Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: SkyWolf on March 23, 2005, 06:42:07 AM
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Greetings,
Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with some of the prebuilt stuff? After spending a weekend farting around with my old machine and ending up in the EXACT same place as I started I remembered why I left IT and became a Purchasing Manager.
Interested and Looking at:
Alienware Aurora 5500 with 3500+
Vicious Assassin with 3500+ (kinda leaning towards it for dual RAID setup.
And yes... a DELL XPS GEN 4 3.2 Pentium Heat generator with crap DDR2 memory (last resort...rather have AMD Athlon 64)
All have 6800GT cards, 2 MB PC3200, and SATA HDD. Guess I'm also going Audigy 2 ZS since the cheaper one seems to sorta suck based on what I read here.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Woof
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Check this beast out too.
http://www.voodoopc.com/showroomnext.aspx?lineid=4
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My two year old Dell needs replacing so I'm in the same situation, the Dell has been very good, but am also looking at Alienware.....the thing about pre built system is there are 10,000 of them all exactly the same as yours so any conflicts have been worked out a long time ago....one off's pffft nothing but problems so that you can save a few dollars.
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Originally posted by Schaden
My two year old Dell needs replacing so I'm in the same situation, the Dell has been very good, but am also looking at Alienware.....the thing about pre built system is there are 10,000 of them all exactly the same as yours so any conflicts have been worked out a long time ago....one off's pffft nothing but problems so that you can save a few dollars.
1st off....your not saving a "few dollars"...with a higher end system your saving $500 or even a thousand dollars and often getting a much much better system.
2nd...there are fewer problems with custom built systems than even high end "rack" systems. Now this assumes you have the basic skills required to build out the system and install the OS properly. I've built 100+ and have had 100% glitch free at startup. Now I buy components that are highly regarded and work well...I've had to replace 1 MB that was faulty...other than that every system is flawless at startup.
Most "start up" problems can be traced to either poor comonents or improper installation or incompatability. Now if you want the "bundle" software or dont have the time or knowledge then buying a top end system is certainly a good way to go...but I'd say 98% of those who've built their own would never buy rack again...
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Yeah if you have a few hundred bucks to throw down the toilet, buy a prebuilt.
If you're not really careful, prebuilt systems often include nice features such as zero upgradability, tailored system drivers etc. making your life hard if you want to replace that Geforce2 in your $3000 pre-built box. :)
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I took a look at the voodoo system on the link above...it's $4700+ "spec"...
now the MB and chip are just over a 1000...
6600 GT's vary...but the "guts" of the system are about 1800 (MB, 2 6600 GT's and 1 gig of Ballistix pc4000 memory.) Case HD OS Cooling etc will push total to somewhere in the $2500 range give or take $100. Now this system has onboard sound 1 HD 1 DVD/CD reader (play only) and a 1 yr warranty....its actually a total rip off with over 2000 of profit. Since its a single drive system you could actually build out a faster box for 2000 less since a "stripped" array will out perform a single HD system of same configuration. So if you bought that box spec for $4734 I could build a box that would out benchmark it for around $2500.
If I spent a bit more and put dual 6800 ultra's in I could run rings around you and still save 1200 over your "rack box"....
The cooling system is the most complex part of the box and they dont specify what they're using...atypical zalman or waterchill kit is $275-300. You can buy complete water cooled boxes like the PC-V1000 for less than $400. So you have Guts and case with liquid cooling for $2000-2200. $100 bucks for OS, $100 for PS and $150 for SATA HD floppy and DVD and your good to go...
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Alienware is the reason I started building my own. Not to mention their outrageous prices, I had to threaten them with an on-site lawsuit to get them to honor my on-site warranty. I get far better tech support from this and other forums than the morons I talked to at Alienware.
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For not much more than you can build it yourself, these guys will custom build it for you. A few of my squadies have used them and love what they have.
http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/ (http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/)
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Originally posted by kevykev56
For not much more than you can build it yourself, these guys will custom build it for you. A few of my squadies have used them and love what they have.
http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/ (http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/)
Not bad at all, I'd certainly reccomend them over alienware or Vodoo based on what I saw on the site.
