CDsDontBurn

Alright, i've had my rig for a couple of months already, and i'm not as happy as i thought i would be. what do you guys think about it?

i got an ABIT IC7-G MoBo, p4 3.2E, 1Gb corsair XMS 400, 6800GT, 1x36Gb raptor, 1x60Gb 7200 8Mb WD as back up, and a 19" envision CRT @ 1600x1200x75hz.

I've done some overclocking on my system, but i'm still not as happy as i thought i would have been when i got my system. I listened to everybody and everybody told me to get p4 cuz of the hyperthreading and everybody was like "hyperthreading is the best, can't live w/o it." Now this hyperthreading, is more like hyper-treading.

is there anything out there that anybody knows that i could use all the features of my system and make me happy?

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refraction

your system should be fine as far as speed goes, altho i think your hard drives could be holding it back a bit. small hard drives usually means slow access.

get yourself a 120gb or higher (200gb is probably best idea) and run windows off that.

or try some system tweaks, get tweakxp and do all the P4 tweaks and do the "page kernel to memory" tweak, also stick your pagefile on your 2nd drive, hopefully that should speed things up a bit access wise.

but other than that your system should be pretty wicked.

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[color=royalblue]Computer Specs[/color] := [color=royalblue]AMD Opteron 146 2.0Ghz @ 2.9Ghz[/color] = [color=royalblue]1024Mb PC4400 RAM Dual Channel[/color] = [color=royalblue]Gainward BLISS 7900GTX 512mb[/color] = [color=royalblue]SB Audigy 4 [/color]= [color=royalblue]250Gb SATA Hard Drive[/color] = [color=royalblue]Thermaltake Xaser Case [/color]= [color=royalblue]Benq FP91G+[/color][color=royalblue] 19" TFT[/color]

CDsDontBurn

i have my raptor as my OS drive, and it doesn't boot up any faster than when i had my 40 8Mb WD as my OS drive. Load times are supposed to be faster w/raptors in a system, but i don't really see much of a difference.

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refraction

40 & 60 gig wont be much different, but larger hard drives are definately faster. if you want shorter booting times use Driverheaven's TuneXP too and do ultra fast boot, takes about 20 mins cos it does a mini defrag, but it cut my time down from like 30 seconds to about 5-10

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[color=royalblue]Computer Specs[/color] := [color=royalblue]AMD Opteron 146 2.0Ghz @ 2.9Ghz[/color] = [color=royalblue]1024Mb PC4400 RAM Dual Channel[/color] = [color=royalblue]Gainward BLISS 7900GTX 512mb[/color] = [color=royalblue]SB Audigy 4 [/color]= [color=royalblue]250Gb SATA Hard Drive[/color] = [color=royalblue]Thermaltake Xaser Case [/color]= [color=royalblue]Benq FP91G+[/color][color=royalblue] 19" TFT[/color]

The_Neon_Cowboy

shoulda got an amd 64 + an x800xt pe

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Zardon

you been drinking? hyperthreading is great for multitasking - I see large gains with my EE rig over my FX rig with multiple pro apps open! if you only play games then the A64 should have been your choice. common knowledge. You also bought a system based on the prescott core which has deeper pipes and gives slower performance than the c northwood - more suited to encoding etc with the 512k extra cache.

drakesteakn

i have had both intel and AMD machines, i now stay to the A64 line, hyper threading never did nothing for me. i think u need to try tweaking ur system alot.

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Zardon

People seem to be under this impression that hyperthreading will magically double frame rates in games.

Unless you do a lot of multitasking with apps you wont see much difference, if however you do, you will see gains. I for one see massive gains with professional apps and HT, kyle bennett at HOCP has said the same thing quite publically.

if you want a pure gaming machine get an FX processor.

drakesteakn

i was only using my computer for gamming and some office stuff. i never really needed the HT. yes its nice for those profesional apps, but i never used any of them. the only difference i saw was the Bryce 5 and other rendering programs that i use sometimes, for them HT does make a diference.

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pr0digal jenius

yea, CDsDontBurn...what are you trying to use this system of yours for....if it's for gaming, try turnign HT off and you may find it'll overclock a little farther before coming unstable

but if it's for rendering video/3d/large graphics...your system should be haulign ass all over the place.

