Building Semi-Silent performance PC....thoughts?

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Joe DeFuria
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Building Semi-Silent performance PC....thoughts?

Post by Joe DeFuria » Sun Nov 30, 2003 6:53 pm

Greetings all,

Within the next month or two, I'll be buying all the components for my next PC. My first priority is actually performance (non overclocked though) and stability, followed closely by silence. I've been lurking here for a little while (great resource, btw...forums and site content), and would like to see if there are any comments on these components. As you'll be able to see, I'm not after complete silence here, but I'm willing to spend a little extra for less noise, as well as be patient enough to research and just buy the "right" products.

Case: Antec P160. (Pending some actual case reviews though.) I like the aesthetics, the dual 120mm fan potential, (air-flow looks to be decent), and the rubber grommet hard-drive mounting. Depending on the noise level with the stock rear fan, may replace it with an Aluminum Evercool 120mm that's been talked about in the forums.. If needed, may add an additional Evercool 120mm fan for the front. May volt-mod fan(s) to <7 volts. For the time being, I don't plan on doing any hard drive decoupling...I'll keep 'em low in the case to get the benefit of the airflow, and the P160 case includes the rubber grommets for hard-drive mounting which will help with the noise.

Power Supply: Seasonic SuperSilencer 400 W -AGX. Seems to be a favorite around here. :wink: Swapping out the stock fan for a Panaflo also seems popular...which I may do.

CPU / Cooler: Intel Northwood 3.0 Ghz / 800 FSB. Cooled by Zalman 7000ALCU. (Note: I am not considering AMD cpus at this time...no offense to AMD fans. :wink: )

Motherboard: Abit AI7. Chosen because it claims to support Prescott, which is a likely upgrade for me down the road. It's feature set is also a very close match for my needs, and it comes moderately priced. I will replace the stock northbridge heatsink/fan with a Zalman NB32J heatsink.

Video: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Modified with Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer. (that is...if they can actually make enough of these things so the one USA reseller has them in stock. :evil: )

Ram 1 GB (two 512 mb modules), running dual channel, at PC3200 specs.

Hard Drives: A bit up in the air at the moment. I want one "application" drive, 80-120 MB, and one data drive, 120 MB. Both SATA. I'm thinking to rule out the Seagate 'Cuda IV and V drives for performance reasons. Right now, my top candidates are the 'Cuda 7200.7, or Hitachi 7K250. My understanding is that the 'cuda's will be a little quieter, but a little slower. I'm also keeping my eye on the new 74 GB WD Raptor as a possibility for my app drive...much faster of course, but again, more noise. However, preliminary reviews show the noise level still quite good...only a little higher than the Hitachi's. (Much better than the original Raptors...)

Optical Drives: DVD+-RW: Plextor 708A. DVD Rom: Samsung 816.

Anything in there scream: "Are you an idiot?" :D

wumpus
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Post by wumpus » Sun Nov 30, 2003 7:18 pm

If you are serious about noise, you're going to have a major problem with those drives. I cannot emphasize enough how loud most "major manufacturer" hard drives are*. It's pretty trivial to get fan noise down to a reasonable level in a modern performance system. Even a half-hearted attempt at noise reduction will quickly get you to the "hey, my hard drive is really friggin' loud" point. Unfortunately, silencing hard drives is neither easy or inexpensive. It can even be dangerous, since hard drives are literally the most heat-sensitive devices in your PC.

You better have a solid plan to isolate those drives in some kind of temperature-controlled enclosures (bring your wallet), or else spend that extra money on 2gb of RAM and go with cheaper samsung spinpoints; that's the only modern drive I've heard that I consider quiet-- and it CLOBBERS anything else available in that regard. Second place isn't even close.

* In case you haven't been following the forums for a while, the barracuda series isn't all that quiet any more. There are patent issues around AAM, for one thing.

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Post by Talz » Sun Nov 30, 2003 7:56 pm

A few things.

Case - It's all personal preference as long as you don't get a piece of junk. Some cases require fan replacement, sounds like you're on top of this.

Power Supply - Consider the Super Tornado if you can purchase it locally to easily return any whiners. I found it to lower my CPU temps by a couple of degrees celsius below the silencer, and it's quieter. I would not consider it a huge issue though as both are very quiet.

CPU/Cooler - Consider a 2.6 or 2.8 and overclocking. You should be able to beat the 3.0's stock performance with ease using the Zalman, and get similiar overclocks from any of them. You can still run the Zalman at low speed setting a trigger speed for the board to boost it up to full rpm at a certain temp. The Zalman is great though and only rivaled by significantly more expensive Thermalright + fan of your choice combos. I have my 2.4 @ 3.2 using a Zalman 7000Cu.

