UPDATE: NEW DESKTOP COMPONENTS PURCHASED

wildhawker · #1 11-01-2009, 3:03 PM

Here's the final specs, ordered today:

1 x DVD BURNER LITE-ON | IHAS424-98 R

1 x HD 1T|WEST DIGITAL WD1002FBYS

1 x CARD READER AFT XM-35U BLACK

1 x CPU THERMPASTE|AS5-3.5G

1 x CPU COOLER NOCTUA|NH-U12P SE2

1 x CASE ANTEC|TWELVE HUNDRED BK

1 x MB MSI P55-GD80 1156

1 x PSU CORSAIR|CMPSU-750TX 750W

1 x CPU INTEL|CORE I7 860 2.8G

1 x MEM 2Gx4|CORSAIR CMD8GX3M4A1600C8

1 x XFX RADEON HD 5850 1 GB DDR5 PCI Express Card HD585AZNFC

Eric Mayer · #2 11-01-2009, 3:16 PM

Is he building this for you, or is it a pre-built system from Newegg?

Eric

wildhawker · #3 11-01-2009, 3:49 PM

I'll probably assemble it myself, but it's just components. This was his take on 3-4 years of hardware relevance.

TaxAnnihilator · #4 11-01-2009, 4:51 PM

Good deal. As for the choice of processors - good luck getting a straight answer on that. Some will tell you the 920 is overkill for home users, others will not. Same price on Newegg, the 920 is more popular...

I would personally ditch the 750gb drive and go for 2 500gb (edit: or 2 of the 750s, seeing how cheap they are!) in raid 1 for security (of course there are many options, but I like the redundancy of this setup).

Then you can get into the whole SSD for the OS! Talk about fast...

Don't forget that MS products such as Word 07 and Win7 are cheaper for students! $50 for Word, $30(?) for Win7. Just has to use school email addy to sign up.

wildhawker · #5 11-01-2009, 5:38 PM

Geesh, makes me want to just get a preconfig.

Thanks for a heads-up on the MS student pricing. $30 for Win 7 Pro and $60 for Office 2007 Ultimate.

Eric Mayer · #6 11-01-2009, 5:45 PM

I was just asking, as I'm about to buy at least one, maybe two new computers for the business. I was thinking "group buy"!!

I think it's a decent deal and saves you from having to remove all the crap-ware they load onto a built system (Dell, HP, etc).

Thanks for the info.

Eric

JDay · #7 11-01-2009, 5:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TaxAnnihilator

I would personally ditch the 750gb drive and go for 2 500gb (edit: or 2 of the 750s, seeing how cheap they are!) in raid 1 for security (of course there are many options, but I like the redundancy of this setup).

RAID is not a replacement for regular backups. You shouldn't trust your data to RAID since the drives are the same make/model and will likely fail at the same time.

JDay · #8 11-01-2009, 5:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildhawker

Geesh, makes me want to just get a preconfig.

Thanks for a heads-up on the MS student pricing. $30 for Win 7 Pro and $60 for Office 2007 Ultimate.

Free if your school is part of MSDNAA.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/default.aspx

choprzrul · #9 11-01-2009, 5:58 PM

Food for thought: I installed W7 on a P4 D system with 2GB DDR. Removed HDD that had XP installed and did a clean W7 install on a 2nd drive. I swear that W7 runs better on that old hardware than what XP does.

If W7 will run good on old hardware, why spend a bunch of $$ for today's higher end hardware?

wildhawker · #10 11-01-2009, 6:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDay

Free if your school is part of MSDNAA.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/default.aspx

Looks like hers isn't (Sonoma State). Dang.

G17GUY · #11 11-01-2009, 7:49 PM

Why nas, with a 750Gb HD and 6Gb memory just set up file sharing lol.

wildhawker · #12 11-01-2009, 8:19 PM

We don't want to keep the computers on and want to be able to grab/use files remotely but stored on the home net.

TaxAnnihilator · #13 11-01-2009, 8:30 PM

Sure that regular backups goes without saying. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. It's like saying, no need to wear a seatbelt because you have airbags, sure some people do it, but he is building a box on his own so why state the obvious.

How many actual instance of simultaneous failure you ever personally seen for a home PC when properly set up? How many have you heard of when properly set up? Each drive should be on it's own channel and you should in most situations have no problem. If you set them up on the same channel it will necessarily cause both to fail, if you do it right the odds are extremely low. Or if your comp is still showing a problem, flop the BIOS so the surviving drive can be "seen." Further, based on the information previously discussed, these drives will not be running write intensive apps.

