more Qs from a Newbie

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:02 am

Hello all again,

Wow, I'm having an awesome time on this forum. I have some questions about different wires and their speeds.

I am hoping to get funding to make my own computer for college and for my dads business. My ultimate computer consist of a horizontal motherboard, at the bottom of a drawer in a desk. A high speed hard drive inside the drawer. Then I want to have a bunch of external drives. This is where the wires come in.

I like external because you can share drives. Sure, it may be a pain to have to pull plugs and stuff in and out, but I don't mind. It cuts the cost in 3 if you have three computers that you wanted to have a backup drive for (I'm a genios &#61514

.

From what I understand FireWire is the fastest @ 1.5 gbps. Next is USB @ 480 mbps. Now, who of you have ever needed a wire that transfers at above 480 mbps? To rip a CD in a very fast drive takes at least 3min, so that’s about 4 mbps. Copying files around on my internal IDE hard drive is about 10 mbps. I understand that you need a LOT more bandwidth than what is apparently used. But take these figrures and multiply them by 10 or so, and you still shouldn’t see a difference between USB, FireWire, and IDE. My question is then, how much do I lose if I use USB instead of IDE or FireWire for my external drives (I'm not too concerned about my floppy drive at the moment. Anyone seen a FireWire mouse? How about an IDE keyboard? I did think about cooling my mouse once…).

As a second question, what is your opinion on building a computer with a 1000 CDN$ budget? (my dad says he will likely get my a computer in the next month or so, but he doesn’t want to pay a lot of dough up front) What should I buy so I can up grade later? I was thinking about going for a DFI Lanpaty motherboard, socket 754, UTNF NForce 3, 250 GB. What is essential to have to be able to upgrade later?

And what is everyone's favorite parts of their case? Obviously having some USB ports on the front is nice. Do people find that having covered drives is cool, or does it interfere with usability too much? I'm a power user most of the time, and I find myself switching CDs and DVDs in and out a lot. Does this bother you? Do you recommend anything unusual that really aids usability?

Thanks a lot guys, this help is awesome.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:24 am

Modern USB 2.0 drives are just about as fast as internal EIDE drives FOR MOST PURPOSES. A lot depends on your USB controller. Not all controller chips are made equal. 480Mbit is the THEORETICAL MAXIMUM for uSB 2.0 - if you have a cheap mobo you may not get anywhere near that.

Firewire uses bandwidth more efficiently, but frankly unless you have a high speed application like video editing, USB 2.0 drives are plenty fast.

Most modern high end mobos can boot from a USB or firewire hard drive and you can eliminate the the EIDE drive entirely.

Be aware that I would not consider an external USB drive fast enough to use for a serious gaming system. If you want comparable performance to an internal EIDE drive you'll need to go firewire.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:16 am

I used external fiwi at first because i didn"t have usb TWO (got a busted beyboaRD HERE HEHE)

now that 2.0 is widespread it is easier IMO ....and always backwards compatible...for a $1000 cdn computer you might get the most bang for the buck with a refurb dell for your dad which will work out of the box and save the custom build for your own...i recently got a refurb dimension 8300 with a p4 3.0, 1024 ram, 9800 pro and a 160gb sata for 525 us shipped. I can't build it for that and it came with a legit OS - not sure of the same kinds of deals are availablein canada..

anyway welcome to pca! youcan use the search function to find info on about any topic here as well

RexHavoc · Post by **RexHavoc** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 10:40 am

If your building a machine...and you can easily do that for 1000$cdn.....get the best Motherboard you can
within your budget.Almost everything else can be upgraded at a later date or when more $ become
available. Plus, higher end mobos tend to be easier to build with and come with much better documentation
than a 45$ Chaintech that has a photocopied instruction manual and no mention of where the case wires
connect to the stupid thing...and then it doesn't tell you that the cmos battery came DEAD and you can't do a thing till you run to wal-mart and buy NEW ONE!! ..AND THEN WHEN YOU GO TO INSTALL.......err...sorry.
Get a good mobo.

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:53 pm

Ok, I will definitely got with a good motherboard. What do you think of the one I mentioned, the DFI Lanpaty motherboard, socket 754, UTNF NForce 3, 250 GB? My bro says that it is the best socket 754 motherboard around.

I was thinking of also going for 64 bit processing, with a $164 AMD ATHLON 64 2800+ processor, S754 1.8GHZ 512KB L2 cache. Should I save $10 and go for 32 bit? Seems like the price of 64 bit has really gone down.

For my ram I think I will just do one stick of 512 to start with. Perhaps 400mhz? Or should I save money and go with 333 or something else?

I'm thinking of 120 GB HDD, internal, to save money. Perhaps a second one later and hook up with JOBD.

