system build question

[jfenwick]

Ok, as most of you posting in this thread already know, I'm a newb to this modern day computing! The feedback is awesome so now I have another question regarding a new idea I've gotten from reading through the threads and good old wikipedea to chop my price now and upgrade later without sacrifice much at this time. How does this sound:

Rather than getting the Seagate 500GB would it be worthwhile to get the 320GB at this time then getting another 320GB next year and setting to RAID0?

Cost me $82.00 now for the 320 and $120.00 for the 500. Saves me almost $40.00 on the build now and a way to upgrade next year without tossing anything out.

RAID being a foreign language to me (I did read the pros and cons in a different thread) is it easy to set up? Of course assuming i have the expertise of a knowledgeable forum to help me along? Will the increase in performance be noticeable?

 

[veg1992]

Ok, as most of you posting in this thread already know, I'm a newb to this modern day computing! The feedback is awesome so now I have another question regarding a new idea I've gotten from reading through the threads and good old wikipedea to chop my price now and upgrade later without sacrifice much at this time. How does this sound:

Rather than getting the Seagate 500GB would it be worthwhile to get the 320GB at this time then getting another 320GB next year and setting to RAID0?

Cost me $82.00 now for the 320 and $120.00 for the 500. Saves me almost $40.00 on the build now and a way to upgrade next year without tossing anything out.

RAID being a foreign language to me (I did read the pros and cons in a different thread) is it easy to set up? Of course assuming i have the expertise of a knowledgeable forum to help me along? Will the increase in performance be noticeable?

jsut remember when u setup the raid0 array both HD"s will need to be formatted b4 hand unless ur ok with this or can use norton ghost to revert after the array is set.....

yes RAID is easy to setup

 

[jfenwick]

reformatting is not an issue

Having only read up on RAID over the last week how substantial of a gain would it be to have two seagate 320's with RAID0 vs 1 seagate 500GB? Working the math I'd be paying about $40-45 more but would have an extra 140GB and would be running RAID0 on the two HDs.

What's the negative here? Worse case scenario I chicken out and don't set up RAID0 and have two 320GB HD....set one up as an external, no worries. And in the meantime, when money is tight, I save $40 on the build buy downsizing to the 320GB as my initial HD.

Does this make sense to anyone else or are there other factors I'm missing?

 

[veg1992]

reformatting is not an issue

Having only read up on RAID over the last week how substantial of a gain would it be to have two seagate 320's with RAID0 vs 1 seagate 500GB? Working the math I'd be paying about $40-45 more but would have an extra 140GB and would be running RAID0 on the two HDs.

What's the negative here? Worse case scenario I chicken out and don't set up RAID0 and have two 320GB HD....set one up as an external, no worries. And in the meantime, when money is tight, I save $40 on the build buy downsizing to the 320GB as my initial HD.

Does this make sense to anyone else or are there other factors I'm missing?

u know about the fault issues...... um.... i say its worth the xtra cash because u get raptorx 150gig performance for cheaper, and 234% more space

 

[jfenwick]

Sounds like a plan then. At this point I use an external 80GB hard drive for sensitive and important data so very rarely do I have anything on the comp that isn't backed up and can't be replaced with a little (sometimes a lot) of work....but is replaceable.

 

[meat_helmet]

Yeh a backup is good to have, but seriously raid0 is great, ive been running 2 80gig seagatesfor 2years now withought 1 fault. HDDs these days are very reliable.

 

[jfenwick]

Ok, about half way through the parts I need to pick up....now were getting to the more serious issues, hence my next question.

I'm trying to find the best eVGA 8800 for under $400 CAN and there are these three options:

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS 500MHZ 320MB 1.6GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card (320-P2-N811-AR) - $329

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS 576MHZ 320MB 1.7GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card (320-P2-N815-AR) -$367

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS KO ACS3 PCI-E 588MHZ 320MB 1.84GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card (320-P2-N817-AR) - $399


How significant is the performance difference between the three?

 

[veg1992]

Ok, about half way through the parts I need to pick up....now were getting to the more serious issues, hence my next question.

I'm trying to find the best eVGA 8800 for under $400 CAN and there are these three options:

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS 500MHZ 320MB 1.6GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card (320-P2-N811-AR) - $329

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS 576MHZ 320MB 1.7GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card (320-P2-N815-AR) -$367

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS KO ACS3 PCI-E 588MHZ 320MB 1.84GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card (320-P2-N817-AR) - $399


How significant is the performance difference between the three?

not very, get the cheapest gts 320mb u can find, then overclock it urself instead of paying xtra

 

[jfenwick]

So is that the only difference? Same hardware but eVGA has just clocked them differently? You guys are great...saving a good chunk of cash thanks to this forum.

 

[jfenwick]

Ok, time for an OS, is there any reason why I can't just use xp pro from my previous system? I have no desire to go to Vista until it's had a year or so to "settle".

I don't know the ins and outs of 32 vs 64 bit so not sure if I should be budgeting for a new OS or just install XP pro from before. Should I be worrying about 64 bit? How do I check my current version to see if its 64 vs 32?