Need help specifying new system, please, before wife changes her mind!

Spinball · 11 Apr 2006 at 22:51

Hi folks,
she who must be obeyed has given me permission :rolleyes:

to buy a new PC since my current one is 18 months old.
I specifically want to upgrade because my motherboard failed last week and I can't get the second raid set to work on the replacement. But anyway.
I use the PC to run my business, so it is absolutely critical that it is quick and reliable.
I also enjoy 1st person shooters on a daily basis.
Since I've had recent problems with RAID1, I'm looking for a system which, if the processor, or motherboard, or a hard disk goes bang, I can replace the broken bit and continue with a working system with very little effort.

At the moment I have the following compiled for the spec:
AMD Athlon 64 (ADA4200BVBOX) X2 4200+ socket 939 Dual Core 2.2ghz 512kb and 512kb Cache
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI Skt939 nForce4 SLI Chipset DDR400 PCI-E USB2.0 LAN SATA Retail Box
Crucial DDR PC3200 • CL=3 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR400 • 2.6V • 128Meg x 64 (2 gig)
How does this spec sound to you?

I'm looking at the Western Digital 150 Gig SATA I Raptor Vs the WD 500 Gig SATA II which are about the same price. Which would be faster?

And lastly how would you set up this system so that if a vital component went down, I could recover? Buy two identical PCs sharing external drives which are backed up nightly?

Thanks in advance.

Spinball · 11 Apr 2006 at 23:26

thanks for your replies. I have never overclocked anything in my life and bearing in mind that the system has to be 100% stable, is it really a good idea?
Don't really want to get into the pros and cons of overclocking, but I'd rather pay for a more powerful processor and not overclock if there is any risk of instability.
Also I tend to run lots of applications simultaneously for web development, graphics processing, web browsing, FTP, Skype and such. And I play COD2 a lot.

The hard drive is a pressing issue. I'm inclined at the moment to go for the 150 Gig raptor as C: and the 500 Gig Sata II as D: and E: drives.

Spinball · 11 Apr 2006 at 23:34

Thanks. Probably going to get this for the graphics:
BFG GeForce 7900 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-018-BG)

Any advice on the other issues? Like for example what system would you use to back up the hard drives automatically every night?

Spinball · 14 Apr 2006 at 13:34

Bump - can anyone help with these questions, please?

Spinball · 14 Apr 2006 at 20:18

Thanks CrashUK.
So a couple of the 150 Gig raptors for C: - one ghosting to the other each night?
And also a couple of the 500 gig drives for D: most apps and files - again ghosting each night?
Does it matter if D: is on a network or in the box?