Computer Advice

[rawhide]

I am running a AMD 64 3500 newcastle. MSI 7025 neo2plat. 1 gb ocz/corsair ram. WD Rapter 74 HD WD 200 HD BFG 6800GT AGP card. My question is:

 

 

Will one of those new X2 cpu's perform better than a quicker single chip??? I know the X2 can perform several tasks well at once like virus scan and spreadsheet. But does that cause a severe drop in performance? Any links to a website or personal nowledge would be helpful. I got the upgrade blues.

[DaveH]

By x2 do you mean the dual core processors?

[rawhide]

A friend suggested a X2 4400 dual processor.

[DaveH]

A dual core processor has more raw processing power, yes. Don't confuse it with hyperthreading though. A lot of people think they have a dual processor machine when they have a hyperthreading CPU. Those CPU's simply have two instruction pipelines. Thus, if one pipeline is waiting on I/O or another request, the single core can execute instructions from the other pipeline. Now that I think about it, context switching must be a bitch with those. But I digress.

 

A dual core processor does infact contain two cores that can execute simultaneously. Depending on what you use the machine for, you could benefit greatly. I am not sure how certain applications will react to a dual core proc. It's probable that if they are capable of using a dual processor machine, they could probably use a single, dual core processor. Some apps won't use a second processor if one exists. The OS should, though. But honestly, you probably aren't going to see a whole lot of performance increase in that area. Again, it depends on what you are doing with the PC.

 

I haven't looked into it much, but if your current apps could take advantage of dual procs and you have a need for more power, I would look into it. But if you really aren't taxing the machine too much (ie not something like video editing), then you probably won't be better off. Considering the price of the processor you spec'd, I'd probably pass.

 

Have you checked if your board supports that proc?

 

If you are looking to upgrade something, I would ditch that Raptor OR get another and stripe them in RAID 0 and, of course, keep good backups. If you don't get another Raptor, get another 200GB WD and do the same. Are you using Serial ATA? Secondary storage is always a big bottleneck in modern systems, that's kinda where I would focus my attention. Otherwise, your big dawg processor is just going to spend more time waiting

 

Hope this helps.

[rawhide]

That's whats wrong? I should run two HD's of the same config I thought since they were both SATA they would be compatible. I like that little wire a whole lot better than that wide ribbon hookup. So the raptor drive isnt much more efficient than a regular HD? It is supposed to have a faster seek time than other drives and runs at 10k I figured it would run my OS MS xp pro #2 and access better than a regular drive. The slow times could be more of the different hd's than the processor? THx Dave

 

 

As far as what I use this for is surfin the WWW, halflife2 and Battlefield2. Then my wife does these weird CPA things with it also.

[AR Husker Fan]

If you do a lot of multi-tasking (running a virus scan in the background while editing video in the foreground) then dual-core will help even if the applications aren't written to use dual processors. However, if not, then a single core chip is fine for now.

 

Other than multi-tasking, dual core doesn't give you anything extra UNLESS you have applications designed to access dual cores - Adobe Photoshop is one. But there are damn few apps like that out there. My guess is that you don't need them - stick with a single core for now, and worry about dual core once applications are written to take advantage of them. At the moment, there simply aren't many desktop apps that do it.

 

Now, if you run Exchange Server or SQL Server at home, that's a different story.

[rawhide]

I just loaded Adobe photoshop cs and I have adobe Premiere Pro for video editing but just got them. havent learned anything much about them what with everyday life getting in the way. Every once in a while things kind of slow down but other than the hard drives the only other thing it might be is that I have a wifi lan and when my son is on line maybe that slows the connection when I am on it also. ??? we have dsl 1.3 via verizon. I know the wifi connection is 100 mps but the dsl is only 1.3 . Could just be my getting spoiled with each upgrade or acclimated to the better performance. I may try to match up my hd's to see if they work better together. I had a pretty good handle on win 3.1 but after that everything just kinda went over my head. It doesnt do any good to hit the thing on the side of the case Appreciate the help though.

[DaveH]

That's whats wrong? I should run two HD's of the same config I thought since they were both SATA they would be compatible. I like that little wire a whole lot better than that wide ribbon hookup. So the raptor drive isnt much more efficient than a regular HD? It is supposed to have a faster seek time than other drives and runs at 10k I figured it would run my OS MS xp pro #2 and access better than a regular drive. The slow times could be more of the different hd's than the processor? THx Dave

 

 

As far as what I use this for is surfin the WWW, halflife2 and Battlefield2. Then my wife does these weird CPA things with it also.

The Raptors are a good drive, yes. But are they worth the money in a desktop machine is another question.

 

You could RAID the Raptor and the other one you have, but the resulting logical drive will only be as big as the smallest drive in the array. That's no good. This is all assuming, of course, that your board has RAID support on it.

 

Keep in mind that if you decide to go this route, you will basically have to start from scratch as far was what you have loaded on the drives right now.

 

As far as your networking, your LAN is always going to be wider than your WAN connection. Also, if you can I would use a wired connection for your PC, do it.

 

Sure, its says 100 Mbps on the box, but are you really getting that throughput? How is your wireless network set up as far as encryption/no encryption?