Motherboard - Considering the AI7 has fan speed control for the northbridge and the newer heatsink I would test that out before replacement. And if you do replace it look at the Swiftech MCX-159P, it's very quiet and will definately keep it cool.

Video - That's what I am using, though I am waiting on my Nanotherm PCM+ to come in later this week before mounting the cooler. I had the cooler on my 9600 Pro (returned, it was causing system reboots), and it's great. Very happy with the 9800 Pro at this point.

RAM - Consider PC 3500 or PC 3700, and overclocking your FSB since it's only a little more.

HDD's - Well first you have to ask a question. Do you want quiet idle, and/or quiet seeks? If you want both definately look at the Samsung Spinpoints, or Barracuda IV's. If you want quiet idles but are not so worried about quiet seeks the raptor is definately worth looking into as your boot drive, I would still lean towards the BIV or Spinpoints for your data drive though as I see performance as important but secondary in this use.

Opticals - No commend here as I'm not sure how loud those drives are. Unless they are abnormally loud though I wouldn't worry about, though it can be nice to have a quiet reader for games that require the CD be in the drive to play. No CD hacks also work, but aren't always availible and can be a pain to keep working with updates etc. Plextore is always a good burner choice though.

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Post by fmah » Sun Nov 30, 2003 8:04 pm

Hi Joe,

I would note that the Abit motherboard you spec has some FanEQ function, which means it should be able to control fan speed for you. I would probably put that on the case fans. You should read more about that function.

I'm not familiar with the Supersilencer, but you might also think about the SuperTornado also.

I would also recommend RAID to anyone putting a new system together. Although I see that the motherboard doesn't support that function. It's just a good way of not going crazy when the hard drive loses it.

MGP
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Post by MGP » Sun Nov 30, 2003 8:14 pm

Joe,

Not to sound too pessismistic, but good luck with mounting the nb32j on your northbridge...there's always a chance that the wire clips on your abit mobo might work with the zalman northbridge heatsink, but it's surely not a lock (the wire-clip holding the hsf on my i850e Gigabyte mobo couldnt fit the zalman). As you can see from my sig, I was very fortunate to land an asus mobo heatsink rated to support my i850e nb from a friend who could care less about noise and wanted one of those cool hsf LED combos. Sheesh. :D

***BTW: you must be cautious if you plan to thermally adhere your nb32j to an intel-based mobo as the intel northbridge chips are not perfectly flat surfaces and zalman (according to a representative in their forums) does NOT recommend using thermal adhesive between a nb with a raised "die" and any heatsink (if you glue the heatsink on, it will work but the chip's die will be the only contact with heatsink and if you open your case and accidentally brush against it, you might damage your mobo...not to be a stickler, but I know if would really suck if you broke your spankin' new mobo :wink: ). The nb32j's are ideal with thermal adhesive when used with chipsets (and i know you aren't interested in amd) of the likes of the nforce lineup.

Oh yes, and btw, the swiftech northbridge heatsink is giant and does come with a wire clip system that will work if your measurements fit, but its pins are VERY tightly packed (it's designed to have a tiny fan blow down on it) so it may not be ideal for passive cooling as suggested in an earlier thread. Of course, experience beats theory so anyone who's done it successfully, please let us know how it went! You also have to remember that if you carry your system around to events like LANs, Swiftech recommends removing the massive nb heatsink (which sounds way too ridiculous to me).

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Post by wumpus » Sun Nov 30, 2003 8:57 pm

but good luck with mounting the nb32j on your northbridge...there's always a chance that the wire clips on your abit mobo might work with the zalman northbridge heatsink, but it's surely not a lock (the wire-clip holding the hsf on my i850e Gigabyte mobo couldnt fit the zalman).
I just used arctic alumina adhesive on mine. It's permanent, but I don't consider that a big deal for a northbridge cooler. Works well, since the thing gets quite hot..

As for the possibility of "brushing up against it and ripping the northbridge off the mobo"-- c'mon. You'd have to pound the hell out of it to deliver that kind of force, at which point I would wonder what exactly you're doing inside the computer..? :lol:

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Post by Trip » Sun Nov 30, 2003 9:16 pm

What do y'all think of the THERMALRIGHT SP-94 ?

Wouldn't this be better than the Zalman 7000?, though maybe a bit more expensive.

i would try and get a mobo that supported RAID if this one doesn't, and then get the Samsung SP1614C HDD (160GB, 8MB, RAID) Newegg sells them.

