This thread is intended for discussion of components used to build a custom PC or in some instances to upgrade factory built PCs. Discussion of differences between Intel and AMD are welcome. However, no political rants. We want to keep to the technical aspects, not the business and political dealings of the companies that manufacture parts. Any time the discussion leans toward sytem results, Use SiSoft Sandra benches With CPUZ system specs using captured screenshots. Don't claim results unless you can show them. Hopefully some of the people with expertise will join us to answer questions. It would be good if we can cover the systems from CPU-mobo choices to drives, cooling systems and the like, with the direction toward building a custom PC. Sometimes there may be technical discussions leaning toward advanced aspects of building, such as overclocking a system. Feel free to ask questions, but at no time ask that the thread be "dumbed down", after all, this thread is intended as a gathering for people with at least the skills and knowledge needed to build a PC.
The thread should be considered an advanced users thread or a thread for those who would like to become an advanced user. The discussion should include the hardware that you've used to build your system with(provide links when possible)along with any tweaks and settings that you've made. Over clocking and sharing individual settings are a large part of what this thread is about so if you've achieved a remarkable and successful over clock, then be prepared to prove it and share it and tell the rest of us how you did it. While contributing to this thread we should remember that we're here to help those who are just learning to build or those who've encountered a problems in the process of their build. This doesn't mean that we're going to simplify everything to the point of irrelevance. If you find yourself here and lost then ask sensible questions regarding your problem, but if you should feel the need to complain then move on. Discussions of different hardware makes, price, and quality are also a part of contributing to this thread but let's not make it personal, your computer hardware is not an extension of a personal appendage, it is just hardware. If possible include your system's specifications in your sig.
Good to see the thread's now up and running, I'm not likely to overclock the xp3000, but may consider it as a long run modification to the X2 4200 I'm intending on getting later on.
I think that the thread could handle some planning ahead as well, we can wait until you get your stuff.
My first query in this thread, it's not exactly linked to amd vs intel, but we covered it before in the previous thread, I'm wondering whether or not (if i can afford it) to go for a single 150GB Raptor in stead of two 120GB caviars in RAID. I know there's less capacity and far more expense involved in using the raptor, but I heard that using one of those is about as fast as you can get these days, and I like the simplicity of just having one disk drive, just make two partitions on it and be done. Is the speed advantage really that great? Or should I just stick to two normal drives? I'm aware that someone in the thread has ordered one (was it sophocles?) and I'd like to see their results.
Sophocles mentioned ordering one. I'm sure we'll hear from him as soon as he gets some trials run. He's usually pretty good at doing before and after benches to see what improvements he gets. I'd prefer the new 150GB Raptor over a RAID 0 with 2 Caviars. The main reason is the simplicity and a person only needs to worry about one drive. A failure of one of the Caviars shoots your data anyway. With all my programming and minimal storage, I only have about 85GB taken up on my main boot partition. So a 150GB drive with the speed of the raptor would be more than ample. A big 400GB WD would then be a good storage solution. My current HD configuration is 2 WD (250GB + 300GB) split into 4 partitions. When/if I do a build in the near future, here is a parts list I'd like to build from. ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail Model #: A8N-SLI Premium Item #: N82E16813131540 $166.99 http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131540 AMD Opteron 180 Denmark 1GHz FSB 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail (limit 8 per customer) Model #: OSA180CDBOX Item #: N82E16819103582 (Newegg) $795.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103582 AMD Opteron 175 Denmark 1GHz FSB 2MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail Price: $499.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103584 ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Copper Heatsink - Retail $49.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118115 CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 433 (PC 3500) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail $305.00 http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145594 CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail $225.00-($185.00 after $40.00 Mail-In Rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145575 Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM Model #: WD1500ADFD Item #: N82E16822136012 (NewEgg) $286.00 http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822136012 Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD4000KD 400GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM $195.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144423 PLEXTOR Beige (Black Face Included) 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 6X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 4X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 8M Cache SATA DVD Burner - Retail $119.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131351 ASUS Atlas A-55GA ATX12V 2.0 550W Power Supply 100 - 240V - Retail Model #: A-55GA $129.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817712003 COOLER MASTER Stacker 810 RC-810-SKN1 Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail $165.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119093 Thermaltake XASER, Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum/Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail Model #: VA8000BWS Item #: N82E16811133154 $148.99-($123.99 after $25.00 Mail-In Rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133154 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM Model #: ARCTIC SILVER 5 Item #: N82E16835100007 $5.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835100007 Arctic Silver ACN-60ML (2-PC-SET) Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier - OEM (Or use alcohol) $5.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835100010 Microsoft Windows XP Professional With Service Pack 2 - OEM Model #: E85-03013 Item #: N82E16837102153 $146.95 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837102153
Using the parts list above, a person can have one of the best PCs money can buy for about $2000; monitor not included. 3 years ago I spent more for a Dell that can't compare. However, I got a monitor, printer, scanner, speaker system and some other minor upgrades and a software package. I think I'd rather have the custom and scrounge for those other items.