[rawhide]

I have an eight digit encryption code that each terminal must have to access the router. Plus the firewalls on each terminal and one laptop.

[DaveH]

I have an eight digit encryption code that each terminal must have to access the router. Plus the firewalls on each terminal and one laptop.

OK, just keep in mind that while encryption works pretty well to protect your data, it takes a good bite out of throughput because of the work to encrypt/decrypt the data. Especially in consumer equipment. Higher end Cisco access points have a bit more processing power.

 

Personally, I am not using encryption on the wireless side of my network. I am using a MAC filter and not broadcasting my SSID. Yes, both can be defeated pretty easily if you know what you are doing,however I am most concerned with keeping my neighbors off my network. I am pretty sure none of them would be able to sniff a MAC address out Thus, I save the overhead of encryption. The important stuff, like internet banking and things like that are encrypted using SSL anyway. Just some food for thought....

 

Besides even if someone was able to sniff out a valid MAC, the machines internally are either firewalled pretty well or don't allow anonymous connections. Thus they will have to authenticate if they want access to my data. Worst thing they can do is use my network to get to the internet.

[rawhide]

EGO eyes glazed over Way over my head. One thing I understood was the encryption isnt necessary at home unless a neighbor is crashing the party. My neighbors are for the most part probably more computer ignornant than I am. Plus I would notice a car parked behind the backyard wall for any length of time. NARCS flush it. Now when you start talking about IV drips/laparascopic procedures, endoscopic procedures under fluoroscopy I have a clue. I know pretty basic computerese. Enough to get me in trouble if I mess with this machine too much . Thanks for the help though I think I will buy another WD 200 hd pretty cheap right now and do the raid thing with them and maybe keep my raptor for other stuff. Does the operating system have to be on the raid discs??? sorry

[DaveH]

EGO eyes glazed over Way over my head. One thing I understood was the encryption isnt necessary at home unless a neighbor is crashing the party. My neighbors are for the most part probably more computer ignornant than I am. Plus I would notice a car parked behind the backyard wall for any length of time. NARCS flush it. Now when you start talking about IV drips/laparascopic procedures, endoscopic procedures under fluoroscopy I have a clue. I know pretty basic computerese. Enough to get me in trouble if I mess with this machine too much . Thanks for the help though I think I will buy another WD 200 hd pretty cheap right now and do the raid thing with them and maybe keep my raptor for other stuff. Does the operating system have to be on the raid discs??? sorry

The way RAID 0 works is that the controller will divide the data up between the drives. Unlike RAID 1 which every drive mirrors the other drives in the array. RAID 0 will perform better on read and write. RAID 1 doesn't really offer an write advantage, but you can read data faster (same data on multiple drives) and offers redundancy if that's important to you. If you are using RAID 0, which I think you will, keep good backups. If one drive in the array fails, your data is gone.

 

The first thing you have to do after install the second drive is create the array. If you have the manual to your board, it should outline how to create a new array. Just follow the instructions in the manual. ALL YOUR DATA WILL BE DESTROYED ON THE EXISTING DRIVE. Backup the stuff you want.

 

Link to your manual, if you dont' have a paper copy: http://66.96.84.4/support/mnu_exe/mbd_mnu/...u/E7025v1.0.zip

 

Once the array is created, you will need to start by reinstalling the OS. I am assuming Windows XP. Because you aren't using a drive connected to standard IDE controller, you have to tell Windows setup that you need to install a third party driver. This is done by pressing F6 at the beginning of Windows setup. See page 5-7 of the manual for this procedure. Windows will then see the array you created as one logical drive that you can partition, etc.

[rawhide]

Duh, OK

 

U better just fly out here. No, I have all the manuals and the RAID drivers when I bought the board. That was almost 1 1/2 years ago, so there may be updated drivers I can download. OK here it comes, I have never backed up anything before Should I write it to cd, dvd or another HD? And do I then just copy it back on to the hd's after I create the RAID array?

[DaveH]

Duh, OK

 

U better just fly out here. No, I have all the manuals and the RAID drivers when I bought the board. That was almost 1 1/2 years ago, so there may be updated drivers I can download. OK here it comes, I have never backed up anything before Should I write it to cd, dvd or another HD? And do I then just copy it back on to the hd's after I create the RAID array?

You can do whatever would fit the volume of data you have best. Whether it be CD, or DVD, external hard disk, flash drive, whatever. But yes, definitely back up first and keep regular backups. You can copy the data back after you have the OS installed.

 

Just to make it clear, you won't be able to see the drive's independently. The RAID controller operates them as one logical drive as far as the OS is concerned

[AR Husker Fan]

The best way to back up is the one that you are most comfortable with. If you have a writable CD or DVD, that's as good a method as any. Backing up to a hard drive is fine if it's external - if not, you have to make sure that you have a connector for it on the motherboard. Regardless, just back up your data and your porn collection - don't mess with programs, as you can't restore them. They have to go through their installation routine to right the proper values to the Registry.

 

Now, for real fun, forget about RAID 0 or RAID 1 - go RAID 10. Fast read/writes and redundancy!!!!

 

'Course, you need a new controller card (not cheap for that kind of set up). But hey, it's only money!