# Need help on building a copmuter



## NoComputerWizard (May 8, 2011)

I'm going to start this off by saying i am no where close to being a computer expert. I know very little. I am trying to build i gaming computer for myself because my other computer is terrible. My budget is around 700 dollars.
Please if you see anything wrong, I'm forgetting something or if you have a suggestion for something else please tell me, it will help a lot. Thanks

Case:NZXT GAMMA Classic Series GAMA-001BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case


CPU:Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor 


MotherBoard:GIGABYTE GA-H67MA-USB3-B3 LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard 


Video Card:MSI N460GTX Hawk GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card 



Power Supply:hec X-Power Pro 600 600W Continuous @ 40°C ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply 


Ram:G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL8D-4GBRM


Hard Drive:Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive



I'm buying all the parts from newegg.com


----------



## JHM (May 9, 2011)

Well if I were you, I would get more than 1 HDD. The more the merrier, but at least 2. Reason ? What happens if your HDD fails, and you only have 1 ?


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 9, 2011)

JHM - If you have 2 hardrives, and one dies, the other one is still useless unless you had windows installed on it as well... and all the data on the first HDD is gone, so whats the point of getting 2 drives for then?

If you are trying to get him to set up redundancy, than run a RAID 1 -Mirror. That way, if the one drive dies, the other continues to boot windows and once the dead drive is replaced, the redundancy is present again. 

So back to the Topic at hand. I looked at your list of parts, and I have made a few changes. 

First of all, for this budget, I suggest switching camps. I priced out an AMD 1090T X6 @3.2Ghz and an Gigabyte motherboard with USB 3.0 and Sata 6GB.

Swapped out the much dated (and overpriced) Nvidia 460 and replaced it with a HD 6850 - which is superior in every aspect including price. 

The PSU you had is ah...not very well trusted. I upgraded that to a Corsair 600WATT PSU.

Your hard drive was lacking as well. I added a 1TB SATA 6GB Western Digital BLACK drive - higher performance than regular drives. 

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849
MOBO: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128490
Video: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121419
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

Stayed within your budget and kept the same Case and Ram that you picked.


----------



## JHM (May 9, 2011)

Well gee, if you only have 1 HDD and it dies, thats it ! You have lost everything ! - But if you have 2 HDDs you can have copies of the stuff you value on both of them, so If one dies, you still have copies of your more important files. 

Re "Raid", don't recommend it. Why not ? Because it SIGNIFICANTLY increases the chance of both drives dying silmultaneously.


----------



## NoComputerWizard (May 9, 2011)

Thanks so much, this is a lot of help.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 9, 2011)

Definition of RAID from Wiki:

"RAID, an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks"

I think you need to do your research before giving advice. 

Please back up your claim of "Because it SIGNIFICANTLY increases the chance of both drives dying silmultaneously."

You might have RAID 0 confused with RAID 1. In RAID 0, which is designed for SPEED, if one drive dies, then your SOL.


----------



## JHM (May 9, 2011)

I have done my research on this subject; and I think you are the one who needs to do some more. I don't want to get in an argument here, it's a waste of time. Suffice it to say that it is almost always the "C" partition that goes bad, and for that reason I recommend partitioning drives, and keeping a backup of "C"; and backups of important files on a separate HDD. That way if the drive with the "C" partition on it fails, you need only replace the drive, reload "Windopes", then restore from backup to get back where you were. I keep as little as possible on my "C" partition and recommend others do the same.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 9, 2011)

JHM - You are simply talking about software failures. IF windows fails, yes, its usually the C drive that fails. However, you can make all the partitions you want, at the end of the day, if your HDD goes capoots, all your PARTITIONS ARE GONE!!!!!

Your Logic - which isnt wrong - is backup your data or back-up image on a separate drive, if the main one dies, restore from backup. How long is this process?? Hours??

With a RAID 1 Setup - regardless of how many partitions, if your HDD DIES, the other one is an EXACT CLONE of the dead drive. So, there is no down time whatsoever. Replace the dead drive, and the RAID controller will rebuild it in the background as you continue to go about your business in windows. 

You just dont seem to understand RAID.


