UPDATED! help me make the FASTEST computer!

[MrDudeMan]

Ive been talking to a BUNCH of people about this...so i hear the pentium 4 is the way to go right now.
one thing i dont know about is how to overclock a p4 and how to get the ram/cpu to function properly as FAST as they possible can go.


what is better for games? DDR or RD? if so, what kind and what speed of the faster one would be better to make the fastest possible computer?

which processor overclocks the most? i know the 1.6a goes REALLY far, but does the xp2001+ compare to any of this at all? if i got a p4 2.2a and overclocked it to say....2.9 or 3.0...and with RD ram (which i think is faster) would it COMPLETELY destroy the 2001+??

what board should i use for the pentium 4's? i hear a lot about the TH7-II for overclocking and great speed...is this true?

ive decided on the WD1000JB hard drive...fast? good and reliable? loud or quiet?

what kind of cooling would i need to get a p4 to overclock like crazy? in another forum, some guy got a p4 to 3.2ghz. does the alpha pal 8942 (correct model number?) cover that?

i seriously want to make the fastest computer possible, and if you guys would like to post a complete system i would really appreciate it, i want to see whats going on.





athlon xp2000+
1024mb OCZ PC2700 DDR Ram
160gb Western Digital ATA133 7200rpm or whatever is good for a raid setup
Iwill xp333 or xp333-r (depending if i need raid or not)
Chieftech Case (not sure of model number, its the same as the Antec sx1240) w/ 400w PSU (will i need more for this?)
Radeon 8500 AIW or Geforce4 Ti4600 (depending on what i am interested in)
Sound Blaster Audigy or with the xp333(r) board the 5.1 built in sound
40x12x48 Lite-On CD-Burner
16x/48x DVD-Rom
56x Regular CD-Rom (is this useful at all?)
rounded ATA133 cables (factory rounded for looks and quality)
Alpha Pal 8045 w/ Arctic Silver III and a YS Tech 48cfm Fan
10x Panaflo L1A's for case ventilation (may not use them all, but good cfm for low noise, get them here )
peripherals dont really matter...that is all up to the individual (mouse, kb, speakers, monitor, etc.)
i dont even want a floppy drive in my computer, but i guess it is mandatory (or is it?)

what am i missing? what needs to be changed? what do you guys think?

oh yeah, how does a TT Active Heatspreader (for DDR Ram obviously), Crystal Orb (for Northbridge and GPU), after market RAM sinks for the video card.

also, how about a board with some integrated stuff, but still has all of those great features, like a chipset with KT266a maybe...
i mean features like onbaord sound and lan. (i know most come with sound now)

im not sure about the network card, but that really doesnt matter.

does this look like an extremely fast system? the fastest possible to build? (for a normal person lol, im not talking about like $10,000+ budget)

what do you guys think?


oh yeah, what about SCSI for all of that? would that make a difference?

 

[Zlash]

<< note: this will be without raid because i dont know what the difference is...raid as opposed to non-raid boards, how is it beneficial? how is it economically >>



Raid 0 would allow you to use 2 drives as 1 logical drives for a good speed increase.



<< athlon xp2000+ >>



XP 2100+ comes out soon



<< 160gb Western Digital ATA133 7200rpm or whatever is good for a raid setup >>



WD doesn't make 160GB drives yet and maxtor doesn't have a 7200 rpm 160 gig either. The WD 120gb 7200 with 8mb of cache is a nice drive though.



<< 56x Regular CD-Rom (is this useful at all?) >>



Not really with a cd rw and a dvd, maybe as a backup.



<< dont even want a floppy drive in my computer, but i guess it is mandatory (or is it?) >>



Yes you need one.

 

[tigerbait]

<< 1024mb OCZ PC2700 DDR Ram >>



most people will tell you that this stuff is shady... get kingmax or corsair pc 2700

 

[MrDudeMan]

why do i need a floppy?

do you have any recommendations on the motherboard?

i think the athlon xp2000+ will still be a good choice of cpu because when the 2100+ comes out..then the price will come down!

what do you think about SCSI?


thanks for the reply! i want to make this computer as fast as it can possibly be!


p.s. how much of a speed increase is raid over a normal 1 drive system? and what kind of hard drives do you use in raid? just two of the same?

 

[Zlash]

You need a floppy when #$%! hits the fan or just when someone has something on a floppy you need. It's only like 10$ anyway.

SCSI is also nice, but it's pretty expensive...if i was building one for myself i'd get 2-4 of the same drive probably in a raid setup...i don't have exact numbers on raid and not raid but it's quite a bit faster. As for the XP 2000, that's probably a good idea if you wanta get one cheaper.

 

[MrDudeMan]

so what would be the best drive to use in raid 0 (i assume that is double drives?)

i want big and fast (dont take that wrong) so how about 120gb ata133 7200rpm like i mentioned about

forget SCSI...i looked at some prices and that is way outta my league

a floppy drive just seems like a waste of my case space and a useless airflow inhibitor (even with a rounded cable) i just cant think of a use for it or when the last time i actually did use it!


so for raid, what would be the best motherboard that still supports all of that other good stuff?

 

[jeffrey]

"56x Regular CD-Rom (is this useful at all?)"

Get that slow thing out of there now!!!!!!!! That thing probably starts reading at speeds in the 20's or 30's and maxes out at the end at 56X. If you want the fastest thing available that's EVER been built change it to a Kenwood 72X TrueX cdrom that starts reading just below 70x and stays there over the entire disk. Most impressive cdrom ever built bar none

 

[MrDudeMan]

where is one of these attained from?


keep the responses coming! this is great im learning a lot and finding out what i need to make my monster system!

