Balancing Your CPU vs other components

[halbhh]

Balancing the components in your computer for your goals is sensible, and....quite a bit more complex than the very easy stuff about figuring out cpu performance.

But just because it's complex doesn't mean it can't be figured out.

When I pointed out a few times in the forum that it's better to put money in certain components to balance today's fast cpus in a system, plenty of posters showed they didn't know much about computer systems.

But...for those who want to learn more about building a high performance system, and are concerned about the main bottleneck on today's high performance computers, Tom's has oblidged with an update.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/16/2007-hdd-rundown/

We'd like to think that novices seeking advice here would learn that a better hard drive can allow a system to perform much better. Since its clear people often want to save money, and don't realize where it pays the most. We often see people re-using old hard drives while paying up for fast cpus.

 

[halbhh]

Basically, the point is simply that for a fast computer, it's cost efficient to pay $30 more for a hard drive, or even $100 (in the case of the 74Gig Raptor). {edit: that is an extra $100 premium for the raptor vs a new 80 gig 7200. The Raptor is around 20% faster than the best 7200 drives on average read speed, and more than that vs many average new drives. This makes for a snappier computer.}

This should go hand in hand with a cpu choice.

I think money on an e6600 or on any quad core is wasted for example without a top new hard drive.

 

[1Tanker]

Balancing the components in your computer for your goals is sensible, and....quite a bit more complex than the very easy stuff about figuring out cpu performance.

But just because it's complex doesn't mean it can't be figured out.

When I pointed out a few times in the forum that it's better to put money in certain components to balance today's fast cpus in a system, plenty of posters showed they didn't know much about computer systems.

But...for those who want to learn more about building a high performance system, and are concerned about the main bottleneck on today's high performance computers, Tom's has oblidged with an update.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/16/2007-hdd-rundown/

We'd like to think that novices seeking advice here would learn that a better hard drive can allow a system to perform much better. Since its clear people often want to save money, and don't realize where it pays the most. We often see people re-using old hard drives while paying up for fast cpus.

How many times are you going to create a thread on this?
If you can't think of new ideas for thread subjects, then don't create threads. There's no prize for "most threads created". :roll:

 

[halbhh]

How many times will you have to repeat yourself? I expect quite a lot more! That is, if you need to repeat yourself every time I make a post. lol

 

[eregular]

shameless self bumping of ones own thread!! SHAME ON YOU! Didn't your mamma teach you anything??

I'm sure anyone who is running a kentsfield can afford a raptor (or two or 11 or something)

 

[halbhh]

hmmm....

catch 22?

no, I guess the advice to me to ignore the trolls is good advice!

 

[halbhh]

It would be neat if someone replied with their own thoughts on "Balancing" the CPU with other system components!

Imagine!

 

[apt403]

OH! I was wondering where the raptor guy went! He didnt go anywhere, i just forgot his name!

 

[halbhh]

Good points, but not universal.

For instance, there's a popular game that relies on constantly loading from the hard drive, and when you think about it, this makes sense, in that it opens up another kind of possibility in games. If I wanted even more detail and interesting realistic environments in games that weren't only mathematical iterations, then I'd think about my hard drive loading process, and of course, there are options.

But, although it's personal preference, it does matter to me to have my computer more snappy and quick, and able to do many tasks that are drive intensive at once (recording while playing video and other stuff simlu).

That said, sure you can re-use your old hard drive and have Corsair memory sticks that cost $350, etc., and whatever you please, to optimize your particular goals.

 

[halbhh]

Yeah, I'm salavitating about the solid state drives. No doubt I'll have one in a year or two.

 

[halbhh]

yeah, the transfer rates are key for me also.

 

[apt403]

The only problem with flash drives is that they will die at some point, since they have finite number of reads/writes. A hard disk can go on forever!

 

[grifter33]

The only problem with flash drives is that they will die at some point, since they have finite number of reads/writes. A hard disk can go on forever!

Actually the newer generations of solid state memory they are using for harddrives have a life expectancy on par or better than any mechanical hard drives. They should last for many years.

It has to do with the way they read/write data. Basically, they spread out the read/write operations so the entire drive is used up once for read/write operations before they start going over the same areas again.

 

[halbhh]

By the time the prices get down, things could be pretty interesting. A lot of new things are on the horizon, with the eDram from IBM for cpus also perhaps something that could be used in the RAM banks, there are a lot of kinds of memory advancing. Even with Vista doing all the fetching, the new type of gaming I mentioned is one possibility also.

I think in 5 years, games will look and feel rather different. Not just better at today's targets, but a whole different animal.