Though the Seasonic Tornado looks good to me, there have been some complaints so you may be better off with the super silencer or even the Fortron.

From what I've been told, as long as you have good airflow, replacing the Silencer's fan will be an improvement, but I'd listen and make sure it bugs you before replacing it. Compared to a regular PSU, my SS400 is very quiet; but compared to the rest of my computer it is loud so I am replacing it.


"Ralf Hutter" built a really quiet systemwith a 3.0P4 Also read: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=8450

Heh, just copy Ralf's setup.

MGP
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Post by MGP » Sun Nov 30, 2003 10:46 pm

wumpus, I'm not talking based on personal experience nor beliefs. I was just relaying the warning from Zalman officials. It might have worked well for you, but I would think that people who are interested in quieting PCs and are "new" to the SPCR Forums has every right to know what's the deal with a situation. Yes, it's unlikely that one could cause any damage to their nb, but you never know...it's ALWAYS better to be safe than sorry.

MGP
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Post by MGP » Sun Nov 30, 2003 10:49 pm

Oh, yes, the SP-94. I think one of the real concerns (at least one that passed my mind when I chose the SLK-947U over it despite minor price difference) is mobo compatability (i.e. how are the heatpipes going to orient with the board and whether the heatpipes may contact any onboard components such as capacitors, etc.).

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Post by mond » Mon Dec 01, 2003 3:26 am

according to storagereview.com the 7200.7 (sata version!) are only slightly behind the new WD's performance-wise and off course much less noisy. so i even though not as quiet as spinpoint they might make for the best performance/noise balance. also seems to be a very realiable drive according to their database. i would def. recomend serious decoupling, it will remove the low frequency hum caused by the hd's making the case vibrate. i'm using the smartVIBs and am very sattisfied with them.

you didn't mention dampening material. i use the melamine stuff and it blocks hi-freq noise effectively, so if you do decide to go with the whining wd's i would def. recomend it. i have an old 40gb caviar (upgrading soon)mounted in the bottom of my case with melamine on both sides, in front and below, and it makes a hell of a difference.
regarding heatsink, i know people are sattisfied with the 7000AlCU but why not get a thermalright (947U or SP94) where you can freely choose a fan size and manufacturer and then regulate it with a fanmate or similar.

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Re: Building Semi-Silent performance PC....thoughts?

Post by Ralf Hutter » Mon Dec 01, 2003 5:44 am

Joe DeFuria wrote:
Case: Antec P160. (Pending some actual case reviews though.) I like the aesthetics, the dual 120mm fan potential, (air-flow looks to be decent), and the rubber grommet hard-drive mounting. Depending on the noise level with the stock rear fan, may replace it with an Aluminum Evercool 120mm that's been talked about in the forums.. If needed, may add an additional Evercool 120mm fan for the front. May volt-mod fan(s) to <7 volts. For the time being, I don't plan on doing any hard drive decoupling...I'll keep 'em low in the case to get the benefit of the airflow, and the P160 case includes the rubber grommets for hard-drive mounting which will help with the noise.
I'm reviewing the P160 so keep your eyes open. Any reason you wouldn't consider the SLK3700BQE? If you don't like the door, there's always the 6A19/D8000 series.
Joe DeFuria wrote:CPU / Cooler: Intel Northwood 3.0 Ghz / 800 FSB. Cooled by Zalman 7000ALCU. (Note: I am not considering AMD cpus at this time...no offense to AMD fans. :wink: )
P4 3.0 will work great with the Zalman 7000. I'm running mine with the SLK900U and an 8V 92mm L1A. Based on my heatsink testing with the 2.4C I now know that I could get better and quieter cooling for my 3.0 with the Zalman 7000. Have you looked at the heatsink comparison charts here?

I'd stay with the 3.0 too, no particular reason for you to OC and with the board you've chosen you won't be able to run the "PAT hack" (I think Abit calls it "GAT" or something) at anything other than default FSB.
Joe DeFuria wrote:Motherboard: Abit AI7. Chosen because it claims to support Prescott, which is a likely upgrade for me down the road. It's feature set is also a very close match for my needs, and it comes moderately priced. I will replace the stock northbridge heatsink/fan with a Zalman NB32J heatsink.
You may want to consider the Asus P4P800-D instead. Passive NB cooling but ?? Prescot support. I'd wait till the bitter end to choose your mobo if you're truely interested in getting one that supports Prescott. The closer we get to the actual release of the processor, the more supported mobos that are likely to be out there. Intel has just released a new revision of their Canterwood board that supposedly supports Prescott, hopefully other manufacturers will be following suit.

