Z
zagat
Hi Folks,
I've decided to upgrade my old machine and I would appreciate any
comments/suggestions on my setup. This is a bit long so I apologize
in advance.
First off, let me explain that I am not into gaming, but use my
machine primarily for s/w development, some graphics work (mostly
Illustrator), and some large database (almost 2 GB) work. I tend not
to upgrade often, so I can afford to spend a bit more on a machine
I'll probably keep for around 3 years.
The components I've chosen so far (along with some rationale) are:
ASUS P4P800-Deluxe motherboard
The P4C800 doesn't add enough (for me) to justify
the added price. Also, people report good results
in overclocking with this board.
P4 @ 2.6 (800 MHz fsb).
I may overclock (hoping to get to around 3GHz)
and this CPU seems to be the best bang for the buck.
From what I read, the 2.8 also OC's to about
3, so there is no great benefit going to it.
1GB (2x512) Corsair PC3500 DDR RAM.
Great memory with some room for overclocking.
Matrox G550 dual-head video
As I said, I am not into gaming and don't need blazing
3d performance. I do want superb 2d for the graphics
work.
Disks:
Here I need some suggestions.
I will be using Win2K as my main OS but because I need
to do regression testing on the s/w I develop, I need to
test with other Windows OS's, such as Win95, 98, ME, NT,
and XP. I will only be running these other OS's when I
test software, all my serious work will be done under Win2K.
I also play around a bit with Linux.
I am currently planning on running two WD(800 or 1000)JB
(80 or 100 GB, 7200, special edition Caviar's w/8meg buffer).
Because I need to test on a variety of Windows OS's, I plan
to install a boot manager on the first disk, allowing me to
boot up either Win95, 98, ME, NT, 2K, XP, or any of a
couple flavors of Linux (if I can get away with that many
OS's on one machine). I plan to allocate about 6-8G
to each Windows OS (to allow for the system and whatever
tools I might need) and about 10-15G for each Linux
OS. I realize that these are somewhat large but I want
to be able to install all the tools I need for each OS
separately so as to not cause registry corruption or
other problems.
The second disk will hold my data and applications. This
disk will be on the second IDE controller. I'll plan on
having a fairly large NTFS partition (as I said, my main OS
is Win2K) and smaller FAT32 (to swap files between Win2K,
Linux, and the Win9x OS's) and ext-3 partitions.
Now the silly part...
I have an Adaptec 2940UW controller and a spare 9GB, 7200
SCSI drive. I was thinking of using this drive to hold
the Windows and Linux swap partitions. I would format the
Windows swap partition as FAT32 so as to be able to be used
by both Win9x and Win2K OS's.
With this configuration I separate the OS's from the data/
applications and keep the swap files separate from other
disk activity. It sure looks like overkill but since the
controller and disk are free, why not?
destroying data.
I do not plan to use a RAID configuration.
Lite-on 52x32x52 (or something like that) CD-RW
Good quality, low price.
DVD - I'll deal with this later
Case - Already have this
Antec power supply, probably a 430 or 480 watt supply.
Well, that's most of it.
Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks and sorry for the long posting,
Zag
I've decided to upgrade my old machine and I would appreciate any
comments/suggestions on my setup. This is a bit long so I apologize
in advance.
First off, let me explain that I am not into gaming, but use my
machine primarily for s/w development, some graphics work (mostly
Illustrator), and some large database (almost 2 GB) work. I tend not
to upgrade often, so I can afford to spend a bit more on a machine
I'll probably keep for around 3 years.
The components I've chosen so far (along with some rationale) are:
ASUS P4P800-Deluxe motherboard
The P4C800 doesn't add enough (for me) to justify
the added price. Also, people report good results
in overclocking with this board.
P4 @ 2.6 (800 MHz fsb).
I may overclock (hoping to get to around 3GHz)
and this CPU seems to be the best bang for the buck.
From what I read, the 2.8 also OC's to about
3, so there is no great benefit going to it.
1GB (2x512) Corsair PC3500 DDR RAM.
Great memory with some room for overclocking.
Matrox G550 dual-head video
As I said, I am not into gaming and don't need blazing
3d performance. I do want superb 2d for the graphics
work.
Disks:
Here I need some suggestions.
I will be using Win2K as my main OS but because I need
to do regression testing on the s/w I develop, I need to
test with other Windows OS's, such as Win95, 98, ME, NT,
and XP. I will only be running these other OS's when I
test software, all my serious work will be done under Win2K.
I also play around a bit with Linux.
I am currently planning on running two WD(800 or 1000)JB
(80 or 100 GB, 7200, special edition Caviar's w/8meg buffer).
Because I need to test on a variety of Windows OS's, I plan
to install a boot manager on the first disk, allowing me to
boot up either Win95, 98, ME, NT, 2K, XP, or any of a
couple flavors of Linux (if I can get away with that many
OS's on one machine). I plan to allocate about 6-8G
to each Windows OS (to allow for the system and whatever
tools I might need) and about 10-15G for each Linux
OS. I realize that these are somewhat large but I want
to be able to install all the tools I need for each OS
separately so as to not cause registry corruption or
other problems.
The second disk will hold my data and applications. This
disk will be on the second IDE controller. I'll plan on
having a fairly large NTFS partition (as I said, my main OS
is Win2K) and smaller FAT32 (to swap files between Win2K,
Linux, and the Win9x OS's) and ext-3 partitions.
Now the silly part...
I have an Adaptec 2940UW controller and a spare 9GB, 7200
SCSI drive. I was thinking of using this drive to hold
the Windows and Linux swap partitions. I would format the
Windows swap partition as FAT32 so as to be able to be used
by both Win9x and Win2K OS's.
With this configuration I separate the OS's from the data/
applications and keep the swap files separate from other
disk activity. It sure looks like overkill but since the
controller and disk are free, why not?
destroying data.
I do not plan to use a RAID configuration.
Lite-on 52x32x52 (or something like that) CD-RW
Good quality, low price.
DVD - I'll deal with this later
Case - Already have this
Antec power supply, probably a 430 or 480 watt supply.
Well, that's most of it.
Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks and sorry for the long posting,
Zag