need some advice about the guts of new computer

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Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

have inherited multiple hdd of various sizes from 80 gb to 750 gb from my extended family: total 6 in all

now building a new computer, just a run of the mill with a good mother board + some generous amount of ram ( some have suggested 2 gb, some have suggested 4 gb ) and a video card ( nvidia 6200 PCI x 16 )

my questions about this computer building :

1. am a casual gamer sometimes I like to play all the 3d games but don�t have the money for all the latest graphics cards, my mother board will have some form of SLI ( where 2 graphics cards can be bonded together for greater performance ) right now I will use one but want some hear room for the future

I want to attach all the 6 HDD to my computer so how much power supply do I use, the most common ones are about 450watts ? will this 450 w be sufficient for powering up all the HDDs + graphics card?

2. the amount of ram, ram prices have dropped through the roof but what is the optimal ? I will mainly be using winxp ( everyone has warned me to stay away from vista ) so what is the amount of ram that I should buy ?

3. what processor should I buy ? should be able to play games ! the problem : buy a 3 GHZ dual core processor or buy a Quard core processor at 2.2 Ghz ?

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:28 am

Moved to General Chat at the request of OP. Very Happy

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:46 am

You want to use all 6 Shocked

It'll sound like a 767 running it's engines up on the ramp!

I'd use the two biggest. The fastest one dedicated to your games and the dreaded windows swap file. The other one for the OS and more mundane stuff. Like your baiting folders... Laughing

As for RAM, 2Gb.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 3:34 am

In Short:

3 gigs max ram for XP

Set up two hard drives for the computer. If you need additional storage get a network storage box like the Netgear SC101.

Dual core will be fine.

If you have a specific game in mind check out the forums for that game and see what people are having problems with.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 5:03 am

I saw a computer thread, so I just had to rush to it. Very Happy

Quote:

1. am a casual gamer sometimes I like to play all the 3d games but don�t have the money for all the latest graphics cards, my mother board will have some form of SLI ( where 2 graphics cards can be bonded together for greater performance ) right now I will use one but want some hear room for the future

Essentially yes, that is what SLI is for. However, when running a dual video card environment, be sure you have a PSU with the proper wattage and sufficient cooling. Also, I recommend you download third party applications to monitor your temperatures and regulate fan speeds and such. when using two cards, I find that 2 7600 GTs are sufficient enough for the medium-high level gamer. If you just play games every once in a while, SLI presents no use to you since you would be wasting your money to enhance something you don't do much of anyway.

Quote:

I want to attach all the 6 HDD to my computer so how much power supply do I use, the most common ones are about 450watts ? will this 450 w be sufficient for powering up all the HDDs + graphics card?

This varies from manufacturer. the best thing I would say is trawl around 'till you find product documention and technical specs which will tell you the minimum required. If you plan to run 6 HDDs, a dual card environment, and a dual-core processor, comboed with all optical drives and peripherals, I recommend a 650-700 watt, minimum. Personally, I think its over-ambitious to try to use all of those drives internally. Just buy HDD enclosures which are often more convenient.

Quote:

2. the amount of ram, ram prices have dropped through the roof but what is the optimal ? I will mainly be using winxp ( everyone has warned me to stay away from vista ) so what is the amount of ram that I should buy ?

Ok, regarding that note about Vista, you can't knock it till you try it. But since I don't want to be flamed by Vista trolls again, I'll stray away from that topic.

Essentially 2 GB is an ideal amount of RAM for most people. It allows you to web browse, listen music, run your email program, and Photoshop at the same time without any delays. Ask me how I know. anything more than 3 GB of RAM requires a x64 bit OS and those are hell and a half to deal with.

Quote:

3. what processor should I buy ? should be able to play games ! the problem : buy a 3 GHZ dual core processor or buy a Quard core processor at 2.2 Ghz ?

For years, gamers have been partial to AMD chips because of the 3d Now! technology in their chips, which makes it ideal for graphics execution. However, in these times, Intel is light years ahead of AMD in terms of performance and whatnot, so I would recommend of getting a dual-core of about 2.4 GHz. #.0 GHz is a bit too much for a "casual" gamer. I myself am a heavy PC gamer and am running Vista Ultimate on 2 GB RAM and a 2.2 GHz dual-core processor with no problems whatsoever. Idealy, you will want a processor with Santa Rosa technology in it, so don't get the old ones before June 07. Regarding quad-core processors, I would wait until OSes can take advantage of them better.

