oooooo look, another PC Builder

gangsta · #1 (**permalink**) 09-06-2005, 11:25 PM

Hi people,

yes another newbie here wanting to dive into the depths of building a new PC. Now saw a post on here and all you tech heads sempt to love it so thought i would base my proposed system on that.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2200MHz) Socket 939 Dual Core Retail
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium SKT 939 SATA AUDIO FIREWIRE GLAN
OCZ (OCZ52012U-EU) MODSTREAM 520WATT ATX/ BTX & PCI EXPRESS

Also i am assuming that just about any case will fit this lot in plus later added stuff(2 hard drives, and graphics card)
Acrylic Clear ATX Case No PSU http://www.savastore.com/productinfo...4&pid=45&tid=2

At a later date i would like to add a decent graphics card, that maybe helps in the video editing side but more importantly the 3D modling side of things. What would be a nice mid range card(approx £300).

I assume that i have everything there i will need dont i? Never put a computer together before but i assume there arnt any hidden cables or extras i will be needing?

Thanks for your help chaps

Andy

irishmark · #2 (**permalink**) 09-10-2005, 12:44 AM

All that sounds great mate but i have a few comments.

Avoid the acrylic case - waste of money. They are all show. What you want is something with great cooling power. Because this machine will be working it arse off it needs to be kept nice and cool.

GFX cards - any standard card can handle Video editing. - I baought a mid range 256mb for &90 card and its fine. If you wanna do lots of 3d stuff then use the best feature of this board; SLI - The board supports dual graphics cards using SLI technology which although mainly designed for gaming, it results in an extremely stable platform from 3d work using appz such as 3D Max 2 x £150GFX cards in that machine will be smoking fast.

As i always suggest to people, another key to performance is disk speed is raiding your drives into stipred raid. if u gonna get say 1 x 80Gb disk for the OS and appz and a 250Gb disk for media then split them - get 2 x 40gb disks for OS & appz / 2 x 120Gb disks for media. If you see my signature you'll see my setup and wohoo its fast.

irishmark · #3 (**permalink**) 09-10-2005, 12:47 AM

http://www.savastore.com/productinfo...279244&pid=207

This is a much bettercase - alot bigger but allows airflow and lots of hardware & its cheaper

Dan_Jeffery · #4 (**permalink**) 12-05-2005, 11:28 AM

I would question the need for RAID. Yes, it will be faster. But do you need faster than a good modern 7200 rpm SATA HD?

The downside tpo a mirrored RAID is expense and double the risk of failure (although you should back up anyway...).

The other problem with motherboard based RAIDs is that if your motherboard dies after production of that model has ceased then you will not be able to access the data (but then again, if you have been back ing up...)

irishmark · #5 (**permalink**) 12-05-2005, 01:26 PM

The purpose of raid is performance and yes a raid set would definatley out perform a single sata HD. It should go without saying though if you are running raid then do backup. It would be utterly stupid to run a raid set with out a backup disk.

It's not essential but one of the areas it cuts on time is rendering. Also seektimes to discs are greatly improved.