Need alittle help with some upgrades

R

RKBET

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 13, 2009
Messages
117
I need to get new parts for a current build.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, Web, and Photoshop
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$320 with shipping and tax
3) Where do you live?
Miami, Florida
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, Video Card, Hard Drives
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Please Look Down
6) Will you be overclocking?
no
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Acer 22" LCD Monitor
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
in a few days
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
maybe Raid other then that none
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
yes



Here is the current build:
RAIDMAX AZTEC Black/ Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
RAIDMAX AURORA 2 600W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V Power Supply
ASUS M3N78 PRO
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 5400+ Black Edition
XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB
500 GB Seagate HDD
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe


And this is what I was planing on getting.

2x Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB in RAID 0 setup.
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz
XIGMATEK Dark Knight
 
That's a lot of storage to place in a RAID 0 setup. Yeah, it will be faster than any single SATA HDD in the market, but if one drive fails, you lose everything. (BTW, RAID isn't a backup solution, as damaged or corrupted files can still linger inside the RAID setup.) Depending on the age of your old Seagate HDD, one WD6401AALS HDD would show some noticeable improvement.

Instead of two hard drives, I recommend getting one Black 640GB drive... and a new PSU. The long story short is that I don't trust that Raidmax PSU, and you can easily afford a better quality model. You can find the Antec Earthwatts EA650 on sale at ZipZoomFly.

You don't necessarily need an aftermarket CPU cooler like the Xigmatek Dark Knight, especially if you don't plan on overclocking the processor. However, the advantage of using one is that it cools better and (oftentimes) runs quieter than the retail HSFs that come with the processors.

Out of curiosity, which games are you playing? Have you updated your BIOS to a version that supports the Phenom II processors?
 
@tiraides
i may overclock in time but i dont want to right now. so i was planing to get it just in case.
i have a few games now but plan on getting more when i can GTA4, COD5, Mass Effect, Half-Life 2, Crysis, Mercenaries 2, Oblivion to list some.

@It_shiro
what do you mean that am2+ boards cant unlock cores
 
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tiraides and it_shiro brought up some good points. If $320 is your budget to spend right now, I actually would:

1.Change the PSU to the Antec EA650 psu for $75. I don't trust your Raidmax PSU. A PSU that basically doesn't specify the total combined amperage or wattage on the +12v rails are pretty crappy.

2.Get the Phenom II X4 940 cpu $175. This cpu is cheap already. I would just skip the triple core already when a X4 can fit your budget.

3.Get 1 x WD6401AALS HDD for $75 and have this drive as your primary and the Seagate 500GB as your secondary drive to store your photos.

Total for these 3 items would be $325 w/free shipping.

With these changes, you have a more trusted/tested PSU that is more capable to O/C the cpu as well as providing the juice for your future video card upgrade later on, the X4 Phenom is alot faster than that X2 brisbane cpu thus benefiting in photo editing as well as helping increase fps on your 9800GT video card in gaming. Finally, the WD 640GB is overall faster than your Seagate 500GB drive.
 
lt_shiro said:
nvidia base AM2+ boards can't unlock cores. So I would go with AMD Phenom II X4 920 2.8GHz Socket AM2+ 125W and not the X3..
Click to expand...

this.

and hardwareguru's suggestions as well

honestly I'd take the 920 + aftermarket HSF over 940 + stock HSF, just to keep noise/temps down, granted it won't be as premium a chip, but it'll be quiet and whatnot

question of the day for you:
how much RAM do you currently have?
 
Mistalakeboy said:
i'm running 4gigs. may expand to 8gigs if the time needs

ram are CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB)

if im lucky i can get these today at my local computer stores.
Click to expand...

then I'd leave memory alone, just asked because I didn't see it mentioned (It_shiro, did you see something I still am not seeing? :(), was just doublechecking, as 1-2GB would be a killer for photoshop/similar and *some* games

with 4GB, I'd honestly stay put unless you find a good deal/have the money to spend, you don't exactly *NEED* the extra RAM, worst case scenario you add more, and it just doesn't change anything, best case, it improves things a bit, hence why I'd put the money into other parts first, but if you've got whatever $50 laying around, grab another 4GB kit and go from there
 
I, like obobski, agree with tiraides, HG, and lt_shiro.