Two sata in Raid 0 can be quite a bit faster than a Raptor 150 but it depends on the speed of the drives used. The Raptor 150 maxes out at 88 MBs. The Sata 300 standard allows for much higher throughput. With 4 faster 7200 drives in Sata raid 0 you can get very near the 300 MBs limit. This is why the big push for Sata. For mid level business aplications Sata comes close to SCSI in capacity and speed. That said, RAID 0 is a pain to setup and not good for mission critical storage. It is perfect for DVD encoding because I don't plan to store my movies on the drive. The info is expendable. All my storage drives are single large drives. My main encode machine is reloaded regularly and has few whistles and bells so no loss of imporatant data is possible. Everything important is on my servers connected via gigibit.
sammoris The 74 gig raptors have been revised and they are faster than the original 74 gig raptors. The New 150 gig raptor is better than 21% faster than the 74 gig raprtors are and some test have show that it can match them in RATD0 in many areas. For speed I don't think that a pair of 120 gig caviars will match it. In fact as a user hard disk, tests have shown that the 150 will beat a 15,000 RPM scsi, the scsi's only win in sever use. The 150 RAPTor's are able to sustain an 88 mb/s transfer rate.
If we were richer then we could run Raid 1/0 for better data security as well as speed. But if funds were unlimited it really wouldn't be much fun.
Sophocles, In the link you gave us the 150 came in seventh compared to the SCSI drives and had the slowest random acces times. It is the fastest Sata but not that fast against the high end SCSI. Which is OK because I doubt anyone here has high end SCSI money. But if I had the money I would do RAID 0 or 1/0 with the 150 raptor. I'm thinking of going 4 way raid with my seagates to get the max out of my SATA.
I have a 15k SCSI drive but it is well aged. Any lowly cheap Sata drive will beat it. But the latest 15k drives are faster than any 10k drive. They were on top of the comparsion in your storagereview link.
To far of the subject. The question was Raptor 150 or 2x120 in raid 0. The Raptor would be faster and more expensive. I would get the Raptor. This is a true server drive so your data would be safer.
I stated that the scsi's were faster in server use but if you read the article you will see that the Raptor was faster in standard user mode and that was the basis of my statement.. Regarding RAID 0, here's and article from Anandtech addressing that issue. It was the two articles combined that influenced my decision not go with two 74 gig Raptor II drives. The first linke will be Anandtech' conclusion and the second will be the entire article. You have to read both articles all the way through to understand my statements. http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=11 http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101
I recognized some names here from way back in the days. Hi, Brobear, Sophocles. Actually, I've been 'lurking' for a while...This thread is going to kill my budget. Even though my 6 'homemade' computers are MORE than adequate and I cannot tell much difference in daily use between AMD-Intel,ATA-SATA, etc..I am going to catch that highly contagious bug again that makes me go spend tons of $ for Double Core processors, 2 or 4 Gb of RAM, etc.. To get to my question: which DC processor(AMD or Intel) do you guys consider the mostest and the bestest for less than $450?
siber Wow, it has to have been over a year since you've lurked your way into a thread that we're all beating to death, and yes some of us are still here (brobear,64026402, and I). In the $450 range it that means that you're will to spend about $50 more, then I would recommend the Opteron 175 and I can say that since I've already purchased it. It easily overclocks to 2.6 Ghz which makes it a match for AMD's FX60 dual core which is over $1000.
I have Raid for 2 reasons. Transfer rate which is easily verified by transfering DVD files and boot speed. Both get nearly double the speed. I don't care about running office aplications. There is no effect on such things. Games don't need Raid and I don't play games on my encoding machine. Raid 0 works as intended. The article didn't reflect realistic expectations for the use of RAID 0.
I agree with Sophocles on the processor choice. But it depends on what you are using it for. I like the Optetron/Athlon 64 procs for all things but for CCE/DVDrebuilder use AMD is hands down better than Intel. The single core Venice is better than the dual core Pentium D in this one area. In most other areas the Intel dual cores run closer to their X2 AMD counterparts.
Sophocles, You're speaking 'Greek' to me, which I guess is normal. Is the overclocking the main advantage of the Opteron 175 vs. the Athlon 64x2 4400+ Toledo? They do cost about the same.
Sophocles went for the server chip because of the better binning. If all things were equal the server chip is the better choice.
