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Offline Wurzelmaniac

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #20 on: October 9, 2006, 05:39:55 PM »
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks) is basically a way of using multiple hard drives together.

The basic form is RAID 0 which is basically using two identical smaller drives to act as one big one.
The there's RAID 1 which simply copies all data from one identical disk to the other.
Raid 5 (I think) divides data into 'stripes' and stores the stripes on seperate disks so you increase your storage capacity AND you can recover data if one drive crashes.

There's other forms which can combine elements of these but I don;t really know much about them.
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Offline Fire Chicken

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #21 on: October 10, 2006, 06:22:57 AM »
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/115007/rb/22314482231

Is this sort of thing good/worth the money?

I also expect I'll go for AMD Athlon 64 (ADA4600BVBOX) X2 4600+ socket 939 Dual Core 2.4Ghz 512kb and 512kb Cache (I like AMD, my current processor is one ...) and 2 of these Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATA2/300 16MB Cache - OEM which gets me 100gigs extra while shaving some money off.  People also talk about RAID a lot, which I don't understand but it sounds cool (That's an opportunity for one of you techies to explain a little bit ;)).

Now all I have to do is save :)

Arg.  Why did you switch the socket.  I can not recommend that CPU.  Get an AM2 (socket940) please.

I have never seen one of them TV thingies working, but they are VERY dependant on the service in your area.  If there are good channels they are worth it.  But do you really want to watch TV on a 19' monitor?

Them hard drives look good.  like mine in RAID0.  If you can get 3 and do RAID5.  Neather will make a lot of difference unless you move big files often, but they are cool.  8)
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Offline Dux Aurelius Elysius

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #22 on: October 10, 2006, 06:12:27 PM »
Why did you switch the socket.  I can not recommend that CPU.  Get an AM2 (socket940) please.

This is me being dense, and I'll take your advice no problem but ... what difference does the 1 in socket number make?

But do you really want to watch TV on a 19' monitor?

It would be a step up from the box of a TV I'm currently with.  It would also mean I can get Freeview (Digital) channels in my room, and I'd also be able to record the TV onto my PC.  I'm not too sure but I think I'd also be able to play games consoles through it, but we'll see ...

For RAID, you need all the HDDs to be the same yes?  So I couldn't get those two, combine it with my current smaller one and label it a RAID5?
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Offline Fire Chicken

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #23 on: October 10, 2006, 10:54:03 PM »

This is me being dense, and I'll take your advice no problem but ... what difference does the 1 in socket number make?

For RAID, you need all the HDDs to be the same yes?  So I couldn't get those two, combine it with my current smaller one and label it a RAID5?

A 1 in socket number makes all the difference in the world.  It means a different CPU, Mobo and RAM.  You want AM2 with  a nice CPU (Athlon 64 4200 Dual Core 2.2GHz 512kb L2 cache AM2 940 pin),  Mobo (MSI K9N SLI Platinum nForce 570 SLi Socket AM2 PCI-E DDR2) and DDR2 Ram (Kingston Value Ram 1GB 533MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL4 DIMM).

For RAID all the disks must be the same.  If you get 2 then RAID0 is fine, 3 or 5 then you can do Raid5.  Raid0 stripes both drives together to make 1 slightly faster big drive but you loose all info if 1 fails.  Raid 1 stripes 2 together to make 1 much faster but smaller (size of 1) drive that is very safe.  Raid 5 is 1 or more pairs of drives striped in a big fast pairing with the 3rd drive acting as safety.  Raid JABOD is: just a bunch of disks.  It sounds good but is not much help.

Try the TV thing, it sounds good. Let us know.
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Offline Dux Aurelius Elysius

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #24 on: October 11, 2006, 11:07:49 AM »
I'm very tempted to go for RAID5, but may settle on a RAID0.  Is it as simple as just plugging in both HDs?

As for SLI ... Crimbo is coming up so I may be tempted to splash for a second graphics card, or a more powerful one.  Can I just buy the same card a second time, plug that in and be good to go?

Club 3d Zap TV 2202 is probably the TV card I'm looking at currently.
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Offline Midnight Walker

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #25 on: October 11, 2006, 11:16:34 AM »
Yes. In fact it must be the same card if you want it to work in SLI. Although I believe you need to link the 2 cards together inside the box. I don't use SLI however, so I'm sure another of our number can explain that process to you (although I imagine it's no more complex than bunging a wire on from one card to the next)

EDIT: Also, Socket AM2 is new, Socket 939 is old. That's it in a nutshell and should be all the info you really need ;)
« Last Edit: October 11, 2006, 11:24:49 AM by Midnight Walker »
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Offline Wurzelmaniac

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #26 on: October 11, 2006, 01:40:43 PM »
SLi is meant to be dead simple to set up. To be honest though, a powerful single graphics card will do you better. A 7900GS or GTO (depending how much cash you actually have, there's a pretty large difference between the two) would give you a lot of graphics power for a decent price (being as they are both slightly downclocked versions of the 7900GT and GTX respectively with massive price drops from the original)
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Offline Dux Aurelius Elysius

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #27 on: October 11, 2006, 04:24:55 PM »
Hmmm ... the problem is there seems to be few graphics cards that claim to be quiet ...  Are they generally a source of noise, or is it generally fine to shop for ones that don't make an effort to be quiet without it creating a loud system?
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Offline Midnight Walker

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #28 on: October 11, 2006, 04:38:28 PM »
I don't find them to be especially noisy. If you're using your PC to play games, which it seems like you want to do, then you won't really notice it. If you're sitting on the other side of the room watching TV, and it's on in the background, you might notice it. It's hardly earsplitting though, so I don't really find it to be a problem, but it's all up to personal preference.
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Offline Wurzelmaniac

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #29 on: October 11, 2006, 06:51:30 PM »
Depends on the card. 'silent' by graphics standards means 25 decibels or so. If you've got music and game sound effects running and your fan slows down when it isn;t needed (depends on the exact card unfortunately) then you should be OK.
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Offline Fire Chicken

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #30 on: October 11, 2006, 10:37:44 PM »
I still suggest waiting till the DirectX 10 cards are out (in a month or 2), then getting the best 1 card you can. 1 card usually beats 2 $/$.

If your going to buy 1 good card now then its a whole new ball game, with many new things to concider.
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Offline Dux Aurelius Elysius

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #31 on: October 12, 2006, 09:41:03 AM »
Hmm.  I'll buy the Graphics card after crimbo then, when I'll have some more money knocking around that I can spend on it.  My current one ought to suffice for the time being, and I'll have bought all the other parts within 3 months, so that'll give me a little extra time to pick out the most suitable.
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Offline Dux Aurelius Elysius

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #32 on: January 26, 2007, 07:28:00 PM »
[Shameless bump]

Righto.  I've just received my bumper Christmas paycheque.  I'm soon to buy the last of the bits and bobs that I need, but before I do I just want to double check something:

Considering that initially I'll be using my current ATI, but once I have the funds intend to switch to a more up to date NVidia, possibly SLi tandem, is this still an ideal MoBo for the processor I'll be getting?

MoBo
Processor

I'm leaning towards this
« Last Edit: January 26, 2007, 07:58:15 PM by Falhandir »
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Offline Wurzelmaniac

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #33 on: January 26, 2007, 07:50:31 PM »
Personally I'd try for a P965 chipset motherboard (well, In my dreams it'd be an RD600 but they cost about 200 quid :P) but if you can;t find one from a good manufacturer in your price range that should do OK.

Dual graphic-card solutions are rarely much cop compared to a single card so the chipset matters little. The P945 probably can;t handle dual-graphics anyway.
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Offline Dux Aurelius Elysius

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Re: Upgrading PC?
« Reply #34 on: January 26, 2007, 08:17:55 PM »
Order placed.  I went with the second (more expensive D:) one.
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