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The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by ddp, Jul 16, 2008.

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  1. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    A 7600GT will... I wouldn't want anything less than an HD3850 to play COD4 at 1680x1050 with AA.
     
    sammorris, Oct 2, 2008
    #2921
  2. cincyrob

    cincyrob Active member

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    any name brand on that Sam?HD3850 that is?

    1680x1050 is that your max res?
    mine is 1440x900.
     
    cincyrob, Oct 2, 2008
    #2922
  3. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Ah my mistake I assumed yours was 1680x1050. My max res is 2560x1600.
    On that sort of res, an HD4670 would be ample, if not an HD4650. (Radeons)
     
    sammorris, Oct 2, 2008
    #2923
  4. cincyrob

    cincyrob Active member

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    which is better? 4670 or 4650?
     
    cincyrob, Oct 2, 2008
    #2924
  5. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    sammorris, Oct 2, 2008
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  6. greensman

    greensman Regular member

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    I like this one for the rebate and the price for what you get. :)

    HIS 4670 IceQ

    ..gm
     
    greensman, Oct 2, 2008
    #2926
  7. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Yes it's strange, the ICEQ version is very cheap, that holds true in this country too.
     
    sammorris, Oct 2, 2008
    #2927
  8. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    I only leave the odd PC on for a few hours at a time, and if i'm only going to be surfing i just use one of the laptops, as one is only 65W, i think the others are 90W, have to watch those utility bills :)
    As to the question of leaving pc's up and running, you should be fine. In my various jobs over the years i've seen a lot of hard disk failures, a fair few of those have been pc hard drives; when a machine has been on for way too many months the hard drives fail, i think it's the bearings that go (typically on first startup following a shutdown after being up and running for too long. Have had this happen often on large servers too (with varying types of hardware and software raid), which have been up and running for years at a time. In fact the last server we had, had been up a few days shy of 3 years (i kid you not). It was fun shutting down and restarting, the noises from various hard drives was interesting, a few failed both internally and in the external array; then we popped out all the failed drives and worked our magic with the (software) raid.

    So... you're ok as long as you don't leave hard drives up and running forever :)
     
    creaky, Oct 2, 2008
    #2928
  9. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Hmm, my server at least spins the drives up/down based on usage, but I will take note of that for my main PC as that isn't implemented for it, and neither is it for my USB enclosure which can accidentally be left on for days at a time...
     
    sammorris, Oct 2, 2008
    #2929
  10. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    cincyrob,
    I shut mine down every night when I go to bed. I usually re-boot when I copy a DVD. That clears all the buffers and registers, so it runs faster.

    In the course of normal usage there are literally hundreds of files that get tucked away in windows that add to the normal overhead of the computer. I also use a Progy called TuneUp Utilities 2008 to optimize the computer and the internet connection. I also use it's TuneUp 1 Click Maintenance a couple of times a day, which does a more thorough and aggressive job of getting rid of all the garbage. I also use it's memory manager as well. It does a pretty good job too!

    Another thing I have noticed since adding a second hard drive was with DVD Rebuilder. I moved the work and output folders to the new drive, with the program on the boot drive and it improved the total time considerably. I did a recent movie two times. Once on a single drive and once using both hard drives. The improvement was over 7 minutes. Instead of 41 minutes, it only took 34. The difference is mostly in the rebuild itself, 6 minutes vs 11. makes sense as I don't think you can read from and write to a single hard drive as fast as you can when when you use two physical drives. Works for me! LOL!!

    Best Regards,
    Russ
     
    theonejrs, Oct 2, 2008
    #2930
  11. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    That's correct Russ, as rather than reading from or writing to a seamless block of data, it has to switch between two different places adding an access latency every time it fills the buffer. Even on a 32MB cache drive, that's not much of your multi-gigabyte file...
     
    sammorris, Oct 2, 2008
    #2931
  12. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Indeed. I went a step further, i have 1 drive with DVD Rebuilder's work folder, the output folder is on another drive, AVI's are stored on their own drive (AVI conversions write to another drive, well the same 'dvd needing burning' drive anyways), dvd's needing burning occupy another (and again, the ripping of dvd's is done to a separate drive to where they're stored), my collection of Concert DVD's on one, xbox games on another, and MP3's on another, etc etc.
    Finally, there's the various USB2.0 hard drives which are backups of most of the above.
    A place for everything and everything in it's place. It's a bit of a pain keeping everything so organised, but a few minutes extra, each time changes/additions/deletions are needed, makes it worth it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2008
    creaky, Oct 2, 2008
    #2932
  13. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    creaky,
    You are just the person to ask this question of then! LOL!! Does putting the program, work folder and output folder on 3 physical hard drives improve the overall performance even more than using two drives?

