New Build Advice

[Wing Commander Fowler]

No1 son has decided to buid his own "trouble"...... He's been out and picked up the box - a "Cobra" thang ATX with 10 drive bays and 420watt PSU, so that'll be the starting point if you don't mind. What he's lacking is a workable plan for selecting components to squeeze in there (my suggestion of a couple of brooding chickens didn't seem to appeal...)

Could any of you kind folks give us some suggestions as to what to go for and where to get it?

Spec wise he's completely open and his desires stretch to something capable of "doing" it with Games like the sims and various flight sims. He's already going for a 160 gig hard drive (should he go for RAID???) and after that it's a wild shot in the dark.

Could we have suggestions for starting points absolute budget £500 ish. :}

Oh I forgot to mention the box has got two variable speed cooling fans in it and flashing lights on the front and two front mounted USB2 ports hehe..... (Guess this is relevant in the selection of the mummyboard?)

[terryJones]

I bought stuff for a new machine earlier in the year.
look here (http://www.microdirect.co.uk/)
They had Radion 128Mb video cards for less than 40£ last time I looked, and a good price on AMD processors and fans.
Don't know what Richard thinks, but I think AMD give 'More Bang for the Buck'

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Wing Commander Fowler,

I am not sure what prices you would pay over there, but this is where Best Bang for the Buck would be at:

AMD Athlon64 3000+ Socket 939 90nm
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
2 x 256 PC-4000 or 2 x 512 PC-4000
Thermaltake Polo 735 Heatsink/Fan
Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb
2 x Western Digital SATA 7,200rpm Hard Drives (For RAID 0)
16x Double Layer DVD+/-RW

Put that in the case and he can take the CPU from 1.8Ghz to 2.25Ghz with that Heatsink/Fan and run the RAM at 500Mhz DDR for a great overclock and with the 7.1 Surround Sound on the Mobo along with the Radeon he would have a great comp to run a flight sim, as well as Doom3, World of WarCraft, Halflife2, etc. :ok:

Take Care,

Richard

[goates]

Richard's suggestion looks pretty good. Actually I am looking at upgrading mine to something similar. I just need the motherboard and processor. Here's hoping for some good Boxing Week sales.

Playing around with RAID 0 setups can get you much better performance. Just don't forget to back up any important data as the chance of losing everything to a hard drive failure at least doubles.

goates

[spannersatcx]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you need 2 SATA drives to set up a RAID?

I recently upgraded my kids pc, and just installed a single 120GB SATA drive, couldn't see the need for RAID.

I also installed a Radeon 9800 pro 128mb (256bit) from overclockers uk (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/9700_to_9800_Series.html), other places worth looking are planetmicro.co.uk (http://www.planetmicro.co.uk/default.asp) and novatech (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/Home.html) dabs (http://www.dabs.com/uk/home.html)

Although things have changed slightly since I upgraded (mainly CPU availability and Newer graphics cards (expensive ones)), I went for
MOB: ASUS A7N-8XE DELUXE
CPU: AMD 2800+
RAM: 512mb Kingston
VGA: Radeon 9800 pro 128mb
DVD: NEC 3500a DVD dual layer DVDR/RW

[goates]

spannersatcx,

Yep, you do need 2 drives for RAID. That's why Richard mentioned 2 Raptors, as that will give better performance than a single IDE drive.

goates

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

spannersatcx,

The whole point of RAID is to run two drives either as Striped (For Performance) or Mirrored (For Reliability).

I mentioned 7,200rpm Drives, but Raptors are even better, as goates mentioned. (Raptors are at a premium.)

With the current pricing on the WD 7,200rpm SATA Drives, it is very little to add the second HD and you get the added boost of RAID 0. (And for kids, it is something to boast about, the "Coolness Factor") ;)

Take Care,

Richard