 

[dragonsprayer]

What does THG think of me running an e6300 with crossfire x1950's and raid 10/0 - it would seem unbalanced - i found out by accident the e6300 works so well i did not upgrade the chip.

highly recommended low end C2D for gaming put the money in the gpu/psu

my psu and cpu are similar in cost - old rules really do not apply with high fsb mobos and chips the oc 50% plus at low temps

 

[dragonsprayer]

Basically, the point is simply that for a fast computer, it's cost efficient to pay $30 more for a hard drive, or even $100 (in the case of the 74Gig Raptor).


I think money on an e6600 or on any quad core is wasted for example without a top new hard drive.

I myself only buy Raptor's for my system drives, it makes a slightly noticable difference... all other drives for data, storage, MP3, etc are typical 7200 RPM drives.

However, I disagree that buying a E6600 is a waste without a Raptor, even a Raptor gives between 80 to 100 MB/sec transfer rates, typical 7200 RPM drives give 50-60 MB/sec transfer rates ... the FSB BW to the CPU is 8.5 GB/sec so what ever demand the CPU puts on a HD is insignificant compared to what it does to memory.

and make a big difference. (EDIT: oops, just noticed that the read and write speeds are not any better than 7200 RPM drives, so it won't make a difference at all).
Jeff


i get those speeds with 4 x $60 seagates (7200.9) in raid 10/0 same price as 1 raptor and 4 times the storage. diskspeed32 says my raid 10 is 72k kb raid 0 on slow inner center is 79k

don't get me wrong i run a 3 raptor raid 0 gaming system too

 

[halbhh]

What does THG think of me running an e6300 with crossfire x1950's and raid 10/0 - it would seem unbalanced - i found out by accident the e6300 works so well i did not upgrade the chip.

highly recommended low end C2D for gaming put the money in the gpu/psu

my psu and cpu are similar in cost - old rules really do not apply with high fsb mobos and chips the oc 50% plus at low temps

Not sure what THG would think, but I think it's very reasonable! Eventually you be able to upgrade your cpu when it finally becomes necessary. It would be interesting to compare your frame rates with the 8800GT SLI article Tom's published, just outta curiosity.

 

[corvetteguy]

k, halbhh, you need some advice.

So, you say you will make this thread over and over till? EVERYONE gets it... hate to tell you, but everyone never gets it, or however grammar tells you to say that 8)

So, you should perhaps call for a sticky, written by someone with board cred to write a sticky on how to balance a pc and eliminate bottlenecks, and that would be placed in the homebuilt section, where no one will read it

Now even then people will still come one asking whether its ok to use their 40gig pata drive with their QX6700 but so what, you can deal with those cases indiviually, you don't need to post a thread daily to make a point. The only point you make is you are annoying

 

[dragonsprayer]

your answer is here:




http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=618&p=1

also you find the oc gts is almost as good as the gtx here:

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/980/5/page_5_benchmarks_test_system_setup_and_3dmark05/index.html

this is the wrong gtx article - i find it tomorrow and post it.


amti is always #2

 

[dragonsprayer]

k, halbhh, you need some advice.

So, you say you will make this thread over and over till? EVERYONE gets it... hate to tell you, but everyone never gets it, or however grammar tells you to say that 8)

So, you should perhaps call for a sticky, written by someone with board cred :

The only point you make is you are annoying

why is it here at thg formums there are these rude amti people! it seems over and over they proudly display there out dated amti system.

let the guy post what he wants i think they have moderators


zalman heat sinks are poorly engineered -
amti chips are slow- 2.7ghz wow my e6300 can beat that
your gts is not factory oc
wd hds fail
crosshiar -- ok you get a "that a boy"

Aerocool ExtremEngine 3T
AMD x2 3800 EE Overclocked to 2.7ghz
Asus Crosshair
Zalman 9500
EVGA 8800GTS
Team Group Xtreem DDR2-800 4-4-4-10 RAM at 1100
Western Digital 250gig SE16 Hard Drive
Logitech G15 Keyboard, G7 Mouse

see I bet you do lie the criticism- you should be nice!

IFB (amti is always #2)

 

[corvetteguy]

k, halbhh, you need some advice.

So, you say you will make this thread over and over till? EVERYONE gets it... hate to tell you, but everyone never gets it, or however grammar tells you to say that 8)

So, you should perhaps call for a sticky, written by someone with board cred :

The only point you make is you are annoying

why is it here at thg formums there are these rude amti people! it seems over and over they proudly display there out dated amti system.

let the guy post what he wants i think they have moderators

Your such a tard...

First of, i was somewhat joking, and i was pretty friendly. I just don't want him turning into a pest.

