Help, Building a computer

[Juan Cortez]

Well, I am planning on building my own computer, and I have a good idea of what i want to get. I need alittle help on picking some parts. I am still waiting for prices to go down, before I go and pick up all my gear.


Here is what i have decided so far:

AMD Athlon 64 FE-53 939, Waiting for price to drop
ASUS A8V DELUXE S939 Mother board
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB video card
2 Western digital 74 Gb Raptor Hard drives
Turbo X-Superalien 21IN Blue Aluminum case
LITEON 52X CD-Rom
LITEON DVD burner/CD burner
1.44 MB High Density Floppy Drive
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum PCI W/ Internal Panel
OCZ DDR PC-3200 Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Dual Channel (OR) Corsair
TWINX-2048 3200 Pro.

Some of these listed I am still waiting for a price drop.


Would the new 3500-4200 DDR ram be compatible with the Asus board? Also what would you keep and what would you change? I am open to any suggestions.

Thanks

[Kevin P]

According to the Asus site, the A8V has 4 x 184-pin DIMM Sockets support max. 4GB DDR400/DDR333/DDR266 non-ECC un-buffered DDR SDRAM.

PC3200 is equivalent to DDR400, so that's probably the fastest memory the board will support, or take advantage of. You'd be wasting money putting in faster RAM, and it may not work properly.

Your configuration looks pretty good to me, but then I'm still running on a P3/800. Some folks have had issues with Asus boards though, have you considered alternative MBs?

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Kevin

I have looked at Gigabite aswell, my computer as of now has an Asus board and I have had no troubles with it? I have the P4 B266. What do you think about Giagabite and Abit boards? Also have you ever ordered from NCIX or Tiger Direct?

Thanks again

[aud19]

Besides what was mentioned re: the RAM....

IMO, stick with Asus,they tend to have better quality than the rest of the companies (though they do cost a little more) and if you're the biggest mobo company in the world your bound to have a few people get bad boards. Law of numbers/percentages. You show me any of the other brands with no problems... :roll: I too have owned numerous Asus mobo's over the years including all of our systems at work that I've put together, no problems I did have one a few years back that was a bit picky about ram, that's it.

I'd save your money on the sound card for the time being. The current generation of Creative soundcards aren't that great and if you read this thread you'll see they're planning on releasing much better, totally new cards fall'ish. That mobo has onboard audio on it anyways doesn't it? So unless you're looking for higher fidelity (which the current creative cards aren't really :roll: ) use the onboard for now or go with something like the M-audio revolution card for better sound.

Nice choice on the processor :T :P

For hard disks, if you like quiet, I'd go with the Seagate Barricuda's. Otherwise those 10,000 RPM WD beats are pretty awesome :P What do you plan on using this system for though? :E Video editing?! If you're going to store any major data you may want to sacrifice a little of that speed for space for the money...?

You may also want to check out the newest Nvidia video cards as from what I've read there a step above the latest ATI but who knows how long for? :roll:

I'd probably trade the CD-R drive for a DVD-R drive on top of the DVD/CD burner though for the price difference you may as well be able to read both. It looks like you should be able to run both HD's and both optical drives as "Master" too which should increase performance :P

Jason

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks aud19

Well, I am really not much of a downloader, So having 148 Gb of space, is sufficient for my needs. I am planning on making this a pretty high end gaming computer, as well hooking it up to my HT system . Maybe even get it to control my receiver and such on it. I was talking to a few friends, one swears by ATI for video cards and the other by Nividia, not to sure which one is really the best, I was looking for prices on the Nividia cards but I cannot, find them, I was on Futureshop's site, NCIX's and Tiger Direct, they carry ATI. For the ram I was told that Corsair doesn't run well with AMD boards, is this true? How is OCZ compared to Corsair?


Thanks

[Kevin P]

One thing I thought of, that I plan on doing in my next 'puter, is to add a hot-swap bay for a 2nd hard drive. That way, when I want to do a backup, I pop a drive into the bay, run Ghost or something similar, and I can backup my entire drive. Then I pull the drive out and store it. If something happens to the primary drive, just swap it for the secondary and boot off the backup.

An alternative is to use a firewire or USB hard drive.

Just something to think about, since the old school method of backups (tapes, CD-Rs, etc.) just don't cut it with today's cheap 100+ GB hard drives.

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Kevin, I might just actually do that. Here is a pic of my case which has a side window, By the looks of it I think I have enough space to add quite a few hard drives. It is the 9th picture down. This case is the same one I am getting but mine will be in blue.

Computer Case

Have you heard any word on the new upcoming Windows XP?