What lt shiro meant about the board and unlocking cores is that your mobo cannot unlock the 4th core of an X3 CPU, so no real point in buying the X3 since, as HG mentioned, you can already afford an X4.

More RAM would benefit you more than a RAID0 array, along with RAMdisk (for photoshop).
Joe Average said:
... I set up Photoshop CS3 for 'em (their legit retail copy) on Vista Business x64. They started messing around with it, loading some rather large TIFF files in excess of 150MB a pop, several at a time, performing some basic scripted actions on 'em, blurs, filters, etc. Using the Velociraptors in RAID 0 meant very snappy and consistent performance, as well as having 16GB of RAM too. Also, it's a Q6600 based machine running rock solid at 3 GHz.

They were very pleased with the performance at that point, but I had a surprise for 'em. ;)

I asked if I could have 20 mins 'alone' with the workstation to "rewire it" as Tim Allen might say. That consisted of grabbing a trial version of SuperSpeed Software's RamDisk Plus 9 and installing it, doing the simple configuration, and then creating a 10GB RAMdisk and told Photoshop "Ok, you want a scratch disk? Here, try this on for size."

After I did some tests of my own using the same scripts they'd done earlier, boy... I tell ya. You haven't lived till you see 225MB TIFF files literally snap onscreen in the blink of an eye, multiple huge TIFFs with resolutions like 5000x5000 and even higher. That's what's possible with RAMdisks, because even Velociraptors in RAID 0 pumping out something like 280MB/s sustained pales to the close to 5GB a second in bandwidth of that RAMdisk.

I told 'em to come back in and rerun their test scripts.

Jaws hit the floor, folks. Well, not quite but figuratively speaking, at least.

They asked what I'd done, I told them I put the scratch disk in RAM where it should be if you have the RAM to make it happen, and they bought 4 licenses of RamDisk Plus 10 mins later, and I got a signed contract to construct 3 more workstations identical to that one top to bottom and also be their "geek" if any issues come up.

It was a very good week... ;)
Click to expand...
 
Along with what enginurd said earlier about RAM/RAMdisk...

Mistalakeboy said:
i'm running 4gigs. may expand to 8gigs if the time needs

ram are CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB)

if im lucky i can get these today at my local computer stores.
Click to expand...

... I'd be surprised if you see any Corsair Dominator RAM at your local store, as it's Corsair's top-of-the-line series and, thus, more expensive. A lot of us view it as overpriced since you can find cheaper RAM that performs just as well.

I don't know of a better way to say it, but I believe that you may be better off selling your current 4GB kit and pick up two cheaper 4GB kits. However, I will concede that it's easier to simply buy another 4GB Corsair Dominator kit. Regardless, I agree with enginurd that 8GB of RAM would be better for you than two hard drives in RAID 0.
 
okay now im going to switch some things about. im looking to run 2 or 3 sli so i need another board. that board is going to have the x4 core cpu on it not the current one. so any good boards that have 3 pci-e 16 slots for under $200 anywhere.
 
Here's some reading material for you. They also have an article on 3-way sli/cf, but this is the 4-way comparison. Be sure to choose your resolution and pay attn to the games you plan on playing:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3520&p=6

For 3+way SLI/CF, i7 is best. What's your new budget look like? Why the sudden interest in multi-card setups? did you recently get a 30" monitor? any SLI/CF setup is quite cost-ineffective with a 22" display.
 
i plan on getting a bigger screen lcd in august. when i get my vaction check:D and i want to test how the graphics would look
 
I know I say this alot but once again...

Avoid any tall memory sticks with the Xigmatek + AMD board combo. The Xigmatek will only mount horizontally blocking off memory slot 1 and sometimes slot 2.
 
So, it looks like the DK will interfere with your Dominators.

DTN107 said:
I know I say this alot but once again...

Avoid any tall memory sticks with the Xigmatek + AMD board combo. The Xigmatek will only mount horizontally blocking off memory slot 1 and sometimes slot 2.
Click to expand...

So what's an alternative cooler for an AMD setup?
 
/me wonders if you can buy that mounting bracket separately...

//edit: nope. Nice all in one design, though.
 
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