Buying the ultimate gaming PC

[Steve B]

it will support pc2-8000 as the 8000 part is just a guarantee that the memory will run at 1Gig. This means that when u up ur FSB and overclock ur processor, the threshold on ur memory is much higher, as its rated higher

[Chedburn]

Lol doh, thanks. Do you think i should get 4GB or just 2? I don't really want to spend an extra £339 for the extra 2 GB if its not going to make a very decent change. I only have experiance with 1.5GB max. I cannot imagine what 4GB would be like. Would it help with the big MMO games with 100s of characters etc?

Thanks

[Steve B]

not particularly. I used to have a machine with 4gigs of DDR, and it didn't particularly make that much of a difference. you only really need 4 gigs if your doing alot of video editing and computationally intense software usage.

and tbh, you could always buy one, then get another one later on

[Chedburn]

Ah yes of course lol, i keep forgetting i can upgrade it later on if i need to. I will get 2GB for now

On to harddrives

I was thinking maybe just getting one harddrive (since i don't need to store alot of stuff and i have a 350gb external anyway). Im currently liking the Western Digital Raptor X 150GB S150 10,000rpm as it has 16MB buffer and 0.4ms seek time, which i think is good? It also looks pretty damn nice I was going to go for a 15k HDD however I heard that the 10k raptors can achieve the same performance.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...0&v=2#infoarea

Sorry i'm boring you, its just nice to have an opinion from someone who knows more than me. I almost bought the FX-64 remember

[Steve B]

if ur wanting to buy a 15k drive, you'll also need to buy a scsi controller. Not only are the controllers expensive. 1gig of scsi 15k is about £3.33 whereas one gig of Raptor 10k is about 1.33.

The Raptors also only utilise a sata 150 bus.

if i were you, i'd either wait for a Raptor using the Sata II bus (300mb/sec) and go for a cheaper hard drive in the meantinme, with a much higher gigabytes per pound ratio, such as the Samsung Spinpoint Sata II 250Gb model, which i have 2 of, and are incredibly quiet, or go the whole hog and buy a cheap(er) SCSI controller and a scsi hard drive. Try and keep the SCSI hard drive as small as possible, as you only really need it for a system drive

[Daz.]

The Raptor X has the same performance as the standard Raptor.

Its just got an acrylic window on the HDD.


15Krpm HDD's are SCSI if im correct? So the SATA issues raised in previous posts wouldnt be of much concern.

[Chedburn]

Oh yes, thank you for bringing SATA II to light However looking at them, they seem extremily cheap, maybe too cheap? I don't really want to get in to SCSI (didnt realise all the 15k ones were SCSI), it all just seems over complicated and expensive. The most important thing to me is reading/writing speed of the harddrive, capacity second But SCSI would be pushing it too far.

For some reason there are no 10k HDDS which use SATAII which is odd don't you think?
So I ask you, which is faster? (If you know).

the 150g SATA I Raptor 10,000 rpm?
or the Samsung spinpoint Sata II 250gb 7200 rpm one?

I was told that you really can notice the difference when you go from 7200 to 10k rpm. Maybe not?

[Steve B]

i ran a 36 gig raptor, until it blew up, and that only shed a couple of seconds off my boot time. Its also incredibly noisy, so i'd consider investing in a scythe silentbox or similar contraption for keeping it quiet. If i had the choice of a Samsung Spinpoint over a Raptor, i'd take a spinpoint

[EvilWeevil]

Im also guessing this intel cpu does not support 64 bit, does this mean I will have to buy another one when vista comes out in order to use it? Also, how long do you think this CPU will stay the best, or one of the best?

Vista isn't only 64-bit. It's 32 with available 64 versions, like XP.

[Chedburn]

Ah lol i see, well I will have a water cooler block covering the whole thing which makes it a lot quieter. But I guess you're right. Can always upgrade later If i need to. Thanks hehe.

Do you have any tips on DVD rom drives? I know liteOn is probably the best. At the moment I just use one DVD rewriter for my games and dvds. Is x16 really the fastest? There are sooo many different types I don't have much clue what to go for, do you have any advice? Speed 4tw again

At this moment, i have a DVD writer litescribe (i don't use the litescribe). But every now and then when i put a DVD in it my PC hardboots which i think is a problem with the drive, no one knows. But to be on the safe side i think I should get another DVD drive.

Thanks again

Vista isn't only 64-bit. It's 32 with available 64 versions, like XP.

Thanks for that Evil

[Steve B]

tbh there isn't really that big a difference between the drives on the market, however, i would say that you should go for a sata one just to keep cable clutter to a minimum

[Chedburn]

heh, SATA seems very rare for CD&DVD drives , infact only about 2% of them on dabs are sata.

The PX-755SA Premium is the world's fastest DVD-ReWriter to date.

That can't be bad

Plextor DVD+-R/RW 16x SATA Dual Layer Retail Version Beige includes Black Bezel
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=3Y4R





Thanks very very much for the help!!!!! I think thats about it, if anyone else has any ideas please post. Thanks again I will begin ordering the components soon, from a range of different sites most likely.

I will most likey get the following parts, either from dabs or another site.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=4585
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=4585
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=4585
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=4585
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=4585
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=4585
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...Quicklinx=4585


I will be sure to post some images of my new rig asap. Thanks

[Steve B]

good luck with the build and if uve got any q's just ask

[EvilWeevil]

I will be sure to post some images of my new rig asap. Thanks

Looking forward to seeing it. Of course, you'll probably be bored with it after a few days, and I'd be happy to take it off your hands for a small fee...PM me