Time for a new computer [Archive] - The Gemstone IV Players' Corner

Numbers

10-12-2007, 01:50 PM

So, I think my 3-year old gaming rig is on its last legs. I bought it just before SLI came out, and now there's dual-cores and quad-cores and all the rest. So, it's having trouble keeping up with the newest games. It couldn't even handle the Call of Duty 4 demo, and it chugs with the Orange Box games.

That being said, I'm debating whether to buy from an OEM or build it myself. I used to build all my computers myself, but during college my machine decided to shit bricks one night. When you have a 20-page paper due in a few days, that's a really bad thing. So I started buying OEM just for the warranties (which I ended up using quite a few times, so it was a good choice).

Now that college is done, I don't really need that security anymore. But I'm so out of touch with what's new and what's best that I don't even know where to start if I were to build my own rig, and keep thinking it might be better to save myself the hassle and buy OEM (Alienware? Dell? Falcon?)

I know for sure that I want an SLI motherboard (not a clue what brand or type), dual-core (quad maybe?), and 2 gigs of RAM.

In terms of video cards, I've been researching the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB, though it's definitely a bit pricey. And since I'd have an SLI, I'd need two of them. Worth it?

Watercooling is also something I'd really dig, as I'm sick of having to raise my volume just to hear over the damn fans. My sound card, hard drives, optical drives, and NIC I can just scavenge from my current machine.

Anyone have any advice on specs I should be going for? Should I build or buy?

Blazing247

10-12-2007, 02:09 PM

I just finished building my new machine last week. Antec Nine Hundred Case (bar none best cooling case on the market), E6750 (2.66 dual core with a nice multiplier for overclocking), 2 gigs of good overclockable RAM, 2x250gb HDD (I prefer Seagate 7200.10's), 2900 graphics card by ATI, and the new P35 Gigabyte DS3 mobo since it will accept the new processor's coming out later this year. With that said, I waited for good deals, bought a lot of OEM, and spent $1000 give or take a few shipped.

What is your budget? What games do you want to play? As far as SLI, typically when people SLI they do not buy 2 current generation cards. 1x8800 GTS 640 or 1x2900 will be more than enough to play any current game at a decent resolution. IMO, it's better to buy 1 decent card, and in a year or so when that card isn't enough to run the current games at max settings, buy the same card when it's $300 less and SLI them. Honestly though, I'm the kind of person that prefers 1 top of the line video card. Less money, less power hungry, less heat issues, and less having to worry about SLI or Crossfire game compatibility (a few games right now have issues, ahem can't name them tho).

As for processor, the Q6600 is not bad and can be had for $240 or so, just make sure to get the latest stepping (G0). IMHO, not enough games or applications take true advantage of the quad cores, and I've gotten my E6750 up to 3.8 on air, thought right now it's comfortable at 3.2

The problem with Dell and company is that they use proprietary components, which means it's 1) impossible to overclock, and if you do manage to unlock the BIOS, you've voided every warranty 2) impossible to upgrade unless you buy the right parts, and 3) generally not top notch components.

IMHO, I'd take a look at what I built. I can run every game on the market (Dx10 graphics, yummy) at ultra high settings and not even break a sweat. Let me know if you need further advice.

Blazing247

10-12-2007, 02:13 PM

Also, water cooling is not necessary unless you plan to do extreme overclocking. The Tuniq Tower, Tsunami, Scythe Ninja, or Freezer Pro 7 (what I have) and a good case will keep you cool enough. If you want good cooling and silence, I suggest the Antec P180/P182, very quiet cases, with bottom mounted PSU for heat issues. One other thing, I noticed you wanted to scavenge your hard drive, what model/brand is it? I'd be wary of doing that, the hard drive is a very underrated component for speed.

Celephais

10-12-2007, 02:14 PM

Just because you have a SLI board doesn't mean you need to buy two cards and SLI them right now. In reality SLI isn't worth it's price, as games come out that can really use the power individual cards seem to catch up, and surpass (not just processing power, but feature sets... especially what with them already adding DX 10.1 to cards, and 8800 GTS being DX10). That said I would still recomend getting a SLI board. I recently just built a machine and got a SLI board, but only got one video card (8800 GTS 640). I do a good amount of DX programming above and beyond gaming so things like the most recent shader model were important to me (I think the week after I bought it news of 10.1 came out).

