Need some advice on the computer i am building

[kxm9976]

Hello everyone,

first allow me to thank for reading my topic and any advice is very valuable and appriciated.

I am in a process of buying stuff for the computer I am building and I am looking for some advice.

Well, two things that I am definately getting is an AMD 64 3200+ and ATI Radion 9800 PRO.

The motherboard after looking around and reading reviews I am leaning towards DFI "LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb" even though MSI K8N Neo Platinum and ASUS "K8N-E Deluxe" also look to be pretty good.
Now, I am probabely not going to do overclocking, so DFI's awesome oc'ing is not that important, I just need someing that performs well and is reliable. What you think about these mobo's or do you have a better one to suggest?

For the RAM i am gonna get two separate 512's PC3200 and most likely with a cas latency of 2. Any suggestions which brand or model is better (i am thinking OCZ, Mushkin, or Geil).

For the Hard Drive I am looking to get 2 80GIG WD 8mb cache SATA's and a 40GIG WD 8mb cache SATA.
what you thing about SATA, should i get them or get regular ATA's?

What would you suggest for the Power Supply? Is 400Watt save or should i go higher?
Also what brand would you suggest and what model. I am looking at Antec (case + PS), but they are expensive, so if there is a good alternative to it, I rather go with that. I want something of a good quality.

Thank you very much

 

[SickBeast]

Get the Asus. MSI motherboards are plagued with problems, and the DFI's only advantage is in overclocking. Asus has an excellent reputation when it comes to motherboards. DFI is a relative unknown.

As for RAM, read Anand's latest memory article. One of the OCZ modules was his favorite.

Your hard drive idea is ridiculous. Get a single 250GB drive and be done. I don't see the point in having three drives. They'll be loud, hot, they'll draw more power, and they won't be any faster. Try to get one of the new Maxtor drives w/ 16MB cache.

I prefer Enermax PSU's. 350 watt should be adequate; buy a better one if you want a serious graphics card.

 

[Alptraum]

I am not too familiar with the AMD boards so I'll leave that and memory to go with them to others.

As far as SATA goes I am all for it. Keep in mind though that with the exception of the Raptor's you are not really going to get any more performance from it. But I think the smaller cables alone are great. Why get two 80's and a 40? Why not just get one or two larger drives? With prices pretty close for most SATA and ATA drives I would get SATA whatever you do.

As far as cases go Antec's are pretty great. You can get a 1080amg (I use one) for not much more then $100 and it comes with a trupower 430watt PS.

 

[kxm9976]

I might instead get 2 120 GIG hard drives. Which brand would you suggest?
Actually I just looked up 16MB cache maxtor 250 GIG harddrives and there are not that expensive. Do you know if the quality is good and the performance? Cause if it is good, I would probabely get them.
Thanks

 

[slinky22]

I plan to go with Seagate for the 5 year warantee. I hear that Western Digital is also good but Maxtor doesn't have great feedback from what I've read.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: kxm9976
I might instead get 2 120 GIG hard drives. Which brand would you suggest?
Actually I just looked up 16MB cache maxtor 250 GIG harddrives and there are not that expensive. Do you know if the quality is good and the performance? Cause if it is good, I would probabely get them.
Thanks

Two drives now? Do you mind if I ask what you're trying to accomplish?

Check storagereview.com for info about the 16mb Maxtors. I've heard that they're about as fast as a 74GB Raptor.

For the last time: get a single drive! RAID is a complete waste. Have you not read Anand's articles on the technology? Why do you ask for advice if you're not going to listen?

 

[otispunkmeyer]

1 drive? its probably personal preference but i like to have at least 2 hdd, i dont use any kind of raid, i jus have 2 seperate drives...one for windows, and other programs, the other for music and games

either way lets say if my 80gb samsumg spinpoint fails......then the 120gb samsung spin point i have could then be wiped an i could install xp on it again.....ok ive lost all my data but at least my computer still works

my friend has 6 or 7 western digital hard drives...is some crazy raid thing, i am not lying here......he got the WDs with the fluid bearing motors...they are whisper quiet...

my two samsungs have fluid dynamic bearings......wen my comp goes into standby i cant hear the drives turn off, i can feel that they arent on by physically touching them, but at the end of the day i cant hear my 2 hdd over the zalman cnp7000cu on 2000rpm, let alone the 2x120mm fans i have too!

i say 2 drives is your best bet......for me i find it easier to manage things, it keeps things seperate

 

[fuzzynavel]

I speed isn't to important just get one huge 16MB cache drive and partition it.....just makes it look and behave like 2 drives

 

[kxm9976]

Sorry for not mentioning this when i posted this topic, but I am going to be doing a lot of video editing, and I want that stuff to be on one hard drive away from the programs and all the other stuff that I download and plan to keep on the other drive. That's why I wanna get 2 HD's. The original idea of getting 3 HD's was to keep all the programs on the 40GIG one and stipe the other 2 80's which a friend of my suggested. But now I see that striping (which I think is the same as RAID) is not really beneficial.

So for the peace of mind not to have to worry a lot about loosing my video editing hard drive, it's better to go with 2 hard drives. one for this and one for the programs.

few things that still I haven't been able to make up my mind about are:
1) What's the best mobo for AMD 64 3200+ (realiability and performance).
2) which 512 PC3200 RAm should I get (I wanna get ones with cas latency of 2, I guess they are supposed to perform better)

Thanks a lot for input.