Should I use a CD burner or a DVD to start with? Since I have an external DVD burner, this shouldn’t be a problem. I only use DVDs to back stuff up with, and I can easily move this drive around in the house. I'm home schooled, so I do all my work on the computer, and it would be really nice to have my own computer. Think about having to share a desk with 3 people at high school. Or maybe take turns with the pencil when writing a test. Its insane right now, but soon we will have a total of four computers, one for each of us. (even my mom could have her own, although we would have to help her with the on button type stuff. “Justin!! How do I delete this file?” “click delete” “where is that?” “its above the up arrow on the keyboard, and beside the enter key?” “what do you mean? Where are those buttons?” etc, etc…)

Yeah, I'm definitely not going to be doing much serious gaming on this comp, although I will be running a lot of heavy working programs, like converting audio, ripping and burning CDs/DVDs, backing up the HDD, and running CPU intensive programs, like searching through file directories and printing books to PDF with adobe distiller. It seems to me that mostly the limiting factor is the CPU, and not the HDD, because mostly I find my CPU (1.8 GHz, AND, socket A) to get maxed out when performing these operations (besides backing up onto my external HDD, of course).

Dell is not an option. I strongly dislike (hate) Dell. I must be able to upgrade later, and Dell doesn’t do this. I was joking with Shmithers the other day about what is inside Dell cases, and why they aren't see through. We figure that they use old appliances and stuff to cut on costs. For example, they use popsicle sticks to hold the motherboard in place. They use old hair driers, with the “cold” button taped down with duct tape, to cool the CPU.

Talk to you later dudes,

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:26 pm

I really can't advise you on mobos. I don't do builds. I'm sure some of the others here can give you opinions. Check out http://www.amdmb.com/ for reviews and for comments on their forums.

I would definately recommend a 64 bit CPU at this point. That's where everything is going.

A DVD burner is pretty cheap now - maybe $20 more than a CD burner so why bother with a CD?. I highly recommend Lite-on burners like this one: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 967&depa=0

Nothing wrong with Dells. All OEMs are hard to upgrade. Dell is better than most. Also depends on what you buy. You buy a cheap budget Dell then no, it's not very upgradable.

You buy a Dimension 8400 you can do just about anything with it.

I recommend Dells to all my customers. You can't beat the on-site warranty.

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:24 pm

Can you recommend a good Dells with 64 bit processors and 120 GB HDD? I guess since you recommend them I should take a second look. I have had some terrible experiences with them. Especially with customer support, absolutely pathetic, they hung up on me, deliberately, repeatedly.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:05 pm

Customer support is the same with all these OEM makers. It's outsourced to India. Your mistake was probably to tell them you know about computer. PLAY IGNORANT. Don't tlet them talk you into troubleshooting the rig for you. Tell them you're a complete moron when it comes to computers, you have 3 screaming kids to deal with, and the reason you bought a Dell was for their famous "Award winning support", so send someone out to fix it.

Get at least a 1year on site warranty. More would be better. Keep in mind Dell will NOT troubleshoot software issues.

The Pentium 600 series CPU is a 64 bit CPU.

Best bang for the buck I'd buy the Dimension 8400:
http://catalog.us.dell.com/CS1/cs1page2 ... l=en&s=dhs

Wait for a good sale.

Don't even bother with the Dimension XPS gaming systems. It's the same motherboard as an 8400 but with a slightly bigger power supply and a better selection of video cards. You're better off upgrading the video card yourself later usually.

RexHavoc · Post by **RexHavoc** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:20 pm

Errrr...someone jump in and correct me if I'm wrong...but I think the nForce boards are dual channel memory.
You need 2 sticks to have it work in dual channel.....you ARE able to use 1 stick, but its like shooting yourself in the foot. I truth, memory has gone down so much lately (see Newegg.com) you may as well use a gig of pc3200.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 9:37 pm

Yes, nForce is dual channel. You don't HAVE to use dual channel, but it's a waste if you don't. You need 2 matched sticks of memory.

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 10:21 pm

Whoa, Matched sticks? We were thinking of using a stick of 512 out of our old computer for our new one (hey, my mom only needs 256, and Shmithers and I own the 512...). If the sticks aren't matched what happens? Cool fireworks display? What if i can't find a matching 512? How do I know what kind of speed my RAM is? (we were clueless about comps when we bought it...)

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:28 pm

Wait a minuet, socket 754 doesn’t support dual channel, does it? I thought that was the main advantage of socket 939. Are you guys sure about all this dual channel stuff?

chottoED · Post by **chottoED** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:12 pm

Any A64 chipset would support dual channel nowadays.
Matched sticks are necessary for optimal performance but I don't believe are 100% must for dual channel to be enabled. However, it is at least recommended to have memory that has the same speed/timing.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:58 pm

754 is not dual channel..939 is....the nforce board is very nice and in my main rig with a a64 - 3200.....btw 754and 939 = a64 cpus.....with good memory you should be able to overclock a 2800 to at least 3200 speed (by good I mean something that will run ~225 fsb)

you have plenty of upgrade wiggle room on the dell 8300/8400 series - the only real difference is that you can't overclock them - you can change cpu,memory,vid card,cound card etc. I mentioned them before because I've been building rigs for a while and I can't build a rig for the same price as I can get on a dell refurb when they have one of their specials going

chottoED · Post by **chottoED** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 4:03 pm

Well I'll be damned... I stand corrected. That particular board doesn't have dual channel.