Help me build my rig

[Mithoric]

I would like some help selecting the parts for my new rig.. I am going to purchase the components in about 3 or 4 days so I'm just trying to make sure what I've got in mind is actually pretty good.

I will use this computer for a few things ... games, software development (windows apps and a big dx9/ogl2 game engine), graphics (3dsmax and photoshop mainly) and I'll be running apache for my php and website development stuff.. and digital video editing every once in a while.

Right now I'm considering the following --

1x Cooler Master Wave Master case
1x Antec 550W TruePower 24-pin PSU
2x Opteron 248 2.2Ghz CPU
2x Thermaltake K8 Silent boost hsf
1x Tyan Thunder K8W mobo
4x Kinston 1Gb DDR PC2700
1x Asus ATI Radeon 9800XT 256mb
4x Western Digital SATA 250Gb 8mb Cache HDD
1x Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card
2x Plextor PX-708A DVD±R/RW
1x Logitech Z-680 speakers
1x Logitech Cordless MX Duo
1x 22" Mitsubishi Diamond View CRT monitor
1x Cooler Master Aerogate 2

I'm also thinking of getting a tv tuner card and vivo card so if anyone can recommend a good one of those that'd be really great..

Anyways so does anyone have a comment on the above system? There are obviously other things like floppy drive etc but they're pretty minor so I'll go for the not so cheap not so expensive models for them ...

Also I'm planning on getting a laptop at the same time.. Can anyone suggest a good one that isn't that expensive? I'll use it mainly for programming away from home, dvds and maybe quake 3 or ut2k3 (if it can handle it) ..

 

[MAME]

jesus tap dancing christ.........you are rich

 

[Peter D]

Originally posted by: MAME
jesus tap dancing christ.........you are rich

:Q

 

[Mithoric]

No, not me ... a mate, he's paying for this.. that makes it even better

 

[Mithoric]

Oh and those 250gb drives are going to be in 2 raid 0 arrays.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Mithoric
I'm also thinking of getting a tv tuner card and vivo card so if anyone can recommend a good one of those that'd be really great..

You might want to check out the ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro. It's a slight step down for games, but you have tv tuner and vivo capabilities built in.

 

[Mithoric]

Yeah I thought about that, but my budget allows for 2 of these systems so I was just going to get a separate card for the job, perferably the best on the market ... It's tempting a little though, because I read a good review of the all in wonder 9800 pro..

 

[LtPage1]

i would get the bluetooth version of yoru logitech mice/keyboard combo. since it looks like youc an afford it, go for the best. better range, and it adds bluetooth to your rig. best speakers would be the 7.1 creative THXs, IMO. id either get one of those DVDRWs and a fast CDRW or just add the CDRW. you wont regret getting a faster cd burner. since you can build two, why not trick this one out to the max, and then build a small, form factor multimedia pc- like a 2400+ or so, and the AIW. or just make another kickass machine with the all win wonder. heh. as for laptops, i always say get an apple- for laptops, they just cant be beat. otherwise, go with alienware or voodoo pc. they have both gaming and thin-and-lights. l computing (go-l.com) has some that look insane on paper, but who knows, with them.

 

[Mithoric]

Yeah what's the deal with bluetooth? Is it faster? I gather it is or you wouldn't have suggested it ... So I'll go with that for sure, as for a fast CDRW I had thought about that, I'll have a look at some writers now and see what I think is good.

What about Gigaworks S750 for speakers? 70watts (for 7 chans) isn't bad ...

A multimedia pc sounds pretty good to me, I had thought about it but the only thing stopping me was finding a sweet case for it. I don't fancy those cubes very much (shuttle and the like), but maybe I could grow to like it I've only really glanced at them.

I can't really get an apple laptop because I develop programs for windows, they get damn good reviews those ibooks, light and good on batteries.

I'll look into voodoo pc, never looked at them before ... the alienware laptops are kick ass though.. But I'm not sure if I'll play games that much to warrant one.

