Weekly Buyer's Guide: High End System - April 2004

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• Fr0zeN - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  Yeah I just hooked up raid0 on my IDE's and instead of scoring 41mb/s on Sandra, I score 55mb/s haha... I notice like no difference.
  
  Mushkin Level Ones are disappearing fast, and can't be had for that cheap anymore. As for OCZ Revision 2, OCZ has officially discontinued the product for MONTHS, you can still find 256mb sticks but 512mb sticks? In your dreams. If you're in the market for obsolete RAM, might as well auction for pc3500 level 2 mushkins off Ebay while you're at it. Looks like if you want to build this system you're on your own when it comes to RAM.

• mino - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  #10 Exactcly, New raptor is Gorgoeus, take note I DON'T like WD, but this product has no match yet, exactly as 7k400 doesnn't have :)

• Rekonn - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  #7, While raid 0 does improve performance, it's doesn't do it by 40% in general. Typical improvement is more like 10%, see
  http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=S...
  
  If you have extra $$ you're better off getting the raptor than going raid0 with two 7200rpm drives.

• mino - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  Yes, It does have.
  However:
  
  1) 3400+ should be FX-53, since next year there will be dual-core Opteron !!! Great upgrade option!
  
  2) WD 1200JB is pretty shitty drive(buggy, NOISY, slow), 1x Raptor system + 1xHitachi 7k400 400G for storage
  
  3) MSI Main ?? It is a Joke, I hope ! It's like recommending ECS to server :)
  
  And overal I mean that You should extend 4 guides systems to 5 or 6:
  
  Allways reliability is first but second is:
  1.) <$400 Low End -> price
  2.) <$800 Mid Range ->price/perf ratio
  3.) <$2000 High End ->performance, price/perf (3200+ wil suffice)
  4.) <$5000 Enthusiast ->performance (FX-53 is a MUST)
  5.) <$600 Low End overclock ->price/perf after overclock
  6.) <$1500 High End overclock ->price/perf after overclock
  
  When last 6th guide is only as an option an both 5th and 6th are now well enough represented by Overclock system guide.
  
  You will also get one week + time distance in between guides what proves to me to be pretty neccesary after some full cycles of guides since You usually doesn't have what to change.

• Tokat - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  Whoops! Sorry, i'm new to this forum stuff here! Hey everybody. I just wanted to say that I agree with the stuff about the quicker raptors, and since the recommended motherboard has SATA RAID onboard, why not make it 2xRaptors? That'd be great performance and enough space!... as for somebody talking about 2x1200JB drives in raid mode... does this mobo have IDE RAID??

• Pjotr - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  I agree with 6, dual 120 GB S-ATA drives are so cheap today, you get in general 40 % performance increase on the slowest part of your system.

• nigham - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  In my experience, getting two harddisks in a RAID array increases performance much more than say, going from a 2.8 GHz to a 3.4 GHz processor, especially for desktop applications. Why not recommend a RAID array for the "high-end" user?

• GokieKS - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  I have to second the comment about the case. For a system of this stature, a better case is very much warranted. Heck, I personally think even the Kingwin KT-424 is a better case than the K11 (I hate the acrylic front), and that's about the same price. Beyond that, I think the CoolerMasters and Silverstones are worth the increased cost. Even the SST-TJ03 Nimiz wouldn't be out of place. Sure, $270 more (much more) than what most people would spend on a case, but it's such a well-built case with great features (not that you need the Extended ATX support...) that it's warranted for a high-end system.

• TrueWisdom - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  One thing that has always shocked me is the lack of emphasis put on the hard drive, especially in this latest "High End System" guide. The Western Digital Raptor is the single fastest desktop-oriented hard drive on the market: in single-user scenarios, it is neck-and-neck (and often outperforms!) 15K U320 SCSI drives. I've built computers with a spectrum of hard drives, from 5400RPM 2MB to the Raptor itself, and as far as speed goes, it's like comparing a GeforceMX 200 to a Radeon 9800XT: the difference really is that dramatic. Not even the Special Edition WD drives can hold a candle to the Raptor, and in a high-end system, you can't ignore something like that. Furthermore, the noise difference between the 1st gen (36GB) and 2nd gen (74GB) Raptors is very noticeable. While I understand the desire to keep costs down, please realize that you are sacrificing more than "just a little" performance when you pass over the 74GB Raptor. For verification of everything I've said, go to www.storagereview.com. They have in-depth benchmarks of basically every notable hard drive released in the past 5 years, and then you'll see how badly other desktop drives are outclassed by the Raptor.

• Mackintire - Friday, April 30, 2004 - link

  I can not fathom the idea of using a Western Digital 1200JB (120G) anymore. Having experienced Seagate's 7200.7 FDB serial ATA (120G) hard drive it is plain and simply no contest. The Seagate drive is faster, quieter, more reliable, runs cooler, and has a higher sustained transfer rate.
  
  I build near 30 computers a month, and since I have switched to Seagate's hard drives with FDB I have not had a single return due to bearing noise. I had a 3 out of 10 western digital drive bearing failure rate.
  
  Mackintire