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Originally posted by kevykev56
For not much more than you can build it yourself, these guys will custom build it for you. A few of my squadies have used them and love what they have.
http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/ (http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/)
DUDE for $900 i can make a pretty bad system with all my specs i want there, and a cool ** case to boot.
that place seems pretty sweet
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THey should put up the humble approved logo.
Does seem like a bit more reasonable site then Alien or GamePC though.
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Nothing special about Alienware. They use Intel motherboards for thier Intel systems. Not sure who they use for the AMD systems.
You can get ripped off in any number of ways when it comes to computers, whether they are OEM, or built by some one off person.
However, a good aftermarket builder will generally get you a system for less than the OEM and one that is extremely upgradeable and will be less headaches down the road.
It's all about the components that go into them. OEM's cut every corner they can as they are in a serious price war for your business. Big OEM's by enough to warrant special builds from many manufacturers. These special builds are of lower quality and/or features to keep costs down.
I wouldn't touch an OEM computer, but I am lucky enough to have the knowledge to not have to touch them.
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Well... I've built 18 of them starting with a 486 and ending with PIII. I used to live computers, bleeding edge all the time, working on them all the time, working on everyone else's all the time. Ran and hosted websites, played every flight Sim I could get my hands on. Then one day I woke up and just didn't give a flying flock anymore... Like someone just flipped a light switch or something....I never wanted to see another problem or spend time trying to solve someone else's problems again. I pretty much hate it. So I bought this POS HP a couple years ago. THEN I spent all last weekend dicking around with it trying to upgrade the video card. I failed... but it reminded me of just how much I hate working on the f__kers.
So now I'm waiting on a Vicious Athlon 64 3500+ with 2 GB Ram, twin 80 MB disks in a Raid array, and a 6800GT Video Card. Screw it. At least they use standard products and no dumboscar proprietary crap. Poke me with a fork... I'm done.
Woof
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Skywolf is that a 0 or 1 array?
I learned the murphy law the hard way on my first Raid 0 at home. 2 weeks and the new hd craps out on you. 80Gb of data lost, no backup. :rolleyes:
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Yeouch.... it's a 0. I know dwazel about RAID. They said "RAID 0 stripped for performance, SATA Drives." They haven't even started it yet... so I could change it. Looks like that's ANOTHER think I shouild have researched. I thought all RAID was good RAID and beautiful thing.
Woof
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I have an OEM machine for work purposes.
It's a Fujitsu Siemens Scenic from a friend who has a computer business and I have to say it's a very well designed proprietory case and cooling system. Very nice hard drive rails and designed to be worked on by IT people. Not for games to be sure, but I think for work stuff its ok to go OEM for warranty and stability etc.
I did actually slip a 9600XT into it for some multiplayer. Have to be careful tho. PSU's not that big.
Only thing that made me roll my eyes was the discovery that they used PC 2700 in it for a 800 FSB machine. Cheapskates! For work it makes squat difference, but still...
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Said friend has no interest in gaming and wouldn't know a 9600XT from a Voodoo 3.:D I tell him it's my second childhood/midlife crisis thing.
He's a networking wizz though.
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Skywolf the prob with Raid 0 is that you cut your hd reliability to half. Either one of the hd's get busted and you lose the whole stripe.
Ah the agony when I tried to salvage the data from the half stripe with a salvage software. It saw the folders and files, listings just fine but everything corrupted. :(
Some new Intel mobos have a built in system that lets you use 2 harddrives in mixed mode - Part raid 0 and part raid 1. That way you could keep everything really important in the raid 1 part and games etc. which you can reinstall at will in the faster raid 0 part.
Raid 0 = other hd dies and you lose all data.
Raid 1 = data is saved on both disks fully, so you keep the data if other one dies. Double reliability, no performance gain compared to 1 disk.
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well, theoritically in raid 1 it can read faster because of getting the info from 2 places, but then writing is slower.
raid 5 is where the real benefits come in, striped with parity.
i have't seen a MB with native hardware raid 5 yet, but im sure they will come along
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Originally posted by Pongo
THey should put up the humble approved logo.