Aud19

I was looking at the CD-Rom and decided I will pick up a LG 16x DVD/48X CD rom

[Kevin P]

Cool case, though not my #1 choice of color. :

I just looked up the CPU you plan on using... I can see why you want to wait for prices to drop! 8O

What new Windows XP? The 64-bit version? I think a beta can be downloaded from the MS site if you're so inclined. I don't know much about it, such as how well legacy apps will work in it.

I bet that machine will scream through SETI units once you have it up and running. How about going for broke, getting dual Athlon 64s in there (I don't know if there's such a MB though), and using it to heat your house too? :lol:

I'm thinking of building a new system in the next few months, and will probably break with my Intel traditions and go with an AMD. Not sure what one yet...

[Juan Cortez]

RE:Cool case, though not my #1 choice of color.

Haha ya I don't like it in Yellow, the red and green look really bad too, IMO the blue and black are the best ones.

I know the ATI video card has a DVI output, Could I hook it up to my TV or would it be a bad Idea? I was told that hooking up a computer to a tv is not the best thing to do.

[Daryl Furkalo]

It depends if your TV can accept DVI computer inputs. Some can, some can't, you will have check your model. I have bought from tigerdirect.ca and NCIX in the past, and have had no problems with either of them.

Nice looking system so far!

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Daryl

Yes my TV does have a DVI input, I just wasn't too sure if it will cause any damage to my TV.

thanks again

[Andrew Pratt]

Juan if you dod plan to connect it to your TV download and install the PowerStrip untility as it'll allow you to set your desktop to your TV's native resolution which will give you the best image quality.

[aud19]

You should be able to output DVI to most but not all TV's I know Toshiba's in particular used to be pretty finicky about DVI signals. The biggest hurdle is HDCP on both the video card and TV. Your best bet is to contact the TV manufacturer and/or search forums and see what other folks have done with the same model TV.

If you're planning on utilizing this as a gaming/HTPC you may want to consider the bigger/slower(quiter) drives for PVR use, "backing up" DVD's, music server etc. They're still plenty fast for your application and unless you absolutely need to be on the bleeding edge, a better value for your dollar. I'd even suggest a smallish drive just for your O/S and programs (or raid'd drives if you want extra speed) and then larger drive(s) for data.

BTW the Liteon 812 is capable of flashing it's firmware to 832 dual layer for when the DL media becomes affordable...just FYI

As far as I know the 64bit beta version is out and the actual version should be available in fall I believe...don't quote me on that though :B

Jason

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Andrew, I am going to take a look into the program. I have a Panasonic 53" widescreen television, I haven't tried it yet, ao I am not to sure if there are any problems. I am going to email Panasonic and see what they have to say.

Aud19

Thanks

What about getting 2 Wester Digital 250 Gb hard drives or two 120 Gb hard drives, with 7200 RPM and 8 Mb buffer, SATA, and set it to Raid 0. Would that be a better option over the raptors?

I checked Microsoft's web site they do have the beta version to download, but since I do no have a 64 Bit processor I am unable to test it out, I guess I will have to wait till I build the computer

Thanks again for everyone's help

[aud19]

I'd still recommend the Seagate Barracuda's, if nothing else but because they're the quietest. I'd say two 80GB SATA drives for the OS, raid'd would be plenty big and fast, then for now one 120GB data drive for PVR, music server and DVD backups. You could add another later if you found you needed the space or go for two right off the bat as PVR and DVD backups will reguire somewhat frequent de-fragging.

Jason

[aud19]

Oh sorry, yes Raid 0 for speed, keeping in mind it offers no redunancy but awesome perormance, If you have the money, you could do your data drives on Raid 0 as well for faster performance but this will require lot's of hard drives and a SATA raid card. $$ starting to add up fast 8O but man would it fly! :P

If you're waiting a bit too, you may want to consider Serial ATA optical drives as well as I believe they're not far off either. Also PCI-X and PCI-Express are just around the corner removing the PCI bottleneck in mobo's... :B

Jason

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Aud19

I was looking at the Segate drives they seem to get pretty good reviews, and are fairly cheap, compared to WD and Maxtor.

I was thinking of getting 3-4 of these drives

Segate 120 Gb Sata


And this card


SATA card


Thanks again

[aud19]

While you probably don't need the 120GB for your OS (or 80GB for that matter!) they aren't that much more than the 80GB anyways so..... The only reason I might go for the 80's is that they are slightly less money, they're still huge for OS and programs and they'll de-frag etc faster. By all means go for the 120's for your data drives (raid'd or otherwise) though! :P

Jason

[Gordon Moore]

If you can find them, Samsung has actually slightly outdone Seagate in the quiet and performance arena.

