UPDATED! help me make the FASTEST computer!

[Jerboy]

<<
40x12x48 Lite-On CD-Burner
16x/48x DVD-Rom
56x Regular CD-Rom (is this useful at all?) >>



You don't need that many optical drives. I recommend you try to get yourself a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo such as this one Plextor. One should be available in USA soon. That drive will do everything you need.

A CD-ROM drive in addition will only be necessary if you're planning on doing considerable number of CD-to-CD copying.

I recommend a 40x Teac reader if you'd like to do this. Other may have higher max rating, but they are usually slower than Teac after considering it's frequent slow down on less than perfect discs.

I have a Teac 40x reader and Plextor 16x reader setup. This setup will complete disc-to-disc in 5min 30sec without making everything go through hard drive.





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?[/i] >>

 

[mchammer187]

i would go with northwood if i were you but go with a Rambus not DDR setup
scsi is nice too bad i cant afford it



<< tell me what to look for here....i am looking to make the best computer available to put together, everyone let me in on your opinions/thoughts/comments...thanks!


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?

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? >>

 

[Athlon4all]

I would definately get at least a single Seagate X15 SCSI drive (36gb) for booting and running the OS and Apps and then you would get a bigger IDE drive for all your Data (if you need 130Gigs of space). No high-end system should be without it. If you want a solid on-board sound card, get a nForce board. They aren't really much more expensive than the other KT266A boards. I will also say do not get RAID unless it's SCSI RAID 0+1 (Needs 4 Drives). The performance isn't there and plus there's the risk. A Single X15 will out perform any IDE RAID array. Don't bother getting the CD-ROM. It won't be useful at all. 400W will be plenty for this system. Good luck!

 

[KenAF]

> what parts for the fastest computer able to be built right now?

This is nowhere near the fastest possible computer you can build today.

You can get a P4 2.0A and overclock it to 2700MHz easy with 533MHz RDRAM on an Abit TH7-II motherboard. It will destroy that system you have listed, as you can see in benchmarks right here, right here, and right here. If you were really going to go all out and spend a fortune, you'd get the $500 2.2A, an Alpha heatsink, and run that sucker at 2926MHz with 533MHz RDRAM on an Abit TH7-II motherboard. There are lots of folks over on Hardforum.com doing just this (albeit with the Swiftech heatsink, since the Alpha P4 heatsink won't be widely available for another week).

If you want value, you could go for the $140 P4 1.6A or 1.8A and clock it at 2400-2600MHz, and it would still easily outperform that system of yours.

If you've been following these forums lately, you know that the P4 has replaced that Athlon as the top performing setup when you overclock, which doesn't require any extra cooling. Again, refer to the actual tests here (ignore the Lightwave tests, cause they are optimized for the P4).

 

[Skaven]

Why buy one processor, when you can get two for twice the price!

Dually Athlon Setup

Dual Athlon - the only way to fly!*


*Make sure you are using Win2k, XP or Linux

 

[flexy]

this is a very fast system indeed (XP2000) - but i would NOT recommend it if you really want the "fastest" system, whatever.

The NW right now really looks pretty nice, especially overclocked up to 2.7 mhz (hey this is insane .... but i think the whole point is that XP2100 is already advertized (saw pop ups today somewhere)..and the XP2000 more or less already could be called "outdated".....not even to mention that right now we've seen the first ref boards running clawhammer....and i am totally NOT impressed from kt333 boards (CAS3) compared to good KT266A boards (CAS2)....its nothing i drool over....

I think right now is just a bad time for "getting the best system" - and you will VERY QUICKLY see much better systems/possible combinations in a few months.

How about an clawhammer AMD with the right board/ Quadspeed Ram/ or KT400 chipset and an ATI R300 ?

 

[MrDudeMan]

i am not going to get the dvd anymore...i am replacing it with that kenwood 72x truex drive, and ill keep the lite on 40x burner. i have decided to get the p4 either 1.6a, 1.8a, or 2.4a. i hope to get 2400, 2600, 2800 out of those chips, respectively. is that possible? and what cooling would be needed?

what is the best p4 board? does it support raid? should i even use raid?

what is better for it...DDR or RD?

should i use SCSI?

will the same towers function the same for intel boards as they do for amd boards? that may sound stupid, but it sounds logical enough to me to ask the question...better to be safe than sorry.

if i were to go with raid, i would get 2 80gb 7200rpm ATA133 drives, or go with SCSI and get that 36gigger that is really fast. i dont know yet...just broswing ATM

 

[HouRman]

Despite what anyone else thinks my computer will always be the best. (jk mines a 600E)

If you have millions to spend you could get one of those supercomputers that takes up several rooms like the one Squaresoft has in Hawaii. (Used to make Final Fantasy the movie)

 

[KenAF]

am not going to get the dvd anymore...i am replacing it with that kenwood 72x truex drive, and ill keep
the lite on 40x burner. i have decided to get the p4 either 1.6a, 1.8a, or 2.4a. i hope to get 2400, 2600,
2800 out of those chips, respectively. is that possible? and what cooling would be needed?

The $140 1.6A does 2133MHz minimum and 2400MHz average. Many do 2550-2650MHz. This is with the stock Intel heatsink; using a better heatsink like the massive new Alpha PAL8942 may help you to better achieve the higher overclocks like 2650MHz. The P4 1.8A's do not clock any higher than the 1.6As (sometimes even less), and are a waste of money.

The P4 2.4A's are not out until next month (in 400FSB version that'd you want for OC'n), and they will be expensive @ $500. Next month, the 2.0A will drop in price from the current $350 to $240-$260 online. The 2.0A is the next step up from the 1.6A in terms of overclocking; the average 2.0A overclock is 2600MHz with the stock Intel heatsink, with many hitting 2700MHz to 2900MHz with better cooling. The 2.2A will run a minimum of 2.6GHz to 2.7GHz, and most achieve 2.9GHz to 3.0GHz with better cooling. The 2.2A will drop to $220-$240 in May.

what is the best p4 board? does it support raid? should i even use raid?
what is better for it...DDR or RD?

RDRAM gives you the best performance for games, by far. RDRAM @ 533MHz offers performance in bandwidth-intensive games (like Serious Sam) that is 30% to 40% higher than what you get with overclocked DDR. In a few games, you need the RDRAM for the P4 to noticeably best the Athlon. The latest results at Tomshardware use RDRAM @ 533MHz.

As far as ease of overclocking, the best RDRAM board is currently the Abit TH7-II. Make sure you get the latest "unofficial" bios for this board from Hardforum.com, as it includes new options that significantly aid in overclocking. There is little to no benefit to RAID; you get better performance in applications and games by buying a single FAST drive than you do with two slightly slower drives.

should i use SCSI?

SCSI is not necessary. The Seagate X15 (SCSI) will get you the best hard drive performance, but with a ton of noise. IMO, you would do better to get one of the Western Digital "JB" drives (WD1000JB or WD1200JB; note its JB, *NOT* BB) instead; these are the fastest available ATA100 drives by a large margin. These are also much cheaper than the Seagate X15 (SCSI).

will the same towers function the same for intel boards as they do for amd boards? that may sound stupid, but it sounds logical enough to me to ask the question...better to be safe than sorry.

Yes. That said, the new P4's run a lot cooler than the Athlons, so you probably won't need nearly as much air circulation in your case. Most people here are running their P4 1.6A @ 2400MHz using nothing but the quiet Intel heatsink and power supply fan.

if i were to go with raid, i would get 2 80gb 7200rpm ATA133 drives, or go with SCSI and get that
36gigger that is really fast. i dont know yet...just broswing ATM

The only ATA133 drives are those from Maxtor, and while these offer decent price/performance, they are nowhere near the fastest ATA drives available. You would get better performance from a single 100GB WD1000JB or 120Gb WD1200JB than you would from two Maxtor "ATA133" drives. ATA133 is basically just marketing hoopla, the real world difference between ATA100 and ATA133 with the same drive is like 2%.

If you buy now, I would recommend a 1.6A ($135-$140) with an Alpha PAL8942 heatsink ($39 from 2cooltek.com) and an Asus P4S333 or P4B266 DDR motherboard ($100-$140) with 512Mb of Kingston PC2700 DDR ($185), a 120Gb Western Digital WD1200JB hard drive ($211 online w/ $50 rebate deal), and Geforce4 Ti4400 ($234 w/ $50 rebate deal). The Asus P4B266 and P4S333 motherboards with DDR seems to have better luck at 2500MHz to 2600MHz with the 1.6A than does the RDRAM boards. If you were buying next month, I would get the 2.0A ($240) with the Abit TH7-II RDRAM motherboard ($140) and 512Mb of the best Samsung 16-piece RDRAM memory (2x$80=$160); that would get you 2700MHz with blazing fast 533+MHz RDRAM.

