The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Ok, from the top then:
I've not had any POST issues from a sound card even when I've installed a faulty one, but it could conceivably happen, there isn't really anything in the BIOS I could suggest to fix the problem, it's either the sound card, or the slot (i.e.) or the board.
Russ: I'm going to leave out discussion on what sytyguy said assuming there wasn't a major backlash from it, but so you know, neither of the lines you considered would have angered me. You have to remember to take what is said in context of who said it. I know you're a friendly (if perhaps easily flustered - not a criticism, I'm much the same and willing to accept that) guy and wouldn't speak, but the history of what sytyguy posts made his intentions perfectly clear. With any luck, that will change. I certainly hope so - I remember the days when current and ex-DVDHounds staff were friendly with each other... By the looks of things, the matter is resolved. No more said about it.
Rob: Some sound advice about the 2MB cache hard disk. +rep for that (if aD had such a system)
The 650W Corsair I could see coming a mile off. The 520/620 are fabulous units, but very long in the tooth and behind the competition for efficiency. Glad to see my expectations were fulfilled. Hoping SPCR gets their mits on one of those...

Not true actually, the Q9550 I believe came out first (at least in C1 spec), the value xx00 CPUs came later, and typically the Q9550 matches the 95W TDP (E0 included) whereas the xx00 units turn up around 80-85W, thus cooler.

 

Sam,
Welcome back! Hope you had a great Holiday! I seem to recall that the Q9300 came out around the end of Jan. or early Feb, 2008. I went back and looked for reviews, and there is a number of them in Feb, 2008. The Q9550 showed up a few months later in April. Looking back through the reviews, I don't find anything earlier than April for it. I could be wrong though! I would think that if the Q9550 came first that there would be earlier reviews for it. my Logic! I know that the CO stepping was out by 02/08/08. I'm not sure if the Q9300 w/ M1 stepping came before the CO or after it. I do know that Xbit labs did a complete review on it on 02/08/08 with CO stepping.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q9300_2.html

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hehe thanks Russ, was a nice relaxing break - haven't had a summer sun break for 3 years now... :O
I could potentially be wrong on the Q9550 being first, but what I do know is it follows the Q9450 which was among the first Yorkfields, before any of the value ones turned up. Either way, the Q9450-9650 are around 95W, and the cheaper Q8/9 series are roughly 80-85W chips.

 

New Seagate Baracuda XT, 6.0GB/s, 64MB Cache, 7200 rpm 2TB drive!

http://www.crn.com/storage/220100316;jsessionid=V4RLSVE4A0F4BQE1GHPCKH4ATMY32JVN

Interesting,
Russ

 

will cost a bomb I expect. Given the cost of the current 2TB drives, those may take a while to become popular. Seemingly a direct rival to WD's 2001AFSS (I think that's the product name) caviar Black drive, also with 64MB cache - don't know about the S-ATA3, but I don't really care

 

we have yet to saturate a sata 1 bandwidth.

 

Well, no - but we've yet to saturate S-ATA 2 (SSDs run 170-210MB/s read singular these days)

 

i meant for spinning hdds

 

Sam,
It's the same price as the Western Digital Caviar Black WD2001FASS 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM, $299! It's also Sata 6.0GB/s and is a Retail drive!

Russ

 

According to WDC.com, its only a 3Gb/s connection. Which matters not to me Can't wait to get my hands on one
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=733

 

Again, that's irrelevant for a mechanical HDD. Would love one, but a bit too pricey for me - WD1001FALS it's going to be.

 

Indeed. The cache and dual processor, really doesnt justify buying one, when 2 FALS 1Tb drives are VERY adequate, and much cheaper. Sure wish I had the money though to experiment with it though. Even if I get the second job im trying for, I don't know that I can buy one right now. 1st on the agenda will be a "Dell 3008wfp" Makes me drool just thinking about it LOL!

 

One step I've already taken

 

kinda lost me on the comment about hte 2mb chache drive sam??? after tomorrow it will be like the movie. "gone with the wind" got my wd2500AAKS drive today. i will be doing the swap out in the morning..

now ive asked this question before and never really got a answer. its about the SSD hard drives. ive read a few reviews and gotten some info from a few people that have them. after 10,000,000 read&writes the drive is dead. one of the guys i know that has had a few of these drives. 2 of the 80gb and 1 128gb drives they have been rendered useless after 4 months of use. doing video encodes rips transcodeing and gameing if this is true why would someone want one of these drives and why at their prices right now??
yes they are stupidly fast but if there isa limit on how much they can do then why even waist your money?

 

i want my hand on the Samsung F3 500GB single platter drive. supposebly very very fast

 

For ref, WD drive codes:
WD (storage in GBx10)[up to 1TB](storage in GB/100)[1TB and over]Type(A:Blue/Normal, E:Green/eco, F:Black/Fast), Version(A:Normal, Y:RAID [I think]), Cache(B:2MB (I think), J: 8MB, K:16MB, L:32MB, S:64MB except green drives ->V: 8MB, C: 16MB, D:32MB)), Interface (B: IDE, S:S-ATA) - As far as I can remember.
Old SSDs used to degrade with use - newer SSDs are much better (but to eliminate the problem you need SLC drives - which do exist, but are still currently rare and expensive) as long as you turn off obvious signs of wear like auto-defrag A properly used SSD should outlast a mechanical hard drive.

 

using a trim tool with the MLC drives makes the degration of the ssd perfomance practially minimial

 

We weren't discussing performance loss, we were discussing sector failure - which does happen with MLC drives after repeated use.

 

ahh, well performance loss is big with mlc drives after a while aswell

 

It's not huge, it's still generally considered lower than the effects of filling a mechanical drive.