The advantage the SLI board buys is that you get two PCI-Ex 16 slots (despite not having all that bandwidth in both), so when I decide to upgrade my video card I can move my 8800 GTS to the 4x PCI-Ex lane, and not actually SLI it... this will be very nice to have as a dedicated add-on processor, and since GeForce's CUDA seems to be getting some good attention, I have high hopes that my 8800 GTS would become a physics card, while whatever I replace it with is my dedicated graphics card.

(Worst comes to worst I can at least use it like that personally in my own development).

CPU: Q6600
MB: Gigabyte GA-P35
RAM: OCZ2 Reaper 1066 2GB (going to upgrade to 4gb soonish)
GPU: EVGA 8800 GTS 640MB
HD: 150GB Raptor & 2x 500GB 0+1

Bobmuhthol

10-12-2007, 03:12 PM

If you don't want to build, buy from ABS.

Skeeter

10-12-2007, 03:26 PM

I love my alienware, but that was before Dell bought them so now.... who knows.

Marl

10-12-2007, 03:45 PM

I actually really enjoy my xps 710 from dell. Super easy to upgrade, comes with DELL supported overclocking "a bios toggle on/off and a program to do it[nTune]) find you one @ dell outlet and be on your way for about 1k-1.5k

Numbers

10-12-2007, 04:04 PM

Thanks a bunch for the suggestions, they've been extremely helpful. Please keep them coming.

I'm thinking that my budget will be between 1.5k to 2k, which is probably more than I'll end up needing.

How loud does that Antec Nine Hundred case get? It's pretty slick looking, but it sure does pack in a lot of fans.

Also, is the P35 Gigabyte DS3 board an SLI board? I looked it up on newegg, and it looks like it had just the one PCIe slot.

I also decided that I'll probably end up getting some new hard drives. The ones in my current system have been sounding a little rattly lately, and I don't want to cheap out on my new system. I've never had a RAID machine, as it's always worried me that if one hard drive goes, everything goes. Worth it?

What's the best brand of RAM I should aim for? And the best type?

Also, I have zero experience in overclocking. Is there an overclocking for dummies guide available anywhere?

Clove

10-12-2007, 04:20 PM

...I'm thinking that my budget will be between 1.5k to 2k, which is probably more than I'll end up needing...

That's an ample budget for a punchy machine.

I also decided that I'll probably end up getting some new hard drives. The ones in my current system have been sounding a little rattly lately, and I don't want to cheap out on my new system. I've never had a RAID machine, as it's always worried me that if one hard drive goes, everything goes. Worth it?

It depends on the RAID level. RAID 0 would put you in the situation you describe. You'd get great performance but if one drive goes you lose the whole array. RAID 1 (mirroring) gives you fault tolerance but at the cost of performance. If you back up your critical files periodically, RAID 0 will probably serve you fine (if speed is your goal). Otherwise you could look for a board that supports nested RAIDS (1+0 or 0+1). It would require a minimum of 4 drives but you'd get a nice combination of performance and fault-tolerance.

What's the best brand of RAM I should aim for? And the best type?

I'm cheap, I like Corsair XMS. I've never gotten a bad stick.

Also, I have zero experience in overclocking. Is there an overclocking for dummies guide available anywhere?

Overclocking can get you a nice bang for your buck, but I avoid it these days. If you have the cash, just buy a CPU that's spec'd for what you need.

Celephais

10-12-2007, 04:24 PM

RAID is absolutely worth it for peace of mind... and the P35s 0+1 raid is really nice at letting you do it without slashing performance/storage space/hard drive bays. Especially with your budget you should be able to get some really nice HDD (and they WILL be your bottleneck).

Not all the DS3s are SLI (I think), there are multiple P35 DS3 revisions/models.