----------



## JHM (May 9, 2011)

Yes that bit about Raid being an exact clone is true. But it is also true that whatever the one drive does the second one does also. And whatever caused the first drive to fail, is likely to cause the second drive to fail also. DO YOUR RESEARCH !! Re software, quite often the "Boot Sector" of the ""C" drive gets damaged because of "Windopes" screwups. So it is smart really to use a relatively small HDD for the "C" drive, and keep everything BUT "Windopes" elsewhere. Re how long to get back up and running, it takes about a half hour to load XP, (which is what I use), and about 15 minutes to restore from backup. My "C" drive however resides in a "Hot Swap Tray", and I have a spare to use in the event of problems. I also am running a "Dualboot", wherein "D" XP-Backup is another XP boot on a separate HDD.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 9, 2011)

JHM said:


> Yes that bit about Raid being an exact clone is true.



No. RAID 1 is exact clone. Theres a difference. 

Im talking about hardware failures, software errors can be recovered. 

In my opinion, your setup is too "messy". 

All you need is 2 Drives, setup in RAID 1, and forget about it. 

We are argueing Oranges to Apples. Our understanding of technologies are on different levels of application - very common. No big deal.

Cheers!


----------



## JHM (May 9, 2011)

Well sorry, but I don't think much of "RAID". Those who arrange their drives in a "RAID", (Rotten, Attrocious, Idiotic, Dumb), configuration, gain the folllowing "Advantages" :

1) They have SIGNIFICANTLY increased the chance of silmultaneous failure of both drives in the array.
2) Any viruses that land on their primary Windows boot are immediately copied onto the secondary Windows boot.
3) Any file unintentionally deleted or damaged on the primary Windows boot, will immediately become deleted or damaged on the secondary Windows boot.

This sort of idiocy makes it pointless to have a secondary Windows boot; because you will never be able to repair damage to the primary, by copying files from the secondary, and nor will you be able to use the secondary to clean viruses off the primary. NO THANKS.


----------



## johnb35 (May 10, 2011)

I used to run raid 1 and it saved me at least twice from losing all my data.  And your reasoning that whatever happens to one drive will happen to the other drive is just absolutely wrong.  Very seldom will 2 drives go out at the same time.  And if malware attacks, its just like having only one drive anyway it can be cleaned for the most part.  There are only 2 major infections that shouldn't be cleaned, virut and ramnit.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 10, 2011)

JHM said:


> Well sorry, but I don't think much of "RAID". Those who arrange their drives in a "RAID", (Rotten, Attrocious, Idiotic, Dumb),



Really? It sounds to me like you read a few articles or posts about how people lost their data off their Raid and based your opinion on that. 

Ever Download a file off a file server somewhere? say...Microsoft updates? Where do you think that file sits? On the "C" drive of HDD 1 and a backup of it is on HDD 2, on a server somewhere? No.

That file probably sits on a File Server somewhere on the RAID controller. What happens to the file if 1 or 2 of those drives die? NOTHING! RAID allows for scaleable performance, as well as redunancy. Thats why just about EVERY FILE resides on a file server somewhere on a RAID configuration. 

On your computer. IF you are watching a movie, and your primary drive where your "C" partition is located, dies. You are offline until you configure your secondary drive as primary boot and turn your computer back on. 

You know what happens on my computer if that happens?  NOTHING!!! I simply get a notification that one of my drives have dropped off the RAID and that i need to replace soon. Down time? ZERO!

Another thing is performance. 

IT looks like you have 3 or 4 drives attached to your computer. Most likely SATA or SATA 2. Assuming you walked into the store or went online and bought your "high perfirmance drives" that will allow you about 40-50mb/s write and 60-80mb/s read. 

I get 160mb/s Read and 135mb/s Write with my RAID 10 setup. Downtime? only when i  purposely screw up windows. Hardware downtime? Probably 20 minutes in the last 3 years since i set it up. 

You are confusing RAID with your simple multiple partitions.


----------



## JHM (May 10, 2011)

Then go to the "Poker Room" and get yourself infected with the ""Windows Recovery Virus". Good luck disinfecting your machine if both your boots are infected! I had to put Gloria's drive in my machine as a secondary to get rid of most of it, and there are still some elements that arn't working right.

