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Gaming PC (£2700)
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BillScarab wrote: »Every objective test I've seen of Raid 0 on a desktop machine has shown either no improvement in real world performance or such a tiny improvement as to be imperceptible.
Different in server environments but for most users I think it's fairly pointless. Better off going for Raid 1 for the redundancy.
For example
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101
i got asked about this a few months ago and did a simple benchmark of identical drives using everest, see here
This was done a asrock board with onboard raid 2 80gb(7200) seagates set to raid 0, another set to jbod, the graph shows marked improvement which would be enhanced further by the use of 10rpm drives.
Another example is a friend who does a fair bit of video editing on a machine i set up 3 yrs ago when sata was new so used an ide raid controller and 2 ide drives.
One ide drive broke recently and he decided to buy sata drives and whilst his board supported sat, it didn't do raid so he just has 2 x 80gb sata drives.
Rendering jobs have now doubled in time consumed from the slower ide drives in raid.click here to achieve nothing!0 -
£2700 (or £1800) isn't really worth it, I'm building one (as soon as PayPal stop being p****s and release my money, grrr) for around £550 max, including quad core. I'm using a 512MB ATI HD 4850 (best bang for buck atm), Q6600 and 4GB generic RAM. MoBo has CrossFire so when I want to upgrade graphics I don't have to chuck out my old board.
SSD isn't really worth it yet, and the exponential increase in cost is v bad value for money. RAID is even worse - very little increase in speed and double the cost, and twice the chance of a drive failing and all your data being lost! (the rhyming was a complete accident there, honest)
Another saving would be to lose Blu-Ray altogether - no games come on it and if you want to use it JUST as a gaming rig, there's no point. If you want to watch movies, I doubt you'll notice the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD on that size monitor anyway; if you're getting one in case you need it, just buy one when you do, when prices will have fallen.
Also, in true MSE style, remember to shop around and look out for offers - eg Aria (https://www.aria.co.uk) have a good deal on Q6600s atm.
PS: In a massive thread hijack, I was wondering - would it be worth upgrading my GFX to 1GB for an extra £50, or going up to a 4870 for an extra £65, or neither?"We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have been doing so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing."
- Konstantin Josef Jireček0 -
If you can stretch it, go for the 4870.0
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I could build a gaming pc for £650 which will cope with most games as well as your £2800 version.
£2800 on a gaming pc is just plain stupid.
Buy the best bang for buck components, rather than fresh just out brand new.
Q9650 is a prime example costs around £350.
The Q9450 at £170 will perform just as well, i'd go as far as saying a Q6600 at £110 would be just as good a choice!0 -
i got asked about this a few months ago and did a simple benchmark of identical drives using everest, see here
This was done a asrock board with onboard raid 2 80gb(7200) seagates set to raid 0, another set to jbod, the graph shows marked improvement which would be enhanced further by the use of 10rpm drives.
Another example is a friend who does a fair bit of video editing on a machine i set up 3 yrs ago when sata was new so used an ide raid controller and 2 ide drives.
One ide drive broke recently and he decided to buy sata drives and whilst his board supported sat, it didn't do raid so he just has 2 x 80gb sata drives.
Rendering jobs have now doubled in time consumed from the slower ide drives in raid.
For rendering video I can see it might help, but games don't spend that much time accessing the disks. Especially if you have plenty of RAM.
Mind you if the OP is going to chuck £2700 at a PC then why notIt's my problem, it's my problem
If I feel the need to hide
And it's my problem if I have no friends
And feel I want to die0 -
Well I got my pc the other week with a 24" Dell 2408wfp @ 1920x1200
3.5 Int Allin1 Reader (black)
Arctic AC-MX-2 THERMAL PASTE
Antec P182 Black Case (no PSU)
Asus P5Q Pro MoBo
Intel Q6600 Quadcore CPU (2.4ghz)(not overclocked yet)
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE SATA DVDwriter
TB SAMSUNG SATA2 HD103UJ 32MB (spinwrite)
Corsair TwinX 4GB TWIN2X4096-6400C5
Leadtek 896MB GTX260 PCI-E
CORSAIR HX 620W MODULAR PSU
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU 120mm F (heatsink and fan)
£732
Plus £400 for monitor
This system is very quiet and I play all latest games at full detail and full resolution without any problems
I have dual boot XP Pro (32 bit) and Vista ultimate 64bit0 -
Heres my build of choice £661.53 INC VAT!
£69.79 inc can be knocked off if going for the Q6600 CPU instead = £591.74!!! :money:
Asus P5Q-E iP45 Socket 775 Motherboard
GeIL 4GB PC2-6400 C5 Black Dragon (2x2GB)
750GB Seagate Barracuda SATA II
ATi Radeon HD 4870 512MB PCI-E 2.0 RET
OCZ 600W StealthXStream PSU
Antec Three Hundred Cool and Quiet Gaming Case
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz (Retail 775)
Samsung 22x SH-S223F DVD±RW SATA - Black
This would be an ideal gaming pc, with top end components, without throwing money away.0 -
Nice, should have gotten an ATI HD 4870 with the GDDR5 memory though
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It does have DDR5
"Memory type GDDR5"0 -
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