seagreen
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| Contemplating a rebuild
4 years ago I built a machine which did very well for two years and then started having "issues". I had another machine by then so I abandoned the home-built one for daily use but periodically put it back into working condition for one reason or another. Most recently it was running Win7 RC until it had another "issue". Currently it is a smoldering (figuratively) pile of _____.
What I would like to do is make use of what I have that is still usable and update the parts that a) aren't working or b) pretty outdated.
Use-able
ATX Mid Tower Case
4 160 GB Drives (SATA II) (have tested OK but I'm not sure how much I want to trust 4 y.o. drives)
Antec EPS12V 550W PS or Antec 650W Tru-Power PS (maybe not enough?)
Junk-able
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard (this being what I think is the source of the "issues")
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 ClawHammer 2.6GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Single-Core Processor
SAPPHIRE X700 PRO Radeon X700PRO 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card (This was pretty anemic even two years ago)
Considered Replacements:
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920
ASUS P6T WS PRO LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Core i7 / Xeon Intel Motherboard
6 GB triple channel Memory
Not sure what to do:
Video card (Don't do any high FPS gaming)
Other Considerations:
I'd like this to be powerful enough not to choke on Photoshop and to be fairly future-proof.
I had an AMD processor but have no emotional investment in either AMD or Intel.
Questions:
Are all of the processors 64 bit now? I don't see 32 bit or 64 bit mentioned anymore.
Have not been real happy with my experiences with RAID arrays even mirrored ones. Would SSD or IDE for the OS be more secure?
I'm open to other thoughts if anybody has any. Thanks! |
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jouno53
Palin 2012
join:2006-03-04
United State
·AT&T DSL Service
1 edit | Hey, just want to answer your questions at the bottom before heading to bed.
Don't be worried about modern CPUs not supporting 64 bit. They do now and that's something you do not need to worry about, especially if considering an i7, which is a relatively new and high end CPU.
From my collection of experiences of other people, and a few of my own, RAID seems to be the budget speed booster nowadays, especially RAID-0. I know a lot of people that raid 0 the Western Digital 640GB Caviar black drives, which rival the really fast 10,000rpm drives in raid 0. As for SSD, they're the absolute fastest, bleeding edge technology, but they are incredibly expensive. There's nothing wrong with getting one, but for the budget minded it isn't a smart idea. Typically one would use a smaller SSD as their "OS" drive, since it reads extremely fast, then use standard hard disks to store data.
If it means anything, a few months ago I built an i7 based computer for a professional photographer who uses the computer for the same reasons you do - the Adobe Suite. I set up 2 of those Caviar Black drives in RAID 1 for mirrored backup, and he has only had good things to say about overall performance. I know CS4 is very good at multi threading applications, and with a cpu like an i7, you have 8 threads at your disposal.
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seagreen
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| Thanks for the reply.
Yeah, I knew Photoshop CS4 made good use of 64 bit. I'm looking forward to that 
I was a bit out of touch with computer hardware and wasn't aware that all the high-end processors were 64 bit now. I was wondering why the specs no longer said either 32-bit or 64-bit.
I will never do RAID 0 - been there; done that and have lost data to show for it.  My main concern having done that more than once with various RAID configurations is security. |
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asdfdfdfdfdf
@socket.net
| reply to seagreen
A couple of first thoughts:
You say gaming isn't important but you say the x700 is anemic. If games don't matter there isn't much reason not to use it.
Given that you describe issues I think it would be best to replace the power supply. Money doesn't appear to be an issue and it isn't worth risking reuse of this key component when you have had consistent problems hardware problems. Reusing the case is no problem.
In my view spending $300 on a 1366 motherboard and a 920 doesn't make a lot of sense. I would get an 1156 board and an 860.
I would put the money saved toward a solid state drive in the 80GB range. We can discuss specific options later. |
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pnjunction
Teksavvy Premium
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join:2008-01-24
Toronto, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to seagreen
Yeah an i7 920 seems like a good choice for you.
One thing worth looking at is Matrix RAID on the new Intel disk controllers.
Basically with two drives you can set up part of them as RAID0 and part of them as RAID1, the idea being that you could use the striped part for the OS, applications, swap file and scratch files and then the mirrored part for archiving things you want to be secure. One drive dies you lose the stripe but keep the mirror. I'm definitely setting this up on my next build, I'm thinking 2 1 TB drives with 200GB of stripe and 900GB of mirror. |
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pnjunction
Teksavvy Premium
Premium
join:2008-01-24
Toronto, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to asdfdfdfdfdf
said by asdfdfdfdfdf :
In my view spending $300 on a 1366 motherboard and a 920 doesn't make a lot of sense. I would get an 1156 board and an 860.
I would put the money saved toward a solid state drive in the 80GB range. We can discuss specific options later.
Would the savings going from 1366 to 1156 really be significant enough to make a dent in the price of an SSD?
An SSD isn't a bad idea for speeding things up, but if you're talking 80GB I have a feeling you're going to suggest the Intel which is in the $250-300 range. |
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asdfdfdfdfdf
@socket.net
| reply to seagreen
No, I just threw that out as an approximation. Actually I was thinking more of an indilinx based drive which would typically be 60 or 64. I hadn't checked prices recently but was thinking of whatever was in the $200-250ish 60-80GB range.
The move to an 860 could save close to $100 even with the higher price of the processor (there are good boards in the 110-$140 range).
