planning new pc - any thoughts?

[beyond-tec]

Hi :)

planning my new PC (5-boxing on one PC with 2x 22" TFTs) so I'd like to ask if I've got any "crap" in my setup which I haven't seen / don't know.


CPU:
Intel® Core 2 Quad Q6600 ('http://www.alternate.de/html/product/details.html?articleId=224279') 4x 2400 MHz
Boxed, FC-LGA4, Stepping G0, "Kentsfield"
Cache: 2x 4096 kByte
1066 MHz (Quadpumped)

Mainboard:
Asus P5E ('http://www.alternate.de/html/product/details.html?articleId=226253')
Sound, G-LAN, FW, SATAII RAID
Chipset: Intel® X38


GFX:
XFX GF8800GTX Retail, TV-Out, 2x DVI ('http://www.alternate.de/html/productDetails.html?artno=JBXXG1')
768 MB RAM
384 Bit

RAM:
GeIL DIMM 8 GB DDR2-800 Quad Kit ('http://www.alternate.de/html/product/details.html?articleId=206219')
4 x 2048 MB DIMMs
CL5 5-5-15

OS:
Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit

Harddisks:
4x Seagate ST3400620NS ('http://www.alternate.de/html/product/details.html?articleId=147273')
400 GB, 8ms, 16MB Cache, 7200 RPM
Barracuda ES, RAID-Edition, 24/7


Harddisks put together in a RAID 0 (one big disk)

+ DVD Drive, 750W Power supply and a nice Case :)



thanks in advance for any comments.

[Diamndzngunz]

lol damn. Seems like your going all out.

Also everything looks good to me. This is doable. Should be really nice.

I cannot read that site nor do I know alot about SATA. But from the looks of it. The boards only has 3 SATA ports, and your wanting 4 hard drives. I don't see how that could work. But then again I don't know much about SATA

[-silencer-]

Also, keep in mind that just because a motherboard has a certain number of SATA ports, it doesn't mean that it supports more than 2x RAID 0/1 on them. You'll want to download the motherboard manual from the manufacturer before purchasing it just to make sure. For example, my Gigabyte board has 6x internal SATA ports, but only 2x of them are available for RAID 0/1 use.

For power supplies.. I'm pretty strict about manufacturer quality, not just wattage. Stick with SeaSonic/Corsair/PC Power & Cooling, or the Enermax Galaxy series. Some Antec's use SeaSonic components (NeoHE, Trio, Earthwatts) and those models are fine. Fortron's FSP and OCZ's GameXStream (made by Fortron) lines are also good. What good is high wattage if efficiency is terrible or voltages going to your computer components aren't stable? A high-quality (not just high wattage) power supply is just as, if not more, important as having a UPS/battery backup device.

[beyond-tec]

I cannot read that site nor do I know alot about SATA. But from the looks of it. The boards only has 3 SATA ports, and your wanting 4 hard drives. I don't see how that could work. But then again I don't know much about SATAhey mate,
thanks for the input.

just for your information:
"Serial ATA Anschlüsse intern 6 x Serial ATA" (it got 6x S-ATA)


@silencer:
thanks for the infos about S-ATA Raid Systems. I'm going to check this before I buy this stuff. If the mainboard can't handle it I'm going to buy myself an Raid Controller which can do that.

And for the "question of power"..I'm going to buy Thermaltake Toughpower 750W ('http://www.alternate.de/html/product/details.html?articleId=143194')

[-silencer-]

@silencer:
thanks for the infos about S-ATA Raid Systems. I'm going to check this before I buy this stuff. If the mainboard can't handle it I'm going to buy myself an Raid Controller which can do that.

