The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

To be fair, $94 is the correct price, those drives have been that much for a while, you obviously happened across a good deal. Buying 7200rpm enterprise drives for a media center is a bit bizarre, and you will pay extra for that privilege.

 

A media center drive should be an Enterprise drive as it is like a RAID drive, as it is running 24/7 and that is what Enterprise drives are designed for. However there are drives designed just for video usage and those would be even better to use of course.

I have to agree with Kevin though why only a 500G drive, and it should not have anything to do with your TV size?

I agree though that for a business performance drive that $94 should be the going price if you base it on the status quo, and actually that is a good price at that still.

 

My point is though that there are 5400rpm enterprise drives (and indeed cheaper versions specifically designed for home NAS/MC use).

I assume Russ' argument about the size is that he's only using SD or 720p content due to a smaller screen being used, and therefore the files aren't as big. For the price he got the drive for I can't criticise, as it's not common to find any hard disk as cheap as $60 these days (in the UJ hard disks of any size start at £45, or $60 before tax), so to get an enterprise drive for that money, fair play.
Normally speaking you'd expect drives of any worth to be around the $100 mark (and indeed Russ' drive is now priced around that area) - 1TB Caviar Reds are $100 and they would work well in a media center, IMO.

 

Some hardware failure rates from H1 2012:

Motherboards:
ASRock: 1:53 (improved from 1:48)
MSI: 1:47 (worse from 1:66)
Gigabyte: 1:46 (worse from 1:62)
Asus: 1:37 (worse from 1:45)

P67 specific boards:
ASRock: 1:57
MSI: 1:40
Asus: 1:26
Gigabyte: 1:19 (largely attributed to P67A-UD3)

Worst in class:
6th: Asus P8P67 Evo 1:15
5th: Asus Sabertooth X58 1:14
4th: Asus P8P67 Deluxe 1:14
3rd: Gigabyte P67A-UD3 1:13
2nd: Asus P8H67-M Evo 1:11
1st: Asus M4A79XTD Evo 1:8


--

Power supplies (400-550W):
Antec: 1:125 (worse from 1:140)
FSP: 1:123 (improved from 1:20)
Coolermaster: 1:80 (improved from 1:70)
Seasonic: 1:52 (worse from 1:80)
Corsair: 1:45 (improved from 1:43)

Worst in class:
10th: Coolermaster GX 550W (1:73)
9th: Antec HCGamer 520W (1:64)
8th: Corsair CX 500W (1:58)
7th: Coolermaster SilentPro M500W (1:58)
6th: Antec TruePower New 550W (1:57)
5th: Corsair CX 430W V2 (1:50)
4th: Seasonic S12-II 520W (1:48)
3rd: FSP Aurum 400W (1:42)
2nd: Corsair CX 430W (1:41)
1st: Corsair CX 500W (1:32)

--

Memory:
Crucial: 1:430 (improved from 1:250)
Kingston: 1:250 (improved from 1:200)
G-Skill: 1:90 (improved from 1:70)
Corsair: 1:69 (improved from 1:63)

Worst in class:
5th: Worst Crucial product: 1:80
4th: Worst Kingston product: 1:47
3rd: Worst G-Skill product: 1:31
2nd: Corsair XMS2 2GB PC6400 CAS5: 1:18
1st: Corsair Dominator 2x2GB 1333mhz CAS9: 1:7

--

Graphics:
Sapphire: 1:83 (improved from 1:58)
Asus: 1:64 (worse from 1:75)
PNY: 1:61 (worse from 1:100)
Club3D: 1:46 (worse from 1:52)
Zotac: 1:45 (worse from 1:47)
Gigabyte: 1:45 (worse from 1:63)
MSI: 1:44 (first assessment)
Gainward: 1:41 (first assessment)