RAM choice is hard to say, you're going to have people tell you crucial, but I feel crucial is overpriced, you'll want ram that's capable of higher speeds if you plan on overclocking, you likely won't get the best timings but it shouldn't be too big an issue.

If you get a Gigabyte board, one of the higher end ones at least, BIOS overclock is incredibly easy and should be relatively self explanitory from within your BIOS. Infact just about any of the overclocking minded boards will be like that (I have less experience w/ non-gigabyte boards). If you plan on pin-mod overclocking... I don't think there is a safe "for dummies" way to go about that.

Celephais

10-12-2007, 04:29 PM

It depends on the RAID level. RAID 0 would put you in the situation you describe. You'd get great performance but if one drive goes you lose the whole array. RAID 1 (mirroring) gives you fault tolerance but at the cost of performance. If you back up your critical files periodically, RAID 0 will probably serve you fine (if speed is your goal). Otherwise you could look for a board that supports nested RAIDS (1+0 or 0+1). It would require a minimum of 4 drives but you'd get a nice combination of performance and fault-tolerance.
You're thinking of RAID 10, which is different than RAID 0+1. RAID 10 requires at least 4 hard drives, and gives you redundancy at the cost of halving your storage space, and increase of speed by distributing. RAID 0+1 lets you use two hard drives, and specify portions of the drives as either RAID 0 or RAID 1. So in my case I have two 500gb drives, allocated as 400GB RAID 1 (using 800GB of the 1TB), and 200GB RAID 0. I use the RAID 1 for sensitive documents, and RAID 0 for my programs/scratch file (I have the raptor for my OS).

Celephais

10-12-2007, 04:42 PM

Not sure if you're in need of peripherals or not, but if you are, for $20 you can get a sweet logitech desktop set (today only... w/ rebate):
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4131365

(I'm a die-hard ergo keyboard kind of person myself)

Blazing247

10-12-2007, 04:44 PM

I don't believe any of the P35 set of boards support SLI, unless something has changed. The new X38's (enthusias boards) at some point will be licensed to support SLI, although I am unsure on that since I haven't had a chance to spec them out. That said, as I mentioned I have no interest of ever running Crossfire/SLI, and certainly not on a sub-2k budget. For SLI, you'll probably have to stick to 650/680 boards.

For RAM, I went for low latency G.Skill. I paid 50 bucks for a 2 gig dual channel memory kit, DDR2 800, a steal IMO. As Celephais said, overclocking is easy with the Gigabyte boards. I did mine through BIOS, but for beginners you can do it through a GUI called Easy Tune. Good call on getting new drives.

Trouble

10-12-2007, 04:48 PM

I don't have the links here at work but I've found a couple of nice intro to overclocking websites by doing searches. Some get fancy where you test each component separately (ram, cpu, bus) and then enter in your numbers and it spits out the best combination of the three.

Clove

10-12-2007, 04:49 PM

You're thinking of RAID 10, which is different than RAID 0+1. RAID 10 requires at least 4 hard drives, and gives you redundancy at the cost of having your storage space, and increase of speed by distributing. RAID 0+1 lets you use two hard drives, and specify portions of the drives as either RAID 0 or RAID 1. So in my case I have two 500gb drives, allocated as 400GB RAID 1 (using 800GB of the 1TB), and 200GB RAID 0. I use the RAID 1 for sensitive documents, and RAID 0 for my programs/scratch file (I have the raptor for my OS).

That's an interesting RAID but it isn't 0+1 or 1+0. 1+0 is also known as 10. 0+1 is a striped pair, mirrored; 4 disks.
1+0 is a mirrored pair, striped; 4 disks.

Sounds the same but they aren't exactly. 10 or 1+0 is superior for fault tolerance. Those inclined can read up on the specifics in the links below.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/multLevel01-c.html
http://aput.net/~jheiss/raid10/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Celephais

10-12-2007, 04:51 PM

I don't believe any of the P35 set of boards support SLI, unless something has changed. The new X38's (enthusias boards) at some point will be licensed to support SLI, although I am unsure on that since I haven't had a chance to spec them out. That said, as I mentioned I have no interest of ever running Crossfire/SLI, and certainly not on a sub-2k budget. For SLI, you'll probably have to stick to 650/680 boards.
I believe you're right that none of the P35s have a SLI sticker on them, but they certainly do have 2x PCI-Ex 16x slots. This board here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128067 for example. I couldn't tell you for certain if it'll run SLI, some firmware updates/revisions can do things others can't but I don't know if it's supported.

