Ok... a couple of Numpty questions...

[tiggerai]

... please be nice!

Right, having just been paid and still having a bit left over, with my poor little rig all neglected for the last year (didn't want to touch it while my dissertation was on there!). I've decided to spend a small amount of money on the poor thing. (prolly last upgrade before i sell my body to be able to afford a sparkly new 64 rig )

I've already sorted the memory upgrade, but I need to re-do the hard drive and it seriously needs a new GFX.

I'm thinking of a 9800Pro (I'm not a gamer as such, but I do play the odd game) which by all accounts should let me run my 2 monitors at full res (as they can't at the moment) and should stop falling over in C&C
Is this the best card for what I need for around £100?

Now for the numpty question. My Mobo supports RAID, but i haven't the foggiest about what I need to set it all up. Suggestions for HDD's would be appreciated, I don't need terabytes of space as i'm a girl and don't download the internets offerings of pr0n every night, just would like the novelty of having it really! (and a little bit of a heads up about it!)

Thanks for your help guys *hugs*

[mike_w]

For hard drives, I always go for Seagate - I've found them reliable and relatively quiet, along with a five year warranty.

What are your current specs?

[Scarlet Infidel]

Id consider this, a Leadtek WinFast GeForce 6800 LE or have a look at the 6800 if you want to splash out a little.

[tiggerai]

I knew someone would ask!

Abit AN7
Corsair XMS 2x256 PC3200 (now being replaced with OCZ 2x512)
XP2600+
120Gb boring old hard drive (which will be used as a backup or go in the second rig)
Ti4200 64mb

oh and 2 monitors.

[Flibb]

Your rig is very similar to what I have, except I run a 9800pro. Am still playing the latest games inc battlefield 2, etc. Cheaper option on the graphics is a 9700pro if you can find one, as it has nearly the same power as the 9800pro. Somebody posted a thred about wher to get them the other day.

[Scarlet Infidel]

retekdirect stocks 9700pros albeit refurbsihed ones. Gladiator sells them too but for a high price.

[Flibb]

Yep the retek one is £45, bit or a bargain really.

[mike_w]

I wouldn't really buy anything much more powerful than a 9800 Pro - you probably wouldn't get that much of gain from X800s and 6800s due to the CPU.

[tiggerai]

Yeah, that was my reasoning for it too really... just needed something better than the Ti

Right, reccommendations on HDDS? I know Seagate are good, but what other stuff do I need to look out for?

[unrealuniverse]

a 9700pro if you can find one, as it has nearly the same power as the 9800pro

just overclock the thing and you might even go faster than than a 9800 pro.

RAID is usually only needed if you are being limited by your hard drive in games. examples are that loading times are extremely slow or you see large amounts of hard drive activity during gaming. if these 2 conditions appear then you may benefit from RAID.

its just a pity your board doesn't have 4 dimm slots as you could have put all of your ram in to make 1.25GB.

[Stewart]

Yeah, that was my reasoning for it too really... just needed something better than the Ti

Right, reccommendations on HDDS? I know Seagate are good, but what other stuff do I need to look out for?

You buy a Maxtor Diamondmax 10.

For reasons quoted on MSN.

[unrealuniverse]

Right, reccommendations on HDDS? I know Seagate are good, but what other stuff do I need to look out for?

the 5 year warentees from seagate and western digital are things to look out for, along with SATA if your board supports it.

[unrealuniverse]

You buy a Maxtor Diamondmax 10.

don't like maxtor, had probs with them for years, seagate, samsung or western digital are the best

[iranu]

I can vouch for a Retek 9700pro - been running for 18 monthss with a mild overclock. For 45 squids there a steal. It will certainly do for C&C.

160g sata drives can be had for @ £60 these days. Your choice of flavour. I can vouch for Samsung, WD and I am getting good performance from 2 Hitachis in raid 0. But tbh I don't think raid 0 is worth the effort. Load times are a bit quicker and moving large files is quicker too but thats about it.

[SHISH]

(and a little bit of a heads up about it!)

Raid is using multiple drives in parallel so the data gets split between them.
Basically with 4 channels of raid you can run 4 drives, preferably same size and raid0 will give you your data split into 4 and written to the drives hence (theoretically, not in real life) 4 times as fast. Raid 1 is mirroring in that what is written to one or two drives will also be written to one or two other drives identically for data security. You may also use JBOD which is linking 2 or more drives together (even of unequal size) to make them appear as 1 drive so, bigger or the sum of the 2 drives.
There are combinations of raid0 and raid1 and also other types such as raid5 where data is striped alternatively with a parity stripe for security and speed and requires 3 drives.
Those are the common ones. Do a google for raid if you want to get more technical as there are lots more things such as block size etc which affect raid performance and security.
So, raid0 for speed, raid1 for another drive doing a safety copy, and raid 10 (or1, 0, ) for 4 drives and a bit of both or raid5 for 3 drives which you can kill one but still rebuild your data by replacing with a new drive and doing a rebuild from the stored info on the other 2 drives parity stripes.
JBOD lets you add drives together.
Personally, now the warranty is back to normal, I use Maxtor cos their replacement service has always been fast and no quibble, not that I`ve had to use it too much.
New feature to look for is Native Command Queing and as much onboard cache as possible as these both help performance and sata can be somewhat faster and not much more expensive than the older pata/ide drives and sata2 is possibly faster still all else being equal.

[Nox]

in the real world, striping drives does not make as much difference as you would think.

Nox