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**WalkinTarget** · 29 Jan 2009, 01:00 PM

Ouch ... that bottom line subtotal hurts to even think about.

Is this like an economic stimulus plan for the power users among us ?

A few thoughts: SSDs are the way to go - but not at their current price of over $450+. They will come down bythe end of the year significantly, so I'd rather wait it out and pay $225 or less.

Next, plan on going with Windows 7 64 bit if you are buying in late December. Its now time to go 64 bit, but I'll even go out on a limb and say Win 7 is going to be an acceptable choice (I can't believe I am saying that, but its the next big thing for a high end rig).

I just wish those darn X58 boards would drop in price. $300 is ridiculous for a board.

**Duke{CLR}** · 29 Jan 2009, 01:19 PM

I'm hoping that IF I build it before Windows 7 comes out that I may get a copy of Vista with a free upgrade like I did with my first build.

**Trooper110** · 29 Jan 2009, 01:21 PM

I still like the CoolerMaster HAF case: Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases
Only $159.99 as well

Have to agree with WT, put your eyes ahead to Windows 7, everything I read and all the numbers add up, it may even be better than XP, don't aim for Vista.

Keep in mind with that SSD drive you're looking at, it's a MLC based architecture, you're not going to get quite the speeds as a SLC drive, and you get only about 2/3 of the total write capacity. Which is also why you're paying less than the "high end" drives....they really aren't as good. Check out this article: Solid-state drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the moment there's no reason to use SSD drives in a desktop computer until they come down a lot more in price.

Only other thing is I prefer the PC Power & Cooling power supplies, although they tend to run a bit more expensive than other brands. Thermaltake is supposed to make good ones though too.

**Duke{CLR}** · 29 Jan 2009, 01:29 PM

Hmmm I didn't know there were different types of SSDs that would explain the difference in price. I will read up on them thanks.

I also like that case it was on my short list. I really like my Lian Li but I couldn't find one that grabbed me.

I also had a PC Power and Cooling PSU and an Enermax which were a bit too much on the $$. I used a Toughpower PSU in my first build and I haven't had any issues with it so this is where I tried to drop it below the 2k mark.

**Duke{CLR}** · 29 Jan 2009, 01:56 PM

How about a pair of these in RAID 0?

Newegg.com - Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gbs Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

**Skud** · 29 Jan 2009, 02:38 PM

Looks nice, Duke

I have a thermaltake 750, modular power supply, and it's been just fine...no mess, and no probs.

Send some photos when you do the job! I've been looking at another build too, but might wait til 7 comes out...and maybe I can live vicariously off of other's builds!

**Skud** · 29 Jan 2009, 02:42 PM

Nice HDs

Originally posted by Duke{CLR} View Post

How about a pair of these in RAID 0?

Newegg.com - Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gbs Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

I've got a pair but screwed up the raid setup (only showed as one HD on the comp, so I thought it was good, turns out I didn't have one initialized, so now they run separately

, as all the info is on one and I don't want to have to reformat). Only prob is their small size. Put about five games on there, and that's about it. I stuck in a 300 GB raptor to take care of that, after Fallout and WAW came out.

**{CLR} Cobalt** · 29 Jan 2009, 02:43 PM

I dont know exactly how much longer I'll be here, but we will revisit this subject when I get to the states. I'm pullin out all the stops on this one.You guys are gonna want pics.

I was also thinkin about putting on a design contest amongst the group. Something along the lines of using a mini refrigerator for cooling purposes for the CPU and GPU. Maybe give a way a set of memory chips for the winner. I love building these things.

Oh, and this topic has me erotically stimulated.

**Duke{CLR}** · 29 Jan 2009, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by Skud View Post

I have a thermaltake 750, modular power supply, and it's been just fine...no mess, and no probs.

Send some photos when you do the job! I've been looking at another build too, but might wait til 7 comes out...and maybe I can live vicariously off of other's builds!

That's the PSU have in my rig now. I wonder if you could build a system and run it off the beta of 7?

**Rand{CLR}** · 29 Jan 2009, 03:19 PM

I would be leary of putting 10,000 rpm drives into a RAID 0. Had 2 HD failures (which is 2 too many), and I just cringe at the idea of one of those drives, at those prices, failing and screwing up all the data because it's RAID 0 as opposed to RAID 1.

I may upgrade myself this year. I'd like to put in a new board, Core i7, and DDR 3, but that's probably cost prohibitive this calendar year given my basement work, so I'll probably snatch up a GTX260/280 or Radeon 4700 series as the prices continue to go down. I haven't qutie hit the wall with my processor and 8800GTS 320, but I'm closer than I want to be on the gaming side. Processor is still fine, just lacks oomph and pizazz (e6700).

-Rand

**Duke{CLR}** · 29 Jan 2009, 03:49 PM

Originally posted by Rand{CLR} View Post

I would be leary of putting 10,000 rpm drives into a RAID 0. Had 2 HD failures (which is 2 too many), and I just cringe at the idea of one of those drives, at those prices, failing and screwing up all the data because it's RAID 0 as opposed to RAID 1.

I may upgrade myself this year. I'd like to put in a new board, Core i7, and DDR 3, but that's probably cost prohibitive this calendar year given my basement work, so I'll probably snatch up a GTX260/280 or Radeon 4700 series as the prices continue to go down. I haven't qutie hit the wall with my processor and 8800GTS 320, but I'm closer than I want to be on the gaming side. Processor is still fine, just lacks oomph and pizazz (e6700).

-Rand

I'm fairly sure we have the same case and I love it but I'm not sure if the longer video cards will fit in there. If you do get them in there I would like to see how you resolve it. One possibility is to either turn the HDD cage or put the HDDS in the 3.5 bays above the cage.

You know Velocity Micro has a custom Lian Li case just like ours but its several inches deeper. I would love to get my hands on one of them but I they are only on Velocity Micro machines.

If I do go RAID 0 I will definitely have some way of backing them up regularly. I'm looking for speed on this.

**WalkinTarget** · 29 Jan 2009, 04:16 PM

Its amazing how Trooper and I are always thinking along the same lines for the hardware

I like the HAF as well, but the interior isn't anything fancy, which makes me sad. All that money put into cooling but nothing to show off inside.

SSDs paired up with Win7 seems like a choice hunk of hardware, but I just can't find any reason to upgrade my gaming rig, so I've been upgrading all of the rest of them.

Yanno, with this crappy weather, a build thread stirs us back into action to critique and debate all of this sexy new hardware ... always fun !!

**Dead...Again** · 29 Jan 2009, 04:28 PM

You may want to think about going with a RAID5 array. It uses 3 drives instead of 2; the third drive provides redundancy, so if 1 goes bad you don't lose anything.

**Duke{CLR}** · 29 Jan 2009, 05:26 PM

Originally posted by Dead...Again View Post

You may want to think about going with a RAID5 array. It uses 3 drives instead of 2; the third drive provides redundancy, so if 1 goes bad you don't lose anything.

I have a RAID 5 now and it's slow. I think it's because one of my segates has a crappy firmware but I'm not sure. I do like that if one of them fails then I can still keep my data though. I may also set up a RAID 5 for the secondary drive but I'm not sure yet. I'm kind of looking at this as a race car I want speed and to get that I may sacrifice some reliability. My wife has already taken over my other desktop so we can keep data on it.

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