Building a new system for this purpose......

[3LEMENT0]

Use of the System:
DB (DB2 and Oracle)
.NET development
Some Games

CPU AMD 64 2800 - 3400 (Depends on the price/perf ratio)
Good HSF that's quiet
I'm waiting for 939 but if there's not much difference with 754 I might just get 754
Might wait for a good Nforce3 250Gb chipset. ABIT, ASUS, GIGABYE or MSI brand probably.
1GB RAM
Might go with ATI X800 with dual monitor support
2 SATA HDD in RAID 0 (how much CPU overhead will RAID 0 need? Is it better to have a RAID 0 setup for programming or not?) Probably seagate or maxtor.
1 large SATA/PATA for Backup
DVDRW/CDRW
DVD ROM
100MB ZIP Drive
Fan Controllers
Antec or some good quiet quality PS around 480W-500W
21" or bigger CRT monitor or 19"LCD/Flat screen or Both.
will have around 3-4 extra fans for cooling.
OS would probably be WinXP pro or Win 2003 server edition.

#1 Priority is stability. #2 Performance.
Will overclock a little as long as capable and very very stable.

Any tips would be appreciated...I'm still holding though till socket 939 appears and ATI/NVIDIA cards are out.

 

[Wahsapa]

i would suggest maybe switching over to a pentium 4 and a i865(or 75) motherboard

 

[n0cmonkey]

Depending on how big of a database you will have, you might want to think about getting more ram. Everything else looks good to me.

 

[Wahsapa]

cpu overhead can vary depending on the if the raid is hardware implimented or not. the nforce3's native sata raid controller means major preformance boost with very little cpu usage. id personally go with western digital over seagate or maxtor.

if sound is a concern maybe you should look into a watercooled system. i personally hate fans.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Wahsapa
cpu overhead can vary depending on the if the raid is hardware implimented or not. the nforce3's native sata raid controller means major preformance boost with very little cpu usage. id personally go with western digital over seagate or maxtor.

if sound is a concern maybe you should look into a watercooled system. i personally hate fans.

The raid controllers typically put on consumer motherboards are software based. The CPU usage will probably be low though.

 

[Markfw]

My system sounds like just what your looking for... In Rigs, the main one

 

[3LEMENT0]

Thanks for all the input.

i would suggest maybe switching over to a pentium 4 and a i865(or 75) motherboard
--> I'd like to stick with AMD (due to price perf.) if I can but if P4 really does have a greater advantage to the task I would build my system on then I'm ok with swithching to P4.

Depending on how big of a database you will have, you might want to think about getting more ram. Everything else looks good to me
--> For database size it won't be that big, it's just for practice and testing. Probably a couple of gigs only. I can up the ram to 1.5 or 2 if it would yield more performance gain though.


cpu overhead can vary depending on the if the raid is hardware implimented or not. the nforce3's native sata raid controller means major preformance boost with very little cpu usage. id personally go with western digital over seagate or maxtor.
if sound is a concern maybe you should look into a watercooled system. i personally hate fans.
--> Nice, I was planning to wait for a good nforce3 mobo to use. Yes sound is a concern but I found a way to 'silence' the case with the use of some insulation material from home depot so I can live with a few standard fans running so with the fan controller I'm expecting the system to be fairly quiet. Also I don't
--> As for WD, I've read around that their 10K drives aren't that reliable yet. As for my preference with seagate and maxtor, from my HS days I've had seagates and maxtors in my machines and they lasted pretty long. Even at work my machine have a maxtor and is still running for 4 years with no problems at all. If the WD gets better reviews I can switch to them soon.

My system sounds like just what your looking for... In Rigs, the main one
--> Looks nice, I'll look into it. I'm definitely thinking of adding SCSI but might be overkill already.

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[MournSanity]

Mobile Athlon XP. Overclock. Save money. Wait. Socket 939. Splurge.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: hypersonic5
Mobile Athlon XP. Overclock. Save money. Wait. Socket 939. Splurge.

Then wait for the next big thing. Then wait for dual core AMD64 processors. Then wait for DDR2. Then wait for...

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: hypersonic5
Mobile Athlon XP. Overclock. Save money. Wait. Socket 939. Splurge.

You probably lose money this way in energy costs. Plus extra noise and potential instability.

 

[JBT]

That rig looks awsome IMO. I wouldn't change anything

 

[3LEMENT0]

Thanks JBT. My wait period is from June to August. I will start building this machine at the most is by August, hopefully by then the stuff I want to use would be available in a good price.