New System Hardware Suggestions

[Wolfala]

OK - after 3 years, I bought a new hardware case. So by that proclemation, I need to fill it with hardware otherwise its a heavy doorstop.

i'm looking to build an AMD box - 2 gigs ram minimum, with some sort of RAID array. I don't plan on having much on it except for games - my old box i'll use as a file server since its got mostly **** on it anyway.


I'm not 100% up to speed on the latest and greatest in hardware - but generally, i'd like a dual SLI setup, either 256 or 512 on each card.

And some sort of LCD monitor to complement the 5 year old 17 inch Sony CRT I currently have.

Budget is between 0 and 5 grand.

Suggestions?

Wolf

[Sandman]

Why RAID?

[Chairboy]

It's all ball bearings these days.

BTW, re: RAID, presumably he's using it for performance boosting?

[eagl]

First, you may want to browse the hardware/software forum going back at least a few months since this topic recurs every month at least...

Off the top of my head, assuming from your RAID statement that you have excess cash to burn...

ASUS A8N SLI Premium.  Also available is the Deluxe for $10 less.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131540

2 gig GSkill memory (2x1 gig).  This is what I currently have and it works fine, but I haven't tried overclocking it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231032

Athlon 64 3700+ $212ish  Again, this is what I have because it's right at the price/performance elbow where any faster and you get huge price increases for marginal speed increases.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539

Or if you want dual core, Opteron 165 and overclock it, $325.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103588

If you want you can spend more on the cpu, but I wouldn't at this point.  Wait a bit and prices always drop.

Video card - 1 or 2 Nvidia 7900 GT ($299 but currently out of stock at newegg) or 7900 GTX 512 meg, $499 but currently out of stock at newegg.

Hard drive - 2 of the new updated WD raptors, 10k rpm and 150 gig each
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012

Sound card - soundblaster X-Fi, any variety

Any dual layer DVD burner.  I have a sony and it works fine but because of their rootkit intrusion and complete lack of real remorse (I was a victim and had to reinstall windows to kill it), I will never recommend any sony products to anyone again.  Sony are teh evil, and there are MANY drives out there that are both faster and cheaper.

500 watt minimum power supply...  If your case came with one less than 500 watt, consider tossing it out or you may spend weeks chasing down random system glitches especially if you go with RAID raptors and SLI vid cards.

Monitor - The Dell 1905FP LCD is on sale for under $300 now.  This was the LCD standard for nearly 1.5 years and only 4-5 months ago cost over $450.  It's aging a bit but still good enough that I just ordered one yesterday.  I have a crappy NEC LCD that's probably defective and although it's rated at 25ms response time, I've never noticed ghosting so I'm sure I'll be happy with the 19" dell when it arrives.

That ought to get you started.  Ways to cut costs without sacrificing too much speed is to get only one 7900GT and get a single regular hard drive.  Those raptors cost around $300 each but you can get a 300+ gig 7200 rpm drive that is "fast enough" for under $150.  You can save a little money initially on the sound card too since those ASUS boards have decent onboard sound, but YMMV with the quality.  Some find them acceptable, some don't.  The soundblaster X-Fi cards will reduce cpu usage by a few percent and if you don't install all the bundled software, they're actually decent to use.

[Wolfala]

What i've come up with so far is an ABIT AN8 32X

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127232

AMD X2 4400

Memory, 2 GIG - but there are so Golly-geen many choices i'm lost on that one.

Video will probally be the Nvidia 7900 512 x 2 depending on stocks.

But right now, I could use help on narrowing down the memory.

And yes, the RAID is for FS performance.

[eagl]

Why not go for an opteron 175?  It costs only a little more than the X2 4400 but it's been tested/selected for server use and ought to be a bit more reliable or overclockable.  Or save $60 and go for an opteron 170, going from 2.2 ghz to 2.0 ghz but keeping the 1 meg L2 cache option.  Overclock a bit to get the speed back up if you really want.  But with your prices set up where they are, the opteron 175 might be a better choice.

The gskill memory I listed use good memory chips, but to keep the price down gskill won't guarantee that the chips have been speed-binned beyond their already good timings at stock pc3200 speeds (200 mhz fsb).  It comes down to some extreme overclockers will purchase only certain manufacturing lots, some going as far as picking only chips made on certain days.  It's all rather silly IMHO because even these non-specific chips are guaranteed to run at really nice speeds and will most likely accept a mild overclock without any problem, but people end up spending two or three times what these cost just to get that last .1% 3dmark score boost.

That gskill link is the cheapest 2x1 gig kit that newegg sells, but they have rated speeds just as fast as pretty much everything else until you pay nearly double the price.  I'm pretty sure they use TCCD chips but without taking off the heatspreaders and voiding the warranty, I can't tell for sure.  The only diff like I said is that they don't let you know what the part numbers of the individual chips are.  Gskill has a more expensive line of memory with the same rated speeds, but they list the specific chips used on the more expensive sticks.

http://www.gskill.com/indexen.html

I figure get the cheapest "name" brand that has a decent warranty.  Crucial ballistix is good but mine died after a year and had to be replaced under warranty by newegg.  Gskill is well known, corsair is known, etc.  Some have had good luck with "patriot" brand memory as well but I'd never heard of them until a year ago.  Kingston is ok but their really fast stuff is pretty expensive and no faster than anyone else's sticks.

Also, don't limit yourself to pc3200...  The faster FSB rated ones will overclock better even if the timings are slower at the faster FSB.  This may be the fastest DDR memory listed on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227225

It's certainly right up near the top in price...

[LePaul]

Post this in the hardware section of the BBS, Bloom and others can make some good suggestions.

Ignore Krusty completely since all his ideas start with "Well I heard..." and never has any means to back up his comments.