Please review and advise on my new computer specs b4 I buy!

[Pietaster]

Hi all. I'm purchasing a new computer and can get pretty much what I want within a budget. Here's what I'm looking at. Please let me know what you think:

AMD XP 1900+ 266 FSB (I'm thinking about getting the RAID version just for the additional IDE slots...?)

Epox 8K3A KT333 Mainboard

512 MB PC2700 DDR Memory (is this the best memory out there? Do you recommend a certain manufacturer?)

2 60 Gig 7200 RPM Maxtor Harddrives

The system comes with an NVIDIA GE Force 2 MX 400 64 MB video card. This seems really old to me. Any recommendations?

Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Dolby

Lite-on 32x12x40 CD-RW

A standard CD-Rom drive

A NIC card - (I have a cable modem. Any suggestions as to cards? I don't really know much about good or bad...

17" Lite-on 300W ATX Tower. (Should I get better wattage? I don't know about the fan that will be included)

Windows XP Pro

Before taxes I'm looking at, $2050 Canadian, or US $1306.

What do you guys think? I appreciate all your help.

Thanks!

Tom

 

[Adul]

just be aware that when running in raid 0 youa re 2x more likely to loose your data. So I suggest you make it a habbit ot back up stuff regularly. Ditch the Sblive has it has issues with Via chipsets. True the Santa Cruz or maybe the audigy. ASUS make a nice CD-ROM, linksys should be good for the nic.300 watts is enough, though it cant hurt to havea little headroom. try 350 to be safe. Corsair should be good for DDR.

 

[cholley]

drop that video card for any geforce 3 or the geforce2 gts 32 meg is a great deal at newegg $52.00 shipped

 

[Operandi]

Not a bad setup, there are a few things though.....

1. Why the 2 60 gig HD's? If it?s for a RAID config I really don?t think it?s worth it, as it hurts your read times which in effect makes it slower then a single drive in many cases. If it?s for an additional 60 gig of storage I'd recommend going with a bigger 5400 driver for the same amount or slightly less.

2. NVIDIA GE Force 2 MX 400 64 MB video card: This is really gona hold back your performance look at either a Nvidia Geforce4 4200 or ATi Radeon 8500.

3. CD-ROM, might was well go for a DVD-ROM for little price increase.

4. As for as NIC's go just stick to the major brands 3com, Linksys, netgear, ect...

 

[Dormant]

LOL! Ummm Operandi and Adul seem to be a little confused when it comes to RAID. In RAID 0 those 2 60GB Harddrives should INCREASE performance dramatically for LARGE files (Video Editing). "just be aware that when running in raid 0 youa re 2x more likely to loose your data" This statement is simply not true. Even with 3 drives running in RAID 0 you are not 2x as likely to "loose" your data. Here is a quick lesson for you:

1. RAID 0 - 2 drives in RAID 0 do not increase the risk of disk failure by even 5%.
2. RAID 0 - 3 Drives in RAID 0 does increase the risk of disk failure by about 15%.
3. RAID 0 - 4 drives in RAID 0 increases the risk even more.
3. RAID 0 - 2 drives in RAID 0 Increase drive performance by about 25 to 50 percent in most disk access applications.
3. RAID 1 - INCREASES RELIABILITY. RAID 1 or RAID Mirroring is an excellent way to keep data for indefinite amounts of time.

Here is a very good review of many of the different RAID solutions: OVerclockers Australia

 

[Dormant]

Tom I have a couple more suggestions...

If you have $200 buy a Hercules GameTheater XP 6.1 (DealsDirect) and $290 will get you an ATI Radeon 8500LE 128mb (3.3ns ram 250/250) at Crawford Micro Systems. If cost is a problem try an OEM Audigy is $100 and a Geforce 2 Ti 200 should be easy to find for $130 (Geforce3 Ti200 goes for under 200).

 

[Operandi]

Dormant.................

"just be aware that when running in raid 0 youa re 2x more likely to loose your data" This statement is simply not true.

Yes it is.... 2x the HD's 2x your chance one will fail, hence 2x more likely your data is gona be lost.

In RAID 0 those 2 60GB Harddrives should INCREASE performance dramatically for LARGE files (Video Editing).

Yeah, when you?re working with "HUGE" files, for most ppl that?s not very often. In normal use RAID 0 can cause decreased performance due to data being spread across 2 drives instead of 1, it takes longer to find data on 2 drives then it dose on 1. So while you will see a very large increase in you overall throughput your seek times will take a big hit.

 

[Dormant]

Operandi try to Imagine RAID striping like a zipper.... Because both drives access data AT THE SAME TIME they increase drive performance. The idea that because there are two drives that makes it twice as likely one will fail is true whether they are in RAID or not. I have benched my Harddisk in HDtach against a multitude of drives including SCSI. I have been running 3 IBM 60GXP 40Gb drives in RAID 0 for a year and have not had a problem yet. Seek times do decrease but that "big performance hit" is less than 5% on even the worst RAID cards. The better cards manage to get that down to 2 or 3% while benefiting in greater throughput. What all this translates into is a noticably faster drive for larger file sizes which tends to be an issue when you have 120GB of storage. Large files are considered anything over 500Megs to a RAID card.

 

[Pheran]

Pietaster, a few comments on your setup:

I would definitely spend the couple of extra bucks to get the Epox 8K3A+ board with RAID, especially if you are getting two hard drives. Also, recent revisions (1.1 and higher) of this motherboard have builtin 6-channel audio, so I would ditch the SBLive card and just use the motherboard audio. The 512M of PC2700 RAM is a good idea, I usually get Crucial/Micron memory but some people like Samsung or Corsair, etc. I would definitely NOT get a GeForce 2MX video card at this point in time. You would be much better off with a GeForce 3 Ti200 or the new GeForce 4 Ti4200; drop your CPU down to the XP 1800+ if necessary to fit a better video card into your budget. I would also suggest replacing the "standard CD-ROM drive" with a DVD-ROM drive; they don't cost much. I hope you enjoy your new system!

 

[Operandi]

Dormant: I understand how RAID 0 works. While both drives do read data at the same time its nearly impossible to keep both drives synced since data is spread across the two. Maximum PC did a lot of testing with real world apps, system boot time, loading apps/games ect. The general conclusion was that for normal use that doesnÂ?t include working with large files right times were faster with a single drive then with 2. On the other hand righting times and read large file read times do greatly benefit from RAID 0.

*UPDATE*

Found a good article on The Tech Report that goes through tons of benchmarks, both synthetic and real world. In the vast majority of the synth benches RAID 0 dominated, real world benches RAID 0 seemed to marginally faster to just slightly ahead of a RAID 1 and single drive configs.

Real-world IDE RAID explored

 

[nortexoid]

yeah looks good buddy, like everyone else who posts these damn threads..

knock yourself out.

 

[goog]

Upgrade the video (Geforce 3 or 4, or Radeon 8500) and sound (audigy or santa cruz), everything else looks fine.

storagereview.com on RAID "reliability"