Raptor's are a nice to have...but given the cost I'm not so sure of the benefit unless you do a lot of gaming at wild resolutions or Video Editing or rendering.

I think mere mortal SATA drives Raid'd should suffice.

When building for quiet...peruse www.silentpcreview.com and check out their forums. It's very informative.

Your case should be purchase with 120mm fans in mind, or at least enough space to mod it to take a 120mm fan. (Sorry I didn't check out your specs to know if that's the case (pun intended) or not)

[Daryl Furkalo]

A pair of Raptors in Raid 0 is a very fast combination.

[aud19]

It's fun to spend other people's money isn't it Daryl :B :B

Jason

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks for the replies.

I think I have decided to go with 4 Seagate 120 Gb hard drives, by the time I get 2 74 Gb raptors they 4 120 Gb will come roughly close in price. The 2 raptors with out tax comes out to $634.88 CDN, and the 4 Seagates come out to $561.20 CDN, so I am really saving money, getting more space What is the difference between the different raids? 0, 1, 2, and such?

Thanks

[Daryl Furkalo]

Juan, does that Asus board support on-board Raid? The MSI I have has 4 SATA connections and supports Raid 0, 1, and 0+1. O is the fastest and makes 1 large drive. 1 mirrors the two drives. 0+1 needs 4 drives but will have the compacity of 3 drives, 1 is essentially a spare.

Jason, it is fun when you are building a smoking a fast machine.

[Andrew Pratt]

I'd be surprised if that ASUS didn't have SATA raid onboard...my ASUS AX7NE does.

[Juan Cortez]

Yes the Asus A8V board does have a dual raid connection and set up.

Asus A8V

[aud19]

Hey Jason, wanna build me one of these too while you're at it

You may or may not need that SATA raid card depending on if SATA optical drives are out yet when you actually build this or what the current mobo is when you get to building this as the A8V's already been out for a while in computerland terms. No doubt a newer model will be out soon... :lol: Hopefully it will incorporate PCI-X and PCI-express.

Quote from AMD site:

PCI-X and PCI-Express

PCI-Express architecture is a new serial interconnect technology that retains the PCI usage model and software interfaces while supporting chip-to-chip, board-to-board and adapter solutions at an equivalent or lower cost structure than existing PCI designs. PCI-Express currently runs at 2.5Gbps, or 250MBps per lane in each direction, providing a total bandwidth of 16GBps in a 32-lane configuration. Future frequency increases will scale up total bandwidth capabilities beyond that expected from PCI-X 2.0, providing I/O attach points for high-performance graphics, 1394b, USB 2.0, InfiniBand Architecture, Gigabit Ethernet, and other technologies.

AMD expects PCI-Express to be adopted first as the next generation of graphics technology, replacing AGP 8X. In 2004, AMD expects PCI-Express graphics to debut in workstations, while predicting that PCI-X 266 will be strongly adopted in servers for higher-speed I/O card capabilities. Because the success of PCI-X 533 will likely be gated by the availability of 533MHz adapter cards and devices, AMD believes that servers requiring I/O bandwidth in excess of PCI-266’s capabilities will begin to feature PCI-Express options in the second half of 2004 and into 2005.

Jason

[aud19]

Here's a good link describing the different raid formats:

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html

Basically Raid 0 is the cheapest and fastest (wicked performance :T ) but offer no redundancy as I mentioned before so you may want to still consider a nice USB2.0/firewire or hotswappable drive for backup purposes.

Jason (Wishing he had the money to build one of these too ops: )

[Gordon Moore]

There's a whole whack of Raid configurations to chose from but it all depends on the controller.

Most IDE and SATA controllers will only give you the following RAID options:

RAID -Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1
===================
RAID 0 - not really a RAID configuration as it's not Fault tolerant (no redundancy of data)...meaning if something happens to one of the drives...you're hooped. However it offers the best performance read and writes with the lowest cost on disk space, but since there is no redunancy you have a high potential of losing your data...ie: I don't suggest you put the O/S on this one, unless you are okay with the potential to lose data or you are backing up the critical stuff to say DVD (this is pretty much what I do though I will probably change this prcedure soon and get 1 SATA drive for O/S and my DVD authoring will be strictly done on the IDE RAID 0.)

Note: Ghost 9 (I think that's the latest...does not support hardware RAID's)

RAID 1 - aka disk mirroring...2 drives that duplicate the storage of data. No striping however so your write performance is the same as a single disk with a slight improvement of read performance. Comes at a high cost though as 1 full disk is used to mirror the other....so you use up 50% of your total disk space.

