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[DeathRider]

Hello yall, needs some view points on a few questions. I am getting ready to build a new syst to replace my aging PIII 500Mhz. I am getting ready to build a P4 1.8Ghz.

What are the view points on the following.

1. Raid IDE vs. Standard IDE

2. USB 2.0 vs. Firewire

3. SDRAM vs. DDR

4. Mother board, I was thinking of the Asus P4B533. I am an avid 3D gamer, do a lot with MP3's and digital photo editing, I need 6 PCI slots
but prefer to do without on board Audio/Video, I like the option of changing those cards as the market is always adding new and improved ones all the time.

Any tips yall.

[Nikolay]

Here is my 2 cents:

1. Standard IDE. It's much cheaper and performance gain from Raid only about 5%.

2. Nowadays you have to have both. There are cards on the market which support 2-in-1.

3. Price difference is insignificant so go DDR.

4. Asus is great, but take a look at Soyo SY-P4S Dragon Ultra.

Nikolay

[DocLotus]

Hi DeathRider;

Are you any relative to "Death Star"?

Just built my own system.  Have RAID ATA 133 (w/ two 80gig drives).  Have tried the drives as RAID 0 & as separate ATA133.  The RAID 0 is almost twice as fast as the data is coming off of both drives at the same time so each drive gets the job done in half the time.  This equals ATA 266!!  But, (there’s always a but isn’t there?) the system can’t boot from RAID, has to have at least one drive connected to drive 0 (straight ATA100).  This means that the operating system has to be on a single ATA 100 or 133 (not RAID).  Only my program & data files can be put on RAID.  I was hoping to boot the Win XP operation system from RAID 0 to get a big boost in boot up time.  But, no can do.  Bummer!

Am running a Pentium P4 at 2.2 GHz on a Gigahertz GA8I-RXP board with over clocking (runs great), & 512 MB of DDR memory at 266MHz.  The Gigahertz board has it all, runs 8 IDE drives, (4 ATA 100, 4 RAID 0 or RAID 1 at ATA 133), onboard support for 3 system fan controls, IR port, USB 2.0 (very fast), 8 total USB ports, Creative 4 channel sound, LAN port, IEE 1394 (FireWire), Sony Memory Stick, Photo memory card support & so many other things I can’t remember them all. It has 8 slots… 6 PCI, 1 AGP (both 2 & 4), & 1 special slot for a special modem.

From what I read Asus, Sanyo & others are a little behind the curve this time around. Gigabyte is getting most of the awards nowadays due to innovation. They’ve had all this since last December.  Am very happy with this board & will buy another one next time around.  

FireWire is good, but USB 2.0 is a little faster but you need them both to be covered.

I’m running a Creative Audigy Platinum sound card with IR remote control.  The sound improvement is simply outstanding.

Also have an ATI All-In-Wonder 7500 video card with TV & RF remote control (works with MJ … buy this card!!! It is simply wonderful!!!

HAVE FUN!!!

[JimH]

USB 2.0 is slightly faster now, but Firewire is going to pass it again.  I think the two are neck and neck and will be for some time.  I agree with Nikolay that both are important right now and easily done.

[DeathRider]

I have to admit that the Gigabyte is apealing for the fact that it supports USB 2.0,. and the Soyo ultra dragon looks like one bad mother.

I did some further research on the 2 and found that to date the soyo has a CNet rating of 9 and a max memory of up to 3gig. I have decided I will most likely go with the soyo. On top of this I was debating moding the case and that would work out great with the color layout of the soyo and drop a neo or black floresent tube lamp at the bottom would make the whole thing look WICKED. I am already chompin at the bit on this one. See, I only have a few more payments left on my explorer and that free's up 450.00 a month, I can realy lay into some hardware with that but at the same time I dont want to spend to much per item since the market is always coming out with something new and better so buying the most expensive is not always the best thing but buying a lot of good things is.

Thanks guys, I will still be checking this post for any further tips on any other hardware anyone might mention that is something to consider.

[cjdshaw]

I have an Asus A7V133 RAID motherboard and it would boot fine (and fast) off a RAID 0 set. BUT: be careful. I was running 2x30Gb IBM 75GXP. One failed and of course I lost all data on both drives. I later found out that the 75GXP's are notoriously unreliable. Don't keep any important data on a RAID 0 array. I now boot off a RAID 1 array with all my critical data on it and have a separate RAID 0 for scratch files and media.

[Sergio]

One bad choice you did, though... Intel.

