New here, looking for insight.

[SaskGoose]

Hey there, Been reading the site on and off for a few years, being that i am building soon i decide to join up, i got some money burning a hole in my pocket and i am gonna buy a new rig soon as the Phenom xII 555 comes to Canada. Just want to post my Build to see what you all think.

Win 7 64 Running on:

Phenom xII 555 BE unlocked to ghetto Quad if i can, if not will buy another. - $120ish
Noctua NF-P14 - Owned
GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5 - $200
CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W - $179 (enough?Too much?)
G.SKILL ECO 8GB 2GB x 4 @ 1600 - $254 (price recently went up $30 :()
Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EARS - $123 x2 Storage
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS - $69 x2? OS drives...? = Raid 0 no TLER
a DVD-RW - Owned


One of these cards untill i can get a 6 port 5870
ZOTAC ZT-98GEY3M-FSL GeForce 9800 GT 1GB - $116
ECS NR9800GTE-1GMU-F GeForce 9800 GT 1GB - $111


The Upgrade path would be as follows:

The 5870 6 port (Rumored to drop around fermi release) with the Green 9800gt as PhysX -$600?
1/2 SSDs 60gb-80gb with sata 6GB possibly raid 0 (this summer? Under $300 each with trim?) - $300?
Sparkle Amp if it ever comes out and does not burn things down - $199?
Possibly a sexa-core down the road - $?
May Add Blueray at some time - $150?


This is a Multipurpose PC for my Home Set to be the Storage hub until i get a proper back-end.
For Raid i plan on using the on-board controller, much to the chagrin of many from what i read.
I hope to set up 3 monitors as my main a fourth as a secondary and have my TV connected. Currently i dont game but the plan is to start after i get the 5870 (I'm looking at you Batman). I do Trans-code alot.

Sorta bothers me that TLER was removed from WD drives and they want a premium for the RE drives, at 320GB the RE is $15 more at 1TB its $70, i think that's a bit high for something the old drives did fine. I would have been happy to run them in TLER even if it killed the warranty.

I would like to start buying pieces but i sort of need most of them at once to test for DOAs

All Prices are from newegg because its easy to navigate...i will shop around before i buy.

That's it, Thanks for reading.

[martin_metal_88]

I am just wondering. Why are you putting a big video card on a big rig with a CPU like that? why don't just put a 965?? Since you can have a X4 965 for under 200$ they are worth the price. And you will be sure to have a great quad that allow you OC instead of buying a fake quad that you are not sure how it will perform. For the rest it look fait to me. You could also buy the 5870 now, if you want to use 3 monitor then you don't need a 6 port card ( and no one know if you will be able to use the 6 plug at the same time like now you can't use the 4 ). You could also only use 4GB, exept if you want to do Virtual machine 8GB is totally useless. I see no case in your build. Have you look into some already or re-using a old one?

[MarkOne]

for my part I question the 2 blues drive in raid 0 for a little more than $ 100 you are in the SSD age , just install non essential thing on another HD , anyway you will have no choice to shrink this 1,3 gb raid 0 array to may be less than 100 gb to gain performance, and don't even thing to use the rest of the array , because you will lost all the avantage of raid 0 if the head go read something in the other partion at the same time it work on the first one. And we know than Windows don't always ask for do so. The only time I will say go raid 0 will be for your game partition, but make sure you have back up and use black drive not blue one


Martin my friend it's a long time I have not see you in this section, you will notice some change

[Raserei408]

Okay, here's my input:
If you're willing to buy a second 555 if the first doesn't unlock to a quad, just get a 955 or 965 and OC from there.
Swap out the motherboard for a 790FX-GD70. They're the only 790FX board out there that's actually worth it, since it can run up to 4 cards (dual-slots even).
I typically don't recommend the HX750. Either save some dough and get the TX, or go all out and get the HX850.
Don't bother with 8GB of RAM. Get 4GB, and if you really feel like you're maxing it out all the time (unlikely) get 2 or 4 more.
The storage Caviar Greens are good, but only if you're using them only for movies, music, etc. Don't put any programs on them. SLOW! Also, make sure you set them in RAID 1; you'll lose the capacity, but your media collection will be very safe.
For the OS drives, get Caviar Blacks. They're faster, if a bit more expensive. However, I do recommend looking at some form of parity for them, since you'll be putting programs on them too. If you can add in a third for RAID 5 or back them up on your storage drives that would be best.
By the 6-port 5870 I assume you meant the one with 6 DisplayPorts on it? Here's the thing. You're not going to be able to play any games on six monitors with only a single 5870. You'll end up needing two or three at least, which defeats the purpose of the 6-port one. If you can afford a normal one now, that's my recommendation. I believe with 2 in Xfire you can do six monitors. If not, get one now, and Xfire with the 6-port one when it comes out.

Oh, and the term is "hexa-core."

[MarkOne]

Originally Posted by SaskGoose

Hey there, .

By the way Welcome to the board

[Raserei408]

Well, I would have suggested RAID 10, but I assumed 4 HDDs plus his storage ones was a bit much to ask for.

[martin_metal_88]

Originally Posted by MarkOne

Martin my friend it's a long time I have not see you in this section, you will notice some change

Haha what have change here:P And for the raid 5 if he is going to buy 3 X 1TB green then put them in raid 5 for storage security that is good but for the OS drive it's like shooting yourself in the leg with a .50 caliber. For OS and software you have 3 possibilities
1: SSD
2: 2X black edition in raid stripping
3: 1X black edition ( it give enough speed for much of us )

[Raserei408]

@Mark
First, you don't NEED an external RAID controller to run RAID 5, although it was misinformed of me to recommend it in this scenario.
That said, RAID 1 has no performance losses as compared to a single HDD, and, since it's written to at the same time as the primary HDD, it's basically as secure as it gets. In what way is a third-party software and an external disk any more reliable than a RAID 1 setup?

You can, in fact, run an Nvidia card for dedicated PhysX with an ATI card running graphics, it just requires using hacked drivers (or old drivers). It's not "legit," but it works, and it works very well.

As for the "sexa-core" joke, I understand it (I'm sixteen for god's sake) but it's incorrect. Plain and simple. The fact that you find it vaguely humorous does nothing to change that.

[MarkOne]

to saskgoose : Sorry for the mess.

You ask for feed back on your build : Here something that I think it will be the most helpfull in your case :

Visit the Storage section of the forum , you have guy especially helpfull there to ask question about storage and your PC is using a lot of them, enough to justify a tread just on that. The main problem I see with your PC, is your choice of hard drives, give a try to my idea of the storage section.

I can garanty you , that you will not have this kind of fight there. oh no , give it a try. you are well start with your build , we talk about a lot of money here, why not make sure to take the best of it.

Originally Posted by rjbarker

^^^ Boy oh boy...between the two of you guys its no wonder anyone Posts at all in this thread (its continuous bickering with you two)....to the OP....HWC is not normally like this...well in the past anyhow, don't give up on us!

ok fair enough, yes it was not like that 2 weeks ago, just a question on my lips for quite a time, do you really need half a page for your signature

[MarkOne]

Originally Posted by Raserei408;330895 That said, RAID 1 .....[B

it's basically as secure as it gets[/b]. In what way is a third-party software and an external disk any more reliable than a RAID 1 setup? ...

My main concern about raid 1, start when someone think his safe with it.