Does seem like a bit more reasonable site then Alien or GamePC though.
Hehe....
Still alot of mark up...but not the 100%+ the others seem to keep.
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Originally posted by Siaf__csf
Skywolf the prob with Raid 0 is that you cut your hd reliability to half. Either one of the hd's get busted and you lose the whole stripe.
Ah the agony when I tried to salvage the data from the half stripe with a salvage software. It saw the folders and files, listings just fine but everything corrupted. :(
Some new Intel mobos have a built in system that lets you use 2 harddrives in mixed mode - Part raid 0 and part raid 1. That way you could keep everything really important in the raid 1 part and games etc. which you can reinstall at will in the faster raid 0 part.
Raid 0 = other hd dies and you lose all data.
Raid 1 = data is saved on both disks fully, so you keep the data if other one dies. Double reliability, no performance gain compared to 1 disk.
When you run striping you should run a seperate HD as a backup. My two work servers are IBM netfinities and I know they run 3 set up to stripe. But if one fails you can hot swap it and it will rebuild off the other two while the system is still up...only time I ever ran a striped system at home I just put a 3rd drive in and set a system backup to it for 3am every day...
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When you run striping you should run a seperate HD as a backup. My two work servers are IBM netfinities and I know they run 3 set up to stripe. But if one fails you can hot swap it and it will rebuild off the other two while the system is still up...only time I ever ran a striped system at home I just put a 3rd drive in and set a system backup to it for 3am every day...
Thanks Humble.. I'll look into that too. Sometimes is very trying to be a dumboscar.
Woof
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running 2 drives in a stripe, to have a 3rd as a backup, it has to be the full size of the array.
ie:
2 20gb in raid 0, = 40gb, that 3rd backup drive would have to be a 40gb drive.....
if it is in a server i wouls assume it is a raid 5 with 3 drives.
thats what you seem to be explaining humble, if 1 drive fails it can be hot swapped, and the array rebuilt using the parity stripe.
at least thats the way i was taught...
i was always told raid 0 and another (4 maybe?) if one drive fails it can not be saved unless a backup of the full volume was available somewhere else (which kind of negates the usefulness of a raid array)
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Yup JB.....tis a raid 5 array...
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My understanding of striping is its a speed not backup technique....
No clue why anyone would use it otherwise...I was using two 40 gigs and happend to have a 160 gig lying around that I used as a backup.
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yeah, striping just for speed, but IIRC once the "fast" servers started having drive failures, the came up with the different recoverable ones....
i know one uses 2+ drives striped, and a last for parity. if one of the striped fails you can recover from the parity, but if the parity goes you hosed. you only have to back up the parity disk though, so it saves backup space. i think thats raid 3.
i forgot what 2 and 4 are but i think it's something like 2 spans the disks, and 4 is spanned with parity or something.
5 is the schizznit though, if you can get it.
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Also, call around your local shops and find out if they will build a custom system.
I just bought a new system last week. I specced it out myself, since I was originally intending to build it myself. Just for grins, I emailed the specs to a local computer shop who will custom build systems.
1 Black Mid Tower Case SN:2005031801
1 450W Power Supply
1 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ SN:1194027B50585
1 Asus S939 Nforce4 PCI-Ex R 1 GE SN: 51ZG041789
2 512 MEG DDR 400 PC3200 Memory SN:1823880, 1823886
1 Western Digital 200 Gig SATA Hard Drive, 8MB, 7200 RPM
SN:WCAL81593971
1 Samsung CD-RW SN:M2946GBY107079
1 Samsung DVD ROM SN:L7976RFX93920 0.00T
1 Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 128 Meg
PCI Express Video Card SN:56368471850
Plus OS, mouse, etc. I already have a monitor. All for $1500. Which was nearly the same as I would have paid with shipping to order the components and assemble it myself.