Celephais

10-12-2007, 04:59 PM

That's an interesting RAID but it isn't 0+1 or 1+0. 1+0 is also known as 10. 0+1 is a striped pair, mirrored; 4 disks.
1+0 is a mirrored pair, striped; 4 disks.

Sounds the same but they aren't exactly. 10 or 1+0 is superior for fault tolerance. Those inclined can read up on the specifics in the links below.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/multLevel01-c.html
http://aput.net/~jheiss/raid10/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Any info he's going to run into on motherboards is going to list Intel's Matrix RAID as 0+1, generally when a controllers capabilities are listed it'll say something like RAID 0/1/5/6/10/0+1/JBOD refering to 0+1 as Matrix RAID. Especially when refering to a motherboard vs buying a dedicated controller (which he shouldn't). The resallers have just hijacked the terminology.

Esspecially in a desktop enviroment, he'll be way better off with a Matrix RAID.

Blazing247

10-12-2007, 05:12 PM

The fans on the Antec nine Hundred aren't that loud, they are tri-cool which means they are adjustable.

Blazing247

10-12-2007, 05:17 PM

Motherfuck....one of these days I will learn not to edit my original post into oblivion. My original post was saying that the mobo linked by Celephais will not support SLI in 2 x 16.

Celephais

10-12-2007, 05:25 PM

Motherfuck....one of these days I will learn not to edit my original post into oblivion. My original post was saying that the mobo linked by Celephais will not support SLI in 2 x 16.
haha, I saw your post before you edited it... I agreed w/ you that it doesn't have a SLI sticker, I really hate how nVidia nabbed the SLI nomenclature, it's supposed to be just any two cards regardless of brand, arggg. What I meant by different revisions/whatever was that third parties/individuals have gotten two nVidia cards to run in SLI on a board that wasn't SLI certified (at least I thought I remember reading about it), I wasn't very clear in that respect, that odds aren't you can't do it (and if you can it likely has some nasty hoops)

Blazing247

10-12-2007, 05:34 PM

haha, I saw your post before you edited it... I agreed w/ you that it doesn't have a SLI sticker, I really hate how nVidia nabbed the SLI nomenclature, it's supposed to be just any two cards regardless of brand, arggg. What I meant by different revisions/whatever was that third parties/individuals have gotten two nVidia cards to run in SLI on a board that wasn't SLI certified (at least I thought I remember reading about it), I wasn't very clear in that respect, that odds aren't you can't do it (and if you can it likely has some nasty hoops)

Well they didn't really nab it so much as that there are only 2 card makers out there, NVIDIA and ATI/AMD (I guess matrox might still be around who the fuck knows). Because both Crossfire and SLI require nearly identical paired cards, it's kind of given that NVIDIA nabbed the SLI nomenclature since it'd be 2x Nvidia cards. Whether your card is boxed by EVGA, BFG, etc., it's still an NVIDIA card. Also, you are a SD'er, I can tell by your link to that wireless desktop.

Celephais

10-12-2007, 06:15 PM

Well they didn't really nab it so much as that there are only 2 card makers out there, NVIDIA and ATI/AMD (I guess matrox might still be around who the fuck knows). Because both Crossfire and SLI require nearly identical paired cards, it's kind of given that NVIDIA nabbed the SLI nomenclature since it'd be 2x Nvidia cards. Whether your card is boxed by EVGA, BFG, etc., it's still an NVIDIA card.
I'm more mad that they made SLI (Scalable link interface) into a brand, copyrighting it or whatever, whereas previously it was just a technology (Scan-Line Interleave), and anyone could use the nomenclature. I know they're no longer output as Scan-Line Interleave... it's more like Scan-Line designation or something, but still, the acronym in my mind means multiple cards for one output... but ANY card... now I have to mean just nVidia cards.

