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Thread ID: 102914 2009-09-06 11:25:00 Building a new PC - some clues? Lizard (2409) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
807337 2009-09-17 12:14:00 Started thinking about using 2x640GB WD Caviar Black drives in some kind of RAID setup. I don't know much about RAID, just that there are different modes, and some offer redundancy (true RAID), and some offer performance enhancement. I know it won't match SSD performance, but can anyone give me some clues about this? Do any motherboards have onboard RAID, or do you need an extra card for it? I'm going to go hunting for a moron's guide to RAID, but if any resident geniuses here want to try and explain it, I'd be grateful. :)

Don't bother. A typical user will not benefit from RAID0 running normal applications.. 		Blam (54)
807338 2009-09-17 12:26:00 Don't bother. A typical user will not benefit from RAID0 running normal applications..

I also only once used raid , had to because some idiot video-recording hardware/software providers techhelp claimed that my HD system might be the "bottleneck" (the reason for some problems) what it were not....
But the raid (raid 0) still runs on this video-recorder/editor PC , however it will not as soon as I get around to switching the hardware. 		FIAT LUX (15168)
807339 2009-10-17 07:13:00 Right, so here's an update.

I've been making use of the beta Pricespy pretty heavily, looking into different combinations, and I've started to settle on a few things. Here's how it's looking at the moment:

Intel Core i7 860 2.8GHz Box CPU (Intel Socket 1156) $466.31

Asus P7P55D Motherboard $257.57

Corsair XMS3 DHX TwinX DDR3 PC10666/1333MHz CL9 2x2GB $179.55

XFX Radeon HD5850 HDMI DisplayPort Dual-DVI 1GB Graphics card $549.00 or XFX Radeon HD4890 XXX Dual-DVI 1GB $319

Silverstone Raven RV01B-W (Black/Transparent) Case $288.53

Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W Modular PSU $195.75

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 32MB 640GB $113.85

LG GH22LS30 DVD burner $71.68

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Eng (64-bit OEM) $186.30

(These are the cheapest prices by Pricespy, but using two suppliers with parts in stock, it totals about $2400)

Here are my questions:

Is the i7 860 worth it, compared to the i5 750? As I'm building a rig for gaming and some moderate video editing, I want a fairly hefty CPU. Every review I've read suggests that the only difference between the two is clock speed and hyperthreading. What I want to know is whether the hyperthreading will ever be a factor for the kinds of things I want to do?

Which is the better option for graphics? The 4890 or the 5850? By my calculations, on a dollar for fps basis, the HD4890 is the better choice, but I want something that's going to play all current games at decent framerates at 1680x1050 (the native resolution of my current monitor, which I'll likely be keeping for at least two years), and still play most games for the next 12-18 months. I'm also considering a multi-GPU setup at that stage, so whatever card I go for now, it'll have to still be available to purchase when I make that call - will the 4890 likely be around in 12 months time?

I've gone for a WD Caviar HDD, rather than an SSD which I was considering earlier. That's based on something I read that said the SSDs suffer huge performance drops when the available space drops below 5%. This is going to happen pretty quick on an 80GB drive, so it seemed less attractive. And then I started wondering whether the performance benefits would be negated if I used an HDD for other things. For example, if I had the OS and progams and games on the SSD, but had my data files on the HDD, would the SSD lose its speed advantage when it needs to retrieve files from the HDD (in particular, say video files when editing in Premiere Elements)? If that is the case, then I can see little value in an SSD until they get large enough (at a decent pricepoint) to be able to contain all data being used by the system to avoid the bottleneck caused by the HDD. Am I wrong here?

Finally, I'm favouring the Asus P7P55D over the Asus P7P55D Deluxe on a price basis, but I'm wondering whether the extra features, like the better PCI-E specs for the deluxe model, might be worth the extra money. Any thoughts about this?

Finally, if there are any other parts on my list you think I should swap out, let me know.

Cheers 		Lizard (2409)
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