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HIGH END PC? Opinions Needed
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1. September 2006 @ 19:29 |
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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1. September 2006 @ 23:48 |
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Personally I wouldn't class that as high end at all.
A reasonable spec, but now just about average.
Before reading what are only my views, remember you are asking about high end, and as such I am looking at parts in relation to what is now high end, so please don't take it personally that I am forced to knock just about everything you have listed.
There is nothing wrong with the PC you intend to build and it will work just fine for most apps you chuck at it, but it isn?t high end now and can never be upgraded in the future to bring it closer to high end spec.
If you have a max budget you could probably build a system with far more potential than what that has.
HDD - you should be using SATA 2 drives, and if possible use a raid to increase performance, using IDE is creating the slowest bottleneck in the system.
Video - using a GTX with 512MB memory would be getting there; using 2 in SLI would be high end.
PSU - OK but nothing special (no SLi option for the future), don't just look at the power rating, look at efficiency (not even listed) and load per 12v rail, even 600W is hardly high powered any more.
Memory - using 1 single stick is not high end at all, 1GB is not high end, value memory is not high end, and PC5300 with high latency is not high end.
You should be looking at 2GB at least (2x1GB) also looking at proper matched TwinX memory with high speed and low timings. If you are forced to use 1GB max, then get 2x512MB not 1x 1GB.
Motherboard - How far from high end do you want to get?
The make is far from high end, no serious PC builder would use that make. The spec is far from good, and the CPU support is yesterday?s technology, which was never great to start with.
CPU - You need to be looking at a Conroe for high end, those CPUs were never considered a good buy for performance.
Case - Cheap and nasty, may look nice with the window, but airflow will be crap. Build quality poor, and ease of system build won?t be great. Cases have moved on the screw-less quick release designs some time ago, and Aluminium is now the material of choice over steel. You?re also wasting money on buying a case with a PSU that you will be removing and replacing with the 600W PSU
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3. September 2006 @ 20:37 |
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 3. September 2006 @ 20:43
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AfterDawn Addict
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3. September 2006 @ 20:51 |
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3. September 2006 @ 21:21 |
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is that hd compatible with my mobo?
does my mobo support dual core?
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 3. September 2006 @ 21:22
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AfterDawn Addict
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3. September 2006 @ 21:35 |
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Quote:
is that hd compatible with my mobo?
yup
Quote:
does my mobo support dual core?
Nope
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 3. September 2006 @ 21:35
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Member
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3. September 2006 @ 21:36 |
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is it possible that u can reccomend some atx mobos that support dual core for under $100? please
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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4. September 2006 @ 09:24 |
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4. September 2006 @ 11:49 |
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 4. September 2006 @ 11:54
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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4. September 2006 @ 12:11 |
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Yeah the S3 boards are excellent.
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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4. September 2006 @ 12:15 |
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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4. September 2006 @ 12:19 |
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P.S.
Personally I wouldn't even look at a board unless it supported raid, then again I've been using it for years so won't go back to single drives.
I get a sustained score of 125MB/s on my raid0.
heres a review of the board mentioned above
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2820&p=9
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 4. September 2006 @ 12:24
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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4. September 2006 @ 12:34 |
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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4. September 2006 @ 12:49 |
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I wasn't going to spend too long looking around, the idea is there though for that card as it is proven on that board and is best bang for buck under $300.
Just ran sisandra disk benchmark and drive index is showing 137MB/s and seek time is 8ms.
On a WD250KS Sata 2 drive on the same nvidia controller the index is 62MB/s and seek time is 14ms.
160MB IDE drive is 54MB/s and 16ms.
I always back up my system every week so the raid poses no threat in relation to losing data, but you do have to keep on the ball or start to take risks.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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4. September 2006 @ 12:56 |
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I don't pay much attention to the sandra seek time benchmark as statistically seek time should increase with RAID, not decrease, and it rated my raptor at 19ms, which is complete rubbish.
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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5. September 2006 @ 01:03 |
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Just ran PCMark05 and the results are almost identical.
139.567MB/s and 8.170 ms.
I know that SiSandra is not considered the best test tool period, but it is widely used by both PC enthusiasts and hardware test reporters.
Maybe there is a problem with the version you are using or you had some other application running which interfered with the results, or the drive has a problem, as your time does seem extremely slow.
As for RAID0 setups decreasing access times I?m not sure where you get the impression that raids give a drop in performance, every benchmark I've run has shown almost no difference in access times and shown vastly increased performance using raid and my real-time applications have benefited from increased drive speeds.
That said, it's personal choice fore me, and something I recommend to those I build systems for, although I do realise that the majority of people still don't use raid in their systems.
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx
The test here shows that the seek time on a single drive was at 8ms which when set in raid0 increased to 8.5ms, that is then counteracted by the increased read and write speeds which are doubled in average scores, and increased by about 70% in burst speeds.
One drive even showed a decrease in seek time when set in a raid, in the worst case out of any of the drives tested there was an increase of less than 1ms from the single drive to the raid setup (hardly a drop of performance that anyone would even start to notice.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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5. September 2006 @ 02:02 |
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Fai enough, I always presumed the seek times increased greatly. There goes that theory then! Still, doesn't really solve my problem of getting data off two RAID drives and onto the same drives singularly as external disks. What fun that'll be.
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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5. September 2006 @ 03:23 |
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If I understand you correctly, you shouldn't have any issues.
I always backup my data to an external HDD as well as my second raid.
I have a single Maxtor 320GB one touch.
I also have several other SATA drives which can be plugged directly into the back of the PC which have all my PC, XBOX and PS2 ISO images on them.
Copying anything off is the same as copying anything from a single disk, the PC treats all the files the same, it?s just the ways its stored and retrieved that?s different.
The only problem can be if a drive in the raid crashes, you loose everything, hence why I am so precise about my backups.
I've had 2 or 3 disks fail whilst in a raid, luckily only the first time caught me out and made me loose data.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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5. September 2006 @ 03:28 |
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Yeha that's gruesome. Yeah trouble is my External disk is 160GB and three quarters full, I have 270GB worth to transfer, so I need to get a 320... That'll be my 10th Hard disk...
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Senior Member
3 product reviews
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5. September 2006 @ 04:16 |
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Ouch!
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AfterDawn Addict
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5. September 2006 @ 05:04 |
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Quite. I've only had one fail so far (touch wood) but this is how it panned out:
My original P3 450 system came with a 13GB Seagate Medalist and I had a 16GB IBM Deskstar added (originally wanted a 60GB but it wouldn't fit in the lame Time case I had).
My second XP 3000+ system came with a 160GB Caviar IDE 2MB which is now in an Akasa Integral USB enclosure, and that's my current external hard disk. I bought a 200GB 8MB Caviar (Still IDE) in late 2004, and that's the one that got killed by a Qtec Power supply last October. When I moved the old OS disk out, I swapped in a 40GB Maxtor Diamondmax+8 2MB IDE just to run Windows. It was when I added two 250GB Caviar SE 8MB (S-ATA) drives last October that the power supply wrecked the PC due to overloading (400W from a 450W unit, you'd've thought that'd be safe!). Thankfully those survived, and are now in RAID 0 on that system. My current system just has the two disks in my signiature, but I intentionally used two external S-ATA slots, so two is the limit for internal S-ATA drives unless I buy a card, which I've no intention of doing for the moment. My eventual intention is to either buy or borrow a 320GB USB disk of some sort, copy the files from the RAID over, then wipe the RAID drives, take them out and give them their own IcyBoxes, then put the data back. i'll either return the 320 or put it back in the older system, 40GB ain't a lot, especially since it has two partitions, one of them running Linux.
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