Intel P4 vs AMD

baltekmi

You're paying more for the cosmetics, I purchased the one for $286.

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_2.html

 

if i wanted to add a second raptor to my sysTem is it to late after the install TO add one and run it in raid 1 or 0? I have the raptor 37 gig.

 

ScubaBud

Sophocles knows more about the AMD processors than I do. Things like that are so hard to say. LOL If I was going to spend a few more dollars on a CPU, I'd just step up to the Opteron 180. Bang for the buck, the 175 Sophocles has is probably the best bet.
AMD Opteron 180 Denmark 1GHz FSB 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail
Model #: OSA180CDBOX
Item #: N82E16819103582 (Newegg)
$795.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103582
That step, 175 to 180, is 200MHz difference for about $300, you be the judge. Plus you can get it back if you OC the system. Good reason to spend a few more bucks on a well ventilated case, you'd want to OC either.

One thing I've noticed people doing and I don't quite get it; saving money on the case and power supply. Often it's with a single fan and an included power supply. To me that's like buildin a hot rod and puttin a tater in the tailpipe. If you're going to go for performance and do any OC(ing) you want a case with good ventilation. Some of the bells and whistles are nice as well on the upscale cases. Here's 2 I mentioned earlier that I like.
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

You'll need a power supply to go with one of those and what better than an Asus to feed the Asus board and those power hungry add-ons.
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

I noticed you mentioned a raptor. Newegg has a good WD to go along with that for storage.
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

Sticking to SATA drives, you may want one of these:
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

And don't forget the little touches that make a difference:
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

Just a few items from a build I'd like to do. Thought you might be interested, if you're getting ready to do a build.

Sophocles is right again, it would be a good idea to move these build segments to the new building PCs thread. But hey, we've been getting off topic so long here...
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/302283

 

baltekmi
Supply links to items you're talking about so we can check it out to see for ourselves. I noticed what you mean though. On the 150GB raptor, WD put a window on it for the curios at heart. Yes, you pay more for a pretty little window you may only get to look at before you install it. Unless a person has a clear case and the HD installed to where the window is visible, it wouldn't be of much use. Sophocles supplied some info earlier that RAID 0 is sort of redundant with the 150GB raptor. As for adding on, you can put a new drive in a RAID 0 configuration as long as it is identical to the one(s) already in use. Same for RAID 1. Remember, RAID 0 is for speed with data striping and RAID 1 is mirroring your data for a safety backup. A couple of 400GB WDs in RAID 1 would do the job for storage (if you ever needed that much in safe storage).

As for your setup, you have to use the same model as the one you have. Newegg carries the WD360GD raptor. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144200 If it was me, I'd get the 150GB raptor and find another use for the little one. One of the reasons I never wanted a raptor before was due to the small size. Even the 74GB raptor is smaller than I like. Guess that's why they offer different sizes though, other people have different thoughts and needs.

 

theonejrs
http://www.starmicro.net/detail.aspx?ID=543
It may be a "pull" but the one I have is working well. $265 is a decent price for a 3.4GHz Northwood. I've seen them retail for $700. You can get the Extreme version with a 2MB cache for a mere $635 more ($900). Those are OEM type, not boxed factory items with a heatsink and fan.

By the way, StarMicro is in your part of the world, so delivery time shouldn't be too bad. I had to wait on a slow mule through the Great Plains for mine.

 

Did I imagine it or did I see that somehwere there was an LED disk drive? Was that the see-through raptor you mentioned? It would be quite cool to have some kind of light shining out of the disk drive, as that would show, but just a window isn't really advantageous in most cases, since you only see the drive's back, if that.

 

I saw no mention of LEDs. You can check the raptor out at Newegg or on the Western Digital website. Neweggs prices are cheaper than the WD store.

 

You might notice the life span of the Raptor server version is double the X version at 1.2 million hours. For a lower cost. Forget the window.

Raid 0 on a 150 sata controller has a max of 150 MBs so 2 raptors would gain quite a bit.
they max out at 88 MBs individually. It is to bad they limited the drives to the 150 standard.

I'm still waiting to afford better memory.

 

Good morning

@ Brobear

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have most everything else I need other then what I mentioned in my previous post including OS, DVD Drives, Arctic 5, and even two PSU's that I am not using at the present time but they are both 450's. The case I use presently is doing a great job with keeping my O/Clocked Northwood cool as you can see below; again this is at Idle with just the web browser and Outlook 2003 open when I took it just now. (The Northwoods never had a heat issue to begin with.)




