Noobie gonna build a system..

[rds1955]

Howdy:

Need a little advise on a system I'm considering on building..Gonna spend somewhere between $4-6K on the parts for a liquid cooled system I want to put together for myself..Been browsing in here for bout a month or two reading this and that, preparing myself for the challenge... It's gonna be a Monster Gaming system, plus I'm gonna use it to network into a home theater system I'm putting together...I've done some maintenance on my own PC's, and also troubleshooting issues that have come up, so I feel fairly PC compatent to some degree..

I want to use 4 Hard drives, 2 Western Digitals for Raid setup for the OS, and two larger 500 GB HDD's for storage..I am somewhat confused about the RAID/SATA thing..Can someone point me to some info on the web which will help me in how to set up the Raid array I'm speaking of?..I had a system someone else built for me that I "hired" out cause he needed the money at the time with two drives set up in a raid array, plus I had a SWAP drive connected via IDE and all I had was major issues, big time..Also I had two external USB drives hooked up at the same time..Reason for all the storage is I wanted to Stream my Backuped movies's into my Home theater system...Any ideas, comments, suggestions and pointers are appreciated..TIA

 

[mdd1963]

"Gonna spend somewhere between $4-6K on the parts for a liquid cooled system I want to put together for myself.."

$6000??? Ouch!

Even with the goal of a monster gaming system, would you consider spending half as much and getting 95% of the performance? (Liquid cooling the cpu might gain you an extra 50-100 MHz on the cpu over the top air cooled solutons available, which hardly seems worth it to me)

The best "Monster" performance for the dollar spent would prob be a pair of 7900GT cards in SLI, coupled with an Opty 175 or 180 running OC'd to near FX60 speeds....; yes, a pair of 7900GTX's will be faster, but the difference is hardly worth another $500 to most people....

As for drive speeds....

Many run a single 74 GB Raptor or 147GB Raptor, with a 2nd larger SATA storage drive around 250-400GB, and are *quite* happy...but, yes, another $300 Raptor in a RAID "0" will shave 2-3 seconds off game load times, etc., but...is it worth it?

In any event, good luck with the build...

 

[linux_0]

Howdy:

Need a little advise on a system I'm considering on building..Gonna spend somewhere between $4-6K on the parts for a liquid cooled system I want to put together for myself..Been browsing in here for bout a month or two reading this and that, preparing myself for the challenge... It's gonna be a Monster Gaming system, plus I'm gonna use it to network into a home theater system I'm putting together...I've done some maintenance on my own PC's, and also troubleshooting issues that have come up, so I feel fairly PC compatent to some degree..

I want to use 4 Hard drives, 2 Western Digitals for Raid setup for the OS, and two larger 500 GB HDD's for storage..I am somewhat confused about the RAID/SATA thing..Can someone point me to some info on the web which will help me in how to set up the Raid array I'm speaking of?..I had a system someone else built for me that I "hired" out cause he needed the money at the time with two drives set up in a raid array, plus I had a SWAP drive connected via IDE and all I had was major issues, big time..Also I had two external USB drives hooked up at the same time..Reason for all the storage is I wanted to Stream my Backuped movies's into my Home theater system...Any ideas, comments, suggestions and pointers are appreciated..TIA

Here you go:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1899867

Excellent system great price

Naturally I would replace the 7800GT with a 7900GT or GTX

 

[shadowduck]

Setting up a RAID array is very simple on most motherboards. On startup the RAID BIOS will flash up on the screen and tell you to press key (Alt-Tab in my case) to enter the RAID BIOS. In this utility there will be an option to build the array. Make sure both drives are formatted and ready to go and wait. The process can take several hours. When finished voila your RAID is ready.

RAID 0- 2 drives treated as 1 with striping (speed)
RAID 1- 2 drives treated as 1 with mirror (data backup)

 

[rds1955]

"Gonna spend somewhere between $4-6K on the parts for a liquid cooled system I want to put together for myself.."

$6000??? Ouch!

Even with the goal of a monster gaming system, would you consider spending half as much and getting 95% of the performance? (Liquid cooling the cpu might gain you an extra 50-100 MHz on the cpu over the top air cooled solutons available, which hardly seems worth it to me)

The best "Monster" performance for the dollar spent would prob be a pair of 7900GT cards in SLI, coupled with an Opty 175 or 180 running OC'd to near FX60 speeds....; yes, a pair of 7900GTX's will be faster, but the difference is hardly worth another $500 to most people....

As for drive speeds....

Many run a single 74 GB Raptor or 147GB Raptor, with a 2nd larger SATA storage drive around 250-400GB, and are *quite* happy...but, yes, another $300 Raptor in a RAID "0" will shave 2-3 seconds off game load times, etc., but...is it worth it?

In any event, good luck with the build...