As for having an outdated system, you are really really stupid. My system works amazing and was a good value too. Plus i'll be able to upgrade to AM2+, so shut your troll mouth until you can think of something intelligent.

 

[turpit]

Basically, the point is simply that for a fast computer, it's cost efficient to pay $30 more for a hard drive, or even $100 (in the case of the 74Gig Raptor).

This should go hand in hand with a cpu choice.

I think money on an e6600 or on any quad core is wasted for example without a top new hard drive.

I myself only buy Raptor's for my system drives, it makes a slightly noticable difference... all other drives for data, storage, MP3, etc are typical 7200 RPM drives.

However, I disagree that buying a E6600 is a waste without a Raptor, even a Raptor gives between 80 to 100 MB/sec transfer rates, typical 7200 RPM drives give 50-60 MB/sec transfer rates ... the FSB BW to the CPU is 8.5 GB/sec so what ever demand the CPU puts on a HD is insignificant compared to what it does to memory.

The difference a faster drive compared to a slower drive will make is in loading times, but running you will not perceive anything as most all software runs out of memory, until you run so many apps that windows starts using the virtual mem on the HD.

Or you could get this:
http://www.dailytech.com/Adtron+Delivers+160GB+Solidstate+Drive/article6220.htm

and make a big difference. (EDIT: oops, just noticed that the read and write speeds are not any better than 7200 RPM drives, so it won't make a difference at all).
Ooops typed my son's name....

Jack

Ive been drooling over those SSDs for months now...an absolutley wonderful solution for an OS/boot drive, but so far, there has been lots of talk, only little product. The only ones I found in sata were over a grand, from some company Id never heard of, and they didnt seem interested in selling them for DTPC.....

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=221953&highlight=

 

[yipsl]

Since its clear people often want to save money, and don't realize where it pays the most. We often see people re-using old hard drives while paying up for fast cpus.

Well, I reused my SATA 1.5 instead of getting a SATA 3.0 because I built a budget system. I did not do anything foolish like swing for a CPU that would bottleneck, or a GPU that would bottleneck. I tried to match the two.

I'm still planning on getting an 8600 Ultra when it arrives to replace the 7600GS, that might cause a CPU bottleneck but I could always try overclocking. I'm thinking that an 8800GTS would lead to a CPU bottleneck.

I do plan on getting a couple of 750 gig Seagate SATA 3.0 to replace the legacy drives. While an improvement, that would be more for storage than for high performance.

 

[Pygmollion]

I'm about to rearrange my entire computer because I think I could make it perform a wee better. Currently my computer is an Athlon XP 2700+ on a A7N8X-E Deluxe rev 2.0, 3 maxtor hdd's (1 40g,60g,200g) along with an BFG 7800 GS OC agp. 2.5 GB corsair value select PC3200. I currently have WinXP pro installed on the 40 Gb maxtor (because it is the fastest drive I have) and my pagefile set on a small 5 gb partition on the 60 gbb.. the 200 gb hd has only about 8 gb free and is on a PCI IDE card a Promise Ultra 133 if I remember... cant defragment it eficciently and also the MFT are outta whack on all 3 drives. I took apart the PSU the other day and noticed a black/brown discoloration on the copper looping inside of it and I've decided th PS is dying...although the Voltages don't seem to be to bad in Everest. 12v is fine.. 5v is under by .10. What I plan on doing is buying a new PS (I haven't decided which one yet) The old one was a Raidmax 420 Watt, did so good so far. I think I need about a 500w powersupply now because I plan on buying a 750 GB seagate soon to use on one of the unused SATA ports, (and buy another one down the road. That BFG agp video card pushes the limit of the old PSU I think. I really want to get rid of the PCI IDE card because It adds about 20-30 seconds to boot times. I am going to empty my 200 gb hdd drive onto the new 750 gb hdd drive, backup all the data offa the 40 gb hdd and format them all (hopefull with the right sized MTF this time). Reinstall WinXP pro on the 200gb, put the PF on the 40gb, leave all my data on the 750 gb and get an external USB hdd enclosure for the 60 gb which happens to be the slowest drive. after all this I will have only 1 sata port free for the planned second 750 seagate.. What do YOU think?? Sounds better balanced than before??

 

[dragonsprayer]

[Your such a tard...

First of, i was somewhat joking, and i was pretty friendly. I just don't want him turning into a pest.

As for having an outdated system, you are really really stupid. My system works amazing and was a good value too. Plus i'll be able to upgrade to AM2+, so shut your troll mouth until you can think of something intelligent.

good value? amazing? what ever its still number 2!