 

[Smithy18]

SCSI SCSI SCSI Get 5 Seagate Cheetas(Fastest drive you could use) and set em up in RAID 0+1 HAHAHAHAH ULTIMATE POWER!

 

[MrDudeMan]

bump for help

 

[Jen]

<< "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 >>





should also be noted that the kenwoods have a problem reading some cd media..........such as blue dye cdrs etc.



Jen

 

[MrDudeMan]

what drives are you talking about? what drive is 100 dollarS? the 72x kenwood is around 130 like you said, but 56x drives are 35 shipped....

 

[jeffrey]

"what drives are you talking about? what drive is 100 dollarS? the 72x kenwood is around 130 like you said, but 56x drives are 35 shipped.... "

First of all don't drop the DVD player for a stand-alone cd-rom drive as you stated earlier. Secondly, this was for the fastest computer available, regardless of price. If you are on a budget get the burner and a dvd player, this combo will give you the best utility. However, it won't be the fastest available by a longshot until you get more money and fill in another drive bay with the 72X trueX Kenwood.

 

[Siddhartha]

Is anyone getting a Northwood overclocked to 2.9 to 3.0 gHz?

 

[tongboy]

people keep mentioning the 72x, kenwood stopped making those not too long ago, and they're getting harder to find by the day, if you want one you might wont to pick one up, or get one in the fs/ft forum, I'm sure people are getting rid of them.

why get a 56x cdrom if your going to get that burner with 48x read? I guarantee that unless you run applications off your cdrom you won't notice the speed difference.

I would watch the network card, I've known some that just don't like anything over 140 fsb. if your really want to overclock that does become an issue.

you don't need a floppy drive, I haven't used one since 1999, somebody wants to give me a file they email it to me or burn it and whenever something goes really bad I pop in my win2k cd or as it is now my winxp cd, bio updates are done via a bootable cd with the bios burned on it but then again most people wouldn't call me sane.

 

[MrDudeMan]

yes people are getting it overclocked to 2.9 and 3.0 gHz...and i dont know what everyone is talking about, i dont want a regular 56x cd-rom, i just mentioned the price. what i want is a 40x burner and a DVD drive...i dont see a need for the kenwood because i wont be burning cd to cd much, and 48x read is fast enough to do everything else. tongboy i agree with you..i have never used my floppy drive..its useless. what kind of network card can i get that will enable me to overclock extremely high??

 

[tongboy]

I'd say go with an intel card, they have good throughput, which is always important at a lanparty, and I've had mine up to 160 fsb without a problem, I can't say the system was 100% stable, but I'm pretty sure it was the video card and the uptime was still over 2 days at a time.

I've read numerous accounts of people having good luck with them as well.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< SCSI SCSI SCSI Get 5 Seagate Cheetas(Fastest drive you could use) and set em up in RAID 0+1 HAHAHAHAH ULTIMATE POWER! >>


5?

with raid 0+1?

do you even know what you're talking about?

 

[MrDudeMan]

yeah i didnt think that was right....

so you dont think a netgear FA310TX will overclock that well?

 

[MrDudeMan]

bump

 

[Jerboy]

SCSI is not necessary. The Seagate X15 (SCSI) will get you the best hard drive performance, but with a ton of noise. IMO, you would do better to get one of the Western Digital "JB" drives (WD1000JB or WD1200JB; note its JB, *NOT* BB) instead; these are the fastest available ATA100 drives by a large margin. These are also much cheaper than the Seagate X15 (SCSI).


Show me an IDE drive capable of sub 4ms seek time in reading and full rotation latency of sub 5ms and I might change my mind.

Seagate Cheetah X15 18.5GB(this is to be setup in RAID for more capacity)
Read Seek Time (Average) 3.6ms
Rotational Speed 15,000 RPM
full rotation latency: 4ms


The HDD you mentioned:
Read Seek Time (Average) 8.9 ms<---This is worse than my five year old Quantum 4.5GB drive
Rotational Speed 7,200 RPM (nominal)
full rotation latency: 8.3ms

 

[PlatinumGold]

i have dual scsi at my office and i've never found them exceptionally loud either.

 

[tongboy]

<< yeah i didnt think that was right....

so you dont think a netgear FA310TX will overclock that well? >>



those are known to handle pretty well and they also have good throughput, of course though with anything your mileage will very

 

[MrDudeMan]

jerboy, did you mean the WD1000JB is slow? then give me an example of the fastest IDE hard drive i can buy...and it doesnt have to be large...30gb is fine