K, Let me be a bit more specific.. about 4000-5000 would be a better estimate, using 2 7900GTx, the added cost will be because I'm seriously thinking about using a dual widescreen LCD 24" or a bit bigger monitor
set up so that'll eat up about 2500 Dollars.

the two 146 GB Raptors are what I'm thinking about as a OS Primary and the larger ones will be to store data onto..

Thanks for your reply!!

 

[rds1955]

Here you go:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1899867

Excellent system great price

Naturally I would replace the 7800GT with a 7900GT or GTX

Excellant!! Thanks for the link...Gives me somthing I can work with to price stuff out better..Thanks!!
:lol:

 

[rds1955]

Setting up a RAID array is very simple on most motherboards. On startup the RAID BIOS will flash up on the screen and tell you to press key (Alt-Tab in my case) to enter the RAID BIOS. In this utility there will be an option to build the array. Make sure both drives are formatted and ready to go and wait. The process can take several hours. When finished voila your RAID is ready.

RAID 0- 2 drives treated as 1 with striping (speed)
RAID 1- 2 drives treated as 1 with mirror (data backup)

Thanks for the help..So let me see If I've got it right..RAID 0 would combine both of the 147 GB raptors into one Large operating Hard drive syste, and the RAID 1 will give me a duplicate of everything on the 1st 147 GB drive, say as a failsafe or backup onto the 2nd drive?? Have I got that right??..TIA for the help and reply..

 

[swifty_morgan]

I've heard of this syndrome before. I think it's called "more money than brains"............... 6000 thousand..... NUTS

 

[shadowduck]

Setting up a RAID array is very simple on most motherboards. On startup the RAID BIOS will flash up on the screen and tell you to press key (Alt-Tab in my case) to enter the RAID BIOS. In this utility there will be an option to build the array. Make sure both drives are formatted and ready to go and wait. The process can take several hours. When finished voila your RAID is ready.

RAID 0- 2 drives treated as 1 with striping (speed)
RAID 1- 2 drives treated as 1 with mirror (data backup)

Thanks for the help..So let me see If I've got it right..RAID 0 would combine both of the 147 GB raptors into one Large operating Hard drive syste, and the RAID 1 will give me a duplicate of everything on the 1st 147 GB drive, say as a failsafe or backup onto the 2nd drive?? Have I got that right??..TIA for the help and reply..

Yes, RAID 0 would create one big drive and RAID 1 would give you 1 147GB that mirrors automatically to the other.

 

[mdd1963]

There is always teh new Dell 30" widescreen, 2560x1600!

A mere $2200 or so...

 

[linux_0]

Here you go:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1899867

Excellent system great price

Naturally I would replace the 7800GT with a 7900GT or GTX

Excellant!! Thanks for the link...Gives me somthing I can work with to price stuff out better..Thanks!!
:lol:


No problem :-D

For $4000 get 2 physical CPUs 4 cores + a 7900GT + 4 250GB HDDs + excellent components

I think it is a great deal and will be almost like having a Quad single core Opteron system.

Also with this type of system you have DOUBLE the memory bandwidth because each CPU has 2 dedicated memory sticks in Dual Channel

In 2xx and 8xx Opteron CPUs the memory bandwidth scales as you add CPUs and memory sticks.

So if you have:

1 CPU + 2 memory sticks = 1x memory bandwidth

2 CPUs + 2 memory sticks (for CPU0) = 1x memory bandwidth

2 CPUs + 4 memory sticks = 2x memory bandwidth

4 CPUs + 8 memory sticks = 4x memory bandwidth

8 CPUs + 16 memory sticks = 8x memory bandwidth

This is feature no one else has in the x86 architecture realm


Here is a diagram which illustrates this in an 8way Opteron:

Each Opteron has 3 HT buses ( 2 HT buses for IPC/external communication and 1 dedicated HT bus for memory ).

 

[mdd1963]

" because I'm seriously thinking about using a dual widescreen LCD 24" or a bit bigger monitor
set up so that'll eat up about 2500 Dollars.
"

The 24" widescreens Dell 2405FPW variants are quite popular, and available for about $880 or so each when on sale...

 

[rds1955]

I've heard of this syndrome before. I think it's called "more money than brains"............... 6000 thousand..... NUTS

No, Not Nuts... I just want something Nice with quality parts..If I really wanted to, I could spend about $10,000 on a system through Alienware, and order it today...Thats what their pricing system came up with for what I was looking at.... If I were nuts, I'd be having them build it and pay them..

I give 10% of everything I make to Charity right off the top, I never buy a vehicle new, cause it loses 15-25% of it's value when you pull it off the lot, and I direct my own retirement portfolio cause I make better money through investments than most Company or firm directed investments..I own my Car, My House, they are paid for..and my Truck will be paid for this summer.....Nay, I'm not Nuts...Just a "little" more knowledgable about Value vs. money...