Minimum pc for 5 box

[MiRai]

In general you want 1GB of ram for your Operating System (get a 64-bit version of Window 7).

2GB for x64

Mine (GTX 570) has two DVI ports and an HDMI port, so in theory I could run three monitors but am using two.

When you plug in an HDMI cable you deactivate one of the DVI ports. The only nVidia cards that can run 3 monitors
are dual-GPU cards. (Repeated this from the other thread solely for the purpose that not everyone reads every
thread in this forum and not because I was picking on you. )

I'll add in here my opinion on this, grab an Intel SSD and not an OCZ. I've got an Intel in mine now for over a year and had no problems, even after reformatting my laptop with it in. Many people have had problems with OCZs and some other brands as they do not hold up very well.

The rule of thumb that I currently go by is that if an SSD uses a Marvell controller then, it's probably safe; and if it
uses a SandForce controller, beware. However, OCZ just released a new line of drives that use an Indilinx controller
rather than SandForce and Intel's new 520 SSDs that were rumored to use SandForce might be using something
totally different (Anobit?).

[zer0patches]

The rule of thumb that I currently go by is that if an SSD uses a Marvell controller then, it's probably safe; and if it
uses a SandForce controller, beware. However, OCZ just released a new line of drives that use an Indilinx controller
rather than SandForce and Intel's new 520 SSDs that were rumored to use SandForce might be using something
totally different (Anobit?).

I think sandforce has gotten a bad rap from all the pr and issues with the newest drives based off sandforce. I have been using (RAID0) 4x ocz 80gb vertex 2's (sandforce) for over a year with no problems.

SSD's in general including intel and others have always battled issues with firmware bugs etc. It's not just a sandforce issue. You can avoid a lot of the compatibility issues if you do a little research before hand.

Even though the first gen sandforce drives do not support trim in raid I have yet to see a very noticeable drop in performance athough the numbers below I just benchmarked were slightly lower than a fresh install.

Originally on a fresh install with new drives I was getting writes around 950 MB/S Write and 1325 MB/S Read but honestly I can;t really tell much of a difference. =p

Small file performance for files less than 64k is supposed to be much improved on the newer chipsets but It hasn't really held back the performance that much. From post to desktop was about 14 to 18 seconds in windows 7 x64 on a new install.

I would like to upgrade to 4x vertex 3's at some point. =p

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Originally on a fresh install with new drives I was getting writes around 950 MB/S Write and 1325 MB/S Read but honestly I can;t really tell much of a difference. =p

Good lord. I really need to look into upgrading to newer drives. I've been happy with these but damn...those speeds...



And my single-drive (backup drive) in that same system:


And my normal HDDs in raid0 on the other PC (same exact system, just HDDs different):


Still much better than platter drives but nowhere near yours, especially on write speeds.