How does this high-end config look?

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lessthanjakejohn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 13, 2004
Messages
396
Chenming Black Full Tower case $79.00

NEC 16X 3520a $64.99

LSI "MegaRAID SATA 150-4" $215.99

Hitachi 250GB 7200RPM HDS722525VLSA80 (Four of them for raid 5) $519.92

Logitech Cordless MX Duo $55.00

Patriot 2x512 PC3200 $219.50

PCP&C Turbo Cool 510 $200-210

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 90nm $215.00

Asus A8N-SLI $200

M-AUDIO 5.1 Revolution $68.99


Everything is from newegg except mobo, whats the consensus on this setup? I am not sure on video card, I want 6800 with PCI-E and dual dvi. What mfg makes this?

About the PSU: Should I go with the PCP&C Turbo Cool 510 or the 600w OCZ?

I plan on ocing, and I play the top games, video transcoding/encoding, lot of music stuff, lots of multitasking.
 
whats ur budget? i think its kind of weird that u spend $500 on HDD's but only $200 for a cpu.........but thats just me
 
gamekid said:
whats ur budget? i think its kind of weird that u spend $500 on HDD's but only $200 for a cpu.........but thats just me
Click to expand...

Budget is around $2000 without monitor / speakers

And I use a lot of space...

Will the 3500+ be worth the extra $$$?
 
the 3200+ is still very good, and also good for ocing....

do u really need 1,000 gb's (or is it one terabyte?) of space!!!!! (well, just ignore this if it doesn't make since because i dont know what raid 5 is)....u could just add in more drives over time

i dont know much about raid but do u need a $200 raid card?(just something to think about)

and, u can find a 6800gt for ~450 (but ur gonna have to look for it...monarch has them but i dont know if they are just for their sli build...i herd chumbo.com has them)

doesnt video encoding take up A LOT of RAM? u might want to think about 2gb

im just shooting out a bunch of stuf for u to think about..i just think its nutz spending $700 on Hdd's (including raid card)

does anyone here use even more then 500gb's ?
 
I prefer my 2x WD Raptors myself...I like speed over capacity anyday seeing as how me and HDDs rarely ever get along. And no I don't have 2 raptors so I can stroke my e-penis, I have 2 simply for more storage than 74 gigs and for computer-to-computer transfers (which I do alot of) :p
 
The computer is not only going to be a workstation, but also a file server: space is essential. Raptors, or any other high speed drives, would not fit the purpose of this computer if I want to maintain a budget. Lossless music, MP3s, images, videos, DVD backups, program backups, etc are all going to be stored on this thing.

2gb of ram would be nice, but currently I have 1gb and it is ok. If I need more later than there are still two slots left right? :p

Also, I don't need to spend $450 on a 6800gt, I have a feeling the vanilla 6800 will work fine.
 
looks good, but I would get another hard drive to install your OS on
 
EnderW said:
if you can wait a while, you may look at DFI's new NF4 boards
link

I know the eVGA and XFX 6800GT PCI-E cards have dual DVI, but good luck finding them instock

http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=256-P2-N376-AX
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-081&depa=0


and personally, I'd sell off the 160GB drive and put the money towards a 74GB Raptor - it's quite a bit faster and with your 1TB array, the difference in storage space is negligible
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The DFI boards looks sick, I sorta need a parallel port though. I also don't want to wait much longer. I may pick one up later and sell the A8N.

The raptor is a good idea too.

I don't know if I want to spend so much money on a video card though : /
 
I think his array is only coming out to 750GB. If max space is your need, I'd look at 400GB drives, Seagate and Hitachi make those now. Course, they'll probably bust the budget. 3200+ should be fine for your needs. If you don't want to bust the bank on a video card, I'd go for a 6600GT. ~$200. I'd also ditch the soundcard since integrated sound will most likely be more than adequate unless you're an audiophile.

Anyway, his RAID would "only" by 750GB because RAID 5 uses one drive as a parity drive. So he's getting 4x250GB drives, subtract 1 and his actual capacity is 3x250GB = 750GB. Just a little RAID math for those who are not familiar. If he used RAID 0 then he would have 1 terabyte, but no data integrity since if one drive went bad the whole RAID array is lost.
 
a "high end" computer wouldn't have that patriot shit. I'd reccommend Corsair XMS XLL 1024 PC 3200, as a minumum for a 'high end" computer.
 
Buckus said:
I think his array is only coming out to 750GB. If max space is your need, I'd look at 400GB drives, Seagate and Hitachi make those now. Course, they'll probably bust the budget. 3200+ should be fine for your needs. If you don't want to bust the bank on a video card, I'd go for a 6600GT. ~$200. I'd also ditch the soundcard since integrated sound will most likely be more than adequate unless you're an audiophile.

Anyway, his RAID would "only" by 750GB because RAID 5 uses one drive as a parity drive. So he's getting 4x250GB drives, subtract 1 and his actual capacity is 3x250GB = 750GB. Just a little RAID math for those who are not familiar. If he used RAID 0 then he would have 1 terabyte, but no data integrity since if one drive went bad the whole RAID array is lost.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm aware that RAID5 requires one drive for the rotating parity, I was simply referring to the amount of storage he would have before setting up the array and formatting. Usable space will be under 700GB after formatting, I'm sure.

The 400GB Seagate drives are way to expensive right now since they just came out. They are almost $1/GB compared to $0.5/GB for the 250GB Hitachi drives.

If I'm not mistaken, that board uses the old '97 Realtec codec like just about every other board out there. With a decent set of speakers, most people would notice a difference and on a high-end SLI build like this one, you gotta have a decent soundcard.


lessthanjakejohn said:
I don't know if I want to spend so much money on a video card though : /
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I doubt the prices on those cards are coming down anytime soon since only now are the AGP versions finally being sold at MSRP.

A 6600GT would be an alternative, do you really need two 6800s?

lessthanjakejohn said:
I plan on ocing, and I play the top games, video transcoding/encoding, lot of music stuff, lots of multitasking.
Click to expand...

Generally Pentium 4s are better at encoding and they definitely have an edge in multitasking due to the Hyper Threading feature. However A64 is better for gaming. Really comes down to which is most important to you.

This is a good side by side comparison of 2 of the top chips, you might check it out.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2275&p=4
 
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