trying to buy a SLI-based system for 2k

[SLInterested]

im basically looking for a processor....say i dunno...x2 4800...and a 7900gtx (ill add another one later when needed) with the asus a8n-sli premium board....

thats what i got down on paper so far..

..im thinking some corsair xms 2 x 1 gb

now im stuch on what would be blazing fast hard drives, heat sinks, powersupply, that would be good for sli.....also what kinda case...i already got a dvd/cd drive so i dont need one..any help would be mucho appreciated!

i could do this all myself..but i have been lurker for some time and find the anandtech boards are full of many smart, sensible people and - why not

 

[SparkyJJO]

Here are my thoughts:

1. Don't get the X2 4800+, the extra cost over the X2 4400+ isn't worth it IMHO. Might want to look into the opterons too.
2. the WD Raptor drives are supposedly blazing fast, however a friend just got one and he really doesn't notice much difference in speed between that drive and his secondary samsung 250GB SATA2 storage drive.
3. PSU - Fortron is good, OCZ powerstream I've heard is good (not modstream) PC power and cooling is good (but expensive), the enermax liberty if you want modular. Some people say Antec is bad but I've had 4 of them and none have given any issues, several friends/family have them and no issues. Get at least 600W, I have 550W and I realized I don't have enough oomph on the 12V rails for dual vid cards. Make sure total is above 38A for the 12V, somewhere in the mid-40s should be good.
4. Case - one with good airflow. 120mm rear exhaust fan is great. I've heard the cooler master stacker is a good case, I've never used it though so I don't know. Just make sure it is large enough to support dual vid cards, good cooling, and big CPU heatsinks
5. Heatsink - for the CPU I've heard the scythe ninja is very good, also the sunbeam tuniq. I have the zalman CPNS9500 and it is very good too. Whatever you get, dont' forget the arctic silver 5 thermal paste - I made the mistake of forgetting that

I'm not an expert but that is my opinion.

 

[SLInterested]

thanks for those tidbits! anyone else got sumtin to say? i know its late heheheh

 

[Arcanedeath]

1) Cpu , a 4400+ or an Opteron 170 (espicaly if overclocking the 170)
2) HSF, personaly I'd go w/ a TT Big Typhoon or a Sythe Ninja +fan
3) Memory 2x1GB of PC3200 or possibly some Gskill PC4000 Hz memory or OCZ is good as well really any quality 2x1gb set NE had some Patriot on sale recently
4) PSU, I'd go for a Seasonic S12 600 watt unit
5)for HDDs I'd get a pair of 250-320 GB 16mb cache Sata 3.0Gb/s drives WD, IBM or Seagate
6)Case this is totaly personal prefrence, I'd suggest you get something w/ 2 120mm fans though like a TT tsunami or an Antec Slk 3000B
7) motherboard, if your going SLI in the future the Asus A8N32SLI - Deluxe seems to be your best bet for both silence and still having good overclocking headroom.

Anyways thats my few cents for building a High end system

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i'd also add a 150 raptor in there somewhere instead of the larger capacity ones but thats up to you. i'd go with a lian li case for that high end setup.

 

[SLInterested]

i really appreciate it guys - im putting together a cart on newegg ill paste in a bit

 

[pkme2]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
1) Cpu , a 4400+ or an Opteron 170 (espicaly if overclocking the 170)
2) HSF, personaly I'd go w/ a TT Big Typhoon or a Sythe Ninja +fan
3) Memory 2x1GB of PC3200 or possibly some Gskill PC4000 Hz memory or OCZ is good as well really any quality 2x1gb set NE had some Patriot on sale recently
4) PSU, I'd go for a Seasonic S12 600 watt unit
5)for HDDs I'd get a pair of 250-320 GB 16mb cache Sata 3.0Gb/s drives WD, IBM or Seagate
6)Case this is totaly personal prefrence, I'd suggest you get something w/ 2 120mm fans though like a TT tsunami or an Antec Slk 3000B
7) motherboard, if your going SLI in the future the Asus A8N32SLI - Deluxe seems to be your best bet for both silence and still having good overclocking headroom.

Anyways thats my few cents for building a High end system

My graphics workstation is quite similar to these recommedations.
My PSU is 535W Enermax, but next time a Seasonic 600W, for sure.
:thumbsup:

 

[Arcanedeath]

Another Good case would be an Antec P180 but you'd need to look into something Besides the S12 as a PSU if you decide to go w/ that.

 

[SLInterested]

ok - heres candidate one - does it look solid? *crys*


CASE:Antec Performance I P180 Silver 0.8
HDD:Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3250824AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
MOBO:ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce SPP 100 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
VID:BFG Tech BFGR79512GTXOCE Geforce 7900GTX 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
PSU:SeaSonic S12-600 ATX12V 600W Power Supply - Retail
MEM:CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model
CPU:AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX - Retail
HTSNK:Scythe SCNJ-1000P 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink - Retail


Subtotal: $1,847.96
Tax: $110.88
Shipping: 48.80

Total: $2,007.64

---wow....i need to NOT ORDER FROM NEWEGG because of TAX lol --------

 

[SLInterested]

actually the same system at monarch is giving me over 1800 without the seasonic and scythe....and other retailers a lot ofproducts are on backorder and they dont have..looks like ill be using newegg afterall

 

[LOUISSSSS]

that system u just built does look pretty well, the only thing i'd change is probably the ram to OCZ platinum ram for tighter timings and probably cheaper.

 

[SLInterested]

only reason i picked the xms is the sli-certified thing-im definitly considering the ocz...but there is a 50 dollar mail-in rebate on the corsair bringing it down to 139.99

 

[SLInterested]

morning bump

 

[Bobthelost]

SLI certified RAM is a joke, a complete and utter farce, there was a thread laughing at it (and despairing that anyone would even think it mattered )

It's no different to any other dual channel RAM set.

 

[SLInterested]

lol good to know..i didn't look to deep into that..

 

[Fraggable]

I will cry if you don't get a faster hard drive for that $1800 system. I don't think people realize how much of a difference hard drive speed can make in everyday tasks, not to mention load times for games.

I suggest to get a second hard drive and run RAID 0. You will see a huge speed difference. It will be faster than 1 150 gig Raptor in almost every way. Tomshardware.com has some interactive speed comparison charts for hard drives where you can compare RAID 0 setups to Raptors. Go over there and spend some time fiddling with them before you buy.

if it was me spending that kind of money, I'd buy 3 of those hard drives and run RAID 5, maybe get a 7900GT to compensate for the difference and get a second 7900GT later.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: Fraggable
I will cry if you don't get a faster hard drive for that $1800 system. I don't think people realize how much of a difference hard drive speed can make in everyday tasks, not to mention load times for games.

I suggest to get a second hard drive and run RAID 0. You will see a huge speed difference. It will be faster than 1 150 gig Raptor in almost every way. Tomshardware.com has some interactive speed comparison charts for hard drives where you can compare RAID 0 setups to Raptors. Go over there and spend some time fiddling with them before you buy.

if it was me spending that kind of money, I'd buy 3 of those hard drives and run RAID 5, maybe get a 7900GT to compensate for the difference and get a second 7900GT later.

Dear god, so much wrongness deserves a thread to itself.

RAID0 doesn't work that well for single users, and at least half the tests (including all those done by the more techie of sites) show that it doesn't help gaming. In real world tests a raptor 150 would be faster than 2 7200.9 250GB drives. Tom's benchmarks are outdated and almost all synthetic, not worth the time to read them.

The HD does make a big difference, at times. The gameplay after the game has loaded is not one of them.

 

[imported_cubby]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
Another Good case would be an Antec P180 but you'd need to look into something Besides the S12 as a PSU if you decide to go w/ that.

I am looking into buying a PSU and was considering an Antec P180B case. I am a noob so I don't get why you are telling him to get something different. Is it a bad fit in that case, some other reason? I appreciate the help!

 

[m1ldslide1]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: Fraggable
I will cry if you don't get a faster hard drive for that $1800 system. I don't think people realize how much of a difference hard drive speed can make in everyday tasks, not to mention load times for games.