 

[Mithoric]

If I build a multimedia pc then there is no need for the tuner, just a vivo for editing digital video.

 

[jdogg707]

With your budget, why don't you look into something like Raid 5, where you not only get the speed of Raid 0, but the data security as well

 

[Mithoric]

Raid 5?? I didn't know there was anything other than raid 0 and 1 :| ... I'll have to investigate that.

 

[jdogg707]

Ya, Raid 5 is typically used with 4 identical drives, I believe two are mirroring and two are stripping, giving you the best of both world's. Just make sure you get a nice Raid 5 card or you'll have to suffer with poor performance as a result. Check out Storage Review for more information...

 

[Mithoric]

Oh goody, thanks for the link ... I'll still have to think a little about, it's not likely I'll need 1000Gb of space though.. I just like the thought of that much space ..

 

[Markfw]

No, in raid 5, you need a minimum of 3 drives (4 are great, but go for 5 IMO) I think with 5 drives, you will still have your terrabyte, but gobs of speed and data security. If one fails, (not hot swapable, I don;t think) shut down, replace the drive and boot up. It will take a while to rebuild the drive, but no data loss. You would have to loose 2 drives at once in this config, and the odds of that are VERY slim. Nice setup though. Should do anything you want.

 

[Mithoric]

That's what I hope for...

What is the chance of a drive failing though? I mean sure I'll prolly go for raid 5 anyway because my budget allows for it and it saves me having to backup my important files myself and it's all backed up including OS with it but I've never had a drive fail on me ever.

I gather raid 5 will work with sata, also how do you setup raid 5? I don't think the K8W onboard chip supports it so I'll have to get a card for it and then how? I guess it'll come with a disk to do it?

 

[Mithoric]

Just noticed that the thunder mobo isn't the ATX size but ExATX, Tyan states it should fit an ATX case but I'm odering online so I don't want to take the chance ... So now I'm looking at using the Tiger K8W, no real change except it's ATX and I loose 4 dimms to it but I only want 4Gb in 4 sticks so there's no problem there. ..

Anyway the reason I noticed the form factor thing is because I when to check the raid specs on the board, it says the following --

Integrated SATA Controller
? Silicon Image Sil3114 SATA RAID Accelerator
? Supports S-ATA 1.0 Specification
? Supports 4 channel SATA port for up to four
SATA devices
? Supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1
? Connected to legacy 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus

Is raid 0+1 the same as raid 5?

Oh, BTW it says up to 4 sata ports so I can't have 5 drives. .. Unless I can get some sort of expansion card, does such a thing exist? If so would it be worth bothering for 5 drives?

 

[Jeff7181]

Go to storagereview.com for all your hard drive questions... I believe they tested 6 Raptors in RAID 0 so there is a card out there that supports 6 devices.

Also, I always thought RAID 5 needed a minimum of 3 drives like someone said, two were used for striping, and the 3rd is a parity drive, so that if one of the two used for striping fails, the data can be reconstructed when a new drive is put in.

And RAID 0+1 is the one that needed 4 drives, two for striping, and then two for mirroring.

Actually lets just take a gander on AnandTech... RAID explained

Looks like I was right about RAID 5... not sure on RAID 0+1 though, but it sounds right to me

 

[DaveSimmons]

Also, I always thought RAID 5 needed a minimum of 3 drives like someone said, two were used for striping, and the 3rd is a parity drive, so that if one of the two used for striping fails, the data can be reconstructed when a new drive is put in.

Not quite, but the basic idea is:

The two drives receiving the striped data and the one receiving the parity bit are constantly changing. For example, if drives 1 and 2 receive striped data on a write and drive 3 receives a parity bit, on the next write drives 2 and 3 will receive the striped data and drive 1 will receive the parity bit. The shifting continues and eliminates the random write performance hit that comes with a dedicated drive receiving the parity information.