Buying a 2nd gaming computer.

[gramboh]

If your primary concern is games, Nehalem isn't going to make a difference at high detail/resolution. You should focus on tri-SLI GTX 280's instead.

Nehalem and a faster storage sub-system will improve RAR speeds although I think you are insane to spend that amount of money for faster unrar and parity checking since I'm assuming you are talking about 4-9gb archives.

 

[Denithor]

Intel X25-M now available at Newegg

For the low, low price of $621. But with free shipping FTW!!

The first review on their site says it all:

Pros: Unfortunately, I bought mine over a month ago, before NewEgg had them in inventory. In my 12 years of building and repairing computers, I have never experienced having a single component change make such a noticable difference in performance in my machine. Every app, every page load, every game open in a fraction of the time with my previous drives. As you know, any system is limited by the slowest data bottleneck and for years that has been rotational hardrives. I've had raided raptors, WD 640s, etc... in the quest for disk access and none have been much of a change until the X25-M. Vista64 boots about a third faster and once loaded, there doesn't appear to be a single bottleneck in my system any longer. The only thing I've tweaked is turning off automatic defrag since these don't need it. The lack of noise and heat is another bonus! It truely has released the beast in my system! Awesome! just Awesome!
Cons: Price, size and that i only have one! But I've been a good boy this year and Santa is on his way...
Other Thoughts: System specs- Q6600@3.4, 4gb PC1100 ram, Asus P5Q Pro, Nvidia 8800GT. WD 640 for storage. I briefly tried it in my notebood and the same applies! Huge performance increase!

 

[alanwest09872]

Ty i think your saying the intel drive is better correct. Im just making sure I am reading it correctly. Is the wd640 = to the ultra 320?

 

[Denithor]

A pair of 15k rpm SAS drives in raid0 on a $500 controller will probably have slightly better read/write times & throughput but they will also consume loads more power and will be noisy as hell. Don't forget, these drives run literally twice the spindle speed as typical desktop drives and aren't designed for quiet environments (they're typically used in back office server rooms where noise is not an issue).

The Intel SSD, on the other hand, will be completely, utterly silent. No moving parts means absolute silence.

 

[alanwest09872]

Excellent ty for all the help. Mwave will be making 600 bucks off of me very soon

 

[Denithor]

BTW, i7 on X58 with TriSLI GTX 280 looks impressive.

And since you've already got that ramdisk software, pick up a board with support for like 16GB or 32GB DDR3 and have some fun.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: alanwest09872
The Ultra 320 scsi card that Im looking at is

http://www.buy.com/prod/adapte...loc/101/204219619.html it works with pci express x1 at 320 MBs

You seem to forget that PCI Express x1 will bottleneck the SCSI from reaching it's theoretical maximum speed.

Originally posted by: Blain
The claimed "up to 320MBs" rate for the card is misleading. Since PCI Express 1x has a single direction limit of 250MBs (500MBs if both directions are taken into account).
The SCSI specification is "up to 320MBs", single direction.

Think of it as trying to push 320 gallons of water through a pipe that's limited to 250.

 

[bobross419]

Thanks for an informative thread on hard drive speeds

 

[alanwest09872]

Originally posted by: bobross419
Thanks for an informative thread on hard drive speeds

I agree. I wish someone would write a stick with all this info. Not my post obviously but someone that really knows there stuff. That way people would know the performance difference if they spent a little more on a good hard drvie

 

[alanwest09872]

My next pc will be

Core I7 extreme edition
X58 mobo probably the evga
Intel x25 m 80 gig
2 velo raptors raid
I have one 500 gig sata and 250 eide 160 external
3 gtx 280
One blueray burner
One samsung dvd burner
A 1200-or larger power supply
12-16 gigs of ram.

I will post pics in 2 weeks when I get it. I will also benchmark everything.

I know someone is going to bitch at me for getting the extreme cpu but I dont care there are people oc those to 5 ghz i would love a 5 ghz proccessor. Plus windows looks at the cpu likes its 8 cores not 4 so I will get about 40 ghz total.

 

[Majic 7]

One simple addition might be a DVD ROM. There are some games with security features that don't work right with burners. So I've read anyway, I haven't had a problem but I use my DVD Rom all the time.

 

[Denithor]

DVD Rom? Are you kidding? I haven't had anything except DVD burners in my rig for like five years and have never had a problem with any game. And I've installed several of those ones with the nasty StarForce and Securom DRM (including some of the early editions of said DRM software that people complained of bricking their DVD burners). Never a single problem.

 

[Majic 7]

Originally posted by: Denithor
DVD Rom? Are you kidding? I haven't had anything except DVD burners in my rig for like five years and have never had a problem with any game. And I've installed several of those ones with the nasty StarForce and Securom DRM (including some of the early editions of said DRM software that people complained of bricking their DVD burners). Never a single problem.

It's just something I've seen people complaining about. I was going to add something about the person sitting at the desktop, but who knows maybe it is a real problem. It's not like 25$ is going to bust the OP's budget. Edit: I do remember once I had a problem installing on a burner, just sat there doing nothing, moved to the DVD rom and it installed. Don't think it was a game though.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

40ghz total? really?

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
40ghz total? really?

Please be kind to the OP... He's trying.
Can you imagine how long this blog will be by the time he actually buys something? :laugh: