thinking of upgrading my 3ghz PC for a new AMD X2 spec is

 

AMD X2 4600 or 4800

BFG Geforce 7950 1GB PCI-E

asus a8n32-sli

corsair 2gb XMS 3200

160GB HD Maxtor

650w Q-tec PSU

what do you think?

 

at the moment i have never delt with 64 bit processors i have heard i need a new version of windows is this right.

there is bud .. plenty of genuine copies on ebay .. thats where i got mine .. tip bud .. try n get a Raptor hard drive as your main drive then see what ur motherboard is capable of .. top choice specs btw bud

why a raptor i have never looked at HD as something that can hinder performance, i know it can but i have always overlooked the HD

why a raptor i have never looked at HD as something that can hinder performance, i know it can but i have always overlooked the HD

i had a standard 8mb cache hd in mine n since changing to a raptor drive its loading time has been cut nearly by half .. im running same board with 4gb corsair 3500LL memory and god does it fly

HDD is the main hinderance of pc performance, the slowest link in the chain, by a LONG way, HDDs capable of about 50MB/s throughput, main memory will do over 3GB/s, cpu cache a hell of a lot faster than that.

A faster HDD will dramatically improve bootup time and loading times. However it comes at a price, shitloads of noise.

 

Looks decent but for me 160GB is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too small, i'd be looking at 400GB+

 

Looks decent but for me 160GB is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too small, i'd be looking at 400GB+

why? i dont need that much space i have only used 14GB on my current 80GB HD i went for the 160GB because it is faster than the one i have now

Thats fair enough, if thats all you need.

 

But do you play games on your PC? Lots of recent ones munch up over 10GB each.

 

If you don't play the latest ganes then why do you need such a powerful pc?

 

But do you play games on your PC? Lots of recent ones munch up over 10GB each.

 

i didnt know that :eek: usually i complete a game and delete it. i am building it for gaming as i have got behind the times in the last year

The 10,000 rpm raptors are one of the best ata drives around, raid a couple up and you've got one fast machine

If you dont get a raptor get a couple of seagate barrcudas and a mobo with an onboard raid controller, make sure they are the 8mb cache version. I have 5 of them!

Just looked at your list - If your getting an sli mobo are you going to add the second pci e card at some point? Qtec psus are crap! Pay a bit more and get a decent one as a poor psu can cause loads of problems

 

Maxtor are now owned by seagate but they are still an entry level hdd unless its a raptor. If I were you get 2 160gb 8mb barracudas and stripe them.

no pc expert by a long way but did manage to build my own pc cant remember the specs though was an amd dual core,

 

i went for a raid system 2x 300gig hard drives in a mirror arrangement so that if all data was corrupted on the one drive you always had it copied onto the other hard drive, these were sata drives btw.

 

not sure if this is any help to ya bud!!

i will get two cards. i dont know much about raid HD will it make that much differance to have two on raid i have a maxtor diamondmax 10 160GB with 8mb cache

yes, loads

 

There are various ways of using raid.

 

Basically it means using 2 or more hard drives as one for high data rates and/or fault tollerance. You can mirror two hard drives so if one fails you have a copy of everything on the other drive. You gain fault tollerance but loose space and speed. You can stripe a partition over two or more drives which gives you double the normal access speed but no fault tollerance. Raid 5 is best but expensive as is you need at least 3 drives, it does however provide speed and fault tollerance.

 

My setup is 1 80gb raptor sata2 drive which has windows on it and some backup images on a second partition. 2x 160gb 8mb drives on a 320gb raid stripe, split into about 5 partitions. 300gb external usb2 drive which is a mirror image of the stripe and the os images on the sata drive.

...or you could just buy a mac g5 and an xbox 360 like me :D lol

could i raid my maxtor 8MB

 

...or you could just buy a mac g5 and an xbox 360 like me :D lol

i have a 360 i have been looking at macs is there a mac as powerful as the spec i have put above

The new intel ones are awesome matey and the fact they have bootcamp on them now makes them an even better proposition as you can have the power of mac osx and the compatibility of windows in one box

 

Plus the price is dropping alot for the spec. Mine's a duel core 2.3 ghz g5 with 2.5 gig of ram and a 250 gig hard disk with the 23" display and i can honestly say i don't use windows any more hand on heart

Good lord, I didnt realise you had a Qtec PSU listed there. For the love of god do NOT buy one. They are utter shit, and there is a very strong chance of it blowing up and wiping out your £1000 worth of kit with it.

 

And yes, the new intel conroe cpu's are better than the X2's.

hey its all about getting a really good fast sata2 hard drive 7200rpm and a big cache whatever make that may be, good gpu and everything else seems fine. your right there is a 64bit windows: windows x64 professional which I deployed on a couple of pcs, but app support is crap and its a big buggy, stick with normal windows xp until windows vista 64bit sp4 or whatever!

I wud go for the new dual core MAC...costs about 3.5K with the bits I wanted tho...

The new intel ones are awesome matey and the fact they have bootcamp on them now makes them an even better proposition as you can have the power of mac osx and the compatibility of windows in one box

 

Plus the price is dropping alot for the spec. Mine's a duel core 2.3 ghz g5 with 2.5 gig of ram and a 250 gig hard disk with the 23" display and i can honestly say i don't use windows any more hand on heart

 

Then use Parallels Software to run XP in the virtual window...I do it on my MAC and it is way cool. Like a faster version of vmWare......

Good lord, I didnt realise you had a Qtec PSU listed there. For the love of god do NOT buy one. They are utter shit, and there is a very strong chance of it blowing up and wiping out your £1000 worth of kit with it.

 

And yes, the new intel conroe cpu's are better than the X2's.

 

i didnt know they were cr@p i have had my qtec 650w for a while i bought it when i was going to buy a geforce 256 ultra card and was going to keep it

 

hey its all about getting a really good fast sata2 hard drive 7200rpm and a big cache whatever make that may be, good gpu and everything else seems fine. your right there is a 64bit windows: windows x64 professional which I deployed on a couple of pcs, but app support is crap and its a big buggy, stick with normal windows xp until windows vista 64bit sp4 or whatever

i didnt know i could run normal windows xp on the x2 thanks.

 

thanks for all the advice guys :duffer:

Yes you can raid your maxtor no problem, your best of with matching drives so get 2. 64bit chips will run a 32bit os no problem. x64 is all good but you will struggle with apps that wont run 64bit nativly. Im sticking with xp pro for now due to compatiblity. I have always used amd chips as they are better value in my opinion.

 

As I said dont get a qtec psu as they are cheap and will end up melting your southbridge. Anything about 60quid upwards should do the job but i would be aiming even higher for an sli system as the pci e cards are hungry.

Intel are WAY WAY WAY ahead of AMD at the mo, intel is the way to go, i will go this route on my next upgrade. AMD lost the race when they cancelled their K series research.

 

dont bother with a SLI board unless u are gona go SLI which is unlikely

 

as for a PSU get a ANTEC, best money can buy by a LONG way, qtec are pants tbh

Why not go for an AMD 64 bit duel core as they seem to be both cheaper and faster then intel at the moment.

Then use Parallels Software to run XP in the virtual window...I do it on my MAC and it is way cool. Like a faster version of vmWare......

 

Damn got hold of a dodgy copy and it only runs on intel chipsets. i bought mine just before they changed :(