And for the "question of power"..I'm going to buy Thermaltake Toughpower 750W ('http://www.alternate.de/html/product/details.html?articleId=143194')
I'd personally go for the SeaSonic M-12 700W PSU for just about the same price, but I've heard good things about the Toughpower models. Either way, you won't be coming anyway near 700W on a Q6600 & 8800GTX, even if you do some heavy overclocking. It's a shame some of Thermaltake's lower models have given the company a somewhat flawed image as far as PSU quality. That's why I like SeaSonic - they are all of very high quality.. steady voltages out, very quiet operation, high efficiency, and long-term reliability. High-end companies like Corsair and PC Power & Cooling must like SeaSonic - most of their power supplies are just re-badged SeaSonics. :)

[Fear The Wrath]

looks good, should run well.. just make sure you get a good power supply though i have a friend who builds computers all the time and he says to make sure you get a good trusted brand cuz it will make all the difference cuz im sure you dont want it to fail on ya... that would SUCK! I just built my comp last weekend.. it has half the ram and a vid card i think that is like a step down from yours.. i just max out my fps at 50 cuz i dont need that much :P but i can easily get 150+fps each on all instances... GL! and have fun man!

[Blorton]

Honestly, I would recommend against going Raid0 on a gaming system. Yes, the benchmarks are all very sexy, etc. but those things leave out what a system like that is to live with. Even with an excellent hardware-based card like a 3ware, there are certain things that are a drawback for non-server use.

Personally, I would just go with a pair of drives and set them up as seperate devices, no raid at all. Just split your wow copies between them.

Mainly my beef with Raid-0 on a gaming system is that something as simple as a defrag isn't really possible to do "right". Whatever tool you are using to rearrange the data will have an idea of how the sectors are laid out that will not be the same as the physical disks - due to the interpretation of the raid driver. In an ideal scenario, the sequential portions of each file would be laid out in whatever stripe size is used between each device in an alternating fashion. Having that actually be the result on disk is unlikely and you will likely find that your disk system is actually spending more seek time than it would if it were utilizing the basic manufacterers read-ahead routines built into each drive that work so well in single drive mode.

Barring that, if you are hardset on going raid, do Raid1 and get yourself a 3ware card. You will see improved loading times even over Raid0, which is really what we mostly deal with in Wow anyway. Plus you'll have protection in case a drive fails. I've been running those in linux servers with really cheap drives for more than ten years without a single problem.

Hth,
Blorton

P.S. I'm running raid-0 raptors on my Wow terminal and recently messed around with loading from a cheapie 320G I use for scrap space. Zoning into new areas and such wasn't really any slower.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If you're already spending that kinda cash, I'd upgrade your PSU to a 1000w model. The 750 will run at a higher mean output than you really want to run them for extended periods of time, IMO.

[krum]

Honestly, I would recommend against going Raid0 on a gaming system. Yes, the benchmarks are all very sexy, etc. but those things leave out what a system like that is to live with. Even with an excellent hardware-based card like a 3ware, there are certain things that are a drawback for non-server use.
Totally agree. I've have a 3ware 9500S-LP4 and I've done Raid0, Raid10, and Raid5 with this card. Using Raid10 with four 250GB drives is slightly slower than using a 750GB drive connected to the motherboard. If you want fast drives I suggest spending money on 10k RPM drives instead. The advantage to Raid10 or Raid1 of course is that when a drive fails you're not immediately dead, but that does not mean that you should not be doing external backups anyway because your RAID card can fry all your drives (I've seen this happen).

My new machine will have 10k RPM drives, which I will probably NOT connect to the 3ware controller, coupled with external backup. Newer 3ware controllers may be faster than the 9500S, but I don't plan on buying another.

[-silencer-]

Ah, WoW loading times.
I use 2x Raptor 10krpm drives in RAID 0 for my C:, and a basic WD 320GB 7200rpm SATA drive for my D: drive. My main WoW install is on C:, and my 4 alt installs are on D:. Loading times between the drives is a difference of less than 10% - really not noticeable. I've had this Raptor-RAID 0 setup for nearly 4 years, so I've seen the results across a range of games over this time. In FPS style games, I'm usually the first one into a new map, but it's only by a second or two. If I were to spend the money again, I agree with the above - Just get one fast 150GB Raptor, and one large 7200rpm drive. There are better ways to spend the extra money. Two or more Raptors is simply unneeded heat being generated in your case, and extra cash out of your pocket. I'd rather step up a model videocard, or improve cooling performance for higher overclocking.

[Blorton]

While we're on the subject of load times... I've thought about picking up one of the smallish ssd drives that has just enough space to hold enough copies of wow. From what I've seen, they don't have stupendous transfer rates, but they do have amazing seek times - which ought to be worth something for Wow. worth a shot at least...