Poor 1st o/c experience leads me to build dedicated o/c rig, help decide

[donimo]

it does get me an overclockable mobo with raid, sound and sli for 90 bux though...

[3.0charlie]

Originally Posted by donimo

I go the board and will re-use my p4 2.8 for now, along with its Antec smartpower 2.0 500w, hope its enough, bought it before I found this board

So it looks like it will be:

mobo: xfx 680i lt
cpu: P4 520, 2.8Ghz
ram: ocz gold 6400/crucial 8500
p/s: Antec smartpower 2.0 500w
case: nMedia HTPC 300SA
cooler: scyth katana II/mini ninja
HD: 2x250gb WD caviar se 16mb in raid, not wure which yet?
gpu: ati x800 XL w/ accelero s1

total upgrade cost $200

will get new cpu and gpu soon

With a 680i, overclock you will. But to get it stable is another story.... that's a nice setup to have some fun. Don't worry about the PSU, it should be more than enough. I wouldn't bother with those big HDDs and RAID for such a system though. 20Gb or 40Gb drives would do the trick.

[donimo]

well, if I cannibalize the p4 rig for parts the 2 drives will be just sitting there otherwise...

maybe I will buy a new cpu sooner rather than later...

[b1lk1]

Originally Posted by 3.0charlie

With a 680i, overclock you will. But to get it stable is another story.... that's a nice setup to have some fun. Don't worry about the PSU, it should be more than enough. I wouldn't bother with those big HDDs and RAID for such a system though. 20Gb or 40Gb drives would do the trick.

20 or 40GB enough???? That's ludicrous. I'd get the dual 250's and raid them myself. You'll be surprised how fast they fill up unless you only load one program at a time on your hard drive like 3.0charlie seems to do.

[3.0charlie]

There's nothing wrong using the HDDs if you have them available; if you wish to play with different OSs, you will have enough space. But I would not use RAID; it's only opening more possibilities to HDD corruption.

[3.0charlie]

Originally Posted by b1lk1

20 or 40GB enough???? That's ludicrous. I'd get the dual 250's and raid them myself. You'll be surprised how fast they fill up unless you only load one program at a time on your hard drive like 3.0charlie seems to do.

His rig is only to play with it, ie. oc'ing. My 2 rigs have 80Gb HDDs and it's way too much.

[donimo]

Well, its actually going to combine my old main rig/downstairs PC/media server with my really old HTPC.

I lost all my pics on the HP when I added a 2nd hard drive and the power supply cut out (x800+2 hard drives+2dvd burners+ 320w hp power supply), plus my recent experience with the o/c upstairs has led me to this raid idea...

I am going to keep all my pics on the upstairs PC, and will just leave it stock, it screams as it is, so no worries. Plus regular backups on an external HD.

Keep all my music and video media on this second rig and use it as my htpc, no more streaming needed, RAID for security.

Plus a neat idea I am kinda confused I never thought of before, the PC and HTPC are on opposite sides of the same wall, so I will instead just run the 2nd video output to the tv through the wall, and the moneaul wireless keyboard/trackball, and the PC can sit at the desk with the monitor and a mouse and keyboard on the other side of the wall. Plus now that my xbox 360 streams divx (and looks 10x better than the htpc did, good job on the decoder MS) I can still be watching shows while my wife plays on facebook.

I will start a new thread when I start building...

So the 680 board is finicky? what kind of things is it bad at?

[sswilson]

I'm coming a bit late to the party, but so far the only thing I can see that might be a concern is your choice of HD(s).

Keep in mind that pretty well all new motherboards come with only one IDE port so you'll only be able to use one IDE HD unless you've got a SATA CD/DVD to hook up to it.

Also keep in mind that many of the sata controllers on new boards default to IDE mode for SATA drives which can cause major hiccups when trying to use both SATA and IDE HDs on the same rig. (not all, but it pays to be forwarned so you don't spend hours (or days) trying to desnag something that cannot be fixed... :) ).

[donimo]

Originally Posted by sswilson

I'm coming a bit late to the party, but so far the only thing I can see that might be a concern is your choice of HD(s).

Keep in mind that pretty well all new motherboards come with only one IDE port so you'll only be able to use one IDE HD unless you've got a SATA CD/DVD to hook up to it.

Also keep in mind that many of the sata controllers on new boards default to IDE mode for SATA drives which can cause major hiccups when trying to use both SATA and IDE HDs on the same rig. (not all, but it pays to be forwarned so you don't spend hours (or days) trying to desnag something that cannot be fixed... :) ).

the 2 WD 250's are sata2, sorry I didnt mention that