Build Critique #infiti

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Supreme [H]ardness
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Sep 20, 2002
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My 1st generation athlon64 rig finally took a shit on me after running nearly 24/7 for the past 5 years.

So I take it as a sign that it's time to build a new rig. As it stands I will probably be buying this piece by piece over the next month or two (will be completed around Christmas ;)) Should I wait for anything?

*Notes* I do plan to overclock the Q6600. I do plan on using Vista 64. I plan on gaming with this rig. Does SLI provide enough of a gaming performance increase to jump to an NVIDIA chipset? Are ATI Video Cards (and Crossfire) even worth considering?

Any and call comments and/or tips are appreciated.

CPU/Processor: Q6600 G0 Stepping (I do plan on overclocking)
Cooling: Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme + 120mm Scythe Fan
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Rev. 2.0
Memory: GeIL 4GB(2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Timing: 4-4-4-12 Voltage:1.9v-2.5v - I wanted 4gigs (and plan on going Vista64) however I've read that using 4 sticks will decrease my ability to overclock. Thoughts?
Hard Drive: 150gig 10k Raptor
Video Card: MSI 8800 Ultra (Looking for other recommendations) - is SLI worth jumping to a 680i board? ATI Crossfire?
Sound Card: AuzenTech X-Fi Prelude
Power Supply: Corsair 620w Modular - Will this support everything plus 2-3 large hard drives? Recommendations appreciated (prefer modular)
 
2x 8800 GT 512MB in SLI only cost $500 and it outperforms single GTX / Ultra by quite a lot,
it will definitely benefit crysis in vista 64. Evga's 680i board / Asus 680i are both good options.
 
SLI only makes sense for 24"+ monitors. Also, right now seems like a lousy time to drop nearly $600 on a video card. New GTS's are around the corner and judging by the 8800GT I wouldn't be suprised if the GTS's will out perform today's GTX's.
 
good point, I almost forgot about the 22"er :rolleyes: but still dropping 500+ on ultra while u get better performance with SLI for the same money, GT is still the best option. If you buy evga, you can make a gamble and step up to the new gts in the next 3 months
 
The Raptor isn't really worth the price premium anymore, since recent 7200RPM drives have become increasingly faster. If you still want to burn some cash, the Raptor's seek time can't be beat.
 
Alright, after doing some reading on video cards. Looks like my best bet will be to wait for the 8800GTS G92 1024MB that apparently comes out on December 3rd.

I'm still debating whether or not I want to move to an NVIDIA chipset for SLI. SLI is awfully appealing though.

I guess I need to do some research on SLI motherboards now, and figure out which is best/easiest to overclock the Q6600. Edit: From what reading I've done so far, the 680i boards have issues with running more than 2 gigs of RAM? If that's the case perhaps it would be better for me to just stick with 1 video card.

As for the raptor, I think I will stick with it, as you said the seek times can't be beat. My previous computer was running 2x36gig raptors in raid 0 (I'll never do THAT again :p).

Thanks for the help so far guys!

I suppose if I go with SLI, would it be a pain in the ass if I got 1 video card, and then added the 2nd later for SLI?

Also, I guess if I go SLI, I may need to look at a more powerful PSU?
 
Check out the Tt Toughpower 750W if you want modular.

No, you can add the 2nd card anytime. What size monitor do you have? If you only have a 22" monitor, SLI isn't worth it unless you plan on getting a larger monitor. As an upgrade path, just sell your old card and upgrade to a next gen card instead. The P35 boards OC quads better than the nForce 680i boards -- and they're also more stable.

Here are a few of my drives run through HDTune:

Avg Transfer Rate, Access Time: HDD info, Price
78MB/s, 08.2ms: WD Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB, $160AR
72MB/s, 15.4ms: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB, $65
65MB/s, 13.7ms: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB, $80
65MB/s, 13.2ms: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3300620AS 300GB, $60
52MB/s, 14.0ms: WD Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB, $70
112MB/s, 13.2ms: RAID0 'cuda's, 600GB total, $120 (ICH9R on P35-DS3R)

My RAID0 boots windows the fastest. I need fast sequential read/write speeds, so RAID0 helps me the most.
 
I do have a 22" monitor, I've been looking at getting a 2nd in the future, but I doubt sli will have too much benefit with that either.

I think that basically settles that part then. No sli. Sticking with the motherboard I picked out, since I'm purchasing this all piece by piece as paychecks come in, I'll just get the video card last. I'll wait for the newer 8800's come out in December.

Thanks enginurd, for pointing out the PSU. a 750w would probably be a good idea for me for future proofing things.

I think the only thing I'm still thinking about now, which I didn't include with my original post is a raid 1 array I'm planning on building.

In my current PC, I have a mish-mash about 8 hard drives of all different sizes.

I'm considering purchasing 2-4 1TB drives and setting them up in a raid 1 config. I've got an extremely large amount of well organized things on my computer which I prefer to keep.

I'm wondering if the onboard sata chip will be good enough for my needs. Or if buying a pci raid card is necessary. Keep in mind I don't want to do anything fancy. All I want is a lot of space, that is backed up so I don't magically lose it all.
 
Heh, thought you were SLI'ing two GT cards, not Ultra's... sorry. If you're not going SLI, you don't need a 750W PSU. Here are more PSU suggestions:

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showpost.php?p=1590883&postcount=193
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1460
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103
PSU FAQ: http://www.jonnyguru.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1036

If you're not going SLI, I'd go with the Corsair 620W instead. It'll be more than enough for your needs.

RAID1 isn't a backup solution. Its mainly for minimized downtime. If you accidently delete a file on one drive, it will be accidently deleted on the mirrored drive. If you get a virus on the main drive, it will also be on the mirrored drive. What RAID1 is good for is when one drive fails, you have another drive with all the same data on it, so you're up and running as quick as possible. If you want to safeguard your data more, RAID5 would be a better option, since it stores parity bits to rebuild the array if a single drive fails. I would still suggest an offline backup solution as well, like an external HDD.

Onboard RAID through the ICH chips are ok. If you want better performance and the ability to transplant the raid array into another system, get a pci-e raid card.
 
enginurd said:
What RAID1 is good for is when one drive fails, you have another drive with all the same data on it, so you're up and running as quick as possible.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I want. I've had plenty of drives fail here and there. And if I'm going to be getting 1 or 2 large drives to hold my 1-2TB of data, then I want redundancy.
 
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