AMD is cheaper and faster. And don't believe that compatibility nonsense that Intel tries to push. AMD runs everything that a P4 does, faster, that's the reality. And no, I don't have anything to do with AMD :-)

My next PC will be a Clawhammer, which is the codename of the 64-bit desktop processor from AMD coming around December. Besides breaking the 32-bit barrier, allowing for highly optimized 64-bit code (you'll see many programs start to come in 32-bit and 64-bit versions), a benchmark with a leaked prototype revealed that a 800Mhz Clawhammer beat a 1600Mhz P4, no optimized code, normal Windows, normal Quake 3, normal programs. Intel's philosophy is "Well, more MHz then!". But if AMD releases a 1.6 GHz Clawhammer later, I don't see Intel pulling a 3.2 GHz P4...

I'm not saying to wait for Clawhammer, but you should give AMD a look... Don't just go Intel because they're the market leader... I regret having bought this Celeron instead of a Duron, especially when I saw an equivalent Duron at a friend's house...

I'm not anti-Intel or anything, I really just get annoyed that no-one looks at the competition, they just go Intel because it's what everyone has and it's the standard... If you want the best that money can buy you have to analyse every option.

Sorry for the rant.

Sérgio

[DocLotus]

Hi DeathRider;

"On top of this I was debating moding the case and that would work out great with the color layout of the soyo and drop a neo or black floresent tube lamp at the bottom would make the whole thing look WICKED."

By “molding”, are you talking about making the case out of plastic or some other non-metallic material?

This is NOT recommended due to the high level or RF (Radio Frequency) that modern computers produce.  This can create all kinds of possible electrical interference.

[lawrence]

>I was hoping to boot the Win XP operation system from RAID 0 to get a big boost in boot up time. But, no can do. Bummer!

Why not?
First install latest Gigabyte BIOS and latest Promise Raid controller firmware.If necessary use F6 during XP install to XP to allow you to provide XP with your own Promise RAID XP drivers, when loading and installing XP.  Then XP should be all set to boot using your RAID 0.  

Another trick to get blink time boots, is if you can spare a memory slot, use a flash (M-Systems, etc) stick. Flash memory is not lost when machine is off. The flash disk emulator goes into a memory slot. Flash access times are a thousand fold better than disk!

Does your motherboard use the Promise PDC20276 chip or older PDC20265R chip?

It does not make sense (to me) NOT to be able to set up your BIOS, RAID CHIP, and XP to boot using RAID 0.  Some older firmware takes too much time searching for RAID ports, but newer firmware does make RAID XP boots faster.

http://www17.tomshardware.com/mainboard/02q1/020318/i845ddr-31.html
http://www17.tomshardware.com/mainboard/02q2/020624/i850e-11.html

[DocLotus]

Hi Lawrence;

Thanks.  I'll try your suggestions.

[DeathRider]

Ok, the subject has now come up on the AMD vs. INTEL. It got me thinking, I usualy go to CNet for reviews and such but they are extremly limited on reviews and reports on things like Processors and other add ons like sound and video cards ect.. Is there a site dedicated to reviews and benchmark testing with product comparisons that I could go to for non biased reports, not saying any one is biased here, I built an AMD K6 2 350Mhz syt years ago and personaly didnt notice any real differnce other than that the processor was a little hard for the bios and windows to recognize but that was a small issue to over come then but now I am sure that is no longer an issue. I will tell you this, I am not a rush and buy type of guy, It took me 4 months of reading reviews forwards and backwards on lots of sites like CNet before deciding which digital camera to buy. So if anyone knows of a good site to go to for any computer related testing I can go to I would appreciate it.

Thanks

[Sergio]

There are one or two such sites, although processor choice is almost a religious issue, at least for those guys.

One of the best tech review sites, although a litte Intel-wise, is Tom's Hardware Guide. They did wise up a bit after rumors started rolling, so they're better now.

Anandtech is more unbiased and also very good.

For CPU tests they're the only ones I know.

Oh, and about the K6 :-) It was AMD's second baby, nothing to do with today's processors. AMD's biggest flaw is its heat problems. Either you get good cooling or you're toast (well, the cpu, actually )

But check those two out


Sérgio

[PhatPhreddy]

Let me just throw my hat into the ring...

Firstly RAID... If using RAID for media storage I canot see where you need the additional speed however the data storage and backup issues of RAID are a godsend... If you get a RAID 5 compatible controller this has one drive in the array as dead for each array (so I understand) and these controllers often hold 8 - 12 IDE drives... I have a system that boots from one 2 GB drive and has 4 160GB maxtors in there for media storage... The simple fact that even if a drive goes down I dont have to re rip anything is worth the cost of drives...