RAID 0+1 - mirrored stripes (each stripe "RAID 0" is mirrored). Much higher performance than RAID 1
2X the write performance of RAID 5 and 4X the read performance of RAID 5. High cost in disk storage 50% of total.

There is also:

RAID 10 -stripped mirrors (each mirror "RAID1" is stripped). More or less the same as RAID 0+1 but this is potentially more fault tolerant. Why? if a drive fails you are left with a mirror. Whereas in the other configuration 0+1, if a drive fails, you are left with a stripe (zero redundancy).Popular for database configurations.


RAID 5 (the expensive raid controllers or SCSI controllers will do this) -include a rotating parity array. So actual redundant info is not stored but instead parity info that allows you to rebuild a lost drive in the arrray. You need at least 3 drives to do RAID 5 and it's usually done with 5 (so you can see why it's not common in IDE) Not performance oriented though where writes are a concern. The more drives you have in the array, the smaller the size of he parity array.

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks for the replies.

If thats the case than I probably won't raid 0 the main drive. Can I use the IDE input as well as the SATA inputs at the same time, or is it one or the other type thing? If so I might just stick with the 4 120 Gb drives SATA and get a regular IDE 40 Gb drive for the main, and use the other 4 as secondary drives, at raid 0.

Thanks again

[aud19]

Jason don't be afraid of Raid 0 for your main drive. It will add a lot of speed to the drives that will be in use for loading and running your OS and programs. The "if one of the drives fails, you're screwed" theory is moot IMO because if you were only running one drive in the first place and that one drive goes, you're hooped too! At least with raid 0 you're getting way better performance the rest of the time at little extra cost. How often do you have HD's fail nowadays anyways?! Sure it still happens once in a while but like I said you'd be hooped either way.

Jason

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks Aud19.

I agree with you 100%. I think i might aswell, get the 4 hardrives, and raid 2 pair of them, and get like a 20 or 40 Gb external drive for my back ups. In my current computer, I have 2 harddrive a 40 Gb Maxtor, and a 20 Gb Western digital, so far they have been working prefectly, and no problems with them.

I am still stuck on the ram part. Which company listed above would give better preformance for gaming and such, or are they fairly equal? Also what do you think about the upcoming DDR 2 ram? I was reading somewhere that the latency numbers are going to get worse with the new DDR 2.


Thanks

[Andrew Pratt]

Can I use the IDE input as well as the SATA inputs at the same time, or is it one or the other type thing?

You can run both with the ASUS but to get it to boot of the SATA drives just set your first boot device to the the SCSI or it'll default to the IDE channel (took me awhile to figure that one out on my board :W ) Now that might be a little different with a RAID config as I just have one SATA drive but case you run into trouble that's the first thing i'd check.

[aud19]

From NCIX I'd probably go with the Kingston or OCZ Dual channel memory :P

Jason

[Gordon Moore]

Yeah Jason I mostly agree with your point given one drive versus 2, RAID....
when I wrote that up it was more from a business standpoint. I usually have to have write this kind of stuff up for my boss so I tend to include all the pros and cons. Home users obviously can look at this through slightly different coloured glass

How often do you have HD's fail nowadays anyways?!

Well, from people I talk to in the biz, drives get RMA'd all the time. Seagate tends to have better quality control IMO. Maxtor pumps out drives by the boat load so the chance of a bad one is much higher IMO. But that doesn't change the fact of one drive versus 2 raided.

The only thing is...say in authoring is that the o/s is happier being on a drive that isn't undergoing a lot of reading and writing so it would be beneficial to RAID your drives on seperate channels (0,1)

[Kevin P]

The issue with Raid 0 is that if either drive fails you're hooped. With two drives, the odds of a failure doubles. But the odds of both failing is halved, which is why Raid 1 is more resistant to data loss.

One drive: if it fails, you're hooped.
Two drives, Raid 0: if either drive fails, you're hooped.
Two drives, Raid 1: if either drive fails, your data is still intact. Only if both drives failed would you be hooped.

[Kevin P]

Have you considered using an Athlon 64 3800+ instead of the FX-53? It's over $100 cheaper and should be pretty close in performance... main difference is 512KB L2 cache instead of 1MB, and Newcastle core instead of Clawhammer. Or to save a bit more $$, get the Athlon 64 3500+ and overclock it.

[Juan Cortez]

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry I was a bit slow on replying I was very busy and didn't really have any time to get on.

Kevin I was looking at it, and even the benchmarks from AMD's site and actually they are very very close in preformance.

AMD 64 FX benchmarks

I was also considering the 64 3700 + which is cheaper and very close to the 3800+ preformance, more than a 1 % difference. I may actually drop the FX and go with either the 3700 or 3800.