    Best Regards,
    Russ
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2008
    theonejrs, Oct 2, 2008
    #2933
  14. creaky

    creaky Moderator Staff Member

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    Part of the reason i did this (to this extent) was due to the overly cheapy SATA PCIe card i bought way back when i built this machine, it's noticable when data is copied between certain drives (note to self - must still buy a decent replacement PCIe card!), but in some instances it can indeed improve things to split the disc accesses. It's not always necessary though, it certainly doesn't hurt to try it out.
    We used to do this at work too, for instance we had lots of nice fast fibre channel discs etc (a SAN environment), but the disk 'habits' of most of the attached servers were so disk intensive that we needed to go thru an enormous amount of re-laying-out of data, but luckily the RAID software was so good that we could basically create new mirrors, drop various mirrors etc etc all without downtime. It was much improved afterwards, well worth it.
    Some of this work would take a day or few but the software is so good that it 'just works'. A favourite trick is to create an extra mirror, let that resync for a day or few, then drop the old mirror, etc etc. (we're talking very large chunks of very important data here!). Incredibly satisfying (when it works and when doesn't LOL), pays very well, but can be highly stressful :) :)

    Have never used RAID on a pc, partly because i don't need to, partly because i'm not sure if it's as good as RAID in non-pc environments. As i don't need it, i just haven't ever bothered researching it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2008
    creaky, Oct 2, 2008
    #2934
  15. cincyrob

    cincyrob Active member

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    wow..Russ i though it was you that told me to split up dvd-rebuilder folders. i have the program and the work folder on my main drive and the output on the other drive. thats how i had it... i know have the output and work folder on the extra drive(no i dont have 10 drives creaky..lol)not yet. but my last 2 rebuilds have been sub 30mins 7.2g+ each rebuild... i just posted a log from the lastone i did. 7.3gb done in 27 mins... but i think that had alot ot do with me switching the folders to the odd drive and going up to 3.8gghz.. as it was the firs rebuild with this higher OC.

    heck i cant remmeber now who told me to do that.. if not you Russ it might have been loco or gm...who ever i thank you.

    also i think i read it in a post above this..creaky maybe.
    putting your rips/conversions/avi/mp3 files on the odd drive not the OS drive helps your burners preform better also. i know when i use my samsung SH-S203B and pull info from my OS drive it acts all crazy and takes longer than if i was pulling from my off drive.

    i think i will start to shut it down once a week for a few hours just because.....if nothing else just to blow some air through it.. im amazed at the difference in it today...yea i know to celan it out do somedusting but i just havent done it in 3 weeks or so..lol

    Russ ill have to hunt down that tune up utilities andgive it a try.
     
    cincyrob, Oct 2, 2008
    #2935
  16. spamual

    spamual Guest

    spamual, Oct 4, 2008
    #2936
  17. greensman

    greensman Regular member

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    Well at least there's something besides ASUS to buy in a mobo. hehehee. :p

    ...gm

    add: some shaaf humor for you people. :p

    Glad to see it shaaf... so get to buying already and show us what it will do. :D
     
    greensman, Oct 4, 2008
    #2937
  18. spamual

    spamual Guest

    the asus being there is not my fault this time :D

    haha

    and 3GB of DDR3 with a P6T Deluxe and an i7 920 is over £700..... f*** that.

    thats disgusting. oh well hopefully by january more mobos from other manufactureres will be in, and some watercooling blocks for the LGA 1366 come in, AND DDR3 prices drop.

    if not, i7 wont be for me in january.
     
    spamual, Oct 4, 2008
    #2938
  19. Sophocles

    Sophocles Senior member

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    Shaaf

    One of the reasons that Asus is often selected is because they are also often the first off the line with new technology. Hence the reason I have a P5Q Deluxe board right now. It was literally the only choice at the time(not to mention 16 phase power).
     
    Sophocles, Oct 4, 2008
    #2939
  20. spamual

    spamual Guest

    i see, yeah i notice that alot actually.
     
    spamual, Oct 4, 2008
    #2940
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