I suggest to get a second hard drive and run RAID 0. You will see a huge speed difference. It will be faster than 1 150 gig Raptor in almost every way. Tomshardware.com has some interactive speed comparison charts for hard drives where you can compare RAID 0 setups to Raptors. Go over there and spend some time fiddling with them before you buy.

if it was me spending that kind of money, I'd buy 3 of those hard drives and run RAID 5, maybe get a 7900GT to compensate for the difference and get a second 7900GT later.

Dear god, so much wrongness deserves a thread to itself.

RAID0 doesn't work that well for single users, and at least half the tests (including all those done by the more techie of sites) show that it doesn't help gaming. In real world tests a raptor 150 would be faster than 2 7200.9 250GB drives. Tom's benchmarks are outdated and almost all synthetic, not worth the time to read them.

The HD does make a big difference, at times. The gameplay after the game has loaded is not one of them.

Agreed. I had my own RAID0 setup about a year ago - talk about disappointing. I haven't ever sprung the cash for a raptor, but I think it'd be cool if I could afford it, so more power to you if you can. But yeah, don't go RAID0 - no gaming performance increase, nothing loads much faster, and its more work to set up and set up again once one of your drives fail.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: Fraggable
I will cry if you don't get a faster hard drive for that $1800 system. I don't think people realize how much of a difference hard drive speed can make in everyday tasks, not to mention load times for games.

I suggest to get a second hard drive and run RAID 0. You will see a huge speed difference. It will be faster than 1 150 gig Raptor in almost every way. Tomshardware.com has some interactive speed comparison charts for hard drives where you can compare RAID 0 setups to Raptors. Go over there and spend some time fiddling with them before you buy.

if it was me spending that kind of money, I'd buy 3 of those hard drives and run RAID 5, maybe get a 7900GT to compensate for the difference and get a second 7900GT later.

Dear god, so much wrongness deserves a thread to itself.

RAID0 doesn't work that well for single users, and at least half the tests (including all those done by the more techie of sites) show that it doesn't help gaming. In real world tests a raptor 150 would be faster than 2 7200.9 250GB drives. Tom's benchmarks are outdated and almost all synthetic, not worth the time to read them.

The HD does make a big difference, at times. The gameplay after the game has loaded is not one of them.

Agreed. I had my own RAID0 setup about a year ago - talk about disappointing. I haven't ever sprung the cash for a raptor, but I think it'd be cool if I could afford it, so more power to you if you can. But yeah, don't go RAID0 - no gaming performance increase, nothing loads much faster, and its more work to set up and set up again once one of your drives fail.

Anandtech has a good article on this topic:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101

 

[Fraggable]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: Fraggable
I will cry if you don't get a faster hard drive for that $1800 system. I don't think people realize how much of a difference hard drive speed can make in everyday tasks, not to mention load times for games.

I suggest to get a second hard drive and run RAID 0. You will see a huge speed difference. It will be faster than 1 150 gig Raptor in almost every way. Tomshardware.com has some interactive speed comparison charts for hard drives where you can compare RAID 0 setups to Raptors. Go over there and spend some time fiddling with them before you buy.

if it was me spending that kind of money, I'd buy 3 of those hard drives and run RAID 5, maybe get a 7900GT to compensate for the difference and get a second 7900GT later.

Dear god, so much wrongness deserves a thread to itself.

RAID0 doesn't work that well for single users, and at least half the tests (including all those done by the more techie of sites) show that it doesn't help gaming. In real world tests a raptor 150 would be faster than 2 7200.9 250GB drives. Tom's benchmarks are outdated and almost all synthetic, not worth the time to read them.

The HD does make a big difference, at times. The gameplay after the game has loaded is not one of them.

Agreed. I had my own RAID0 setup about a year ago - talk about disappointing. I haven't ever sprung the cash for a raptor, but I think it'd be cool if I could afford it, so more power to you if you can. But yeah, don't go RAID0 - no gaming performance increase, nothing loads much faster, and its more work to set up and set up again once one of your drives fail.

