Opinions

[nsupra13]

hi, i just curently rigged up this system, basically im looking for your opinions on the system, its going to be used a lot for gaming and video editing, any recomendations or changes i should do?

Case: Thermaltake Thermaltake Black Xaser III Super Tower Chassis, ATX Super Tower, Large Side Windows, With 7 fans and Lock+(W0009)420W Power Supply, Model "V1420AU" -RETAIL

Motherboard: ASUS ASUS "A8V Deluxe Wi-Fi" K8T800 Pro Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL

Processor AMD AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 3500+, 2.2 GHz, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - Retail

Video Card ATI ATI RADEON X800 PRO Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -RETAIL

RAM Corsair Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack) 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail

HDD Western Digital Western Digital Special Edition 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model WD1200JB, OEM Drive Only

CD/DVD NEC NEC 8X Black Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive, Model ND-2510A BLK, OEM BULK

PSU
OPTIONAL Antec Antec 550 Watt Power Supply With 2 Fans 5.25 Control Panel, Model "TRUE CONTROL 550W" -RETAIL

.... thanks any reccomendations or opinions are appreciated

 

[scottchen]

Damn you rich b@stard

Anyways it sounds all good except for optical drive i'd recommend the Lite-On Dual layer DVD-RW, and for video card, in my opinion, remember this is just my personal opinion i like the Geforce 6800GT. The motherboard i personally prefer the Nforce3 chipset motherboard, i'm not sure what's out there for the socket939 that's Nforce3, i think i've been poisoned by crashman, i'm anti-VIA now. Anyways everything else looks great, for the ram i'd recommend going with either the Corsair XL or simply generic, i myself personally like to get either the best ram or the generic, never in between, since the performance increase from the generic doesn't justify their cost.

Don't listen to anything Kanavit says, because he's a limped dick Intel loving pussy.

<A HREF="http://www.ebaumsworld.com/epilepsyr.shtml" target="_new">DON'T CLICK HERE!!</A>

 

[BeyRevRa]

I also hate the Via chipset and I have read bad things about that motherboard so if you haven't already bought it I would veer away from it. I know your options are limited with the 939 motherboards, last I checked there was only 3 available on newegg.com. The Nvidia 6800 series does seem to get better performance than the x800, but if you prefer ATI then its an excellent card as well. Also, if you spending that much money on a system you may as well get a western digital raptor hard drive (or two in raid 0).

AMD 64 3400+
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
1 GB Kingston HyperX PC3200
ATI AIW 9600XT
WD Raptor 74GB

 

[nsupra13]

hmm i didnt purchase it yet, i might actually lean towards the nforce

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Get MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (nForce3 Ultra, socket 939) and GeForce 6800GT

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[Guest]

If you go with low timming ram get Crucial Ballistix havent tryed it but its seams whicked.
Probly a real good combo with A64.
Other ram suggestion is OCZ 3500EB

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, Leadtek FX5900 w/ FX5950U bios@500/1000, 2X30gig Raid0

 

[pickxx]

LISTEN TO SPITFIRE!!!
That is the best combo.

Also i agree with above as well...GET two 74GB Raptors. Put them in a RAID-0. If you dont you will have built a TREMENDOUSLY fast and expensive computer but saved money by making a HUGE bottleneck for like 200bucks.

 

[Kanavit]

Case: Thermaltake Thermaltake Black Xaser III Super Tower Chassis, ATX Super Tower, Large Side Windows, With 7 fans and Lock+(W0009)420W Power Supply, Model "V1420AU" -RETAIL

I have the same case, and it's awesome! comes with temp probe LCD too on front panel and LED front panel illuminated lettering. Very sturdy , high quality case, should last forever!

