how do i overclock my computer

[OfficerGoat]

For a game box I think I would use raid 3 instead if I was going to go full tilt. Really though for a game box 0 is proboly ideal. 0+1 if you need the redundancy. My problem with 5 is if it does break.... its a pain, whereas with 0+1 its a pretty streightforward fix. Also with 3,5,53 whatever ... in order to get a decent controler you need to have 64bit pci... not alot of folks are going to spring for that. The simpler controlers will run 0 or 0+1 fine on a standard 32bit pci port, whereas the gains you get running the more complicated controlers are lost across the 32bit pci.

The main reason I prefer SCSI over IDE is that the drives themselfs are FAR more reliable. Even if you are just running single drives the advantage over IDE is huge. <Shrug> All a matter of opinion of course If I had my way I would have a NetAp sitting in my closet. Then I would have no probs at all with my girlfreind deleting my porn.. Just pop to the weekly snapshot and bam... back in biz hmmmm... I think I will put the new Ferari in the garage first though.... lol

[FutureMagOwner]

yeah the only thing i can see in that that would be creating bad results is the ram and thats only depending on what you play.

[Hexis]

Originally posted by OfficerGoat
[B]For a game box I think I would use raid 3 instead if I was going to go full tilt. Really though for a game box 0 is proboly ideal. 0+1 if you need the redundancy. My problem with 5 is if it does break.... its a pain, whereas with 0+1 its a pretty streightforward fix. Also with 3,5,53 whatever ...[B]

If you are using 4 drives and want more reliability, go with a 3 drive raid 5 setup and have the last drive marked as spare. That way (given enough time to rebuild) you can lost any two drives and still have data. In a 0+1 setup you can only lose two specific drives.

[Jonneh]

fans, lots of fans

[OfficerGoat]

Your missing my point on this one. On a gaming machine a) you want performance and b) you want performance. Raid 5 taks ALOT of overhead on your box especialy when you havent got a 64bit card to run off of. Sure you get a little more redundnacy .. however you are eating up your overhead on the machine in order to run the controler.

Yes you are losing Throughput and Redundancy on 0+1, but the tradeoff is better processing capacity and faster rebuilds if you do need to replace a drive due to the fact you are running a far simpler controler. Personaly on a game machine all its going to run is games... my data is going to sit on one of my other boxes... so Raid 0 is fine by me... if I nuke a drive.. just rebuild and pull the inital ghost up and I am back in biz.

Its the middle of the night (well day now that I type this lol)...so my whole point to the original "proper" question is... proper is a VERY relative term. The ideal setup is always going to vary depending on what your box is doing and of course where your prioritys lay.

[Hexis]

Raid 5 has processing overhead when writing data, not when reading. The parity generation does not neet to happen when reading the data. Gameing is not all that disk intensive, and it sure it's write-to-disk heavy.

The speed/width of the bus between the CPU and the raid controller will not effect the controler's performance majorly, unless you are saturating it. You will have much difficulty saturating any PCI bus with a 2 or 3 drive raid.

[Koosh]

if you are serious about it, try www.ttzforums.com and www.thetechzone.com ... The forums are like the AO of Techs... Lots of good information with friendly people.

[Tron]

Own a game center with 40 computers, have two servers one running linux and another urnning win2k server both on duals, and the win2k running scsi. The linux is overclocked on a pair of 1GHz P3's, 1GB of ram and a pair of IDE drives. Uptime has been 42 days and only had to turn it off to move it. Other then that the hardware has been up for a solid year. Win2k has around the same usage time on a pair of MP2100s. My personal machine is oc'd 1GHz FSB no problems either are any of my friends who run highly oc'd systems. I have built around 200 systems for customers and have yet to have an RMA even on the oc'd systems they asked for. A lot of these systems are turning three years old now.

You are willing to spend the money on a U360 raid set up and you then tell me you want reliablity and get all upset about my three drive comment and go out and recommend a less reliable alternative.

If you are a gamer and all you want is speed oc'ing is fine even if it takes 3-4 years off the life span. Because if you are still trying to play games with your oc'd 3GHz@4GHz in 2006 you are not a gamer.

This was all written at 4:30AM at my game center so if it doesn't make sense my apologies.

ohh and p.s. go ahead an oc your system bro go buy a P4 2.4c and oc it to 3.7GHz or whatever they are getting with them now. Or a nice Barton 2500+ and oc it to a 3200+.

Originally posted by OfficerGoat
Difference is that I get performance and RELIABILITY out of my reconmondation. If you actualy work with computers you would know that the cost of good hardware is dirt cheap in comparison to the cost of having to deal with broken equipment and more importantly having to loose cash due to failed gear. Why do you think network engeneers brag about having 4 or 5 nines? Even in todays economy if you can say (And prove) your site runs at 5 nines you can get more 6 figure salery offers than you can shake a stick at.... hmmm wonder why.

If you want really performance you have to pay for it.. thats the way it always has been and always will be. Again my point still stands that overclocking that box isnt going to get you a noticable performance gain. PCs of that type are currently bottlenecked in too many other areas.

3 drives for a "proper" array huh? Interesting.

[OfficerGoat]

1) I am not upset whatsoever about any of this. Quite honustly its nice to have an interesting convorsation. Its all opinions... the only person thats going to have the right answer is ])arKNe$$ whatever puts a smile on his face is going to be the right answer.

2)So far as solutions being better / worse... it all depends on need / function. My point there wasnt to say you are wrong or right it was to say "proper" is a relative term.