HD6870: 1:50 (improved from 1:42)
HD6950: 1:24 (worse from 1:25)
HD6970: 1:17 (worse from 1:21)
GTX560Ti: 1:26 (worse from 1:75)
GTX570: 1:40 (unchanged)
GTX580: 1:17 (worse from 1:58)

Worst in class
3rd: Gigabyte GTX560Ti OC 1:21
2nd: Gainward Phantom GTX580 3GB 1:16
1st: Gainward Phantom GTX580 1.5GB 1:6

--

Mechanical storage

Samsung: 1:81 (improved from 1:65)
WD: 1:61 (improved from 1:50)
Seagate: 1:52 (worse from 1:55)
Hitachi: 1:25 (worse from 1:33)

Worst in class
6th: WD30EZRX 1:18
5th: WD RE4-GP 2TB 1:17
4th: Hitachi 7K2000 2TB 1:13
3rd: Seagate XT 2TB 1:13
2nd: Hitachi 7K3000 1.5TB 1:11
1st: Seagate XT 3TB 1:10

2TB ranking
9th: Samsung F4 2TB 1:55
8th: WD20EARS 1:46
7th: WD20EARX 1:43
6th: Seagate LP 2TB 1:39
5th: WD AV-GP 2TB 1:32
4th: WD20FAEX 1;31
3rd: Hitachi 7K3000 2TB 1:22
2nd: WD RE4-GP 2TB 1:17
1st: Seagate XT 2TB 1:13

--

Solid-State Storage

Crucial: 1:122 (worse from 1:125)
Intel: 1:58 (worse from 1:800)
Crucial: 1:34 (unchanged)
OCZ: 1:14 (worse from 1:23)

Worst in class
10th: OCZ Vertex 2 100GB 1:16
9th: OCZ Agility 3 60GB 1:15
8th: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB 1:15
7th: OCZ Vertex 2 3.5" 120GB 1:15
6th: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB 1:13
5th: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 1:11
4th: OCZ Vertex 2 120GB 1:10
3rd: OCZ Vertex 2 80GB 1:8
2nd: OCZ Vertex 2 160GB 1:7
1st: OCZ Vertex 2 240GB 1:6




GOLDEN TURD AWARD

Motherboard industry: Asus P67 boards
PSU industry: Corsair CX series
Memory industry: Corsair (all products)
Graphics: Gainward Phantom series
Mechanical disks: Seagate XT series
Solid state disks: OCZ (all products)

 

I believe I'll get my building fix today I'll rebuild that 939 board for my older brother. That way he has a computer in his room And I'll get a definite, Dead or Not Dead on that system. I firmly believe that PSU may be the weakest link though...

 

LOL Golden turd! I've seen green before, but golden?

 

Mr Movies,

Bingo, "what Enterprise drives are designed for." Very good!

Why only the 500GB WD Black drive? It's the only enterprise model I have not ever had to send back. Lot's of 750GB and 1TB models, but no 500's! They are quiet, fast, reliable, and at $63, were relatively cheap.

Contrary to what Sam said, I download little that isn't 1080p these days, usually only if there is no 1080p available.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

There's so little that's worth watching these days anyhow... Perhaps 500Gb will suffice!

 

That '1080p where possible' objective simply combined with stuff either I want to watch, or some of my friends want/recommend, has so far seen my HD Films and TV directories reach about 15TB. You could easily almost fill a 500GB drive with a single show.
As an example, all three of the main CSI shows are 960GB, and that's only 720p for all but three seasons, the other three are only SD.

Or, the three middle era Star Trek shows (TNG/DS9/Voyager) are 460GB including the HD first season of TNG - the rest is all SD. You only get 465GB on a 500GB drive!

 

I knew Kev would come back with that statement and I agree, however I would still go bigger, but I do (understand/support) that if something is working well for you stay with it so it's a no brainier for Russ of course.

Nice stats and 2% and under no big deal but some of those rates are above 6% and that should be unacceptable these days. 30 years ago that might be acceptable but not today.