Joe DeFuria wrote:Hard Drives: A bit up in the air at the moment. I want one "application" drive, 80-120 MB, and one data drive, 120 MB. Both SATA. I'm thinking to rule out the Seagate 'Cuda IV and V drives for performance reasons. Right now, my top candidates are the 'Cuda 7200.7, or Hitachi 7K250. My understanding is that the 'cuda's will be a little quieter, but a little slower. I'm also keeping my eye on the new 74 GB WD Raptor as a possibility for my app drive...much faster of course, but again, more noise. However, preliminary reviews show the noise level still quite good...only a little higher than the Hitachi's. (Much better than the original Raptors...)
Unless you can get some concrete, firsthand info from someone who's heard the new Raptors (and has an idea about what a "quiet PC" actually sounds like) I'd definitely go with the Samsung Spinpoints over your other choices.
Joe DeFuria wrote:Anything in there scream: "Are you an idiot?" :D
No, not at all. Seems well thought out.

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Post by Joe DeFuria » Mon Dec 01, 2003 6:40 am

Thanks everyone for your comments so far. Exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Some general follow-ups to points made:

Hard Drives. Doh! How did I miss the SpinPoints? Looks like I will definitely be going with at least one SpinPoint (160 GB SATA, likely) for my data drive. I may also go with one for my App drive...but I guess at this point I may reconsider the idea of taking my app drive and decoupling it. (Suspend in one of the 5 1/4" bays with an extra fan?) I can see that picking my app hard drive is going to be tough....probably the largest trade-off to be made for performance vs. silence.

CPU: I've thought about getting less than a 3.0 and overclocking it. However, I'm leaning toward "genuine" 3.0, so I don't have to overclock the northbridge. (Correct me if I'm wrong...but overclocking the FSB ups the northbridge clock as well, right?). I'm pretty confident about being able to passively cool the i865 Northbridge at stock speeds...not so confident about it when overclocked.

CPU Cooling: I'll have a look at those Thermalrights. However, one of the reasons why I'm still favorin the Zalman 7000 is that the CPU heatsink mouting brackets on the AI7 motherboard are "strangely" aligned with the CPU...diagonal!

Image

So it's (perhaps wrongly?) intuitive to me that some cooling solutions might not be properly compatible. On Zalman's web bord, the Zalman rep had identified that the 7000 does indeed fit properly without issues on the AI7 MoBo. So, I'm pretty much assured great cooling...decent even with reduced voltage to the fan, and also ensured compatibility. (Though compatibility my again become an issue if I replace the northbridge fan with a taller heatsink...I'm looking into that.)

Power Supply: Looks like SeaSonic's marketing fooled me. :oops: I was mostly just assuming that the "tornados" were going to be both higher air volume and louder. ;) Instead of "quieter", which they apparently are. Though from what I gather, there seems to be a bit more of an issue with getting a "good" Tornado...wherease the SuperSilencers are more consistent in terms of out-of-the-box experience? is that correct?

Motherboard: Yes, ABIT claims the AI7 is designed to work with the Prescott. I know that "nothing's for sure" until Prescotts are actually shipped, but the AI7 seems to be the safest bet so far. I will "delay" my purchase as long as possible to see if Prescott compatibility can ever be confirmed. BTW, the AI7 does support Raid 0/1 via the intel ICH5R southbridge. (I'll get to RAID in a minute.) It does not, however, have an extra 3rd party raid controller, so I can only have a maximum of 2 (serial ATA) drives in a RAID config, and total of 4 additional drives on the parallel interface.

Case: I considerd the SLK3700BQE, though favor the P160 for the following reasons: Aesthetics (I don't like the drive door, and the front in general looks "platic-y"), it also lacks front firewire, which I'd like to have. I believe I also heard that fitting a front fan on the BQE is sometimes "difficult", whereas the P160 looks to have more room. What I do like about the BQE, is the price.

I have not considered the D8000 series because....I've never heard of it. Will check it out. Thanks!

RAID: I should really do more seraching on the fourms before asking questions here, but I may as well throw this out since we're already talking. ;) I wasn't really considering using a RAID set-up before...but I guess I do have the option of doing something like this:

Dual S-ATA SpinPoints in Raid 0 (to increase performance) for my "application drive", and one additional spinpoint on the standard parallel interfaces for my data drive. Would this make sense to most people? Or would the added heat / noise with 3 drives now typically not make any performance increase worth it? (I'm also aware of the inherent increased risk of data loss from having a Raid 0 set-up.)

