Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

nudone's new pc

<< < (3/15) > >>

brotherS:
Yeah, Samsung SpinPoint HDs ARE quiet, really great!  :Thmbsup:

And do as mouser suggested, get two 19" TFT or instead one of those new great 24" DELL 2405FPW displays - I'd get one ASAP if I had the cash right now :)

nudone:
thanks mouser and fodder for those replies.

mouser, i can't fault what you say about the dual monitor setup - i've got two 19" crt monitors at the moment but i feel guilty or just too lazy to turn both on at the same time - i need to get into the habit of using both of them.

i also have a further dilema with this new pc build i'm going to do - my main 19" crt monitor is several years old but it was a high quality one when i got it and it remains that way today (good dot pitch and all that), it's better than any LCD monitor (no great achievement there really) but i'm tempted to go for one of these beasts...

Eizo Flexscan s2110w http://www.eizo.com/products/lcd/S2110W/index.asp it's a 21" widescreen monitor that is getting fantastic reviews - but the price is high, about £700. again i'm prepared to go for this but i really can't fault the 19" crt monitor i've got now. the flexscan is bigger of course but perhaps limited in other ways. i would even go so far as to buy a 15" or 17" or  even 19" LCD monitor to compliment the 21" Flexscan. Pure insanity to have dual monitors of this size maybe, but i'm sure i can find a use for such things even if i can't be bothered to use the two 19" crt monitors at the moment.

f0dder, you've certainly given me a few more things to consider. what you say about the Asus board and the way it handles raid is reasuring. the raptor drives are sata even though they are 10,000rpm - they aren't SCSI or have i missunderstood what SCSI can be, i thought you needed a SCSI card for SCSI drives(?).

the iRam thing would be nice (i've read about it elsewhere) but it's not available where i'll be shopping - 4 gigs isn't going to change the world, though, maybe when it gets into double figures.

i certainly agree with you with what you are saying about raid 0 and start up times for programs and the operating system. whilst sat in front of the computer i tend to drift from one program to another to another and then another, so i'd certainly appreciate quick loading times. loading in game levels quickly would be nice also. video i don't really know - editing videos of several layers would be easier(?).

regarding the hardware i've picked out - it's all chosen on the basis of a couple of UK computer magazines. the quality, performance and noise level all being factors i've looked into - their reviews stating how quiet things are. so, i'm confident things will be quiet - the raptor drives are noisy for sure but if i get them they'll be put inside hard cases that will dampen the noise.

i think the antec p180 case will allow me to put a couple of fans in (at least) to cool the hard drives down.

i've included a spreadsheet if anyone would like to see the specific items i'm looking at ordering.

f0dder:
the raptor drives are sata even though they are 10,000rpm - they aren't SCSI or have i missunderstood what SCSI can be, i thought you needed a SCSI card for SCSI drives(?).

--- End quote ---
They might be SATA - I've seen people talk about 10k rpm SATA drives. The lines are probably a bit blurred though, the size of 74gig sorta hints that they've "put SCSI technology in a SATA package" - so the real question is whether the SCSI interface + protocol is that much better than the SATA protocol, if the rest of the hardware is the same.

the iRam thing would be nice (i've read about it elsewhere) but it's not available where i'll be shopping - 4 gigs isn't going to change the world, though, maybe when it gets into double figures.

--- End quote ---
Not available here either. The main use of this would be an insanely fast boot drive for windows and your most used (or most heavy) apps. It should be able to max out the SATA bandwidth easily, and have VERY good seek-time. I can't remember if it's SATA-II though, 150/300 meg sure does matter, especially as one of those puppies should give you max interface speed sustained.

It does feel a bit silly to limit the card to the SATA interface though, since ram can go a lot faster than a couple hundred megabytes per second - but it's still fast, and since it shows up as a regular SATA drive it should be usable on all OSes that supports SATA drives, with no special drivers.

Will be interesting when the second generation of these cards come out, though (if planned). SATA-II speeds and support for more RAM would be nifty. Then we just need to wait for RAM prices to drop...

the raptor drives are noisy for sure but if i get them they'll be put inside hard cases that will dampen the noise.

--- End quote ---
Just be careful, most of those cases tend to build up heat as well. And I guess that a 10k rpm drive goes hotter than a 7200rpm one?

I wish I had personal experience with SCSI, so I could tell whether it's just elitistic hype, or if it realy IS that much better than IDE/SATA drives.

mouser:
scsi seems to be dying to me, am i wrong?
it seems incredibly over priced and fading fast in terms of desirability compared to the new satas.

nudone:
i'd say SCSI is dying (but i'm no expert).

the Antec p180 case has plenty of fans and is designed with compartments to help air flow so it should be okay - which defeats the point of water cooling a bit.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page