[Help Given] Buying New Deskop - Now Updated!

[John Crichton]

Well ... I think the Hexx looks nice. You know that VoodooPC has been bought out by HP, yes? Doesn't seem to have hurt their quality any. Just thought you might be interested to know, though.

Oh, really?! Huh. I certainly didn't know that.

The configuration I threw together cost a little under $5000 ... which seems to be the upper end of your price range.

Yeah, the one I just did was about that.

Any other considerations?

Well, it's tough because some of these other places don't have any mention of how loud the machine is. So I have to rely on user reviews. I hate having to worry about keeping the thing soft but I just can't stand the noise. I guess it would be worth it if I was a heavy FPS gamer, but I'm not.

 

[Pyrex]

I guess my first question would be do you really need $2500 worth of PC?

Given your stated goals it sounds like a $1000 Dell would suit your needs.

If you want quiet & smaller, try looking at the various home-theater styled Media Center PC's, they're frequently passively cooled.

 

[Thanee]

range of $2500-$5000.

Buy two or three identical (normal) systems, no customer service in the world can give you that much redundancy and reliability.

Plus you can invite some friends for a (small) LAN party as a bonus.

Bye
Thanee

 

[IronWolf]

As for the RAID, I do know about striping and all that. I guess the question would be is the speed of RAID 0 worth the risk compared to the stability of RAID 1.

I wouldn't run RAID 0 if I were you. Just not worth the risk in my opinion. With a RAID0 scenario you have now put yourself in the scenario if 1 of 2 drives die you just lost your OS and any data on that volume. So you end up with twice the odds that a disk failure will cause data loss, since you now have two disks that if either fail you lose data. Just not worth the risk at all to me.

Now, if you were really interested in speeding up video editing or something, I might consider a separate RAID0 set just for that. Then you can hack on video in progress on that RAID0 set and once you have what you want copy the resulting file to a sane storage location. But this RAID0 set is in addition to a disk for the OS and data. That way if you lose your RAID0, your data and OS are safe.

 

[Mycanid]

Hey there John ... just thought of something. Have you considered buying a Mac? The Mac Pro is a Quad core Xeon processor. And you can load Windows XP Pro on it via Boot Camp and have a dual booting system. It would be quite a nice machine and about in your price range. Customer service is reputed to be VERY good too.

 

[ssampier]

I really wouldn't worry about RAID for your needs. RAID 1 can be slow and it's only a benefit if one of your drives fail; don't think about doing it as a backup. RAID 0 you are putting all your eggs in one basket. Any drives fail; your data is toast. RAID 5 is better for speed and redudancy, but I haven't seen it on too many consumer systems.

In my understanding water cooling is the choice to keep your system cool when you overclock your system. If you don't overclock, there's little need for one.

Most of the parts of the consumers systems are similar, but the support--in my mind--is lacking. You want to consider a bouqet vendor, Alienware you mentioned, but there are others, such as Voodoo or Falcon Northwest. They may provide better support than Dell, Gateway, or HP.*

*I am aware that Voodoo is owned by HP and Alienware is owned by Dell.

 

[John Crichton]

Thanks all, again.

I'm certainly leaning towards an Alienware/voodooPC/Falcon Northwest at this point for all the reasons mentioned. I'm trying to find a balance between size, noise, power and price. I know that I said up to $5000 could be spent but I'm not willing to just throw that much away if I don't have to. Ya' know?

 

[John Crichton]

I really wouldn't worry about RAID for your needs. RAID 1 can be slow and it's only a benefit if one of your drives fail; don't think about doing it as a backup. RAID 0 you are putting all your eggs in one basket. Any drives fail; your data is toast. RAID 5 is better for speed and redudancy, but I haven't seen it on too many consumer systems.

Not using RAID sounds like the smart move from the posts here and I also understand now that it's mostly for high-end PC gamers. That is not me.

In my understanding water cooling is the choice to keep your system cool when you overclock your system. If you don't overclock, there's little need for one.

Ah, good to know. I don't plan on overclocking anything.

 

[John Crichton]

Hey there John ... just thought of something. Have you considered buying a Mac? The Mac Pro is a Quad core Xeon processor. And you can load Windows XP Pro on it via Boot Camp and have a dual booting system. It would be quite a nice machine and about in your price range. Customer service is reputed to be VERY good too.

Not a bad idea and I'll take it into consideration.

 

[Aeolius]

Not a bad idea and I'll take it into consideration.

Then perhaps some links are in order, regarding the Mac Pro , Apple's "Get a Mac" page for switchers, Apple's current OS "Tiger" and next OS "Leopard" , the obligatory Games link, and videoediting with iMovie (part of the iLife suite), Final Cut Express , or Final Cut Pro