My Dream Computer

[gamehead200]

When I have the time and money to build it:

Thanks to Zxian for the part suggestions.

[puntoMX]

I would change some parts:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...acture=Gigabyte

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...acture=SAPPHIRE

The ASUS S1366 mobo is nice but the SAS part isn't needed plus the Gigabyte "Ultra Durable 3" series do perform as one of the best OCers and stable board out there.

The Sapphire card uses the short PCB design, about 3cm, making the card bend less in the PCI-E sloth and placing the voltage regulators to the back of the case (personal preference I must say) seems to stay cooler.

Other than that, nice list except or the LG DVD-RW...

[gamehead200]

Thanks for the suggestions. As for the optical drive, well, I went for the cheap one because I don't find myself burning all that many DVDs/CDs as I used to (maybe 1 or 2 per month nowadays) and I didn't want to bother looking through all of them.

[Zenskas]

Nice PC man. Maybe you should wait until the new DO stepping comes out for the core i7's. Case is sweet, mobo is sweet (but I like the gigabyte boards better ATM), and I have that hard drive which is a very good general use drive.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Zenskas

[puntoMX]

Ow yes, I forgot to say that the HD49xx cards are on their way to the shops , more performance, same price.

[James_A]

I've seen some reports that the Asus drivers for the Asus HD 4850 are unstable and that other drivers should be used. Anyone have any info on this?

[Maleko]

Personally id whack some raptors in there in RAID0 for the OS and programs. My choice anywhos.

[puntoMX]

I've seen some reports that the Asus drivers for the Asus HD 4850 are unstable and that other drivers should be used. Anyone have any info on this?

It's always better to use the new drivers directly from ATI, most companies mess around too much with the drivers or use outdated versions.

[James_A]

Thanks puntoMX.

That's what I thought -- it seems that Asus in particular has messed around a bit too much with these drivers.

As for Raptors, they have nowhere near the speed advantage that they once had. On read (but not write) speed thay are outclassed by about 50% of SSDs.

[Zxian]

As for Raptors, they have nowhere near the speed advantage that they once had. On read (but not write) speed thay are outclassed by about 50% of SSDs.

At what cost? For the same price, I could have two 300GB VelociRaptor drives in my system or an "ok" performing 128GB SSD. The Raptors will provide faster read/write operations than the SSDs, who will (obviously) take the random access time crown.

SSDs are nice in that they're quiet, have good performance, and draw very little power, but they're still terrible from a value perspective.

[Maleko]

SSDs are nice in that they're quiet, have good performance, and draw very little power, but they're still terrible from a value perspective.

Totally!

[FAT64]

I wouldn't take it too seriously, it'll be out of date in six months.

[James_A]

Well I'm not going to reprise the SSD -v- HDD argument, because that's already taken care of in the SSD, the end of HDD topic, but I'm actually on the side of HDDs for the time being.

However, continuing from what I said then, if you have a 3:1, 4:1 (or more) ratio of performance for SSDs between the fastest SSD and the slowest SSD, then comparisons are essentially meaningless unless you first specify which SSD you are talking about. For example, Samsung's SSDs are no quicker at reading (within 1% or 2%) than the 1TB SpinPoint HDD and they are actually slower at writing than the SpinPoint (by about 8% or 9%).

The point is, that the VelociRaptors are no longer way out in front whatever you compare them with. They may be only about 12% faster than a Samsung 1TB SpinPoint on reading; but they are way, way behind the Seagate Cheetah 15K.6. For writing, the VelociRaptor may be about 20% or so faster than the SpinPoint, but again, are way, way behind the Cheetah. So, why a VelociRaptor in particular? HDD design has moved on, since they came out.

Like eveything else, it's also a question of how much money you want to spend, and on this dream computer there's already $420 just for the RAM .

[CoffeeFiend]

they're still terrible from a value perspective.

From a value perspective, even velociraptors aren't too good. Price in $ USD vs Size in GB:

And like you said, the performance advantage the faster drives have is fairly minimal... Personally, I'd rather have a half dozen 1TB drives instead of 2 velociraptors. Both the SSDs and velociraptors are niche, expensive products for those who want the ultimate speed.

Anyways. I think it's too early to buy i7's still, if not just from seeing the issues they had with RAM voltages. That, and I'm certainly not going to spend $1160 for a CPU/motherboard and 6GB of RAM anytime soon. Sure, it depends on what one does with their computer. I just built a pair of new boxes for the kids (enough to do any everyday task, play 1080p H.264 video and all):

Not bad for ~$300/ea (admittedly not including the HD, for which I reused an old pair of HDs that were replaced with a new 1TB model. Edit: I seemingly also forgot the Samsung DVDRW, another $25)

Low power too: the 4850e has a 45W TDP (then uses Cool'n'Quiet, AUS AI Nap, Vista's sleep), 80plus PSU, etc. Quiet too.

Anyways. Some people want the ultimate performance, others want value... Nothing wrong with either.