Also, you are a SD'er, I can tell by your link to that wireless desktop.Certainly am, I've re-posted several of the deals here.

Numbers

10-12-2007, 11:42 PM

All right, here's what I've decided on so far. The power supply is dependent on which video card I choose to go with. The GTX is apparently very power hungry, but I'm not sure if the 550W would be able to supply the GTS with enough juice.

I still need to decide on hard drive setup. I think I'm going to go with the configuration that Celephais has. Three drives, one dedicated to the OS, the other two in a RAID config. I'll also need a RAID card - are those pretty standardized? Again, I have no experience with RAID.

Also, I'll probably end up making the jump to Vista, to support DX10 and for memory support. Since there's, like, 73 different versions of Vista, which should I go with? Ultimate?

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=CA1938460 - $265

Mobo:
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059

Power Supply:
Rosewill RP550-2 ATX12V v2.01 550W - $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182017
-or-
Thermaltake W0116RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply 100 -$160
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153038

RAM:
Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $175
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220227

Video Card:
EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP - $550
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130072
-or-
EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 - $355
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130071

Case:
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021&Tpk=antec%2b900

Blazing247

10-13-2007, 04:28 AM

That will be a badass machine. With EVGA, you get the 90 day step up program which helps because NVIDIA is releasing new cards soon (more power efficient, etc). MOBO is solid, quad core is good and clubit provides the G0 stepping guaranteed, case is solid, ram is great...only thing you did wrong was the power supply. Power supply is essential to a good machine. For your budget, go PC Power and Cooling for the PSU, or even a decent Corsair or Seasonic, or Antec is always solid.

Numbers

10-13-2007, 01:09 PM

Changed the power supply, decided on hard drives and CPU fan. Think I'm about all set. I'll probably end up going with Vista Ultimate.

All told, it will end up costing around $2k, not including shipping.

Power:
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad (Black) EPS12V 750W Power Supply 100 - $200 to $250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703009

Hard drives:
2x
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $110 ($220 total)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152052
-and-
Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - $165
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136012

CPU Fan:
ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Heatsink - $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118223

Parkbandit

10-13-2007, 01:26 PM

The most intensive thing I do is play WoW.. what are you guys playing that you require triple cooled towers and overclocked chips?

Am I missing something?

Blazing247

10-13-2007, 02:34 PM

150gb Raptor, you bastard. :( I wish I had that in my budget. Everything looks good, but I used to have that Zalman 9500 and I'm fairly sure it's not compatible with socket 775 which is what that mobo is (I had a socket 478 at the time).

For 775 coolers, Arctic Freezer Pro 7 (what I have) is great, cheap, as easy to install as a stock HSF, Tuniq Tower is also great but more pricy, and I hear mixed reviews on the Ultra 120.

Blazing247

10-13-2007, 02:36 PM

The most intensive thing I do is play WoW.. what are you guys playing that you require triple cooled towers and overclocked chips?

Am I missing something?

WoW is pretty minimal as far as graphics intensity goes. Most new and upcoming DX10 games require extremely high end rigs to play fluidly. As for overclocking, well some of us just like to see how far we can push our rigs. I could've paid more for a faster chip, but why when I can pay less and overclock it to that speed for free?

Numbers

10-13-2007, 02:48 PM

Newegg lists the Zalman as being compatible with 775. Could they be wrong?

Sean of the Thread

10-13-2007, 02:50 PM

E machine imo.

Blazing247

10-13-2007, 02:59 PM

Newegg lists the Zalman as being compatible with 775. Could they be wrong?

No, I checked and it appears it's compatible according to Newegg. For my old board I had to use the supplied backplate and it was mildly annoying to install, but did cool well. The new HSF's have these little pushpins making it oh so easy to install them.

Skeeter

10-13-2007, 06:12 PM

For as much time as I spend on a computer I clearly know DICK about them.

