Out of the game #2

[marmotjr]

I Read through rootb33r's thread a bit, and while my story is similar (Ie, worked in a computer store for a while, building and repairing hundreds of machines, Mainly 95 & 98 models. Now I've been a paramedic for 8 years, so i fix people and not computers anymore, and just due to ease, have been buying dells, but now I want to build my own so I can upgrade it easily later), it's different enough to need a new thread. I have the parts on the way, so asking for comments on specs is a little counter productive (unless you find a major issue). But anyways heres a basic runown of what I got. If anybody is realy interested, PM me and I'll hit you with the newegg wishlist link.

C2D E6300 Conroe 1.8g
4g Ram (512 x 4)
500gb hdd (250 WD caviar x 2 in RAID 0)
GeForce 256M 7600GT (SLI)
WinXP


What I really have is a couple questions floating around in my brain on assembly tips and tricks.

For example:

1) When building a 95/98 machine back in the day, it was usually best to copy the entire system CDROM to c:/win95 and install from there to cut the build time from >2 hours to <1 hour. IS this still a viable option or has the ROM/CPU/etc Speeds gotten to the point to make this useless?

2) SATA? Never used it. Not familiar with it. Pointers please.

3) RAID 0? I understand the theory behind it, but I've never dealt with it. Again, pointers please.

4) XP vs Vista. I didn't seem too comfortable with the reports of compatibility of older prgrams in Vista, so I decided to purchase a new copy of XP (keeping all my old machines, so I needed a new serial). Is it worth waiting for a while before upgrading to vista?

5) SLI. One of my OLD machines had the SLI ancestor, the one with the cable out the back connecting the two cards, so I'm familiar with the concept. But the new SLI, can you run 4 monitors off of the 2 cards? or are you stuck with 2?

6) My Mobo has built in 5.1 sound. I also have a Live! 24 5.1 card laying around. how good is the built in sound? Is it worth hassling around with?

7) Anything else you guys can recommend doing for a modern build.

Thanks!

 

[FallenSniper]

Well, unfortunately none of your questions are really in my area of expertise...

For SATA... It's just like IDE, plug it in, it works. Except it is faster...

RAID 0... I think people who are more experienced than me (I've never used RAID) will tell you to use RAID 1 instead.

XP vs. Vista. If you are buying a new copy, probably should go with Vista. It would be a waste to buy XP now and Vista later, just skip XP for this one.

SLI...eh, I'm pretty sure you're stuck with two. You could run the cards individually for four screens I believe. I personally would go for the x1950 Pro over the 7600 GT, and then If you really wanted to, run those in CrossFire.

Built in MoBo sounds are usually ok. I'm not very picky about mine though. It's not like it would be a big deal to use that sound card if it is better quality...

Misc: You might want the E6320 CPU instead. It has the 4MB cache which makes a pretty large difference. As for ram..I'm not sure how you get 4gigs with 4 x 512 sticks.... Did you mean 4 x 1gig sticks maybe?

 

[knight_runner]

First off, good on you for building your own instead of handing over cash for those overpriced and certainly not worthy manufactured computers. I am not quite sure what you are hoping to achieve with this computer as your components paint a very diverse picture but I will try and give you some recommendations.

1.) For the XP install you do not have to copy the files to the hard drive, windows already does that during the installation.

2.) SATA is good, it's faster, it's smaller cables, just make sure your power supply has the connectors for it (most new models do), and keep the disk that comes with the drive (if there is one) on hand in case windows wants a driver.

3.) RAID 0 is a waste of time for you unless you need the tranfer speed that it offers. Such as video editing. If you really want to try it out I would recommend reading the material that came with the computer motherboard to set it up and again make sure you have the motherboard raid drivers for windows to use when you install it.

4.) I would not worry about waiting unless there is a perticular application you want/need that has to run under windows XP. For the most part the rules is that if you don't have any OS then get Vista, if you have XP then don't bother upgrading until more patches come out.

5.) You DO NOT need SLI to run 4 monitors. You just need an available PCIe slot at the designated speed (4x, 8x, etc) to use the other card in. SLI is just there to help during intense 3d games (Oblivian, etc), most people don't need it, and it turns out to be cheaper just to buy a 8800/8600 to run the games on a larger screen.

6.) Onboard sound has come a long way since the older cards and can be just as good or better in most cases than the older add it cards. I would stick with the motherboard audio.

7.) I would seriously sit down and decided what I want out of the computer. If you plan on doing internet browsing and word processing, you are more than set, although you might want to get a good monitor (something like a 20 inch 1600x1024) that will get a lot of use. The RAM is a little excessive if you did get 4GB, I would save some money and just get 2 because windows 32-bit can't even use the full 4 gigs yet. I would also look at the E4200 that way you can save some money for a quad core later if you motherboard supports it.

 

[marmotjr]

Err... my bad. It's 2gb, 512x4. not 4. Sorry. And for uses, I do a little of everything, gaming, to Video editing and DVD production, web browsing, etc.

As to the RAID, my intitial build was going to be a 10k RPM 40-60gb WD raptor drive to handle the OS and a couple of my current games, alogn with a very large Dbase program I frequntly use, and couple that drivew along with a caviar 400-500 gb drive for storage. This setup was to be a compromise on price, size, and speed. So yes, I'm intending to setup the drives for faster access.