This is roughly half way toward such an ssd. Before I would consider a second hard drive for raid(which would be most of the second half of the way) I would get an ssd, which will have significantly better performance for most things.
Another option would be the 750 cpu, which would be plenty as well and then you are most of the way toward the ssd.
I would rather have a 750 with an ssd than an 860 or a 920 without one for a typical desktop. |
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seagreen
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| reply to asdfdfdfdfdf
Thank you for the help.
The 650W power supply has never been used. I bought it thinking that power may have been part of the problems but ended up deciding it was more likely the MB. Not sure if 650W will be enough but I'll check before using it.
I'm not wholly committed to the idea of an SSD. Just exploring the idea with the more knowledgeable folks here. Bottom line, I'm looking for system stability and security. As mentioned, I've not had good experiences with RAID arrays.
Money is always an issue.  That said, if I do rebuild this machine it will most likely become my main working one as what I'm using now is x86 so my goal would be to have it be a good solid build with good parts. Spending a few $ more to stave off future obsolescence would be well spent.
Haven't explored the AMD options but going that route might shave a few $ as well. |
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asdfdfdfdfdf
@Level3.net
| A true power 650 will be plenty for what you are wanting to do.
Amd options become more compelling if you buy something like an athlon II x 4. At the upper mid to higher end you are better off sticking with an i5 setup.
"Money is always an issue."
Then I certainly would not be going the original direction you considered.
What kind of budget would you like?
What size files are you working with in photoshop? At this point I'm not convinced that you need more than 4 GB. |
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Punchline
join:2005-10-11
University Of Richmond, VA
| reply to seagreen
I say spring for the SSD, make it a priority. Put the OS on it (Windows?), move files and data on to a traditional HD (the caviar blacks and greens are great), and boot to desktop in seconds.
I really like the Intel G2, and SSDs are such a noticeable step forward, one of those upgrades that looks and feels modern. Plus, they're TINY! It's like looking at a CPU, you can practically smell the science behind it  .
-P |
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seagreen
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| reply to asdfdfdfdfdf
said by asdfdfdfdfdf :
A true power 650 will be plenty for what you are wanting to do.
Good
said by asdfdfdfdfdf :
At this point I'm not convinced that you need more than 4 GB. I will put Windows 7 on the rebuilt machine and, although I have 4 GB now, I have brought my current computer to its knees in PS or should I say PS has brought this computer to its knees. The images are large and I use image stitching fairly frequently which means a lot of images may be open. 64-bit would probably help that but RAM isn't very expensive now.
In fact, with the exception of the motherboard, everything I considered is a whole lot cheaper than what the original build was 4 years ago so I'm not terribly concerned about the prices of what I'd been considering. CLEARLY I don't need a $1k Core i7 975 Extreme processor so I'm considering price to some extent. I want a solid build that will last through software upgrades for, ideally, 3-4 years. |
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asdfdfdfdfdf
@Level3.net
| reply to seagreen
Ok then I would stick with the 860 suggestion, an ssd and 6 GB ram. Perhaps a 1TB drive as well.
If you have a particular place you want to buy from I can get into specifics if this is a direction you are interested in or I can post links from newegg. |
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seagreen
Premium,Mod
join:2001-05-14
out there | Thanks for all of the help and suggestions.
I usually buy from NewEgg as they seem reliable. I will never buy from Buy.com after having to sic the credit card company on them. |
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asdfdfdfdfdf
@Level3.net | Do you want me to post something along the lines I suggested or do you want to go in a different direction such as your original set of choices. |
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seagreen
Premium,Mod
join:2001-05-14
out there | Please - I would appreciate some suggestions. Thanks! |
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asdfdfdfdfdf
@Level3.net
| reply to seagreen
860 cpu:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···-Product
gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···13128401
1TB western digital caviar drive:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···22136284
I don't know why I said 6GB. 1156 is dual channel so I would go with 4 or 8.
If you want to choose a build like this we can talk about the specific ram. We can also talk about ssd drives, possibly an ocz agility:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20227461
or a supertalent ultradrive(I can't figure out the price on this, whether it is a misprint for the 64GB) Can someone provide some insight into the extremely low price.:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···20609393 |
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srr2
join:2001-12-20
Bethlehem, PA | Must have been a closeout sale on the Supertalent SSD, it's "deactivated" now! |
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seagreen
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| reply to asdfdfdfdfdf
Thank you for the shopping list - yours definitely is coming in @ less $ than mine was and I like anything that says it's ultra- durable.
Re: the SSD - Understandably, I've been doing a fair amount of reading since I decided to undertake this project and there seem to be some issues with performance slipping over time with the SSDs.
I wonder if a 300G Velociraptor (for a little bit less $) might not be a better option until the SSD drive technology matures some. Warranty is longer too. |
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Kiwi
Premium
join:2003-05-26
USA
 ·Comcast
·Aristotle Internet
| Late to the party, I would also like SSD but obviously from those that have had them awhile, a while longer needs to be seen to understand longevity and decreasing speed issues. 300G VRaptor would be a good choice.
I'll let others muddle the pro's and con's of an 1156 verse 1366 because as yet I don't own either, but have a decided preference for the 1366 base and it's inherent ability to reduce memory issues (Short story). |
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asdfdfdfdfdf
@socket.net | reply to seagreen
I wouldn't bother with the 300 raptor. Save the money.
Just get the 1TB drive then, that will be fine. |
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