Trouble

10-13-2007, 06:14 PM

No, I checked and it appears it's compatible according to Newegg. For my old board I had to use the supplied backplate and it was mildly annoying to install, but did cool well. The new HSF's have these little pushpins making it oh so easy to install them.

You could always check the manufacturer's site, if you haven't already.

Celephais

10-15-2007, 11:00 AM

I still need to decide on hard drive setup. I think I'm going to go with the configuration that Celephais has. Three drives, one dedicated to the OS, the other two in a RAID config. I'll also need a RAID card - are those pretty standardized? Again, I have no experience with RAID.
Was gone all weekend so didn't get to reply till now... You don't need a seperate dedicated RAID card, although they are nice and can improve performance, but in your case I don't think it would be worth it... you can just step up your MB for $20 and get it all included:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128050
(It says RAID 0+1 supported, but they mean Matrix RAID, where you can split your two drives into some RAID 0 some RAID 1).

It's very easy to set up, especially if you have a dedicated OS HDD, because you can get your computer up and running, drivers updated etc, and then worry about formatting your RAID disks.

Numbers

10-15-2007, 12:52 PM

Celephais

10-15-2007, 01:58 PM

I placed the order for all my hardware yesterday, without even noticing that the mobo didn't have built in RAID. Stupid mistake on my part. I'm looking through the options on newegg, and it doesn't look like these cards are standardized at all. One costs $130 while another costs $30.
Call up newegg... If it hasn't shipped yet they might be able to change it... no promises, but I've had very good luck with calling them on a misorder once.

As for getting a RAID card, you'll want a decent one, but a lot of the higher end ones are more expensive because they have a dedicated XOR processor, essentially they take the burden of figuring out parity on a RAID5 off of the CPU, this is great, but from the sound of it you're wanting a RAID1 or RAID0 (and if you were looking for my setup where you have a portion of your two drives as redundant and another portion of better performing... I don't know of any discrete Matrix RAID controllers).

Numbers

10-15-2007, 03:24 PM

By the time I called, the order had already been boxed and scanned, so no luck there. Oh well, no big deal, I wasn't exactly pinching pennies on this machine, anyway.

I'm looking at this RAID card. Seems to have the best reviews. Looks like it handles RAID 0 and 1.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116030

Celephais

10-15-2007, 03:27 PM

Holy crap no... that's PCI-64, not only that, but it only supports 2 SATA drives. You want a PCI-Express RAID Controller.

Being limited to just 2 SATA drives on the controller isn't going to be an issue if you don't plan on really expanding more past the whole 1 OS and 2 RAID'd setup, as your OS is going to go off your Motherboard controller anyway. You would be able to software RAID w/ your current MB, but from the sound of it (not skimping) I wouldn't suggest that.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132008
Is a decent 2-port RAID1 option.

Again considering your budget... you might want to order up the upgraded MB (hell it was cheaper than that PCI-64 controller) and return the other one when you get it (What's neweggs return policy?).

Your quad core will also alleviate any issues you have with any of the HDD RAID management being a duty of the CPU.

Stealth

10-15-2007, 04:20 PM

Ok sorry for chiming in late...here is my system I built earlier this year:

3X Raptor 150GB 10k drives in RAID 0 from a dedicated PCI-E RAID controller (256mb on board memory)
QX6700 quad core processor (extreme quad)
2GB dominator RAM
EVGA 768MB 8800GTX (same one you are looking at)
3X 1TB drives in RAID 5 using onboard MOBO RAID
Thermaltake Kandalf with 25cm side fan
Tuniq Tower cooler
EVGA 122/680 A1 motherboard

Here are some things I learned in the process:

The tuniq tower keeps it very very cool. It is also sooooo heavy and top heavy particularly that it needs wire ties or some other support of you have the case upright (the tower sticking out sideways). I do not recommend this cooler if you don't want to deal with that problem.

The Tuniq Tower ran my system at about 40 C at idle (no OC). At load it ran up to about 50-52 C. The stock cooler kept it at about 47 and ran up to 55 C at load.