E6300 vs E6320. DAMMIT! I never found that one in my searches. For $1.50 more on newegg I coulda had the 6320. Not sure if I should thank you or hurt you for pointing that out. . Well, I shoulda asked before purchasing, but oh well. I'll think about returning it.

Any other general building tips/tricks you guys know of?

 

[snootch]

A few tips:

SATA- its a bit faster than IDE, but the cables are slimmer, and there are no jumpers for master/slave. One SATA connector on the motherboard = one device. Master/slave relationships are set in the BIOS. also regarding power, most modern power supplies have SATA power plugs. If your PS doesnt have enough of them, you can buy standard molex to SATA power adapters.

RAID- Your plan of using RAID 0 for a pair of 250Gb disks is sound. It will offer up 500Gb of space with faster read speeds than a single 500Gb drive will. BUT, should one of those drives die, be prepared to lose all of your data. If you are worried about your data, back it up somewhere else, or use RAID 1 or RAID 5.

OS- XP is a good choice. Vista at the moment is just too young. If you do want to upgrade to vista, I would wait until the first service pack is out to do the move.

Sound- Most newer motherboards have decent sound. In all the builds I have done, I've always used the onboard sound.

 

[rootb33r]

Hey glad someone benefited from my thread

If I'm not mistaken (I just RMA'd my mobo), newegg charges a 15% restocking fee so I don't know if returning that processor in exchange for the other one would make much sense.

Everything looks good, but as I'm sure you've seen in my troubles, there are a lot of new little things in PC's these days that weren't such pertinent issues back in the day (like RAM voltages and timings). Back then it was buy the matching mobo and clockspeed RAM and it was plug 'n play. The Dual channel technology requires placement of the RAM Dimms in certain slots on the mobo, so be aware of that.

Other than that... assemble everything and pray that it works so you don't have to go through all the crap that I did

 

[Onus]

XP was the right choice.

I'm one of those who could not imagine trusting his data to a RAID-0, but then perhaps I'd feel differently if I had a need for the faster access; in which case you can bet I'd have a bullet proof backup plan. Any variety of RAID may require drivers. Your mobo should come with them. Mobo RAID-5, if available, is very slow; if you go RAID-5, buy a dedicated RAID card.
Otherwise, SATA is faster than IDE, and, as pointed out, has smaller cables that don't block airflow as much.

I've always been happy with mobo sound, but I'm deaf in one ear, so listen to me last on that one.

A 7600GT is a good card in its range, but two of them in SLI will be beaten by a single of something better. If your 7600GT is from EVGA, you can use their step-up program to trade it in on a better card within 90 days, and only pay the difference.

Read Mpilchfamily's PSU threads and check his lists for a decent one. A cheap case is fine (if it has enough cooling), but a cheap PSU may die violently, and may not die alone. I like the Mushkin I'm using, and bought another one for my next build in 3-4 weeks. It is modular. I'm not sure it's quite big enough for an 8800GTX, but it will handle a single 8800GTS if I ever get one.

 

[daverimer]

...E6300 vs E6320. DAMMIT! I never found that one in my searches. For $1.50 more on newegg I coulda had the 6320. Not sure if I should thank you or hurt you for pointing that out. . Well, I shoulda asked before purchasing, but oh well. I'll think about returning it...

Hey, I wouldn't worry about the extra 2mb of cache that you will be missing out on. I remember doing research on it before I built my system and it sounded like it didn't make much of a difference in real world performance.

Obviously, your hitting yourself in the head for not spending $2 more to get the newer CPU w/ a bigger cache but its not that big of a deal. Don't let it bother you, that CPU still rocks!

 

[rootb33r]

Hey glad someone benefited from my thread

If I'm not mistaken (I just RMA'd my mobo), newegg charges a 15% restocking fee so I don't know if returning that processor in exchange for the other one would make much sense.

Everything looks good, but as I'm sure you've seen in my troubles, there are a lot of new little things in PC's these days that weren't such pertinent issues back in the day (like RAM voltages and timings). Back then it was buy the matching mobo and clockspeed RAM and it was plug 'n play. The Dual channel technology requires placement of the RAM Dimms in certain slots on the mobo, so be aware of that.

Other than that... assemble everything and pray that it works so you don't have to go through all the crap that I did

 

[marmotjr]

Well, the build was pretty painless aside from one thing. RAID DRIVERS SUCK ASS. Seriously, you'd think the mobo builders would just through them on an old floppy they got in include them in each new mobo. Yes, the drivers are on the CD and online (where I eventually got them). But when you don't have a working computer that can copy to a floppy.... 2 days trying to figure it out. And what the hell is with the XP installer dos-prompt shell not being allowed to write to removable media??? sweet jesus that was a pain. It wasn't like I didn't know what the problem was, it was just a royal pain for me to get a handful of small files onto an old AOL disk.

Anyways.... it is great.... nice looking case (cooler master Centurion I think), dual monitors (17" CRT, ack! need a pair of 19" LCD's to make it look right).

Where can I find GOOD benchmarking and mobo/system software?

 

[rootb33r]

Well if you want to stress test, Orthos, from what I understand, is the preferred program.

Right now I'm using CPUz and SpeedFan to monitor my crap.

As for benchmarking, I don't know if 3dmark is still the preferred program.