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Prescott 3.2E 1MB L2 HT
1GB PC 3200 Dual channel(PAT)
Asus P4P800 Bios 1016
PNY Geforce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3
60,823 Aquamarks <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Kanavit on 08/10/04 11:22 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[nsupra13]

hmmm thanks to everyone who is helping me out. "GET two 74GB Raptors. Put them in a RAID-0. If you dont you will have built a TREMENDOUSLY fast and expensive computer but saved money by making a HUGE bottleneck for like 200bucks.
" can someone please explain the whole RAID -0 thing and why i should get it. The following changes to this system are gonna be the motherboard and the ram for sure. Is it a bad thing that the 3500+ has only 512 cache instead of 1mb

 

[pickxx]

I can explain it for your case easily....
RAID-0 lets you write and read multiple drives as if they were 1 drive. This allowes for faster reads and writes. It breaks all files into little bundles and sotres them in stripes on each disk.

with 1 drive you get this "1234567890"

With RAID-0 you will get Drive 1 "13579" and drive 2 "24680".
So when you want to get information on "1234" it will pull info from BOTH drives seemlessly.

With 1 drive the delay would be 8sec, with RAID-0 there would be a 4sec delay.

The only problem is if one drive goes out then everything is lost.
If you use just one 74GB Raptor, it will be fast and it doesn't require RAID. Its simple and easy if you dont want to mess with setting up your drives in RAID.

Sorry if i am confusing, i'm sure someone can explain it better, i am 'special'

What do you call a group of midgets? A pack, gaggle, a pride, or maybe just a murder?

 

[Mephistopheles]

Is it really worthwhile?

I mean, I'm planning on getting an <A HREF="http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A8V Deluxe&langs=01" target="_new">Asus A8V Deluxe</A> that has a promise RAID controller on board. For RAID 0, I'd need identical SATA drives, which I could get, but I'm kind of skeptical that the performance boost would be so big... <b>Is it worth it?</b>

Besides, I couldn't possibly afford a high-end drive to go with it, so it would probably be two mid-priced SATA drives or one slightly more expensive one. <i>Edit: I'm currently checking if it would need to be two SATA drives or two UltraDMA drives...</i>

Add to that, if I wanted a clean linux installation, I'd also consider getting a third, smaller UltraDMA hard drive! And switch boot devices in the bios. Much cleaner than LILO, and I could then mess with 64-bit distros now!

<i><font color=red>You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete</font color=red> - Buckminster Fuller </i><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 08/10/04 05:45 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[pickxx]

Is it worth it....maybe. It all depends on what you are going to do.
Gaming you will only see levels load faster so i would say no. For Graphic design and things with large files that you save and modify often...it could save you quite a bit of time.

Overall i would say no. If you dont want to drop $360 on two Raptors and you are a little skeptical about the performance.... i would say get a WD 200GB SATA for $128<newegg>. Its about a third of the price of a top in RAID array and it has more then twice the space.
If you go with a RAID array you can make it way cheeper with 2 WD 80GB drives for $143<newegg> (71.50 each)

Ultimatly it's up to and what you do to know if it's worth it.

What do you call a group of midgets? A pack, gaggle, a pride, or maybe just a murder?

 

[DonnieDarko]

i'm anti-VIA now

I haven't had a problem with via chipsets. I like my k8t800pro chipset. It doesn't bench much different than the nforce3 250, and I haven't had any stability issues. Maybe I just got lucky.

AMD64 2800+
MSI Neo-Fis2r
512mb Kingmax ddr400
Sapphire 9800pro 128mb
10K WD Raptor

 

[fishmahn]

>>>Would it be worth it?<<<

If you are using the cheap onboard controllers and already blazingly fast drives (raptors), then no, it probably won't be worth it for desktop/gaming use. If you are buying an add on PCI card, and raptors, then no, it probably won't be worth it (even if the controller is good, a single raptor can probably reach close to the limit of the PCI bus so there's not much headroom for a second drive to use). If you are using a higher quality onboard controller and raptors, then maybe you'll see real-world performance improvements. (raptors are already very close to the speed limit of SATA IMO - don't know offhand where I got that idea, and haven't actually run any numbers, so I could be way off base)

However, if you are using a high-quality onboard controller (Promise is good), and inexpensive disks (non-raptors), then you will probably see a noticeable improvement in disk access using RAID-0. This usage is the very point of a RAID (Redundant Array of INEXPENSIVE DISKS) setup. Get high-end performance (or at least higher performance) out of cheaper parts by having lots of them.

Will it make a noticeable overall system improvement? good question.

Mike.