AMD 64 benchmarks

Thanks again

[Taoism]

I am thinking of putting together a monster of a RAID (RAID 50) setup using the Raidcore 4852 Serial ATA RAID controller (8 channel). 8x200 GB = 1.6TB of Media storage.... yummy... or 3.2TB when the 400GB Hitachi drives start rolling out.

Tom's Hardware Guide gave the Raidcore a pretty good review, but I wonder if anyone around here has used it?

The downside is that in order to really take advantage of it I need to get a "relatively" inexpensive mobo that has at least one PCI-X slot on it. I am guessing it will be an AMD 64 server board of some sort

Monster RAID 50 acting as a NAS on the home LAN with MythPC running and using VIA's EPIA mobos for the HTPC interfacing (1 for each remote TV) is gonna be pretty cool

Oh and its pretty cool to see a board like this with some rather active members from the 'Peg on it

Cheers,
Keith.

[Juan Cortez]

I think Seagate just came out with 400 GB SATA harddrives if you want to check them out. So far they haven't updated their site, or they are still working on them.

Seagate 400 Gb harddrives

[aud19]

Jason, like me, I see you've moved over to the dark side of a Seagate universe :lol: They're sure consistently making an effort to be the top choice :T Too bad more companies aren't like that :roll: (....cough.. Intel ... cough) :rofl:

Jason

[Gordon Moore]

Oh and its pretty cool to see a board like this with some rather active members from the 'Peg on it

You can thank Andrew Pratt for that

BTW, my god that's alot of storage. You PVR'ing that much? You must store alot of stuff or you have a heck of a lot of music catalogued.

[aud19]

DVD and music server perhaps...? My brother's got close to 1TB and that's what he's doing :P

Jason

[Taoism]

You can thank Andrew Pratt for that

BTW, my god that's alot of storage. You PVR'ing that much? You must store alot of stuff or you have a heck of a lot of music catalogued.

Its going to be the nucleus of a my digital media mecca

I am planning on ripping all my DVDs onto it, all my CDs, etc. I am also going to be adding a TV Tuner card of some sort (well probably multiple ones over the long term).

I am still trying to figure it all out, but after doing some more reading on mass storage at the Storage Review Forums I am beginning to think I would be better off to wait until more PCI-E based motherboards hit the market (and the new PCI-E based RAID cards that will follow) - as opposed to the PCI-X based RAIDCore card I was looking at above.

Some mobos with PCI-E are already available, and by the end of the summer the selection will only have grown, and I have already seen an advertising/spec page for an 8-channel PCI-E RAID card.

In any case, a quick overview of the nebulous plan in my head would be:

• Run a Gigabit network
• MythPC server installed on one or more rackmount PCs (depending on load, etc - just one to start - probably a 4U since they are relatively inexpensive [the case I mean]).
• 1TB+ NAS (Network Attached Storage) (NFS or Samba).
• Move the cable set-top box into server room and attach it to the server via serial connection so the server can change the channels (thus allowing me to watch live TV from any place I have a client set up). Its cable out would be run into a TV tuner card. If I want, I could add more set-top boxes this way, and keep them all centralized.
• For each location I want to be able to "pull" a stream to, I would run Gigabit cable, and the local client would be on a VIA EPIA board of some sort. Not much needed here, the EPIA boards are small, and well integrated. I would need a video output converter, and possibly a sound card if the onboard sound output sucks.

There are still some things I haven't quite figured out. Like for example, what to do with things like receivers, etc. I don't know if there is a way to centralize those types of components too. Or should I still have a receiver in each location to take an audio/video feed from the local MythPC client. I am still confused on that stuff


Cheers,
Keith.

[aud19]

Taoism, you may want to investigate powered speakers for this purpose. You can use the "good" PC setups like the Klipsch system for smaller, less critical rooms and then they're are more audiophile grade speakers that are powered too. I believe Genelec makes some nice powered speakers. Either way you just use the PC as pre/pro. Or you could use the PC as pre/pro with just an outboard amp and "normal" (non-powered) speakers. Otherwise if you're only planning on using digital connections from the PC's you're pretty much stuck with a receiver or pre/pro.

EDIT: I think I even remember reading something about powered speakers with built in DD/DTS decoding...though I can't for the life of me remember the brand/model... ops: :B

Jason

[Gordon Moore]

Logitech has a pair(z-680)

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/CA/EN,CRID=2,CONTENTID=5048

and Yamaha (TSS-1)

http://www.yamaha.ca/show_model.asp?modelId=376&modelCode=TSS%2D1

There's probably others but those are the 2 I know of.