But on my machine, with its multiple partitions, and independant boots, - i.e. if "C" become badly infected, I just go into the bios and set the boot drive to "D", then use "D" to disinfect "C"; or in the worst case, take the Hotswap Tray that "C" resides in out of the machine and put in my spare.

Re "RAID" SIGNIFICANTLY increases the chance of silmultaneous failure of both drives in the array"; - that info is available online, and it isn't in a post but rather in research articles.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 10, 2011)

You are referring to 1 specific RAID configuration. Which is RAID 0 (Stripe) and is designed for speed, people who run Stripes, know better and back up their data, but they stripe for the added performance. IF 1 drive drops off the array, regardless of software fault or hardware failure, both drives are rendered useless in terms of data. However, both drives arent dead. They simply failed out of the RAID. RAID 0 often fail in home configurations because the drives used are not designed for RAID, and more often then not, they use software RAID as opposed to hardware. 

I can understand that for your purposes, RAID isnt required as your computing needs seem basic. I can be wrong, I dont see your computer specs. But those who require performance and 0 down time, go for a RAID config.  Everything that you mention, can be done on a RAID. 

In my configuration, I have 2 hardrives that are Striped to get performance, and each of those drives are then mirror'd for redundancy. All software aside. My RAID 10 setup can allow for up to 2 hardrives to be faulted off the array - assuming they are only one drive from each mirror. 

So I can continue using my computer if the drive dropps off while im using it. I simply open up the RAID utility and fix the array without down time - this is assuming the drive simply dropped off the array and didnt actually die. 

In a prodcution environment, any down time means loss of income/profit. If servers go down even for 10 minutes just to switch over to a primary drive, thats 10 minutes multiplied by the number of users affected. 

So...RAID, until you understand it, please dont go spreading false facts.


----------



## JHM (May 11, 2011)

Wrong again. I am not referring to "STRIPE" configurations, which in the event of "SOFTWARE" failure will leave both drives inaccessable; but NOT DESTROYED. I am referring to "MIRROR" configurations, which are SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to suffer simultaneous "HARDWARE" failure than independant drives. i.e. BOTH DRIVES DESTROYED.

Suppose the guy who started this thread decided to get 2 HDDs for his new machine; and on your advice decided to MIRROR RAID them. Suppose also that he didn't get an "UNINTERUPTED POWER SUPPLY", and that while he was running his machine, a power failure caused his primary drive to have a "HEAD CRASH" on the boot track, thereby rendering it permanently inoperable. What would happen to his other drive, hey genius ? It would be MIRRORING the Primary, working on the boot track, and it would have a head crash there too wouldn't it ? And that is just one example of the sort of thing that can cause simultaneous HARDWARE failure of MIRRORED DRIVES.

MIRRORED DRIVES are fine, if you are MICROSOFT, and have 300 servers with the identical crap loaded on them, and if one of them bites the dust, you just replace the HDDs, and reload it from another server. BUT, I don't recommend them for people with 1 Machine.

I will try to find the articles on the subject that I have previously seen.


----------



## 87dtna (May 13, 2011)

You're an idiot.


----------



## FuryRosewood (May 13, 2011)

Couldnt have said something so meaningful in less words, thank you XD

damn that made my night lol

-i have a RAID 1 running on a clients machine for the reason that if the one of the two drives fail...im not SOL, i can simply let the dead drive be rmaed, get back the drive, pop it in...and whee...i DONT HAVE TO REINSTALL XP AND LOSE 3 HOURS OF MY LIFE AFTER UPDATES c.c

and wow, did this train get off the tracks...we were talking about a guys build right? all i would have suggested he do is change the psu out to a better more well known unit honestly, but im pretty laid back on most stuff.


----------



## 87dtna (May 13, 2011)

Sometimes it just needs said 

Anyway to the OP-

Get the 2500k instead of just the regular 2500.

Get a P67 board instead of an H67 board.  The H67 board you mentioned is Micro ATX, but the case can handle a full ATX board just fine.

HEC is a crap brand for a power supply, get a corsair,silverstone, Antec, or seasonic

Get a ddr3-1600 kit, and I'd recommend going 8gb on a new build to be more futureproof.