Anandtech has a good article on this topic:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101

My friend has a 36 gig Raptor and nearly identical specs to my machine (sig system), and sitting side by side, my system will start up Windows a good 15 seconds faster than his. I know, startup apps make a huge difference, but neither of us has anything major in the startup and the things we do have are very similar.

BF2 levels load consistently almost exactly 20 seconds faster than his.

I know raptors don't benefit much from RAID 0 as much as some 7200 RPM drives do. I did some research when building my system and found that Seagate drives get the best performance increase in RAID 0, so I got them.

Maybe the biggest advantage for RAID 0 is not for loading game levels, but it sure makes the whole system feel snappier. I'm not saying that 2 drives will be faster than 1 raptor, just that overall it will be better than 1 of the drives he has picked out, if only in startup time.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: Fraggable
Agreed. I had my own RAID0 setup about a year ago - talk about disappointing. I haven't ever sprung the cash for a raptor, but I think it'd be cool if I could afford it, so more power to you if you can. But yeah, don't go RAID0 - no gaming performance increase, nothing loads much faster, and its more work to set up and set up again once one of your drives fail.

Anandtech has a good article on this topic:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101[/quote]

My friend has a 36 gig Raptor and nearly identical specs to my machine (sig system), and sitting side by side, my system will start up Windows a good 15 seconds faster than his. I know, startup apps make a huge difference, but neither of us has anything major in the startup and the things we do have are very similar.

BF2 levels load consistently almost exactly 20 seconds faster than his.

I know raptors don't benefit much from RAID 0 as much as some 7200 RPM drives do. I did some research when building my system and found that Seagate drives get the best performance increase in RAID 0, so I got them.

Maybe the biggest advantage for RAID 0 is not for loading game levels, but it sure makes the whole system feel snappier. I'm not saying that 2 drives will be faster than 1 raptor, just that overall it will be better than 1 of the drives he has picked out, if only in startup time.[/quote]

There is no consensus on this, but the storage review line is that putting two slower drives in RAID0 will be slower for gaming than a single faster drive. RAID0 does improve performance in several tasks notably, large file transfers primarily. Gaming is not one of the areas that it has been proved to help.

While you may be more than happy with your RAID0 array comments like "snappier" aren't all that useful, human beings are crap observers, it's far too easy to fool yourself into thinking something is faster or more responsive.

The machine i'm on is sluggish as hell to boot, mostly because it's got lots of little programs to boot up, my other machine can be booted, shut down and booted again in the time needed for this to boot once, i tried it once. A single raptor and a clean install thrash a cluttered OS and an old 7200 drive. (unsurprisingly)

 

[Fraggable]

Ok, so comments like 'snappier' aren't useful. I meant that I can do more things at once faster, like install something while working on a document, while playing an MP3 or video. When I had this setup with the 2 drivers set up in a non-RAID confuguration, it was noticeably slower.

It's far too easy to fool ourselves into thinking it's faster? What about the examples I gave of BF2 level loading times and Windows startup times? When I had Win XP running on just 1 of my HDDs, it took about 12 seconds longer to boot up. 12 seconds. Not my imagination. Also, in HL2 as it's loading levels it's about 5 seconds faster than the 36GB raptor and 9 faster than 1 7200RPM drive.

Oh and BTW, I wouldn't have these drives in a RAID configuration if it wasn't really faster. I've had to reinstall XP about 8 times in the last 3 months, as well as switch through 3 motherboards to get something that would work well with RAID and accomodate my X-fi sound card. Trust me, I've measured whether it's worth it or not.1

 

[SLInterested]

im still a little hesistent to give the green like on a 4400+....im afraid it will go out of date too soon....and maybe with the 7900gtx..i want a better cpu to support it...i know its not overclockable greatly..but then again...the fx series is on the same dye, which would yield similiar OCing performance. im thinking maybe an opteron ..possibbly a 2xx..then add another later..for a little more prolongativity..or suck it up with a 1xx...are there any solid SLI mobos for the opterons ?!?

 

[SLInterested]

im thinking about the opteron 175 now....as people are saying its identicle to the 4400+ sans the opteron having higher 1.4 voltage and a superior archtecture, thus overclockability, will the socket 939 175 work with the a8n32-sli?!?