Variety of questions??

[Guest]

I am really new to all this computer stuff. I mean I just opened and looked inside my old computer case for the first time the other day ( don't laugh). Even so I'm still going to attempt to build me own system. My question is with all the numbers associated with the components, what is the maximum efficiency I could expect and what will be the bottle necks for performance.
Here is my planned system.
AMD Tbird 800
Abit KT7 Raid
Western Dig. 20gig 7200 HD ATA 66/100
16x dvd
SOund blaster sound card
ATI video card
GLobal Win FOP32
Fong Kai case
Here is where my problems lie: The HD claims ATA 100 but from what I've heard the best you can achieve is 40. The mobo claims 200 FSB but the best that can be achieved with out crashes is 105-110. Why taught all these great #'s if they can't be achieved or can they with future upgrades or something. Basically how do all factors involve each other and to what degree? I know this is alot to explain but please try your best. Thanks. Oh I've also been reading up on DDR, now I'm totaly confused. I really don't need a kick ass machine, I just don't want things I don't need or can't be used or wast money. Thanks again

 

[Guest]

The numbers game is part of the marketing. They take the best sounding stuff and use it for presentation. Like ultra ata 100 can do 100 on a drive cache hit but best drive can do 40 sustained max. The 200 MHz FSB is actually a 100 double pumped so going to 105-110 is overclocking it (marketing lingo would put that at 210-220 FSB). Confusing as it is techie people eventually adopt some of it like most refer to Athlon and P4 not as double or quad pumped 100 MHz FSB but as 200 or 400 respectively. Best defense to not getting stuck is to look into just what they're actually saying with the numbers involved.

Good system there - would suggest getting a second hard drive to take advantage of the raid capability (raid 0 reads and writes twice as fast effectively). Also might suggest looking at different vid card, though really depends on what you intend to use your system for. Nvidia cards have pretty much the best blend of features and price IMO (for a home user). Don't know anything about the case so can't comment there, but make sure power supply is a good one. A bad power supply can toast components and that just isn't worth the couple bucks you save on a cheap one.

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