Oh, and others have previously done the math for me:

Quote:

RAID 1 failure rate

As a trivial example, consider a RAID 1 with two identical models of a disk drive with a 5% probability that the disk would fail within three years. Provided that the failures are statistically independent, then the probability of both disks failing during the three year lifetime is

P(\mathrm{bothfail}) = \left(0.05\right)^2 = 0.0025 = 0.25\,\%.

Thus, the probability of losing all data is 0.25% if the first failed disk is never replaced. If only one of the disks fails, no data would be lost, assuming the failed disk is replaced before the second disk fails.

However, since two identical disks are used and since their usage patterns are also identical, their failures cannot be assumed to be independent. Thus, the probability of losing all data, if the first failed disk is not replaced, is considerably higher than 0.25% but still below 5%.

As a practical matter, in a well managed system the above is irrelevant because the failed hard drive will not be ignored. It will be replaced. The reliability of the overall system is determined by the probability the remaining drive will continue to operate through the repair period, that is the total time it takes to detect a failure, replace the failed hard drive, and for that drive to be rebuilt. If, for example, it takes one hour to replace the failed drive, the overall system reliability is defined by the probability the remaining drive will operate for one hour without failure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDay

RAID is not a replacement for regular backups. You shouldn't trust your data to RAID since the drives are the same make/model and will likely fail at the same time.

jarhead995 · #14 11-01-2009, 9:25 PM

very nice comp should last you quite a while

JDay · #15 11-01-2009, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TaxAnnihilator

Sure that regular backups goes without saying. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. It's like saying, no need to wear a seatbelt because you have airbags, sure some people do it, but he is building a box on his own so why state the obvious.

How many actual instance of simultaneous failure you ever personally seen for a home PC when properly set up? How many have you heard of when properly set up? Each drive should be on it's own channel and you should in most situations have no problem. If you set them up on the same channel it will necessarily cause both to fail, if you do it right the odds are extremely low. Or if your comp is still showing a problem, flop the BIOS so the surviving drive can be "seen." Further, based on the information previously discussed, these drives will not be running write intensive apps.

Oh, and others have previously done the math for me:

You don't take into account the drives are rated to last the same amount of time. This is why failure of all discs at the same time is probable. The drives will also get mechanical wear at the exact same rate. RAID is good when you need speed but to rely on it to save your data in case of a failure is foolish.

TaxAnnihilator · #16 11-01-2009, 10:26 PM

Thanks again for assuming I said not to back up... oh wait.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDay

You don't take into account the drives are rated to last the same amount of time. This is why failure of all discs at the same time is probable. The drives will also get mechanical wear at the exact same rate. RAID is good when you need speed but to rely on it to save your data in case of a failure is foolish.

locosway · #17 11-01-2009, 10:34 PM

Do not get the newest of anything. With the advances in technology and the lowering of prices it's easier to get an outdated item and to upgrade it in a year or two than to get the newest one every 3-4 years.

The NAS is a good idea, just make sure it's fault tolerant as you will be relying on this to keep your data safe. Some things like photos can't be replaced.

Also, you may want to look into two smaller monitors instead of just one large one. The benefits of having two is huge, and once you run a dual or triple display you can never go back to a single unit!!!

TaxAnnihilator · #18 11-01-2009, 10:43 PM

Multiple Monitors are the Bees Knees!

Quote:

Originally Posted by locosway

Also, you may want to look into two smaller monitors instead of just one large one. The benefits of having two is huge, and once you run a dual or triple display you can never go back to a single unit!!!

locosway · #19 11-01-2009, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TaxAnnihilator

Multiple Monitors are the Bees Knees!

TaxAnnihilator · #20 11-01-2009, 11:02 PM

SWEET!

Your wife needs this set-up for games, err, school B!

Quote:

Originally Posted by locosway

MA2 · #21 11-01-2009, 11:12 PM

Great quality brands, but I think that is a little over on the board/cpu/video/power supply if it is only for office productivity use.
Hard drives are the bottleneck these days.
I would at least go with the 10k-rpm raptor drives, would be my biggest advice.

Personally I went half that price, with 4x SSD on raid-zero

the rest is cheap, single core (yea, single core

) cpu, memory, etc.
My goal was quiet, less heat, and fast for applications.
I only use office, internet, quickbooks, photo shop...nothing really cpu or memory intensive. I don't really think I will go back to the normal hard drives...well actually I just added spinning drive to the server on raid-one

Oh, if you are wondering why I went 4 drives instead of a single SSD, with one drive there are freeze/stuttering issues, they are just cheap SSD, but with 4 drives there are no stuttering at all

Hope this help...

locosway · #22 11-01-2009, 11:14 PM

Raid 0 with 4 drives is 4 times more likely to fail than a single drive. I'd advice against raid 0 unless there was a real need for it. A single drive is enough for most people, and if they're going to use a redundant NAS then there's no reason to use raid in the desktop.