As Z said tho....the northwood core might give ya more oomph in gaming if you can get a northwood CPU in that mobo(dunno what it uses)

@/2ct!<

Medal Of HOnor Pacific Assault has some HT optimizations, no idea what they are though.

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CDsDontBurn

there's the problem, i don't multi task. It goes back to the old 500Mhz days when burning a CD and doing something else very simple would cause my CDs to skip often. Ever since then, i've never did more than two things at once really. I use my system mainly for gaming, and whatever school reports i gotta do, but other than that, i really don't have much more use for my system.

Prod., HT is a real drag for me. I don't really use it, and if i disable it, i'll lose some performance. Overclocking will get slightly better, but disabling HT and getting some higher clock speeds if you think about it, comes out to be about the same in performance.

Had my 9700pro not broken, and my previous board suddenly not died, i'd stil have my old set up. Now i'm thinking about upgrading again, but all the options i have are pretty expensive, and i can't afford it right now after i bought this system. Intel's are nice and all, but Intel doesn't float my boat the way AMD always did.

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Shike

The fact is turning off HT and OCing higher will actually be quite different performance wise, as long as the OC goes up a bit. HT does not work in the majority of games. End of story, an OC will work in all games. This will indeed change performance.

CDsDontBurn

i didn't say it wouldn't degrade the quality of performance, i said it would change the way of performance is when HT is turned off.

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mike2h

since when has turning of ht helped an oc? on my machine at least, that is not the case.
3.2 running at 3.9 is a healthy oc. if your system seems 'slow' i would look to tweaking/optimising than replacing anything. the hardware setup you have is very fast. not sure what it is you are wanting.
if you are wanting the fastest rig out there then pony up the $$. ifyou want to be able to play any games out there with high iq & more fr than it takes to play it comfortably then you are there. & then some. there are some good resource links to xp/bios optimisations on this website. look through them & pick the one that seems best to you. do not use multiple guides.
then enjoy your machine. that is a nice rig.

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CDsDontBurn

i know i got a nice rig, it just doesn't feel like the big bad boy i thought it would be when i put all together.

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pr0digal jenius

I think the overclockign and HT relationship depends on the board as much as anythign else...

I personally run stable ate about 100MHz higher with it off....I dunno if it's the xeons, or the board(Asus PC-DL 875p chipset) that causes it though....but yea...try tweaking a good bit...your system shouldn't dissappoint

Danhill

I belive the Raptor is the fastest HD out there, isn't it??

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MOBO: [color=white]ASUS A8N-SLI Premium[/color] CPU: AMD 64 3200+ (Venice) @ 2,50 Ghz MEM: 2 x 512 DDR 466, VGA: 2 x 6600 GT in SLI, HDD1: WD Raptor HDD2: Maxtor Diamond Plus 9, Case: Antec Plus View 1080, PSU: ThermalTake PurePower 500W, MX 1000, Dell 2001 FP, Aud. 2 SZ

Asmoday

They indeed are the fastest HDD's if you don't count SCSI discs...

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pr0digal jenius

yea...but what he was saying was if you get a lerger disk it'll read faster...but I'm ntos ure how true that is, especially in a noticeable real-world sorta sense

refraction

you can certainly feel the difference in a large hard drive compared to a small one, altho if you look at benchmarks the larger disks always score higher, probably due to more platters so it can read more at once, thats probably why its faster.


as for raptors, i dont know where they stand as ive never had/used one.

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[color=royalblue]Computer Specs[/color] := [color=royalblue]AMD Opteron 146 2.0Ghz @ 2.9Ghz[/color] = [color=royalblue]1024Mb PC4400 RAM Dual Channel[/color] = [color=royalblue]Gainward BLISS 7900GTX 512mb[/color] = [color=royalblue]SB Audigy 4 [/color]= [color=royalblue]250Gb SATA Hard Drive[/color] = [color=royalblue]Thermaltake Xaser Case [/color]= [color=royalblue]Benq FP91G+[/color][color=royalblue] 19" TFT[/color]

pr0digal jenius

raptors are the high end 10k rpm disks that everyone would sell their mother for a pair of

Danhill

I sold a PSU, Case and my old HD to get the Raptor, does that count??

