Radeon 9800P 128mb or GeForce 5900 128mb?

[teufelhunden]

Alright, here's what it will more than likely be spec'd as, unless there's some major glaring problems..

Of course, feel free to make suggestions, as always.

Asus P4S800D-E Deluxe
P4 2.8C
1 gb [512x2 for dual channel] of PC3200OCZ Enhanced Latency
MSI 9800 Pro 128mb/256bit
2x WD 80gb 7200rpm/8mb cache, RAID 0
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz [I'd get an Audigy, but they're out of stock at Newegg and I'm not much of an audiophile anyway]
NEC 8x DVD +/- RW
Samsung 16x DVD-ROM
Artic Cooling 80MM HS/F [model ACSS4PL]
A tube of AS5
6 80mm throttled case fans [super quiet ones too, lots of cfm and not lots of noise ]
Raidmax ATX-822WSP which includes a 420w Raidmax PSU
Logitech MX500
Logitech Elite Keyboard

Wish I hadn't stopped caring about PC hardware a year ago, lol

[fire1811]

personally i woould go with the plextor 708a dvd burner
EXCELLENT burner

and for the keyboard and mouse i would go with the logitech cordless duo which is the mx700 mouse and wireless keyboard.

mouse only needs to be recharged every 5 days or so and is the only wirless mouse suitible for gaming. they batteries in the keyboard last a LONG time mine are going on 8 months.

[teufelhunden]

I'm gonna be at college, if it's at least wired down there's probably a slightly lower chance of it being stolen.

[joeyjoe367]

I'm gonna be at college, if it's at least wired down there's probably a slightly lower chance of it being stolen.

For all things computer related, I go here:

https://www.tomshardware.com

Pretty much they're the CNN of the computer/tech world. Very good in-depth reviews and news.

As was previously stated in this thread, the ATI Radeon 9800 does much better on benchmark tests than the GF FX5900. Some games are better on ATI cards than NVidia and vice-versa. A HUGE selling point for ATI is the fact that Half-Life 2 Benchmarks are MUCH better on ATI cards than on NVidia.

Not sure about FarCry or Doom 3. These are the games that people want to play, and are going to be playing for a while, IMO.

and about the "Press-Hot" Processors... I think Northwood is better. They run much cooler for a better bang/buck ratio than the prescott. As cool as having a loud computer is, it's a turn off for the ladies

Someone also mentioned getting a good power supply, that's ceirtainly something you don't want to overlook, especially if you have lots of case fans, hard drives and/or CD/DVD drives. Brown-outting your system is never any fun.

*edit* I see that you want to run a raid 0 array; I've seen several benchmark tests on www.overclockers.com showing that a raid 0 arry does not significantly decrease load times for windows and/or computer games. 13-second load times come down to about 12 second load times.

Is 1 second of load time worth the possibility of loosing all your data if 1 drive fails? Recovering data from a raid array is VERY tough, if not impossible. Not to mention setting it up is a pain. Stick to a 7200 RPM 120 gig drive or something with a nice big buffer.

[joeyjoe367]

here's the raid 0 link:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=310250

as you can see, there is something of an increase in performance, however it's not the 50% that a lot of people expect. Take that info and assess your needs and potential risks.

[fire1811]

on the same note i could find some benchmarks that show raid 0 is quit faster then non raid. its all in where you look and who is giving the review.

i have had both raid and non, i prefer raid 0. im not really worried about data loss since i back my system up once a month. will it suck? hell yes, but i have had two nonraid HD go out and data could not be retrieved on either of them.

it comes down to personal preference IMO

also the powersupply issue i totally agree with. this is where most people try to save money which is a really bad idea. get a QUALITY name brand powersupply. the fly by night powersupplys(or "DEALS") say there are 500w but that is not under normal user conditions.

[teufelhunden]

Data loss isn't that big of a deal for me, anything of importance will go on both my 40gb regular drive as well as the server space I'm assigned at UConn.

Add a 420W Thermaltake Silent Purepower.