For less than $100 difference, I get full on-site tech support for one year & free replacement of parts for one year. Also, the company ran into some issues with getting the mobo to fit the original case (which according to the spec, should have worked fine) and had a problem with the DvD/RW that they recieved (bad part, it happens), but I got a DVD player and separate CDRW, plus an upgraded case for free, and I didn't have to deal with the headache of shipping parts back (more postage) and waiting for a new delivery.
All in all, I was pretty happy doing it that way. Although I think I really will build my next system, just for fun!
Cheers,
Spitter
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Check out Hypersonic-pc. I own two of there systems I have had no problems at all.
http://www.hypersonic-pc.com
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Also Falcon Northwest. http://www.falcon-nw.com/index.asp (http://www.falcon-nw.com/index.asp)
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I have had alienware system for 2.75 years now, never had an issue, system hasn't crashed once. Has ran solid from day one.
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I just got this for $1650.00 I thought it was reasonable. Especially since I don't have to frustrate the crap outta myself putting it together.
PROCESSOR AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+ operates at 2.2GHz, 1600MHz FSB, 512KB Cache
SYSTEM COLOR Jet Black
MAIN BOARD MSI K8N Neo4-F NFORCE 4 Athlon 64 2000MHz FSB DDR400 16X PCIE w/RAID
MEMORY 1024MB PC-3200 DDR 400MHz Memory (2 X 512 MB Modules)
HARD DRIVE 1 80GB S-ATA 150 7200RPM Hard Drive
HARD DRIVE 2 80GB S-ATA 150 7200RPM Hard Drive
RAID SETTING RAID 1 Mirrored Drives - For Security Purposes (SATA Drives Only)
VIDEO nVidia GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 w/PCI Express, DVI and TV Out
CD/DVD/RW 1 Internal DVD+CD Rewritable Combo Drive 16X52X32X52
CD/DVD/RW 2 None.
RECORDING SOFTWARE None or Bundled CDRW Software w/CDRW Purchase Only
SOUND Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 Retail Edition
MODEM None.
NETWORK CARD Onboard Gigabit (10/100/1000) PCI Network Card
FLOPPY DRIVE 1.44MB 3 1/2 Floppy Disk Drive
CASE Full Tower Screwless AMD/Intel Certified 500W ATX Case w/TyphoonTM Cooling System
CASE MOD "See Through" Side Window bearing Vicious Logo and Red Cold-Cathod Lighting
CASE COOLING Level 2 TyphoonTM Cooling system w/Additional 8CM Front Case Fan
KEYBOARD Internet Multimedia Keyboard
MOUSE Optical Mouse with Hardware Scrolling Button PS/2
SPEAKERS None.
PORTS 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 1 Game/Midi and 6 USB ports
MONITOR None.
OS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
SERVICE Standard 3 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty
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Actually it was $1615.00 I have a cold and I'm full of Sudafed.
Woof
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where did you end up buying?
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Vicious PC.
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well that system should be able to run most anythig for at least 2.5-3.5 years
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Many online hardware stores offer an assembly service for about $40.
Meaning you can choose the setup freely and they charge $40 and shipping for a prebuilt system. All you have to do is to install the OS (or buy that too installed.)
Raid explained (http://www.ahinc.com/raid.htm)
For $1600 that was a good deal. With european prices I just calculated that a similar setup with no installation would be around $1900. Hardware is 10-20% cheaper in US.
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Siaf,
Thanks for the RAID link. I'm now officially smarter.
Woof
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56th FG in Air Warrior????
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Me? Yeah...about a million years ago. WolfPack! You?
Woof
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Used to enjoy chasing you around in your P47, Thats all ;)
Me? Cactus Air Force. Then and Now.
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The most comaparable pricing to what I can pay with my business license discount that I have seen on here and in any place when shopping around for a new system was the Cyberpower site. I have never used one of their systems but its ridiculous what some of the companies charge you for building you a system. I do think that many especially companies like Hypersonic, Alienware, Falcon, etc... are over priced. They have some cool options and probably pay their website people a ton of money but its not worth it for the systems. Expecially when you can do the work yourself faster and cheaper than what they charge. Or for that matter get someone from this board to build you one just as cheap and put a few dollars in their pockets.