Onboard RAID (even with the Quad core) is absolutely no comparison to dedicated RAID. With onboard RAID I got the following throughput (sustained)...1 raptor ~90 megabytes/s, 2 was 112, 3 was 115. With the card I got 1 at 90, 2 at 170 and 3 at 245. So the onboard RAID is clearly bottlenecking. Seek time was more or less the same.

The addition of the 25cm side fan to the Kandalf was great..dropped my temps by about 4-5 degrees C and it's totally quiet (low RPM, large fan).

The 8800 GTX will handle pretty much any game out there right now.

My only other question for you is what OS are you running and pending that question...why 4GB of RAM?

Stealth

Stealth

10-15-2007, 04:25 PM

Also I should mention that the dedicated RAID card bottlenecked at 4 drives in RAID 0...the figure was around 255 I think.

Does RAID 0 really help for gaming? IMO...no.

Is it good for moving big ass files around? Yes.

Would you be better off in almost every aspect of using a single RAPTOR as your OS drive and a second one for your swap file? Probably.

Celephais

10-15-2007, 04:32 PM

Onboard RAID (even with the Quad core) is absolutely no comparison to dedicated RAID. With onboard RAID I got the following throughput (sustained)...1 raptor ~90 megabytes/s, 2 was 112, 3 was 115. With the card I got 1 at 90, 2 at 170 and 3 at 245. So the onboard RAID is clearly bottlenecking. Seek time was more or less the same.
A dedicated RAID controller with built in memory (or expansion slots) is quite a bit different than a controller that's just going to buy him hardware RAID, they're also quite a bit more expensive. I just don't think it's worth the $350 controller for two 7200 500GBs. I also don't suspect he'll really benefit much from the improved throughput, when he's mentioned gaming as his primary application, has a raptor for that and (from the sound of it) plans to RAID1 the Samsungs.

Stealth

10-15-2007, 04:47 PM

My next post says more or less that RAID is not needed for gaming IMO.

Celephais

10-15-2007, 05:02 PM

My next post says more or less that RAID is not needed for gaming IMO.
Yeah I hadn't read it when I started posting... er when I hit reply your post wasn't up yet (then I got distracted and posted without refreshing the thread). You covered my concerns, whilst a dedicated controller is nice, it's certainly not needed in his case.

Numbers

10-15-2007, 05:05 PM

Celephais

10-15-2007, 05:08 PM

I ended up buying that RAID card that Celephais suggested. I'm putting in the RAID mostly because I've always wanted to try it, and just for the extra speed. Even if it doesn't help a lot for gaming, I do move a lot of big files around. As for the 4 gigs of RAM, mostly because it wasn't that much more than 2 gigs. RAM seems to be pretty cheap these days.

For OS I'll be going with Vista, which I'm still a little wary of, but I figured I might as well give it a shot.
If you're running 32-bit Vista it will only use 3gb of your 4gb of ram... if you're running 64-bit you'll be fine.

Even moving big files around you won't really have any throughput issues... the 500gb HDD have such large densities that they have really good throughput, and with RAID1 it's not like you'll have the theoretical doubled (*drives) throughput of RAID0.

Kranar

10-15-2007, 05:59 PM

If you're running 32-bit Vista it will only use 3gb of your 4gb of ram... if you're running 64-bit you'll be fine.

This is kind of a myth.

Windows XP and Vista both will use all your RAM. What happens though is that any one single application will only have access to 3 GB of address space and the remainder is reserved for the operating system.

But chances are no one program will ever use more than 3 GB anyways so it's no big deal. However, if two programs each use 2 GB, then all 4 GB of your physical RAM will be put to use. Similarly if you have tons of programs and the sum of their memory usage exceeds 3 GB, you better believe that Windows is going to make use of more than just 3 GB of physical memory. It's just no one program can hog more than 3 GB to itself.

kheldarin

10-16-2007, 06:21 AM

Anybody work at a retail store, dealing with computers? If so, give intel.com/retail a visit. This year's purchase program includes an Intel Core2 Quad Q6700 processor, an Intel mobo, and Vista premium for 250. I know it's kinda late to even try to get points but a good heads up for next year.