Hope my input helps.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:21 am

^^^ Great response. A few more points. SLI for PCI-e cards is a waste. Just make sure that you connect with DVI. Your new motherboard will want HDDs with SATA not the IDE that the 80 Gig surely is. If you do stack up that many drives, make sure the case will support them and you might consider drive fans.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 6:28 am

Also, (and this should go without saying), but make sure you know what you are doing before you do it. I have seen improperly installed liquid cooling systems go horribly wrong and I have seen people who had insufficient cooling were in for a big surprise when they overclocked. If you aren't sure, you can ask a trained professional in the area or better yet, a friend who knows about this type of thing.

EDIT: Also, look into a RAID configuration.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:22 am

^^emphesis on what Ex said. Be very careful with the cooling systems as one mistake turns your machine into a paperweight. Really just get what you can afford. Unless you do some major heavyweight stuff then dual core is fine, even for gaming and the money you save can go towards a good GPU. Also don't forget that one high end card like the GeForce 8800 (check ebay for good deals) is generally faster then 2 x 7600's . You'll also use one less slot and have slightly better airflow/less heat in the case.

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:08 pm

Windows XP can recognize only 3 GB of RAM, no matter how much is installed. But don't let that influence you. Any new(ish) motherboard will have two pair of RAM sockets. Save yourself a lot of heartache by purchasing two identical pair of dual-channel RAM from the same manufacturer. PC6400 is dirt cheap, generally available (at least in America) with generous rebates. I guess they overproduced DDR2 memory just before DDR3 was introduced. Be sure to get dual channel. The motherboard sockets are probably color coded to indicate channel A and channel B. One fine day, Microsoft might make an operating system (Vista III?) that actually works, and it will be able to use all of the memory. Some boards even proclaim they can accommodate 8 GB of RAM, but the really sweet pricing is 2 x 2 x 1 GB, or it was so last month. Things change rapidly. By the time an OS is available that can use 8 GB, the board will be obsolete. (Please no angry retorts from Linux folk - we know you're morally superior in every way, but he's using XP now). ClubIT prices for PC6400 are good. If you want to apply for both rebates, have your Mum buy you a pair, assuming that you don't live at the same address. It seems to me that prices for all computer parts in the UK are very high compared to USA prices. Finally - at last - do yourself a huge favor: instead of chunking in a bunch of hard drives, test each of them with Spinrite 6. It takes a long time to run (from one floppy disk or flash memory), but it will reveal the condition of the disk. I've returned brand-new hard drives that didn't pass. Discard the ones that fail - in an environmentally friendly manner, of course. Ever considered RAID 1 (mirrored) for data safety? Many motherboards include an Intel ICH8R chip (or later) that lets you have a constant backup. If one disk goes bad, you just chunk in a replacement, rebuild the array, and carry on. The hard drives don't even have to be the same size; the smaller one is always the original. Don't overclock the CPU. I have successfully run DDR667 memory (PC5300) as DDR800 (PC6400) without trouble, but it's easier to just buy what you'll eventually need. PC1333 memory was still expensive and a bit tricky the last time I looked. Spend a bit of time with the manual and set the BIOS to take advantage of the built-in temperature and fan-speed monitoring offered by Asus and other boards. If set properly, the board will shut down to prevent CPU damage from overheating. A new board will probably come with a Windows software utility that shows you temperatures and fan speeds. I lied about the "finally" part before. Get a free utility such as MEMTEST 86+ and burn in all the memory. A lot of cheap memory will sail right through the brief memory test at bootup, but these FREE utilities write patterns to every address, then read it back. The utility will show you any addresses that don't read back exactly what was written. Yes, it will take all night, but that's better than suffering unexplained crashes later on. Do you really want your machine to go down when you're in the final stages of a masterful Photoshop job to set the bait? Didn't think so.

Buona fortuna.

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

thanks sheboppe, for moving this thread from Baiting tips and tricks to General Chat Laughing

Quote:

I'd use the two biggest. The fastest one dedicated to your games and the dreaded windows swap file. The other one for the OS and more mundane stuff. Like your baiting folders...

it would be waste of the HDDs all are seagate and are under 5 year warranty, selling them off will fetch too little.. so they stay in the computer, extra space never hurts

Quote:

As for RAM, 2Gb.

