Building the Ulitimate (VISTA Experience)

[alexsabree]

I don't care how much money you have... spending over $2000 dollars on a complete build is totally not worth it.

In one year computers can change ever so drastically so it is even better to spend $1500 on one computer build then spend another $1500 in 3 years or so and be able to play games on ultra ultra high and still have the "ultimate computer" throughout those 6 years.... spending 3 grand on one computer is just a waste and in the computer world its not really that smart..

I spent $1500 on the computer i just built, and i betcha with $3000 dollars you would get barely any more performance than what i have.

 

[Nitestick]

Re: Thank you both so very much

For this RAID to work I believe you would have to do RAID 0 + 1 OR RAID 1 + 0 Either ways will work. Cant tell you the difference between either ones.

no that won't work. for basically every RAID level to work properly (if at all) same capacity drives are required (identical drives preferred). the two pairs could each be put in a RAID 0 array.

 

[veg1992]

3,000 budget? totally unneccesary, at the point ur above 2,000$ ur practiacally overkilling and killing the price/performance ratio, stay under 1800, and u should be fine:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - $308.00 (no need for quad-core, u can oc this to outmatch the QX6700 at its most oc'ed speed
Motherboard: Gigabyte DS3 - $94.99
Memory: G Skill 2x1GB DDR2-800 - $144.00
Video Card: eVGA 8800GTS 320MB - $304.99
Hard Drive: Western Digital 400GB - $99.99 (forget Raptor X's they are too pricey for the storage u are only getting, put this i raid 0 but u need another one drive, remember identical or same capacity)
Optical Drive: LG 18X DVD+/RW - $29.99
Monitor: HannsG 19" LCD - $174.99
Keyboard: Logitech Media Elite - $23.99 (feel free to add the G5 or the G15 and prepare to remove 48.98 and add $116.99)
Mouse: Microsoft B7G 5-Buttons - $24.99
Speakers: Logitech X-230 - $40.99
Power Supply: Antec TruePower 650W - $109.99
Case: Antec 900 - $119.99

Total Comes to: $1476.89 (w/o shipping)
(If u take the g15 and g5 $1544.90 w/o shipping)
(If u decide to use ur old Dell Keyboard and Mouse ur total is $1427.91)

 

[Meithan]

Re: Thank you both so very much

I'm not sure what linear rigime is.

Never mind that. It was my (complicated) way to say that spending $3k in a computer is overkill, and you won't be really getting as much juice from your system as you think. A $3k computer is not twice as "good" as a $1.5k computer; it's just twice as fancy.

How would this work?
Hard Drive 1: 2 x Raptor 74GB - $319.98
Hard Drive 2: 2 x WD 500GB - $279.98
What type of RAID would this be?

Oh, those four hard drives were intended to be on two separate RAID0 arrays. The small 74GB Raptors are very fast hard drives (that's why they cost so much). So you'd put your Operating System (windows, for instance) and all applications in this RAID0 array. This would boost up the general speed of the computer. The other two hard drives would be put in RAID0 to "merge" them and have a large 1TB storage drive.

Also between the two setups you built for me. Which one would have the best potential for future upgrades. (Or are you saying within the next 3 years upgrading would even be necessary because the tech out at that time will be so radically different.)

Exactly. If you have $3k, you'd be better off spending $1.5k now and $1.5k in 2-3 years to upgrade. A $1.5k computer you buy in three years will beat the crap out of a $3k computer you buy today. It's called Moore's Law.

 

[alexsabree]

Here's what wiki said about Moore's Law:
Moore's Law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

its actually quite interesting

 

[Meithan]

Yup, Moore's Law is interesting, specially since it's turned out to hold true 40 years after the guy announced it.

For those who don't know it, it roughly states that the complexity and power of computers doubles every 2 years. That's not the actual formulation, but you could say it's a result of it.

 

[saywhat5959]

Thanks again to everyone who helped me with this. You all agree that 3K is way overboard. I'll take that as a sign to save my money. BTW where do I find these items? (newegg?) Also once I get them all then what? am I missing anything? a Raid controller? Also, a lot of you have stated that I can upgrade again in three years. What do you mean? upgrade the pc I just built or start all over again?

 

[BennyV04988]

build for the sake of the apps/games. Never build for the sake of the future, never build for the sake of having the best.

 

[veg1992]

nice principle benny!! ur right though, build for ur fun in mind, but apparently pcmag and extremetech don't follow ur principle, they always have future in their mind..................

 

[spartan1121]

Basically here's how to put it. I bought the computer in my sig for around 1400 last fall, and for 1500 only a few months later you can have one that is better in every category than mine.