Help on new computer

[baj300688]

I am thinking about getting a new computer though at the moment I am a little indecisive over what to go for. I have always bought the Compaq computers but the high price of them and low specification I am thinking of going for a nondescript computer. Which I shall be having built for me. I visited this fairly good recommended shop in Doncaster (http://www.dcs-online.biz). So my point of this new thread is that would you recommend the computer for the price or would you recommend something different for example a Dell.

Well this is the quote the man at the shop gave me:

ATX Cases - DYNAMODE MIDDLE TOWER CASE IN BLACK/SILVER, 350W PSU, “20/24 PIN” WITH SATA SUPPORT, FRONT USE/SND - £19.15

Atx Motherboards (Socket 939 Athlon 64) - ABIT "KN8 SLI", 7.0 SOUND, DDR400, GB LAN, SATA 11, ATA-133, FIREWAIRE, PCI-EXPRESS,2YR WTY - £73.19

2 * DVD WRITERS/Re_writer & Media - LG GSA-H10ABAL 16*DVDRW/RAM INTERNAL OEM IN "BLACK", "SPECIAL OFFER" - £21.62 EACH

Graphics Cards "PCI Express" - ASUS 256MB GeF 1300GS TV/DVI PCI-E, 3YR WARRANTY, RETAIL BOXED - £36.81

2 * (RUNNING TOGETHER HE SAYS SHARING THE DATA MAKE IT QUICKER AND CHEAPER THAN BUYING A 400GB HARDRIVE) Hard Drivers (Serials ATA) - MAXTOR 200GB DIAMONDMAX 10, "SATA2", "6V200E0", 8MB CACHE, 3YR WARRANTY - £49.23

Labour Charges - CHARE TO BUILD AND TEST A DCS COMPUTER SYSTEM. STD - £34.04

Memory - DDr 400 Pc3200 - CORSAIR 1GB DDR400 CL3, LIFETIME WARRANTY, RETAIL BOXED - £53.57

Operating Systems - MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP "HOME EDITION",OEM, INC SERIVCE PACK 2 - £50.17

Processor "Athlon 64" (SKT 939) - AMD ATHLON 64 X2. 3800+, INC FAN AND HEATSINK, "DUAL CORE", RETAIL BOXED WITH 3 YR WARRANTY - £186.38

In total that works out at £699.15 not bad to say i told him i was willing to spend £800

I was mainly wondering how fast my avi. files would now author and convert? and if the DVD Writer is a good one I have a HP at the moment and i am having a number of differnet problems with it or is there any you would recomend?

Thanks in advanced for any advice and one can give me it has taken me long time to save up for buying my own computer form woing weekends inbetween sixth form i just really do not want to make the wrong desigion. Thank You

[Soopafresh]

Not bad at all. Price on the dual core CPU is going to lower at the end of July, but the price he quoted you is a fair one.

Regarding the 2 drives - he's probably refering to setting you up with "RAID 0", which will speed up drive access a bit, but also opens you up to losing data if one drive dies. I'd instead ask him to set your system up with 2 volumes - Drive 1 for Windows and Applications and Drive 2 for your data.

And finally, the case could stand an upgrade. Get a better case - maybe a more powerful power supply.

Overall, sounds good

[redwudz]

The first thing that jumps out at me, if I read it right, is a single hard drive (2 hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration.) I would have a separate drive for your boot. It's debatable whether you will see much of any gain with RAID 0 for encoding, you may see some for editing video. But with RAID 0 if one drive dies (Which is not that uncommon with Maxtors ), you will lose everything, including the OS.
You definitely want a separate boot drive and a separate video/capture drive. I usually use a small 80GB for boot and a much larger drive for capture/video. That is much safer.

The second thing is the power supply. I don't really know anything about that case and the power supply it has. But you are spending a lot of money on the rest of the system. Do you really want to trust a economy PS, that, if it dies, may destroy your whole system? Make sure the PS is name brand and 350W is not really enough anyway for a PCI-E MB with SLI. I would spec a 450-500W name brand PS like Antec, Thermaltake or similar. You will be much better protected.

Better than Dell? Yes, no doubt.

You may get a lot of advice on this subject. Just filter through it. Everyone has their favorite setup. But having a system built or building your own is definitely a step in the right direction.

[jagabo]

The price of that A64 X2 3800+ will be cut nearly in half on July 24. But you won't want one then because Intel's Core 2 Duo processors will be cheaper, faster, and consume less power.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/cpu/intel-conroe-2-13-ghz.html

http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/news.php?tid=604489

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2800

Core 2 Duo and motherboard will likely be in short supply for a while though.

[CrayonEater]

First of all, a 350W power supply is very weak. I'd say 400W is a minimum these days. Modern CPUs and video cards are power-hungry, and since you are already considering putting at least two HDDs in your system - and you will no doubt add more someday - you will need the extra capacity. Also, make sure whatever case you get has enough room for expansion. You may want to add another HDD or pair, and/or perhaps a DVD-ROM or second burner. A gamer's case is usually good for that, even though most of them are FUGLY IMO. You also may wish to consider not getting a case with a door; if you have to change CDs or DVDs a lot, that'll get old real fast.

More importantly, forget RAID 0! If you do any kind of RAID, do 0+1. RAID 0 is a waste. It isn't technically a RAID; it is a performance enhancement that uses two disks and your controller card sends commands to them alternately so that while one is moving its heads around, the other is reading or writing data. RAID 1 is a mirroring technique such that every piece of data that gets written to your hard drive is actually written to both simultaneously. It's slightly slower than writing to a single HDD. RAID 0+1 is kind of the best of both worlds because writes go to both disks while reads are done alternately, so you get both a speed benefit and redundancy.

Frankly, though, with most SATA-II drives supporting NCQ, I'm not sure RAID 0 provides as much realistic performance gain as it used to. But you mobo supports RAID 0+1 so you may as well use it, since you are willing to purchase two HDDs anyway.

BTW, if you are looking specifically for AVI performance, Anandtech and, I think, Tomshardware use DiVX encoding to benchmark various CPUs and mobos. I lost the link but there is a comparison chart on one of those sites.

[KBeee]

Except raid 0 + 1 will need 4 HD's

[CrayonEater]

That's why I recommended a BIG case!

Probably a bigger issue is: Is it worth the extra cost? For some it is, at least the redundancy is. HDDs are cheap enough today. Tigerdirect has Seagate SATA-II 160Gbs on sale for $50 each w/ rebate. Chiefvalue has Seagate 300Gbs for $101 each.

Crap, now I just talked myself into buying more disks...

[baj300688]

i have been doing a bit of research on the raid you was all talking about. I think i have just about got my mind round it an i iwll tell the man in the shop that is how i want it. Thanks for the knowledge of th price drop on the A64 X2 3800+ so i will have to wait till then even though it is goin to kill me.