2 GB it is then!

Thanks for Ex. for putting in so much knowledge

1. getting a 650 W power supply
2. getting 4 extra fans, no extra cooling solutions

they would be something this
______________

all the fans are *very* silent so hopefully wont feel like a 747 on the runway.

getting the following components : Asus SLI deluxe mother board, a socket 939 Opteron 175 processor - Dual core, DDR1 PC 400 ram 2 GB, and 256 mb PCI x16 6200 Graphics card with DVI output. 2 HDD are IDE other are SATA 3 GB.

got almost everything at a bargain, ram is one iteration behind so is the Processor and AMD seems to be the best bang per buck, for latest hardware it does seem intel gets the crown but right now amd is good, and heck i am getting the equivalent of xenon from AMD for a pretty good price.

haven't finalized but this is what the hardware will be like... specially thanks to Ex.'s insights

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:48 am

A note about your choice of OS if you plan to make this a gaming rig. Windows XP if you value performance or Windows Vista if you value quality.

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:18 am

I personally prefer Linux. It's free. What more could you ask for?

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:26 am

Linux is utterly useless for a gaming rig but worth sticking on a partition for doing other stuff. Stuff like the Gimp photo editor is excellent.

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

going to triple boot between winxp, linux and solaris...

WinXP for most of the hardware the drivers are going to be just for winxp so i think i *need* that..

Linux - my fav is redhat...

and guys the best os out there ever made is Solaris and since this processor is 64 bit opteron ( server class chip from AMD ) think this will be the best os ( server class os and server class chip ) and you get all the software that works on linux for solaris

if everything goes well i might clean up the winxp partition later but untill i manage to get every thing working and find drivers for everything i am going to stick 3 os

and the best of SOLARIS is FREE just like linux - you download it and you it !

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 7103 Location: Yes

Be careful of a RAID set-up with Linux however - I had to disable RAID in order to properly boot my Kubuntu (and based on what I see in the forums, it's a common problem). You could mess with your BIOS each time you boot, but what a pain.

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:12 pm

Just another opinion... Very Happy

I just rebuilt my pc about a month ago for real cheap (newegg). I used an Intel 2180 (2.0GHz) ($80) but overclocked it with ease to 3.05 (could go higher, but no big reason to). You can get 2GB of DDR2 800 GSkill ram for $45 and that machine will churn though a lot. Since you don't seem like a heavy gamer, I wouldn't suggest going for an SLI motherboard (I'm a heavy gamer and don't care for SLI anyway).

Keep in mind that you want to also base your video card on your current/future monitor. The larger the monitor & greater the screen resolution it will require a beefier card to handle it.

As a side note, you can use 4+GB of ram w/ any OS, as long as it is a 64bit OS.

And as others have pointed out, don't skimp on the power supply. You want to be sure everything you paid for gets consistent power so it doesn't fry. Also if you want to have 6 hard drives in there, make sure you have enough power connectors on the power supply to handle it.

And finally, be wary of the case you choose. Especially if you are putting that many drives in it, you will want one with good airflow. And the fans you put in it, make sure you buy quality ones rated with low decibels since you don't want it to sound like a vacuum cleaner when you turn it on. Very Happy

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 5:42 pm

XP can use 2GB for user mode activity and 2GB for the OS kernel activity so technically 4GB is your limit. There is apparently a way to switch this to 3GB user and 1GB kernel. I seriously doubt you'll need more then 2 gigs anyway. My setup is a core2duo 2 Ghz with 2GB DDR2 ram and that is easily enough for the moment.

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:33 pm

Motherboards typically have connectors for up to 4 IDE devices and up to 2 SATA devices. If the hard drives are older, then the odds are they'll be IDE. If you buy SATA DVD drives then you can install 4 IDE drives. Anything more than that and you're looking at having to buy an add on card for your PC. Realistically, putting 2 or 3 of the biggest/fastest drives in will do you fine. I have 2 SATA drives, 1 IDE drive and 2 IDE DVD-RW drives in my system.

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:33 pm

^^^Had no idea you could do that. Silly me. I've just transfered files over the LAN. With the low cost of drives and the speed difference between IDE and SATA and not having to run flat ribbons all over the interior it really was worth it.

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 21 Mar 2008 Posts: 25

-If you intend to run WinXP - 2GB Ram
-250 is enough.
-I suggest Intel Core 2 Duo they are relatively cheap lately
-Nvidia 8500gt but A7600GT or X1650pro would stomp it into oblivion (since your a gamer) the 8500gt runs Team Fortress 2 Perfectly for me.

But.. It may vary.

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:54 pm

HA! How about a brand new ATI HD3650? Fast, easy on power and low cost ( Wink

cheap IS a cheap word)

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