stealthg33k]

Hi

Its actually Crucial RAM

here is the link for more info:

http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspecs.Asp?IMODULE=CT6464Z40B

 

[stealthg33k]

unfortunatley not - not too bothered about optimal timings etc, would rather put the cash to better GPU or more hard disk space 😛

Having dug around a little more, looks like RAID 5 is a bad way to go. For random writes, RAID 5 suffers terribly, since it has to not only update the parity data in the stripe but also has to perform a 2-way transaction to verify its integrity. Looks like a better alternative would be either RAID 01 or 10, but since these halve the capacity, I thought I might cut back a little on the CPU, say a 64 3500 instead, and get 4 x 250 or 300GB drives - what do you think?

 

[Zoron]

Or you could go with 500GB drives with 16MB cache...

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[Guest]

Altough it is true, he states that his #2 concern is data recovery I dont think he'll like the idea of 4 in raid 0 hehe. Raid 5 sounds right to me altough he probably can look at the 01, 10 1+0 and all the other mode available on this motherboard. But with raid5 he wont loose to much storage!

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0

 

[stealthg33k]

thanks for your comments guys

Yeah, RAID 5 was looking like the way to go, but random write performance seems to be piss poor and I think I would end up throwing my pooter out the window waiting for installatons etc, so I may pay a little extra and go with the RAID 01 10 etc

But back to the other components - Would an upgrade from a Barton XP 2500 OC@3200 to a 64 3500 be much of a jump? Should I stump up a little extra and get the dual core 4200 or perhaps wait even longer and get an FX55 (or 57???)? Really, I wouldnt be doing much with this rig that (I think) would need multi-threading, but that might change if games etc make use of it in the future.

 

[Starfishy]

If this is a gaming rig then I wouldn't spend the extra money on a X2 4200. Unless you are worried about playing games at the same time as video encoding or some other task running on the other core. Multi-core for multi-tasking. Single core for single tasking. When I game I am not normally encoding my DVD's in the background, and I don't intend to start doing that anytime soon.

The CPU is not normally a bottleneck for gaming although if you are getting a 7800 you might find that the extra performance of an FX55/57 might be worth while. Traditionally I would say to just stick with the 3500 and spend the extra money on a better GPU, but you already intend on getting a kick a$$ GPU so I don't really know what to say. Its all just gravy now. The 3500 and 7800 will play all the games out today on highest settings without any hickups. But if you want to squeeze that extra performance then go for the FX55/57 (depending on budget).