Spec me... AGAIN

[meghatronic]

Owing to various plan changes, spec me a good pc please.

I want a RAID 0+1 setup as I've had about half a dozen drives die on me in as many years and I'm getting fed up!

Budget is around say £1-1.5-2 and will be bought in a few months.

Main requirements are 4xHDD (raid) and a tft at 1680x1024 res. (Dell?) also possibility of adding a second (17-19") tft at a later date.... think that is all my needs. Black is the theme... would stretch to silver if everything was in silver.

Cheers,

JD

edit. Will need keyboard and optical mouse both wired and black (or silver see above), ideally.

 

[Monstermunch]

Here ya go:

MY-057-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£139.95 £139.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95 £59.95
CP-153-AM AMD Opteron UP 175 Dual Core San Diego 2.2GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-153-AM)
£319.95 £319.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
GX-047-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
£304.95 £304.95
HD-000-HI Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 NCQ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A30356) (HD-000-HI)
£31.95 £127.80
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-012-TT Thermaltake VA3000BNA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-012-TT)
£59.95 £59.95
MO-009-NE NEC MultiSync® LCD20WGX2 20.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-009-NE)
£359.95 £359.95
KB-066-LG Logitech Media Keyboard Elite - Retail (KB-066-LG)
£16.95 £16.95
KB-056-MS Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 - Retail (KB-056-MS)
£17.95 £17.95
SP-000-AE Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 Speakers (Black) - Retail (SP-000-AE)
£66.50 £66.50
Subtotal £1,595.75
VAT £279.26
Total £1,875.01

Leaves enough spare cash to upgrade HDD's to 4 x 160gb instead of the 80gb's + anthing else you can think of! New OS etc.

 

[meghatronic]

Here ya go:

MY-057-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£139.95 £139.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95 £59.95
CP-153-AM AMD Opteron UP 175 Dual Core San Diego 2.2GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-153-AM)
£319.95 £319.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
GX-047-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
£304.95 £304.95
HD-000-HI Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 NCQ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A30356) (HD-000-HI)
£31.95 £127.80
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-012-TT Thermaltake VA3000BNA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-012-TT)
£59.95 £59.95
MO-009-NE NEC MultiSync® LCD20WGX2 20.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-009-NE)
£359.95 £359.95
KB-066-LG Logitech Media Keyboard Elite - Retail (KB-066-LG)
£16.95 £16.95
KB-056-MS Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 - Retail (KB-056-MS)
£17.95 £17.95
SP-000-AE Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 Speakers (Black) - Retail (SP-000-AE)
£66.50 £66.50
Subtotal £1,595.75
VAT £279.26
Total £1,875.01

Leaves enough spare cash to upgrade HDD's to 4 x 160gb instead of the 80gb's + anthing else you can think of! New OS etc.

That looks quite good, i can drop the speakers as I have some 5.1s, so that'll mean I can get the 160 or even 250s and stay on rough budget.

 

[Jimi]

I wouldn't bother wasting money on a RAID configuration, especially with four drives. A RAID 0 configuration offers very little and in some cases, no performance increase for gaming and general home PC uses. Plus the fact that if one drive goes down, you can kiss all that data stored on both goodbye.

Here's an article I found over on AMDZone. I did see another indepth one last year, I'll try and find it.

 

[meghatronic]

I wouldn't bother wasting money on a RAID configuration, especially with four drives. A RAID 0 configuration offers very little and in some cases, no performance increase for gaming and general home PC uses. Plus the fact that if one drive goes down, you can kiss all that data stored on both goodbye.

Here's an article I found over on AMDZone. I did see another indepth one last year, I'll try and find it.

Just stick to 2 x RAID 1's then?

 

[Jimi]

To be honest, I wouldn't even use RAID. I'd just get a Western Digital Raptor and use that for Windows and all your applications (That's what I use it for) and get a Hitachi 250GB say, and use that for downloads or whatever.

 

[Monstermunch]

You're wrong about raid i'm afraid! (hey...i'm a poet and i didn't even know it!)

It is a proven fact that the SATA2 series running in raid offer considerable increases in loading and transfer times.

So a raid0+1 config will mean 4 x identical SATA2's (pref Hitachi Deskstars) are , faster, more reliable, quieter and cheaper than raptors.

 

[Jimi]

You're wrong about raid i'm afraid! (hey...i'm a poet and i didn't even know it!)

It is a proven fact that the SATA2 series running in raid offer considerable increases in loading and transfer times.

So a raid0+1 config will mean 4 x identical SATA2's (pref Hitachi Deskstars) are , faster, more reliable, quieter and cheaper than raptors.

You going to provide any links then?

It's no good saying it's a proven fact it when you offer no proof to backup your claim. If used in a server configuration then yes, I would agree. But to use RAID in an everyday gaming/home use PC is pointless.

 

[meghatronic]

You're wrong about raid i'm afraid! (hey...i'm a poet and i didn't even know it!)

It is a proven fact that the SATA2 series running in raid offer considerable increases in loading and transfer times.

So a raid0+1 config will mean 4 x identical SATA2's (pref Hitachi Deskstars) are , faster, more reliable, quieter and cheaper than raptors.

Why Hitachi's? Surely a 16mb cache drive, e.g. Western Digitals' would be better?

 

[Jimi]

I said Hitachi because I've got one and think they're a great drive and I only hear good things about them.

Here's that article I said I'd find. It's a long read, but very interesting.