ASRock is the new Gigabyte, full featured boards at bargain prices typically.

Nice post Sam!

Stevo

 

Stevo,

Now if only they could match GigaByte in quality! I've yet to see an Asrock board last much past the warranty, typically they fail after about 14-16 months.

I just checked out the Sata II vs Sata III speeds, and the Sata III runs about twice as fast.



Typically, a fast Sata II drive runs peak, around 93 MB/s. The Sata III Intel SSD peaks at about 193 MB/s, or about 100MB faster.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I actually have three ASRocks that are still working well after 3 years, maybe pushing 5 years now in fact, that is all 3 that I have so I don't think quality is an issue with them and Sam's failure rate has them the lowest. Also as to when it comes to speeds ASRock performs faster then Gigabyte boards I've owned and I've owned tons of Gigabytes, in fact Gigabyte boards for me have always been the slowest boards in the bunch. The only reason I've used them is that you get more features for the money, and that's the only reason I've used them as they are NEVER speedsters.

ASRock's have only given me issue with their USB removable HDD compatibility and that is a driver issue really not a hardware issue. I stopped using ASRock for some of my systems were testing and recovery is necessary and presents the biggest problem.

So no disrespect but I must disagree with you on this subject based on hard experience with them, both of them, and like I've said I've been using Gigabytes primarily for the last 20 years with exception to a couple of years were they had all sorts of cap problems.

Stevo

 

ASRock boards used to be awful, but that was so many years ago that it's entirely possible they're a lot better now. I'm still wary because of who the parent company is, of course.

Also, apart from the BIOS, in what way is any brand of motherboard 'slower' than another?

 

Isn't ASRock currently owned by Asus?

By slower, he might have been referring to overclock potential.

 

Correct.

I haven't seen any proof of overclocking differences beyond perhaps 1% with Gigabyte vs. any other brand. I assumed it referred to actual perceived performance with the same CPU at the same speed, but there's no proof of that out there either, so I'm a bit baffled...

 

Within the same brand, different models can have quite different overclocking headroom, so I'd be surprised if there wasn't any differences between boards of different brands too. I'm not going make claims about what's what with them because I don't think that I can be very accurate in that, but I'm sure that there can be differences.

 

Sure, there'll definitely be fairly significant differences between certain boards, but I've never seen a general trend that applies to manufacturers as a whole.

 

No, slower equates to poor hardware setup and driver support. Many years ago MSI tended to make much more responsive boards as did Intel too then other manufactures with the same chipsets in comparison.

When I was setting up gaming platforms I always used MSI boards even though they were not feature rich typically as I could prove to the gamer that it was a faster board through its performance. They would bootup faster and respond better and with exception to one board I had issues with OC'd better too. The one board that had issues with was due to RAM used with full banks loaded, the RAM had to be dialed back as its timming was too sloppy for the mainboard. Only using one dual bank though was no problem but filled big issues.

 

Have to agree with Mr-Movies on this one. There can be huge perceived differences in speed between brands due to certain quirks/features the boards have. They react differently to different things.

Have yet to see a motherboard brand that gets the reboot loop quite like Gigabyte boards. This board hates any sort of manipulation of memory timings and usually requires removal of the battery and a cold boot to POST again. So much an issue I have had friends swear off them.

I can't say I'm surprised by Gigabyte's failure rates. They have made some pretty bad mistakes in design with recent models. Luckily even within the same chipset, Gigabyte boards can vary quite a bit. Some models have a proven reputation for performance and reliability. Also, their AMD boards never seemed to have the same problem.

 

Estuansis,

You have me curious as hell! Where are all those pretty bad mistakes in recent models, because I haven't heard a word about these sort of problems. I haven't heard of any "cold boot" problem with any GigaByte motherboard since the P-35, and that was almost 3 years ago! I've been building mostly AMD, 785G, 880G, 970G and 990X, and none of these have shown any signs of this that I can see.

Best Regards,
Russ