Thread: Preparing to build a PC - need YOUR help.

I promise you guys... there is a bigg diff when you have a sound card... It lessens the load on your CPU which may give you extra fps... It sounds a lot better than onboard sound... However if you only have onboard it really isn't the end of the world

Originally Posted by rock_lobster

I was always told that on board sound is sufficient..

told by who?

deaf people?

ah ha......ok fine.

I agree to go with the dual core system first.

vista is maturing, and if you want to go crazy on the RAID-0 and 4 gigs of ram.....we can go vista, no problem.

single g-card system for now. Looking at the charts, Nvidia still has an edge, and a wider variety of cards you can SLI them on. ATI's crossfire limits options in some boards.

Intel E6850....rocks hard. If you were a hardware snob, you'd go for the overclocking option, buying an e6400 or 6600, and then jacking it up. But.........that's a lot of tweaking and continuous trouble shooting. no real overclocking is ever effortless, and it takes time for instability problems to show their face. might be fine when I'm building it, but a few weeks later, heat and crash related issues turn the whole thing into a piece of shit. no good.

sound......if you're going to spend $2000, or even $1500....a measly $70 or $80 sound card going to push you over your limit? It's worth it, every time. Also gives you a lot of nice tools for converrting audio tracks, recording stuff, etc.

............and now for the RAID-0............

If it was my box......and I felt like having 3 drives plugged in.....sure. I'd go RAID-0, with an extra drive (not RAID-5) for senstive file storage (pics, movies, sounds, patches, files, irrepleaceble stuff). You can always reinstall your OS.....something most builders do on a yearly basis, if not more often. I can build a RAID-0 +1...........but it will be my first time to do so on a Vista OS. It'll work.......I'm sure. But with a fast g-card and CPU, you'll load maps easily before the next round starts without the need for a raid. The server itself takes 10-15 seconds to change maps.......so trying to beat the servers map load times doesn't make much sense.

for me.......if something was to go wrong.....it's pretty easy for me to walk anyone through a simple windows reinstall. but that's on a non-raid. Walking someone through how to set up stripes, activate raid controllers, set up boot orders, make boot disks (if vista or his motherboard requires it)........just not as easy as it sounds, most ESPECIALLY if it has to be done over the phone.

And the 750GB suggestion.......whoa......this isn't a file server. you can get 3 120gig's foir the price of the single 750GB, giving you 3 independent drives, and the option to go with all 3, just 2, RAID-0 +1, or whatever.

Keep in mind the 'RAID' solutions offered on 99% of the motherboards aren't a RAID solution like most server systems utilize. A lot of the work is done in software/drivers. That means it can impact performance. Server-based RAID solutions utilize a dedicated controller with an independent processor that handle all the calculations necessary in a RAID configuration.

That being said, I would never use RAID 5 from an on-board solution. With a dedicated controller, performance is impacted. It's going to be magnified using an on-board solution. The most I would consider using on-board RAID for is mirroring, and then I'd rather just do automated backups using Ghost or some other imaging product.

As for sound card vs on-board, personally, I'd spend the extra money on a dedicated sound card. I really don't care for Creative's products. Their driver support has been spotty at best, especially with Vista. I made the switch to a card by Bluegears. It's been a revelation. No issues with drivers and sounds getting stuck. No crackling/popping. M-Audio also makes some decent boards that are an option for a non-Creative solution.

Originally Posted by ...bigdog...

............and now for the RAID-0............

If it was my box......and I felt like having 3 drives plugged in.....sure. I'd go RAID-0, with an extra drive (not RAID-5) for senstive file storage (pics, movies, sounds, patches, files, irrepleaceble stuff). You can always reinstall your OS.....something most builders do on a yearly basis, if not more often. I can build a RAID-0 +1...........but it will be my first time to do so on a Vista OS. It'll work.......I'm sure. But with a fast g-card and CPU, you'll load maps easily before the next round starts without the need for a raid. The server itself takes 10-15 seconds to change maps.......so trying to beat the servers map load times doesn't make much sense.

for me.......if something was to go wrong.....it's pretty easy for me to walk anyone through a simple windows reinstall. but that's on a non-raid. Walking someone through how to set up stripes, activate raid controllers, set up boot orders, make boot disks (if vista or his motherboard requires it)........just not as easy as it sounds, most ESPECIALLY if it has to be done over the phone.

For Vista, the RAID drivers are on the disk and it installs just fine. I have an Nvidia 590 Chipset Mobo and I installed my RAID0 stripe right off the Vista Install disk with no issues. No tweaking with the 3.5" disks or trying to "slipstream" the drivers onto a windows installer.

One thing to mention about Vista 64 and greater than 2 gigs of RAM. You will have to use modified BF2 and BF2142 executables, make a boot that limits RAM available, or one of the other fixes. I have the modified executables fix. BF series games crash during map changes if you have a 64 bit OS and more than 2 gigs of RAM. Other than that all my games run just fine under Vista 64. EA has said they will not support BF2/2142 on Vista 64/XP 64; so we will never see a fix from them. But the fixes (such as the one I am using ) work fine.

here's a fix.....how about 2 gig's of RAM?

I need to look at some performance charts for vista that indicate 4 gigs, or even 3 gigs, makes any performance difference in gaming/normal use (email, internet, wordprocessing, etc). As well, 1 gig sticks, and especially 512 sticks, have faster timings and clock speeds than 2 gig stick behemoths.

RAM is a funny thing. but just like harddrive space.....it's only useful if you have something that can actually use it.