Eric_L

OK, I'm down to the last few steps. Before I press the 'checkout' button I thought I'd place my shopping cart here in case I'm making a complete NOOB error.

I've already bought the case, power supply (400w) fans and Vid Card (radeon aiw 9800 pro)

Here's the rest:

ASUS P4P800 Deluxe mobo $145.99
Intel Pentium 2.4 w' hyperthreading : $177.00 retail version
Pioneer DVR-105BK-OEM DVDr $222.00
Asus SPDIF interface $14.99
2 18" Vantec Round ATA 66/100/133 cable 3-connector $7.49 ea
Seagate 120GB SATA Hardrive Barracuda: $137
GEIL 2X512MB PC-3200 400MHZ Dual DDR RAM $215
TOTAL $926.96

A few questions - One; I've looked EVERWHERE for a DVD recorder Slot Drive. Do they exist?
Two; RAID. Still not sure what that can do for me. You say it has something to do with using two hard drives. Would it be worthwhile to get two smaller drives rather than the 120? I'm more interested in speed than space. I haven't even maxed out my old 20gig yet! Is RAID that much faster? Is it difficult to use? Will it WOW my friends and make the hot chicks want me?

Also, will I need to buy thermal paste/grease? I think I have all the other tools I'll need.

I am eager and terrified. Kinda like the feeling when standing in line for a really mean rollercoaster.

I just hope I don't puke.

Thanks for all of your advice

Duane R

As far as the Hard drive issue goes, the ultimate speed would be a pair of WD Raptors Serial ATA (36GB) in a RAID 0 setup. A few people over at the AsusBoards forums are running these. They say they can install XP Pro in 8-10 minutes flat!

Six worlds prayed to her, they built her temples, conquered planets, and yet one day she still rode off and destroyed all six worlds. And when the last warrior was dying he said "We gave you everything, why did you destroy us?" and she looked down upon him and she whispered, "Because I can".

John_Berger

Okay, just to give you a RAID primer:

RAID 0 - Striping/Concatenation

The data is broken up and stored across multiple drives

PLUSES:
The ability to read from all drives at the same time, potentially increasing the read throughput by the number of drives in the stripe.

You get to utilize ALL of your disk space.

MINUSES:
No redundancy. If one drive fails, ALL of the data on both drives is lost.

RAID 1 - Mirror

Hard drives are duplicated on other hard drives.

PLUSES:
If one drive fails, the mirror takes over automatically.

Because the same data is written to two drives, this gives the ability to read from both drives at the same time, potentially doubling the read throughput.

MINUSES:
You lose 1/2 of total disk capacity as the other 1/2 goes to the mirror.

RAID 5 - Stripe with Parity

Data is borken up like a stripe with one disk's worth of storage taken to store a parity bit.

PLUSES:
If one drive fails, the RAID still continues using the parity. You only lose one drive (called "N-1") to parity, regardless of whether you have three or thirty drives in the RAID.

The more drives that you have, the more data you can read from the hard drives in a single read request.

MINUSES:
Slower because the hardware needs to calculate that parity bit. When a drive fails, the system will be even slower as the parity bit will need to be calculated for reads AND writes.

Failure of more than one drive results in the loss of the whole stripe.

Requires a minimum of three drives.

Technically, yes. More spindles (hard drives) + RAID 0 = faster throughput. However, this assumes that the lower capacity drives are the same speed as the 120.

For example, if you get two 60 GB drives that have a transfer rate of 33 MB/sec, that gives a potential RAID 0 throughput of 66 MB/sec. But if the 120 GB drive with serial ATA has a transfer rate of 66 MB/sec or more, then it's not worth the effort to do the RAID.

Contrary to popular opinion, there is nothing wrong with being a newbie. We were all newbies at one point, even those f**king morons who act like they knew their stuff before even coming out of the womb. Even if you make a mistake, you learn and move on.

Isaac K

1) I don't believe a DVD recorder slot drive exists.
2)Honestly you don't need RAID unless you have some extra money to burn and are an extreme power user. As long as that Seagate drive has an 8MB cache and is 7200 RPMs you'll be fine.

MikeAlletto

Yeah but how expensive are those things? 36GB 10k rpm sata drives aren't gonna be cheap, you might as well just get some scsi drives.

As far as raid goes. Most of the mb with onboard raid support only support raid 0. Unless he's doing a file server or something like that its probably a big waste of time (and space) to use raid. Just get some fast western digital 7200 rpm drives with 8mb cache and it'll be plenty fast.


Not likely


No. Since you got the retail cpu you'll be all set. You'll just need to snap on the fan that comes with it and plug it in.


Hehehe...you'll be fine. I was nervous when I built my new PC, but the benefit is you bought exactly what YOU wanted. Just go slow and follow the mb instructions for the jumpers and pins and you'll be fine.

Michael Alletto

LeeHuff

I would actually recommend the Seagate's 8MB Cache drive over Western Digital's 8MB Cache drives. Seagates have always had a great reputation for being quiet and dependable drives. I think you definetely have chosen the better drive in this case.

You should be fine on the thermal paste unless you plan on overclocking.

I would try to pick out a different brand of ram. Geil doesn't have a good track record from what I've heard. If you're not going to overclock, then I would look into Crucial's ram. Most stable on the market. If you are going to overclock, then Cosair is usually the best choice.

I would also recommend you pick up a sound card, and not use the onboard sound. This is even more crucial if you're going to be using a nice set of speakers or headphones w/ amp. I would recommend the MAudio Revolution if you won't be gaming, and if you will, then Creatives Audigy 2 is a good choice.

Other then that, you should be very happy with your new setup.

Eric_L

Hmm, it seems the first 7 or so posts to this thread have disappeared. Anyone know where they went?

There was some useful info there that I wanted to review. I never expected it to disappear....

Just an fyi - on the first post I mentioned that this will be a multi-purpose pc, but 80% will be split evenly between gameing and Home Theater. (8'X6' screen, DLP projector and 5.1 surround with 15" Velodyne sub!!)

The other times it will be editing family movies (15%) and 5% a MIDI music-keyboard recorder/sequencer. Of course there will be web surfing and other generic uses at times.

It is the games and the movies I am most concerned with. I want my 5.1 to sound good and my games to play well. I'm tired of getting my arse whooped because my framerate falls to 5 online. I deserve better and can afford it!

MikeAlletto

With these new 800Mhz bus motherboards crucial memory is having some problems and not ranking very high. Then again a lot of the memory makers are currently having some problems. It'll all be sorted out with bios updates though. I spec'd a pc this week using an MSI mb and cosair low latency matched paired pc3200 modules. I'm not gonna buy till sept/oct time frame though. Eric what from the past posts were you looking for? If I posted them I can probably remember what they were.

I'm also starting to think about just going with a sound card and turning off the onboard sound when I build the new pc also. Initially I was going to try it and see what it would be like but an audigy 2 is only $112 or so. The mb I was going to use couldn't pass the 5.1 through the optical output, only the analog, but the audigy 2 can (if I read it correctly).

Michael Alletto

Eric_L

If I have to get a soundcard I was thinking of any of the following:

Audigy 2 - $110
M-Audio Revolution 7 $100
Terratec DMX 6-fire $185 here
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 $150

I'm a bit uncertain about which to choose. The Audigy is best for games I am certain, but I think it lags in music and movie playback. The M-Audio is good for music and movie, but lags in games. I think the DMX 6-fire excels at playback and is in the middle of the road on games.

I'm really not sure about the audiophile at all. Maybe someone else knows?

Dalila