What to choose

[Jon-E-Durex]

Hi,

Building a new PC, got some parts and I need a bit of help. I've got a

Tsunami Aluminium Silver Case with Window - No PSU
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200PT TwinX
Globalwin Sapphire Super Silent 19dBA 520W ATX Power Supply
L1910B 19" TFT Monitor
Deskstar 7K250 200GB UDMA100
Pionerr DVD Writer
Coolmaster 4, some lights, fans and shiney stuff : )
HP CD Writer
Creative sound card, 5.1 Inspire speakers and seinhiser headphones

the rest which i'm looking to upgrade is :-
Gainwood Geforce 4, k75SA Motherboard, Athlon 2400+, hd possibly

This is the point I need some help. I'm not sure where to go for a
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB
or trying to run 2 * Fujitsu MAS 36.7GB U320 suci in raid. Someone was telling me SATA drives arn't that noticable faster unles you have 4 running in RAID, is this true or would it be easier to get one or two SUCIs, if so how do I set it up in RAID. I havn't install my RAM yet but I want apps and games to run as fast as possible. First time for years I've got a bit of spare money : )Also

For mobo I was thinking SK8V and a AMD Athlon 64 FX-53, but not to sure where in the uk I can get one, tried dabs and overclockers but could see one.

And finally (going on a bit now) any suggestions on a GFX and GFX cooler would be very greatfully appriated. Thinking about Gigabyte GV-N68U256D GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI for GFX,

Anyone got any better ideas

[StormPC]

SK8V is S940. I'd go A8V and FX-53 (S939). S940 is older and requires registered RAM.

Yes it's true that SATA drives are not much faster than PATA unless you RAID 0 them. You do not need 4 however. 2 will do nicely. 4 is very fast though. Stay away from SCSI unless it's a server.

I prefer the X800 XT overall but if gaming is your primary concern the 6800 Ultra is a fantastic card, and the Gigabytes are very nice.

[Jon-E-Durex]

Been looking at the Asus AV8, think thats the route I'm gonna go. Don't think my wallet can strech to 4 sata drives (missus would killer me), going to order 2 Western Digital Raptor 74GB and run them in RAID 0, hopefully that should make my system start to work a bit better.

Not sure what to buy next ? either AV8 and fx53, or a gfx, gfx cooler and 2 hd's ?? big decisions

been using geforce's for years, thinking about changing to a Radeon but still to make up my mind.

[GingerNinja.net]

Go for the fastest AMD 64 you can get your hands on. Dabs and Scan both have the S939 FX-53 in stock, but at over £500 they are too pricey for my pocket and so I will be going for the 3500+ as it has the best "bang-per-buck".
3500+ = approx £300
3800+ = approx £450
FX-53 = approx £530

Definately go for the Asus A8V Deluxe. Get the non-WiFi version and you should be getting Revision 2 of the board which is faster/better and has the AGP/PCI locked. (Or go for the WiFi and insist on getting rev2.)

RAID 0 on your boot partition allegedly makes no real difference (maybe this only applies with the Raptors?). I've been told that if you go for a 38GB Raptor for just your windows partition and have a bigger single drive or two running as a RAID 0 array running for your Progam Files and Data partitions then this is quicker. Go for the Hitachi 7K250's as they are really nice and relatively cheap.
If you really are a mentalist with too much money, someone has suggested running 4 * 74GB Raptors in RAID 5. That is probably a bit extreme though.

GFX Card - go for the XFX GeForce 6800 Ultra if money is no object to you. TBH, you could simply for the the Galaxy Glacier 6800 GT which has the Artic 4 cooler on it and overclocks to Ultra speeds but for £100 less. Then you could put that saved dosh into better hard drives or definately getting that FX-53.

[Jon-E-Durex]

think 4 * raptors is just a tad out of my price range, whats that about £500, could buy a pc form pcworld for that much.

don't suppose anyone knows where i can get the av8 2 without wifi in uk ? the only sites i seem to find include the wifi. Have to consider if its worth raiding 2 raptors, all I want is my apps to run faster (tired of waiting for hours of aggonising loading time). Not sure if spending £250 for raiding 2 80 gb raptors is worth the money if it isn't going to speed things up, that mush.

oh well least its only three weeks to pay day

[StormPC]

2 Raptors will be crazy fast. You might get a large cheap PATA drive just for storage and use the Raptors as your main boot drives.

[skattrd]

Personally I wouldn't run raid 0, as there isn't a huge increase in speed and if one of the two drives dies then you loose everything, just a bit too risky imo, but I'm sure others would disagree.

edit: as said previously scsi is overkill for a home sytem (not to say rather expensive) but it is nice