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ATA133 Raid

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  • Hard Drives
  • NAS / RAID
  • Storage
Last response: in Storage
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April 12, 2003 4:01:18 PM

This is going to be a virtual buffet of questions, so any help would be appreciated, but try to only answer if you’re leaning more towards actual data and not opinions. I’ve got a system in mind, and I want to get your input on possible changes, general comments, or overclocking tips:

Gigabyte Sock.A KT400 (USB2, FW, ATA133 RAID, Sound)
AMD 2600+
2x Corsair (value select) CAS2.5 DDR 400MHz 512mb
Asus GeForce4 TI4800SE, 128mb DDR
2x Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 120gig ATA133 (quiet)

I’ll explain my choices:
- This particular Gigabyte board because I was hoping to try out a Raid133 of two fast drives to attempt to increase drive speed / performance. AMD board, but supports DDR400MHz RAM, even though the FSB is 333MHz. I’m hoping to be able to overclock a tiny bit to utilize the higher RAM speed.. or is that not necessary? Also, I was kind of up in the air about using Dual DDR, I read that Dual 400MHz may not necessarily be faster than single channel 333MHz. Or maybe that’s wrong, but I wouldn’t mind some information on what you guys think is best.. Not only on a performance basis, but a performance to cost basis.
- The AMD CPU. I, again, was still unsure which way I wanted to go, Intel or AMD. I’m currently running AMD, and have grown attached.. but I really want to go with what is best on the market right now, but still in that cost effective range. I found that the P4 2.6GHz (533) are at that sweet spot of cost to performance.. once you go any higher, the prices sky-rocket. Same with AMD’s 2600+, as soon as you hit 2800 or 3000, the cost is to much. So, what I’m asking here, is after you read all of this, let me know if you think I should head the Intel way instead (with the choice of boards, etc.)
- Corsair. I’m going to try a higher quality brand this time. I usually go with generic, but I want this to run as smoothly as possible. Considering their value select stuff is only a few bucks more than some other brand names. I went this way.. I’m sure it can also avoid some other timing issues on any board/cpu combos that I’m not familiar with.
- GeForce4 4800. Again, the sweet-spot principle.. it’s just a really good price right now, and I don’t really want to go with any ATI boards. I’ve always hated their drivers / interface.
- Dual Maxtor drives, to try out the RAID. If you think this is not going to increase performance (that’s worth the extra cost of the board, and the one extra Maxtor drive) then let me know.

So remember, this is just the hardware I pulled out of my ass as a guess to hit the most powerful system being at the most cost efficient level. I realize there is still plenty of room for tweaking, and that is exactly the kind of info I was hoping for. Gimme suggestions, what’s your idea system right now? The total price of the above is hovering at about $850 (excluding tax).

- J

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April 12, 2003 6:51:51 PM

I'm not sure that you want to go with the super expensive corsair RAM. I recommend samsung, they are high quality (not as good as corsair) and very reasonably priced.
Personally, I pick intel over AMD. The reason for this is that in general the motherboard support is not as good for AMD as it is for intel. I especially like the pricing of the p4 2.4ghz right now.
How are you planning on configuring that RAID array? Level 0 or level 1? You might want to go for a less expensive ATA100 drive - the difference as far as speed goes is very small if not negligible (it does not end up being 100 mb/sec or 133 mb/sec, more like 50-60). You will DEFINATLY see a performance rise if you configure the drives in level 0,and a small increase if you do level 1 (level 1 opts more for security, both drives have to fail before data loss, whereas with level 0, if either fail, its all gone)
If you've got some money to spare and you insist on having a RAID and AMD processor, you can go for a different motherboard and purchase a RAID controller from 3ware (www.3ware.com is their website i think).
If you are gonna play games on this and you've got some money to drop, a 9700 pro card is a very nice thing. You said you didn't want ATI cards, but in my experience, the ATI cards have truely kicked some major ass. (Just dont go for the FX from NVIDIA, those cards suck). The 9700pro has a 50-75% lead on the 4800 in performance if you want to enable options like FSAA and anisotropic filtering. Its also much better @ higher res. I have a 9700 pro card myself, and believe me, it owns.
April 13, 2003 11:36:13 PM

dont mean to rant but your wrong about the performance differance between the 2 mentioned video cards. tom's did a comparison see the guide if ya want proof. additionally, why would anyone want to play games using resolutions higher than 1024/768? after all thats the only reason for owning a gf4ti or an ati 9700pro. I have a 21" monitor and i dont like resolutions for games higher than 1024/768 because things and details just simply get to small, so for me i think performance for games should be limited to what most users use- 800/600 and 1024/768. as for the fx series how whould you know this? yes i to read the reveiw and the fx5800ultra beats the 9700pro in many areas. as of this date 4-13-03, the only fx available is the fx 5200 and its priced at 80 bucks, the fx 5600, 5800 series are not even out yet. add to that nvidia hasnt released a specific driver to give these cards a greater advantage in the bench marking area. so your claim is unfounded. before you make this statement wait for the product to oficially come out and be tested. as for ata 100 vs 133, this depends on your operating system, mother board, drivers that your using and data type you wish to compare. i personally run 2 maxtor 80 gig ata 133 8mb cashe h.d's, i previously ran 2 30 gig ata 100 2mb cashe drives from west.dig. the maxtors are considerably faster and very very quite. i got them from best buy on sale with a rebate for 140 bucks for both (after rebates). with the advent of serial ata now being out i personally would opt. for serial ata as it is almost 2 times the speed of ata133.

(old person by trait)<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by alpha_03 on 04/13/03 07:40 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
April 14, 2003 12:34:56 AM

hey alpha, I don't see why you are comparing the ATA133 8 meg HDD's to the WD 2 meg HDD's?? 2 MB cache vs. 8 MB is a huge diff, and I think your config was faster due to the 8 MB not cause it was ATA133. ATA 133 and ATA 100 have almost NO performance gain, and it's been shown from time to time. I would personally stick with the WD special edition drives as these drives have been shown to be one of the best, with a 3 yr warrenty, which kicks Maxtor in the ass with their 1 yr warrenty.

I think the 0/1 RAID config would kick ass, but unless you're a hardcore comp junkie it's really overkill, though my friend had a RAID setup and that was FAST....

I personally would go with AMD. Go to pricewatch.com and compare the intel prices vs. AMD (not the high end but ~2gig level), and you'll see that AMD has cheaper prices.


The 9700 is a good choice. Sure you could wait for the Nvidia products to roll out, but it's gonna be a new hardware whereas the 9700 has been around for a while.
!