Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle2k
I'm going to end up compromising on some components temporarily, but I intend to expand when I can. I will end up using an old hard drive and graphics card.
For the future I want to run 2 SSD in RAID 0 and then have a large drive for storage and back up. I would also like to run crossfire eventually.
I am planning on using the 2600k - i7 processor but I'm not too sure on a motherboard and power supply. Can anyone help me with piecing together some components?
Case is a midtower ATX FYI
Thanks in advance!!
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1.) Good choice on the Sandy Bridge chip, those things are very nice. The average chip is right around $290-315.
2.) I would upgrade your case, as a midtower ATX (depending on the actual size of it) may not be enough room for cabling, cooling, and your system setup. Especially if you are determined to run dual cards.
3.) Crossfire and SLI are not only overrated, but on the whole, don't produce all that much more in terms of cost. I say that with one caveat, it allows 2 cheaper/lower end cards to out perform a better/higher end card. However, if you can afford the higher end cards, I would always, always recommend the single card route. It consumes less power, requires less space, produces less heat, and unless you are sitting on top of a high end internet connection, you will almost never see enough of a difference to make the cost worth it.
4.) SSD's are great, but they are still very small in size compared to the price you pay for them. You might be able to find some 128GB drives decently priced, but in the end you will have space issues at some point. I saw you decided on a larger storage drive, but space will still be an issue in terms of applications, games, and updates. I run a 10k Raptor as my main drive at work and I've used about 75GB of the 160GB drive JUST for applications. My user profile isn't stored on this drive, because I would run out of space.
5.) Using RAID 0 would be a huge mistake, as if a drive fails, the array fails. I'm guessing what you want to do is have it copied to both drives, so if one goes, you aren't down. That is RAID 1.