Here's links to parts I'd recommend-

CPU-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072&cm_re=2500k-_-19-115-072-_-Product

Mobo-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...57230&cm_re=P67_asrock-_-13-157-230-_-Product

Ram-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_re=rip_jaws_1600_8gb-_-20-231-445-_-Product

Power supply-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044



You can save a few bucks on the ram and get a 4gb kit, but I really recommend 8gb for new builds.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231443


----------



## JHM (May 13, 2011)

If I am an "Idiot", what does that make you ?






And that isn't the best one I have gotten, just the best I still have a copy of. My platoon commander in the army informed me I had the highest IQ, (the army tested me at 162), of anyone who had ever joined under the "Apprentice training program".


----------



## 87dtna (May 13, 2011)

I don't care if you're a rocket scientist....you don't know jack about raid setups apparently.

I bet you a million dollars if I went to the smartest person on the planet, and asked them ''whats a stronger graphics card.....a 5770 or a gtx460?'' they would not have a fricken clue what I was talking about.

So I'm not impressed by your 32 year old IQ test.

BTW, so you are 67 years old now?  I bet it's your dad's or even grandfather's IQ test or something anyway.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 13, 2011)

Thanks for the backup 87dtna. 

I was on Topic, but i couldnt let JHM mis-inform someone about RAID so they miss out on all the advantages. 

JHM: that scan doesnt prove anything nor is it relevant.


----------



## JHM (May 14, 2011)

It only shows, I am not an "Idiot". As for my knowledge, do you know anything about how HDDs work ? What is a "Head Crash" ? What causes "Head Crashes" ? Why does Windows require that you use their shutdown proceedure ? Why did Windows 98-Se say "It is safe to shut off your computer now" ?

What you guys are trying to do is save yourselves time, working on other peoples computers, - and it does save time, - BUT at a price ! - and the price is increased chance of simultaneous hardware failure of both drives in the Mirrored Array. What do you do when that happens ?


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 14, 2011)

JHM said:


> What you guys are trying to do is save yourselves time, working on other peoples computers, - and it does save time, - BUT at a price ! - and the price is increased chance of simultaneous hardware failure of both drives in the Mirrored Array. What do you do when that happens ?



You got it! Zero downtime means zero loss of revenue  imagine a corporation with thousands of computers. Hopefully you understand now.


----------



## 87dtna (May 14, 2011)

JHM said:


> It only shows, I am not an "Idiot". As for my knowledge, do you know anything about how HDDs work ? What is a "Head Crash" ? What causes "Head Crashes" ? Why does Windows require that you use their shutdown proceedure ? Why did Windows 98-Se say "It is safe to shut off your computer now" ?
> 
> What you guys are trying to do is save yourselves time, working on other peoples computers, - and it does save time, - BUT at a price ! - and the price is increased chance of simultaneous hardware failure of both drives in the Mirrored Array. What do you do when that happens ?



I have a hard time believing you are 67 years old....and therefore have a hard time believing that IQ test is yours 

Shutting down improperly only corrupts the operating system...IE software related, nothing to do with a hardware related drive failure.

There's absolutely no way a raid array, which is done VIA software, would have ANY affect on a hard drive failure rate on a mechanical aspect.  It doesn't even make any sense.  Why would a mirrored backup drive be under any more risk  of failure than a data backup drive?  It's not.

A head crash is very rare on modern drives, and having drives in a raid array does not increase any risk whatsoever.


----------



## JHM (May 14, 2011)

Guess again; - On all counts. 
1) I am 67 years old, and I have another 35 year old IQ test from Canada Manpower that also rates me in the 99th percentile.

2) Shutting down improperly is the primary cause of "Head Crashes" and yes they do screwup "Software" because they DAMAGE sectors on the HDD making some parts of the "Software" unreadable.

3) If you knew ANYTHING about the way HDDs work you would understand why Mirrored Arrays increase the chance of Simultaneous Hardware Failure of the HDDs in the array.

4) Get ahold of a program called TestHDD and run it on your HDDs. VERY informative. It doesn't just show unreadable sectors, it also gives a graph of the entire drive, showing sectors which are damaged, but still readable, and shows the extent of damge involved. You will notice that the damage, (and there will be some), shows a pattern.