Clove

10-16-2007, 08:39 AM

This is kind of a myth.

Windows XP and Vista both will use all your RAM. What happens though is that any one single application will only have access to 3 GB of address space and the remainder is reserved for the operating system.

But chances are no one program will ever use more than 3 GB anyways so it's no big deal. However, if two programs each use 2 GB, then all 4 GB of your physical RAM will be put to use. Similarly if you have tons of programs and the sum of their memory usage exceeds 3 GB, you better believe that Windows is going to make use of more than just 3 GB of physical memory. It's just no one program can hog more than 3 GB to itself.

Not completely accurate. 32-bit XP can allocate up to 2GB for kernal use and 2GB for application use by default. It's possible to modify the boot file to move the split so that a maximum of 1GB is allocated to the kernal, leaving 3GB for applications. Really 4GB of RAM is the most you want to put into XP 32-bit.

Kranar

10-16-2007, 10:35 AM

Not completely accurate. 32-bit XP can allocate up to 2GB for kernal use and 2GB for application use by default. It's possible to modify the boot file to move the split so that a maximum of 1GB is allocated to the kernal, leaving 3GB for applications. Really 4GB of RAM is the most you want to put into XP 32-bit.

It's a little confusing because of how an operating system abstracts memory details from an application, but the basic point is that 3 GB is not a limit on the amount of physical memory that Windows XP can make use of. 3 GB is just the amount of memory that Windows XP will make an individual application believe it has access to, and it will make the application believe that an entire 1 GB of RAM is being used by the kernel, when of course all of this is a lie being told to the application (the kernel only uses maybe 128-256 MB at most). This is true regardless of whether you have 4 GB of physical memory or not, the operating system lies to programs making them think that there's 4 GB of RAM available and that it can only access 3 GB of it, and this is the case even if you only have 256 MB of RAM installed (hence swap files/virtual memory etc...).

But a multitude of applications running on a computer can exceed 3 GB of physical memory if for example... you have 4 programs running each using up 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP isn't going to just ignore an entire 1 GB of RAM and pretend like it doesn't exist. Each application gets its own sandbox to play in, thinking it's the only program in the world and has all this memory available to it. It's the job of Windows XP to make this illusion possible.

Numbers

10-20-2007, 08:44 PM

The mobo was DOA. =(

Had everything installed, cables attached, but it wouldn't even give me the POST screen. Going to have to RMA it, so it'll delay me by a week and a half or so.

I'm concerned it could be the processor, but I'm not sure how I could even test that.

Very disappointing and frustrating day.

Numbers

10-27-2007, 03:28 PM

Got the replacement motherboard, and this one works fine.

Have Vista installed, still getting used to it.

Trying to install the RAID setup, but I'm having difficulty. Celephais, I'd like a setup like yours (the split between 0 and 1), but the BIOS utility doesn't seem to want to let me do that. And the GUI that came with the RAID card doesn't seem to want to work in Vista (it's a .jar file, I haven't downloaded any Java apps yet).

Any ideas or advice?

Sean of the Thread

10-27-2007, 03:40 PM

Numbers

10-27-2007, 05:32 PM

Nope, it was DOA. Apparently this motherboard is notorious for that.

Sean of the Thread

10-27-2007, 06:02 PM

hhehehheheeh

sure sure

ZZZZAAAAAPPPP

Numbers

10-27-2007, 10:34 PM

Solved it. Was finally able to find where Vista was hiding the disk manager.

Now I've got 800GB on raid 0, and 60GB on raid 1.

I'm liking Vista so far (once you disable all the crap).

Celephais

10-28-2007, 12:48 PM

Solved it. Was finally able to find where Vista was hiding the disk manager.

Now I've got 800GB on raid 0, and 60GB on raid 1.

I'm liking Vista so far (once you disable all the crap).
Glad to hear you got it figured out, wasn't around this weekend, but once you find it it's easy to set up.

I rather like Vista myself, after turning off all the crap it's pretty sweet. It may be "resource intensive" but really it makes no difference if your machine is capable of handling it.