 

[Zlash]

<< so what would be the best drive to use in raid 0 (i assume that is double drives?)

i want big and fast (dont take that wrong) so how about 120gb ata133 7200rpm like i mentioned about

forget SCSI...i looked at some prices and that is way outta my league

a floppy drive just seems like a waste of my case space and a useless airflow inhibitor (even with a rounded cable) i just cant think of a use for it or when the last time i actually did use it! >>




As far as i know you can use any ide drive in a raid array, although i would have the same drives...the ones mentioned should work fine. Setting it up and stuff is a different story, might need to read up a little bit on that...i'm sure there's a FAQ around here somewhere.

What happens when your system crashes and you can't boot up off a CD? Floppy =). Floppy these days is a safety measure and occasionly things come with drivers on floppys so you'd need one there, i wouldn't count on everything coming on a CD.

 

[MrDudeMan]

i guess you are right. im not worrying about the floppy, i didnt mean for that to become an issue...i just hate how slow they are for such small space. cd-roms should just be made as stable as a floppy and then we can weed them out like the plague or something. or we could hook up neurol transmitters and use our brains to send info back and forth...my brain bandwith is 1000 terrabytes/sec and 1 TGhz (terragiga hertz) core speed. what do you think about some alloy brain sinks? ok enough, anyways im still seeking a good motherboard for all of this


so would those 120 gigers be extremely fast and reliable on raid 0? that does not equal 240gb, correct? its just reall fast 120...am i right in saying that?

 

[jeffrey]

This thing is a freaking modern-day legend.

 

[Zlash]

If i'm not too tired, it would be 240GB in a raid 0, so you could even go cheaper and get some 60's or 2 80's...i'm sure someone will correct me if i'm wrong on that. It writes part of the data to each disk at the same time....in raid 1 which is mirroring it would be just the size of 1 drive since your just backing up your HD to the second disk as it writes data.

Wouldn't be able to recommend a motherboard, haven't read up on those for a few months so i'm behind there =p.

 

[MrDudeMan]

what raid comes on most boards? raid 0 or raid 1? or is that not an issue..can it be changed to either of them? i am a gamer..what kind of raid am i looking for? raid 0? and 240gbs is way too much for me..so i guess i could get 2 really fast 60s or 80s like you said...let me know!

 

[Zlash]

I believe the type of raid is limited by the OS, raid 0 to get more speed out of it...any other raid is basically for servers.

 

[MrDudeMan]

ill be using a few different operating systems possibly.

one of the following:

windows 2000 pro
windows 2000 advanced server
mandrake 8.1
windows xp home
windows xp pro
windows xp corp.


do these all support raid 0? i dont even have a clue how to use mandrake but i want to learn

 

[JackOfHearts]

You ever think about a getting a p4 and oc'ing like crazy? If you?re looking for the absolute fastest that would be the way to go.....

*puts on flame resistant suite*

 

[MrDudeMan]

nah im not gonna flame you but i thought p4s were more expensive, plus my friend has an insane system like this one and he gets the same sandra, 3dmark2001se, and other benchmark scores as all the AMDer's, so thusfar im not impressed with intel. i have nothing against them, but with the new release of the .13u claw hammers, im riding AMD all the way baby.


i have to say, though.....the 1.6a -> 2.4gHz is nonetheless absolutely INCREDIBLE. i salute all who are brave enough to push it that far and then are successful!


ahhh help with my motherboard problems! =)

no one has said anything about the rest of the computer...any other input?

 

[Jeff7]

If going RAID, you can got for...uh, RAID 5 is it? RAID 0 stipes the data, but there's another variety of it that has the RAID 0 speed with a third drive that acts as parity. That way, if any one drive fails for whatever reason, you can rebuild the data. With regular RAID 0, if one drive dies, everything's gone.

 

[MrDudeMan]

what are the chances of a drive failing though?

 

[Jerboy]

<< what are the chances of a drive failing though? >>



You never know.. When you use RAID0 for speed, your effectively halve the drive. You effectively halve the MTBF when you build a storage system that relies on two drives and needs two drives to function properly. RAID0 is the fastest. RAID1 doubles reliability, RAID 0+1 quadruples the cost and doubles both performance and speed. RAID5 requires SCSI RAID controller and is very expensive(thousands)

 

[MillionaireNextDoor]

How about a superdisk LS120? It doubles as a floppy drive just in case. That way, no other computer can claim superiority in even one of the many possible features. Of course, a problem would be the lack of IDE slots since this doesn't use the slow floppy slot.

 

[MrDudeMan]

thanks for the info on the raid, that really cleared it up for me

alright enough about hard drives! anyone else have anything to say about the rest of the computer??





someone go out on a limb and make your own system to compare to mine...lets see what we have alike and in common for the best system. ive been reading some awfully nice stuff about the new p4's...im an amd man, but the p4 1.6a is very tempting as most people can OC to at least 2.2+, and a decent amount attain 2.4+. plus, with the new DDR p4 boards, its getting more tempting all the time.


no flaming allowed here! p4's and amd's, someone post a system please!

 

[MillionaireNextDoor]

watercooling?

 

[MrDudeMan]

what is a super disk? it sounds interesting but i dont have any idea what it is. that post could have been in another language and i would have understand just as much =)

please explain!

 

[Zlash]

LS 120 is like a zip drive but the size of a 3.5 floppy.