Hi, I'm currently building a new PC, and was wondering if I can get some help/opinions. This setup is meant to be a cheap, general-use/occasional-gaming/media machine, will probably reside in an mATX case or a minitower ATX case, and will not be overclocked.
The parts are:
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
ECS C51GM-M
Seagate 400 GB SATA II HD
Thermaltake 500W PSU
Some questions I have are:
The Seagate HD that I got is 7200.9, which doesn't have the perpedicular recording technology present in the 7200.10 drives. While I'd keep this drive anyway for secondary storage or possibly RAID, would a 7200.10 drive perform better, and if so, would it be worth it for speed/reliability's sake? One particular 7200.10 drive I'm looking at is Seagate's 320 GB SATA II HD here
The ECS C51GM-M, unfortunately, has only two SATA ports. I got this motherboard with the Athlon X2 as a combo deal at Fry's - otherwise I'd have gone for something else. In any case, as I plan to use two optical drives, a DVD-RW and a DVD-ROM, and want to future-proof them to some degree by getting the SATA versions, I'd need way more than the two ports on the motherboard, especially if I RAID multiple HDs. My question is, are the SATA PCI-adapter cards out there good for multiplying the number of SATA ports? Wouldn't there be a drain on bandwidth if, for example, multiple HDs are RAIDed through one of these cards? If not, and these cards are good, what are some recommended ones, if they're not all relatively the same?
In order to get the setup up on its feet, I'm going to "borrow" 512 MB of DDR2 533 from my Dell. However, I hope to get better RAM for it sometime soon. It looks me to me that DDR2 800 would be ideal for an Athlon X2, but as I don't have much of an understanding of FSB to RAM ratios and CAS latencies, is that really the case? I've heard some say that DDR2 533 would be good for a Core 2 Duo, for instance, even though Core 2 systems can take DDR2 800. What would be good for an Athlon X2?
Thanks.
The parts are:
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
ECS C51GM-M
Seagate 400 GB SATA II HD
Thermaltake 500W PSU
Some questions I have are:
The Seagate HD that I got is 7200.9, which doesn't have the perpedicular recording technology present in the 7200.10 drives. While I'd keep this drive anyway for secondary storage or possibly RAID, would a 7200.10 drive perform better, and if so, would it be worth it for speed/reliability's sake? One particular 7200.10 drive I'm looking at is Seagate's 320 GB SATA II HD here
The ECS C51GM-M, unfortunately, has only two SATA ports. I got this motherboard with the Athlon X2 as a combo deal at Fry's - otherwise I'd have gone for something else. In any case, as I plan to use two optical drives, a DVD-RW and a DVD-ROM, and want to future-proof them to some degree by getting the SATA versions, I'd need way more than the two ports on the motherboard, especially if I RAID multiple HDs. My question is, are the SATA PCI-adapter cards out there good for multiplying the number of SATA ports? Wouldn't there be a drain on bandwidth if, for example, multiple HDs are RAIDed through one of these cards? If not, and these cards are good, what are some recommended ones, if they're not all relatively the same?
In order to get the setup up on its feet, I'm going to "borrow" 512 MB of DDR2 533 from my Dell. However, I hope to get better RAM for it sometime soon. It looks me to me that DDR2 800 would be ideal for an Athlon X2, but as I don't have much of an understanding of FSB to RAM ratios and CAS latencies, is that really the case? I've heard some say that DDR2 533 would be good for a Core 2 Duo, for instance, even though Core 2 systems can take DDR2 800. What would be good for an Athlon X2?
Thanks.