MA2 · #23 11-01-2009, 11:21 PM

I needed it

My data is backed up to my raid-1 server

locosway · #24 11-01-2009, 11:23 PM

What, no RAID 5?

wildhawker · #25 11-01-2009, 11:48 PM

You guys are way too good at this stuff.

Telperion · #26 11-02-2009, 8:30 AM

Quote:

ASUS P6T SE LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

If you go for the 870 processor, you will need a P55-based LGA 1156 board, not this one.

Quote:

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7 - Retail

WAY overspecced for your build. 380W is sufficient.

Quote:

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8 G - Retail

You should be aware that the 920 will only run your memory at DDR3-1066 speeds. Unless you are willing to experiment with memory timings I would suggest getting something cheaper specced to your processor. Also, if you go with the 870, it uses dual channel, so you will want memory in pairs, not threes.

Quote:

BFG Tech BFGE98512GTXPOCE GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

I'd suggest you compare this against the ATI 5750, a newer card in the same price range. Performance will probably be better, and you will get native DX11 support, and a modern set of connector options (HDMI + Displayport).

bombadillo · #27 11-02-2009, 8:59 AM

i7-920 for processor all the way.

froman118 · #28 11-02-2009, 9:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telperion

If you go for the 870 processor, you will need a P55-based LGA 1156 board, not this one.

WAY overspecced for your build. 380W is sufficient.

You should be aware that the 920 will only run your memory at DDR3-1066 speeds. Unless you are willing to experiment with memory timings I would suggest getting something cheaper specced to your processor. Also, if you go with the 870, it uses dual channel, so you will want memory in pairs, not threes.

I'd suggest you compare this against the ATI 5750, a newer card in the same price range. Performance will probably be better, and you will get native DX11 support, and a modern set of connector options (HDMI + Displayport).

Best advice in the thread so far. As far as power supplies go, I just buy Seasonics so I don't have to worry about getting some crappy PSU with inflated numbers.

paul0660 · #29 11-02-2009, 9:15 AM

I try to buy 2-3 year old stuff (new) for 1/3 to 1/10 the original price. Staying on the leading edge is expensive and you won't notice the difference. Having said that, Windows 7 might not support all "older" hardware and vice versa. When W7 sp2 comes out, I will start building my next comp using todays W7 compatible hardware for cheap.

If you start to download video, you will need 4x more hard drive space. What was said about 10k rpm raptor drives is true. You may be able to get by with a 74 gig if you limit it to OS, programs, and keep your My Documents folder limited to documents (no vids or pics), but the 150 gig would be safe. Remember that when a drive gets 85% full, it is FULL.

wildhawker · #30 11-02-2009, 9:16 AM

Thanks for the awesome advice. Looks like I need to spend some time at Toms Hardware to get a better idea of options and configurations.

JaMail · #31 11-02-2009, 9:18 AM

go pre-configured, saves you headaches in the long run.

costco desktop

NAS is usually for one of two reasons, simple backups with the expectation that your computer and your NAS will never break at the same time, or your NAS as your SHTF backup for multiple machines, family pics and videos and will grow over the years.

this is the 2nd one, if you do any video downloading this thing ROCKS, since you can turn off the PC and the NAS will do the downloading and the iTunes server, you can even use it to hook in security cameras. its hotswappable hard drives, 4 bays for upgrading, so you start off with a couple of 750's, then when you see something on sale at frys, you buy another one, once your at 4, you should be good for a year or two. my manager actually ripped over 100 movies to his, and watches them on his big screen in the living room off a media server..

THECUS NAS

wildhawker · #32 11-02-2009, 9:46 AM

I should note that we currently have a Dell 24" monitor, maybe grab another or keep it attached to the laptop dock and get a new one for the desktop? (Ultrasharp widescreen HD 2408WFP)

The intent of the NAS is basically a poor-man's file server.

wildhawker · #33 11-03-2009, 12:16 AM

24hours!

TaxAnnihilator · #34 11-03-2009, 9:24 AM

Well, California just passed a new law. Believing that you will engage in dangerous activities or in criminal behavior, you will now have to wait 10 days to pick up your CPU. Assuming you pass the, "Prove You Are Not A Creep" Check.