I have never purchased the fastest CPU or one that had more bells and whistles, (even my 3.4 Northwood was purchased after the Prescott’s were coming out with their 3.6 and 3.8 and Intel still had out their Extreme Edition.) For once I want to get the fastest CPU out there with the best of most of the major components including memory and a fast HDD. I don’t need two Raptor’s in Raid 0 since I use Drive Image 7.01 to backup my main PC daily and it can only happen off 1 HDD. And based on reviews the Western Digitial 150GB Raptor will do just fine.

I am moments away from purchasing some hardware for my new toy and I’m still doing a bit more research just before that happens so any other suggestions are more then welcome!

PS, since so much quality info has come out of this thread, I wish the title to it would also include something to allow building questions as well.

 

I don't think that a RAID 0 can sufficiently saturate the SATA 150 standard. I've been hearing rumors and reading small articles that suggest that 150 gig raptor might be best left on it's own. Only testing and trying will tell. But what I'm going to do is uset the 150 for my master and hopefully my seagate as a slave.

 

As far as I can see there seems very little gain over a single drive to having two 150GB Raptors in RAID. Not that I mind much because I couldn't afford that anyway. I found out the drive with the LEDs was an external one, something like a 250GB USB2/IEEE affair instead, and since I'd prefer a long-life drive, would definitely be buying the normal 150 raptor instead. 1.2Million hours is a lot, that's 24 hours a day for 50,000 days (15 1/2 years!)

 

Actually the old slow small raptors already saturated the Sata150.



I just have a couple of 80gig Seagates.

 

The new Raptors are double the speed of the 36 gig Raptors so they would be easily able to tap out the 300 standard.

SCSI surpassed this some time ago with 320 MBs per channel. But SCSI raid is so costly that only the the biggest companies can afford the huge arrays.

 

ScubaBud
Go here to ask your build questions. http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/302283
Same people and it's geared toward questions on building and performance.

I noticed the OC you did was a moderate 10% and the Northwood is known to be one of Intel's cooler chips. Other than finding one on a good sale or used, they're still quite pricey. Dell and some other vendors had the 3.4 priced around $700. StarMicro, who I suspect is selling "pulled" CPUs has the Extreme for $900. I've not even seen one of those offered anywhere else. But back to the point, it doesn't take a lot of cooling to keep a cool running CPU tamed. Though the AMDs are noted to be cool running, when they're OC(ed), they will get hot. In fact the top end AMDs such as the 940 Socket Dual-Core Opteron 280 Italy is said to be on the hot side. On that I'm just going by owner reviews, I can't afford one.

 

I'm hardly surprised. But overclocking the fastest processor in the range doesn't make a great deal of sense. You'd only be buying the top-end model if you didn't want to overclock really, unless you wanted to keep the warranty and then squeeze out the last few mhz. I'll be doing that with the X2 4200, but of course that has far more headroom after the warranty expires.

 

I think that if someone is just looking for an easy overclock then the Opteron 180 has the advantage of a higher clock multiplier which means that juggling memory and HT settings won't be an issue when overclocking to 2.6 Ghz. and it still offers values since it is essential a highe quality fx60

That being said, most overclcockers go for the 2.2 Ghz chips because they offer flexiblity and they fall right in the middle for price.

That list includes the X2 4200, X2 4400, and the Opteron 175. I chose the Opteron 175 for its server quality performance and overclockability, but that's just me and I can afford it. If I was on more of a budget then the X2 4200 would have been my choice becasue the X2 4400 is too close to the Opteron's 175 price and the X2 3800 would mean sacrificing memory speed.

 

What is the fastest CPU today will be one of the slower ones tomorrow but hopefully at least a couple of years from now. LOL

If you start with the fastest, doing a 10% O/C is nothing, going to 20% is taking it to it’s stable limits and beyond that it’s the Freezer being attached to the chip!

If you have an FX60 @ 2.6 to start with and a 1.30 voltage you should have the room to take it to 3.12 and be stable. Why do it? Because you can.

 

Donald

Those are good scores when used as indicators but I think that when measuring hard disk performance Sisoft doesn't measure broadly enough to be considred viable. Tech sites tend to use it for CPU and Memory measures but never for multi media or file system measures.

 

scubabud

I took my Venice core to 20% completely stable and with great temps. You've been in the Intel camp for too long.

 

@Sophocles, my point exactly when addressing the FX60!

My Northwood 3.4 doesn't like going past 15%, not as a heating issue, just a stability issue. My 2.8 Northwood is very comfortable at a 20% O/C. And if I recall correctly your Opteron 175 seems to like being near the 20% as well. Stable to me means NEVER having a problem, not just every once in a while having a glitch. So by my statement, going to a 20% O/C should be just fine with the FX60.

I am not a Prescott user... <G> so I never had heat issues.