Secondly AMD v Intel... This is one of those which is better islam or hindi type questions and rarely gets an accurate or coherant answer.. FACT Intel chipsets and processors are less prone to problems.. This comes up time and again on AVS and things like video editing or decoding of HD streams puts strains on systems to show minor problems.. They are getting better but are still not exhibiting that same perfect lock and fluidity that intel generally does... FACT AMD puts out more heat requiring more fans making for a louder system... Maybee you dont care about this but many people get real anal about this (myself included) using whisper power supplies / variable speed processor fans / Removing fans from GFX cards and replacing with passive heatsinks / lining cases with sound deadening material / istalling drive cages with isolation to silence hard drives etc... My current HTPC you can just tell its running if you put your ear to the case.... 3rdly the current P4's are extremely easy to OC.. Many people are have 1.6's run stably up and over 2.2 etc so the cost per Mhz may not be as far apart as initially percieved...

I have no problem with AMD and am perfectly happy to use what ever system makes the most sence but for anything that is doing video work intel is still prefered...

[DocLotus]

If you are comparing processors of less then 2 GHz, AMD holds up very well… it is a close race indeed.  AMD is a little better in some areas & Intel a little better in some others.

That was then, this is now…

All the magazines now agree… that AMD USED to be the fastest, but now Intel has surpassed them in the last 2 or 3 top end processors (478 package & later, 2 GHz & up).  This is mostly due to much faster items for Intel…
* Front side bus… 400 or 533 MHz.
* Memory… 266, 333 or 1066 MHz.
* Smaller land pattern on the processor (AMD is just now producing 1.3 micron processors).
* More processes per clock cycle.
* Less heat which may lead to a longer life.  A computer store owner friend of mine did a test on an AMD processor one time just to see what would happen… he removed the fan & turned on the computer.  The AMD processor ran 12 seconds then fried!!!  I don’t know about you but I don’t want to take that chance on my own processor.  I accidentally ran my 2 MHz P4 with the fan disconnected for around three minutes before I discovered the fan was disconnected.  It continued to run without any problems.  I checked the temperature & found it had only gone up about 10 degrees C.
* Plus the P4 architecture is good for up to 20 MHz (as per Intel’s web site) which bode well for the future.

I’m sure that AMD is rushing to catch up as this horse race is far from over.

The bottom line… they are both great processors.
* AMD is a great price to performance champ.
* Intel for state of the art & piece of mind.

HAVE FUN!!!

[Scronch]

>Intel for state of the art & piece of mind.

"Piece".  Is that like eating monkey brains?

[DeathRider]

I seem to have stirred up a hornets nest on the Intel vs. AMD issue, but I did do some research last night thanks to some links the other day from yall. I read the side by side comparison and it would appear that if you are strickly a gamer then the new AMD chips would be good for their faster frame rates, but from what I saw then the Intel is still the one for me due to its overall aspects. Now onto the raid issue, I checked websites from BestBuy and Procewatch and could not find raid compliant HD's. What is the price comparison to standard IDE drives. And in addition, is a SDRAM vid card compliant with a DDR Motherboard.

[DillWeed]

My 10 cents (and my apology for my rebuttals):

DR: On 1: Unless you do a lot of disk retrieval (duties best left to a server, and even better in SCSI configs), IDE RAID is a waste of coin. In reality, it does not perform significantly better, despite the claims of users and HD test apps. On #2 you need both for now, unequivocably (sp?). On # 3 I assume you mean RDRAM. IMO this is a tough one. I would lean to RDRAM for upgrade paths. The future is questionable and performance has slight edge, but the technology is darn compelling and DDRAM will bottleneck soon.

DocLotus: Why the heck doesn't it boot in RAID? I never heard such a silly thing! Hardware RAID (software, too for that matter) should handle this just fine.

cjdshaw: True, the 75GXP's have had many problems, but I would not suggest ditching the striped config for mirrored for workstation work. As always, adhere to the age old adage: Backup Often And Frequently. RAIDx won't make any difference when Mr. Virus plays a visit.

Sergio: The truth is that may applications have had compatibility issues. Why else would software companies issue AMD patches? The hardware rocks, but the compatibility doesn't. In fact (if you do vid editing, etc.) check out the Athlon MP boards for serious bang/buck ratios.

lawrence: OS boot times are not strictly a function of disk speed, and in fact have little to do with it. Intitializing hardware is what takes time.

Okay, flame me if you must!

-DW

[sekim]

DeathRider,

I don't know if you've been here, but this one does benchmarks and reviews on all the latest and greatest. Even have a 'how to assemble' page in there somewhere.

[JimH]

Dillweed,
> Intitializing hardware is what takes time.

Amen.  It's a Hardware Problem.

