System chosen...change anything?

[Wandere]

Going from an AMD XP 1600+ on a Soyo Dragon Plus system with a Ti200 vid card to this:

Case: Arctic Cooler Silentium T2
CPU: AMD Venice 3000+
CPU cooler: AC Freezer 64
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra 9
Paste: AS Ceramique
Ram: 2x512mb OCZ pc3200 Premier
HDD: Hitachi TK7250 250GB (May setup 2 in a Raid1 or buy another externally for backup...undecided)
Vid Card: eVGA 6600GT PCIe
DVD RW/CDRW drive: NEC 3520A
Monitor: Dell 1905FP (already purchased)

Computer Use: Video editing, photoshop, heavy office apps, minor gaming occasionally (FPS's), DVD/CD ripping station, MP3/photo/video storage.

Whatcha think? I was going to go with a HTPC case but the silentium caught my eye

Thanks folks!

-Wandere

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Looks good! However, if you're doing heavy multitasking, you MIGHT want to consider a P4 and more than 1GB of RAM.

 

[mshan]

If you do heavy photoshop or video editing, you might benefit from 2 GB of RAM.

Since you prioritize photo and video editing over gaming, low latency isn't probably anywhere as important as overall amount of RAM.

Two Hitachi drives in RAID-0 may produce a nice increase in sequential transfer rate, which may benefit your photo and video editing. You probably also may want to use a small system drive and a RAID-0 video editing drive.

Also think that a hyperthreaded P4 may be a better choice, given your multitasking.


http://www.videoguys.com/system.htm

http://www.videoguys.com/DIY.html

 

[Tostada]

I use Photoshop quite a bit, even with 100MB+ 600DPI sources, and you certainly don't need more than 1GB. Anybody who has any experience with Photoshop can tell you that even working with 10+ layers on huge files, there is very little chance that more than 1GB will be helpful.

The RAID is a good idea if you're going to be doing a lot of actual editing of the video. Just making DVDs it really isn't useful, but NLE is one of the few times a RAID will be helpful. The last drive I bought was a Hitachi, and they're some of the fastest drives out there, but their RMA policy sucks. They really hassle you, they won't cross-ship, and they won't RMA a drive that has bad sectors (they tell you to run their diagnostic app that will low-level the drive and mark the bad sectors then tell you the drive is fine). Hitachi and Maxtor both have really obnoxious RMA policies, so I would need a very good reason to buy another drive from either of them.

And did you actually say you'd be doing a ton of multitasking? I'd be very interested to see benchmarks showing that a P4 would noticably better than a Venice in multitasking (I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'd just like to see if it's true). I certainly don't think a P4 would be good for a HTPC case given the amount of heat a P4 makes.

The regular 6600 is a good card for the price, especially since you don't seem to be a heavy gamer (and you can get a passive one without a fan that would be good for your quiet system). The 6600GT is a very questionable choice in video cards these days, though. It's only about $10 cheaper than the Radeon X800, and the X800 totally blows it away. The 6600GT is an 8-pipe card with 16.0GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The X800 is a 12-pipe card with 22.4GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

Sapphire Radeon X800 $189 (newegg)

Also, the NEC 3520A is an old drive. The Pioneer 109 is better. If you're going to get an NEC, wait for the 3540A. Seeing as you specifically mentioned DVD ripping, you definitely don't want the NEC. The NEC rips DVDs at 5X. The Pioneer rips double-layer DVDs at 12X and single-layer DVDs at 16X.

 

[keeleysam]

Looks good, but I would reccomend using Arctic Silver 5 instead of Ceramique, and getting an MSI 6600GT because it's much quieter with the Copper heatsink, and also has VIVO which you might find useful.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

You might benifit getting a P4 since you're into theMultitasking thing.

Actually, Ceramique is easier to apply and performs better than AS5 . Board looks good - why not pay another $15 for the GA-K8NXP-SLi to get the DPS and the Wireless card?

 

[ShazK]

No need for the crazy fast RAM though, right?

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Yeah, drop the super-high-quality RAM. You definately won't be needing it with that system. Pick up a pair of 512MB Corsair Value Select RAM. Great RAM, great price.

 

[Wandere]

Thanks for the great replies!

I don't think the RAM is the fancy stuff, here's the link: OCZ Premier 3200 $38.49 for 512MB

P4's run a little too hot but you're right, historically they've been a bit better at vid stuff. Nowadays, if the software is optimized for AMD, AMD chips come out ahead. I remember a seeing the comparison with various software packages....can't remember where.

The 6600GT card is on sale for $138...for $50 an x800 would be a bit better? You got it, upgrading that component. I think the MSI 6600GT with VIVO is AGP only, was steering towards a PCIe system. Having a quiet or passive vid cooling system is important though, thanks for the ideas!

While I'm at it, I'll check reviews on the Pioneer 109. The BenQ and NEC drives were getting all the press in a CDRW forum lately.

I'm not going to do RAID0, just RAID1 for some safety. Now I'm thinking I can have a quieter/cooler system if I kill the RAID and just backup to an external drive once a week or so. hmm...

Thanks again for the feedback folks, it's appreciated.

-Wandere