5) HDDs work something like an old time "Record Player". Record Players read the data on "Records" while HDDs read the data on the HDD platters. Record players had "Tone Arms" fitted with a "Needle" which read the data on the Record. When the Record was not being played the "Tone Arm" sat on a "Stand". HDDs have "Read & Write Heads" which read & write data from & to the "Platters"; and when the HDD is not in use those heads are "Parked" - sort of like sitting on the "Tone Arm Stand".

6) The major difference in the method of operation between old time "Record Players" and HDDs, is that with "Record Players" the "Needle" was in "Contact" with the Record, whereas with HDDs, the "Read & Write Heads" are NOT SUPPOSED TO EVER COME IN CONTACT WITH THE PLATTERS !!! Instead they float just above the platters and read or write to them magnetically.

7) What keeps them "Floating above the platters" is an air cushion generated by the spinning of the platters in the drive. What happens when you shut down power to the drive, without first having "Parked" the "Read & Write Heads" ? The answer is the air cushion that holds them up collapses, and then you get a "Head Crash". Think about that, if you are capable of thinking. The drive is still spinning at reduced speed, not fast enough to generate the required "Air Cushion", but plenty fast enough to cause the heads to scrape the platters, bounce back up, fall back down, scrape some more, bounce again, and go on doing that for a while,- ergo the pattern in the damage which you will find by running "TestHDD". Sort of like skipping a sone on water. This causes "Bad Sectors", and it it happens to the "Boot Track" the drive is toast !!!

8) Why do "Mirrored Arrays" significantly increase the chance of Simultaneous Hardware Failure of the drives in the array ? Because in "Mirrored Arrays" both drives are constantly in the same configuration. If the primary drive is reading or writing to the Boot Track, so is the secondary drive in the array; consequently any "Head Crash" will damage the same parts of both drives. And if the Boot Track is killed on one, it gets killed on the other too.

And that is just one reason "Mirrored Arrays" significantly increase the chance of simkultaneous failure of both drives in the array.


----------



## 87dtna (May 14, 2011)

You're age is showing then....because head crashes are so uncommon on modern 7200rpm drives this argument makes me laugh.  They didn't go to 7200 RPM just for the speed.
Also, with NTFS the boot track is different than it was with the older FAT32 system, it's less succeptable to error....so again, showing your age.

I use SSD's on all my PC's now anyway, but in the past I've had many many blue screens causing improper shut downs yet never a head crash on a 7200 rpm drive, only even corrupted the OS so a fresh install cured everything.


----------



## JHM (May 14, 2011)

Shows how little you know. You didn't even know that the reason that you get "Software Damage" from Head crashes, is because the drive sectors, (HARDWARE), that the damaged "Software" was sitting on have become unreadable. Like I said, run TESTHDD and see what damage has accrued to your drives dopey. I only use 7200 RPM drives, and mine have patterned damage. No bad sectors yet, but damaged ones yes.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 14, 2011)

"you cant teach an old dog new tricks"

Guess thats true. Its hard to believe that someone with such a supposed high IQ is so ignorant to the advancement in technology. 

What does a person like yourself do on a computer? Read the news and google symptoms?

All that is fine on a single Hardrive that can produce write and read speeds of 40/80mb/s

But try encoding video, playing games, rendering images. Its much faster on a Stripe Array, and have all your data sit on a RAID 5 array for backup. 

Its fine and dandy that your against RAID, but dont misinform people with your outdated knowledge. Thats the only thing that bothers me.


----------



## 87dtna (May 14, 2011)

I'm going to talk to a brick wall now, since I'll get the same results.

Stop spewing your outdated knowledge on this forum, I recommend SSD's to everyone anyway....if you even know what they are.

TestHDD doesn't run on windows 7, so you probably still have XP....yet again showing your outdated field of knowledge.


----------



## JHM (May 14, 2011)

Hopeless cases. Yes SSDs are a good idea for you two, if you can afford them.


----------



## Iceyn1pples (May 14, 2011)

I recently upgraded to SSD. Even my PCI-E SSD is running RAID 0 onboard. HAHAHA. 

RAID isnt the problem, its the HDDs fault - sometimes. RAID some SSDs, complain about bad sectors and head crashes now?


----------



## johnb35 (May 14, 2011)

Ok, this has gone on long enough, you can all argue until you are blue in the face and still won't accomplish anything.  

Thread closed.


----------