[lawrence]

DocLotus>"AMD is just now producing 1.3 micron processors"

You meant 0.13 microns of course.
-----
DeathRider>" I checked websites from BestBuy and Procewatch and could not find raid compliant HD's"

I do NOT think there are such animals.  ANY hard drive can be used in RAID setup.  It is how you USE the drive and NOT which drive you use, that makes it RAID.
-----------
DillWeed>"OS boot times are not strictly a function of disk speed, and in fact have little to do with it. Intitializing hardware is what takes time."

Interesting. Help me to understand this. Let's take a specific example.  Some computers can take upwards of 2 minutes to fully boot to the desktop.  Others can perhaps do his in 30 seconds.  Lets pretend a computer boots to desktop in 60 seconds.  Now let's figure out how the 60 seconds is divied up.  First, say full memory testing is NOT turned off.  Assume a 133Mhz SDRAM bus.  Assume 10 clock cyles to test each memory byte. Assume 133 MB of memory.  So I get 10 seconds to test all 133 MB.  Now many of us turn off full memory testing in BIOS, so that 10 seconds is NOT needed.  What about the rest of the 60 second boot time?  A disk can do perhaps 50 to 100 or more seeks per second.  How many seeks must a disk do during a full boot?  Conceivably you could fashion a boot process that only required one seek.  In any case the time for 50 or more seeks should be less than 1 second. So what is left?  What is happening during the rest of the 60 seconds.  Executing instructions?  In one second there are more than 100 million clock ticks.  If the average machine instruction take 10 clocks then that would be 10 million machine/assembler like instructions per second.  10 million is a lot of instructions for any human being to generate, even with the help of an inefficient C|PLS||PLS| compiler.  The 60 second boot time must consist of waiting for disk seeks, executing machine instructions, etc.  And some of this stuff can be overlapped.

The question is:  What is being done to consume 60 seconds?  A friend of mine once put an oscilloscope to the  bus, and discovered the machine writes 'Bill Gates' 40 billion times, and then erases this!!  More seriously, do you know what is really happening?

[DillWeed]

Lawrence:

Wow! That is a little heavy to follow, but I enjoyed the trip.

1. IMO, memory checking should be turned off, unless it is a server machine, but then again, why is it re-booting, and surely the machine has ECC on it anyway. This may save a few seconds, but is strictly up to the BIOS manufacturer to handle the POST, so OS or not, flash memory disk or not, these steps take time.

2. There are hundreds of processes that take place in a modern OS like Win2k/XP. Want to see a list? Hit F8 immediately at start of OS load and select normal with logging. After booted, strap on your glasses and open the bootlog.txt file in the root.

Think about what gets initialized, and think about what tasks are dependent on others. For example, you can't just load and bind the IP drivers without initializing the hardware first.

Anyway, as MS OS's have improved, so have their ability to queue and overlap boot tasks - that is why the disk seems busy during the boot. Think of all the hardware you know about:

PCI & AGP buses
Video
Sound
IDE & other storage devices, usually several
floppy disk
USB
modem
Firewire
PS/2 with mouse & keyboard
COM & LPT
Memory
etc...

Now imagine all of the devices you don't know about.

You want Plug & Play? You wait for it then. All the little devices out there have to be located. Much of this initialization is query & response based.
You want Network services? You wait for that then even longer. Some of the timeouts for these are insanely long. How about an IP address? Pack a lunch while the DHCP server gets around to it.
Would you like to print? Gotta init the port. Gotta load a print spooler. Oh, and then print drivers. Maybe even check the printer status.
You want ACPI? Sit tight for some BIOS calls.
How about some fonts? The list needs to be indexed.
It goes on...

If you really want to have a blast, and kill a good hour or so, open your System Information applet (msinfo32.exe). Look at all the hardware resources, system components, drivers, and services. Again, keep in mind that most of these are dependent on others. It is amazing it doesn't take longer to boot.

BTW, you could easily build a machine that boots very quickly. It just wouldn't be very usable or much fun, because it wouldn't have any accessories or software ready to go. There is much work done to reduce boot times - this is a huge consumer complaint (instantly available PC initiative and others). By today's standards, if it boots in around 30 secs, it is fast.

Now my biggest question is this - Why would anyone re-boot a machine anyway? With standby and hibernate modes available since Win98, you should be able to leave the machine running forever (except when it crashes). I standby my machine when I am not using it and hibernate it overnight for very fast "boot" times.

Anyway, hope that helps. Sorry so long and convoluted.

-DW

[sekim]

DeathRider,

Found a little tidbit the other day, Intel P4 2.53ghz - Under $300.00!!! Actually under $250.00!!!!!!!!!!!

This is going to make life good for me very soon. Check out motherboards.org for info on your Asus board. It's at the top of the heap right now. Or one very close to that.



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