Ohhh and I threw in a copy of your stapler.

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MOBO: [color=white]ASUS A8N-SLI Premium[/color] CPU: AMD 64 3200+ (Venice) @ 2,50 Ghz MEM: 2 x 512 DDR 466, VGA: 2 x 6600 GT in SLI, HDD1: WD Raptor HDD2: Maxtor Diamond Plus 9, Case: Antec Plus View 1080, PSU: ThermalTake PurePower 500W, MX 1000, Dell 2001 FP, Aud. 2 SZ

pr0digal jenius

my stapler si worth atleast 2 raptors...you got shafted


but yes...thats about right. EVERYONE wants a raptor

mike2h

i have a 74 raptor, a 80 gig maxtor, & a 160 cuda. there is no comparison. the raptor boots faster & loads everyhing faster. the larger hd thing is true with drives of the same or slightly better 'classs'.
bigger hd tend to have the newest tech & more platters. but nothing out there right now except for some scsi drives can compete with the raptor. it matches up with most 10000 rpm scsi drives & some of the 15000 drives in some areas. throw in the cost difference.. no brainer.
i have never had a hd drive actually make a noticable difference like my raptor did.

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bug77

Man, that hyperthreading thing is overrated... It's just a second execution unit. That means that the CPU can execute 2 threads at once, instead of 1. Considering each program you run opens several threads (usually more than 10 - check with Task Manager), don't tell me that somehow, the P4 magically guesses what program you want to switch to and loads the thread before you hit Alt+Tab. If you want to see improved performance, you should look at the RAM, not HT. BTW: I'm on a P4@3.0 w/ HT atm...

CDsDontBurn

raptors are fast yes. however, for the same price you can get yourself a SATA Maxtor HDD 300Gb 7200RPM w/ 16Mb buffer. sounds slow when you hear that 7200RPM, but that 16Mb buffer does a world of difference. From what i've seen in benchmarks and in person, those are just as fast a a 36Gb/74Gb raptor simply because of it's larger buffer. Now having two of those 300Gb drives in RAID-0 would be hella awsome!.

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mike2h

the new maxtors are probably the best 7200 hd out there right now - as far as speed/capacity per $ goes. but they still can not compete with a raptor on pretty much any level. because of their buffer(& platter density) they do good on short/small file access. fairly close actually. but for larger file transfer/ access/bootup/loading games the raptor still kicks ass. i know i sound like a 'fanboy' & i guess i am. of all the hd's i have owned - & i am going back to 400 mb days the raptor has give me the best real world, easily seen performance from a hd i have ever seen. period.
still would like one of those maxtors though.
wished my chipset supported command queing. at least my raptor & 'cuda will get a slight boost when i upgrade next.

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Zardon

Actually ive tested both the maxtor 16 meg cache drive and the Raptors, and the 16mb cache actually helps the drive outperform the raptor in some areas. such as booting up times -- on the 16mb drives its faster and anything which accesses many smaller files in which the additional cache can help.

For larger files such as video streaming or the photoshop stratch disc the raptors are faster due to the added RPM. In both cases its actually quite minor but overall id still give the edge on speed to the raptor, only problem ive found is the fact they dont handle FSB very well, on a test system I have anything over 260fsb and the raptors vanish from the sata chain, whereas the 16mb maxtor drive happily deals with 270+. Its quite well known Raptors dont like high FSBs. Of course you also have to take into consideration the price to size differential and the maxtor IMO is a much better deal, the raptors also run significantly hotter.

mike2h

the trick on oc'ing with the raptor is your agp/pci divider. i turned mine down & it fixed that problem right up. unfortunatley it took me 2 rmas to figure it out.
as far as heat goes my 74 raptor runs about 3deg c cooler than my 160 cuda. this seems to be fairly common.
out of curiosity what did you use to test the 2 drives? or did i miss the review?
it is just that the raptor competes so well with scsi 10000/15000 hd's i really wonder what maxtor is up to. after all since wd is no longer in the high end scsi market they have nothing to lose. maxtor does.
anyway for $230 it is very(very) hard to beat the performance/size ratio of the maxtors.
still like the 5yr warranty on the raptor though.
you got to believe that wd is going to come out with a 16 meg vers of the raptor. got to be working on that platter density too.

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