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Post by Ralf Hutter » Mon Dec 01, 2003 7:19 am

Joe DeFuria wrote: Case: I considerd the SLK3700BQE, though favor the P160 for the following reasons: Aesthetics (I don't like the drive door, and the front in general looks "platic-y"), it also lacks front firewire, which I'd like to have. I believe I also heard that fitting a front fan on the BQE is sometimes "difficult", whereas the P160 looks to have more room. What I do like about the BQE, is the price.

I have not considered the D8000 series because....I've never heard of it. Will check it out. Thanks!
-Just a little preview of my P160 review: the front vent slots have a direct path into the case with nothing but a perforated metal grill and a mesh air filter inbetween. This allows a lot of interior case noise (read: fans) to escape out the front of the case, which unfortunately is the place nearest your ears. In this case I can easily hear the 8V 92mm Panaflo that cools my CPU and also the 5V 92mm that I have mounted on the front of the case to cool my HDD. This same configuration in my SLK3700's (with louvers in front of the fan grill) cannot be heard unless I lay down on the ground in front of the case.

Here's a link to the 6A19.
Here's another.

Joe DeFuria
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Post by Joe DeFuria » Mon Dec 01, 2003 7:33 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:-Just a little preview of my P160 review: the front vent slots have a direct path into the case with nothing but a perforated metal grill and a mesh air filter inbetween. This allows a lot of interior case noise (read: fans) to escape out the front of the case...
Yeah, the design looks great for air-flow, which can unfortunately mean not-so-good for acoustics. (I'm also wondering if the hard-drives are also more audible). I'm looking forward to your complete review.

At first glance, the D8000 based cases indeed look to be better acoustically. But damn...having trouble finding one that I like aesthetically. :cry:

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Post by silvervarg » Mon Dec 01, 2003 8:14 am

A very stange arrangement of the CPU vs CPU-sockel on that board. I can't help to wonder why... Perhaps just to look different?

NB: By changing the FSB you do change the speed of the NB (just confirming what you already thought was the case).
At stock speed I would be very suprised if you had to do anything more than just disconnect the NB fan. If you install a Zalman 7000 cooler it will also stir some air around the NB to help cooling, so you will surely do fine.

Harddrives and RAID: This is really depending on what you want to achieve. Is it more silent? Better performance? Higher reliability?

For more silent you should ofcourse go for as few drives as possible.

For higher reliability you should go for mirrored drives. That would mean you have 2 drives with half space for apps and half for data. You will live through a complete harddrive failiure, but the price is you get 50% data storage (compared to the drives combined size).

For better performance you could go with striping, but at the cost of loosing both data and apps in case of a drive failiure.
There are other options for better performance. The easiest one is to have lots of RAM in the box. Other options are to use ATA Flash drive or Rocketdrive or similar for some frequently read stuff that will become lightning fast. Drawback is high cost compared to storage space.

Whatever you do. Don't even consider going with RAID-5. If you have a real good RAID controller going with 2 drives with mirroring or 4 drives with RAID-10 (1+0) is a lot better.

CPU cooling: Don't bother with Thermalrights on that board. Just go with the Zalman.

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Post by Joe DeFuria » Mon Dec 01, 2003 8:41 am

silvervarg wrote:A very stange arrangement of the CPU vs CPU-sockel on that board. I can't help to wonder why... Perhaps just to look different?
Not sure myself...speculation is that the CPU orientation (traces to the CPU in this orientation) help with power stability...specifically in anticipation of Prescott power requirements.
Harddrives and RAID: This is really depending on what you want to achieve. Is it more silent? Better performance? Higher reliability?
Duh....All three of course! :)

Seriously, I think I'm leaning toward silence at this point. So I'll likely just go with a non-raid, dual SpinPoint drives at this point...and periodically back-up my data to DVD+R(w).

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Post by Lifecycle » Mon Dec 01, 2003 9:15 am

Whatever you do. Don't even consider going with RAID-5.
Why not? I thought that in theory, at least, RAID 5 supposedly gives you the speed of 2 striped disks, with the reliability of 2 mirrored disks but only using 3 disks (at least, in minimum configuration). I would have thought this is good as it means running one less disk verses a RAID 1+0 setup? i.e. less drives => less noise (still three disks IMHO is pushing it a bit, even with quiet units).

The only real disadvantage I can see to RAID 5 is that the ATA controllers are much more expensive than the plain RAID 0/1 controllers you can pick up (and SCSI even moreso!).

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Post by silvervarg » Mon Dec 01, 2003 12:35 pm

Don't even consider going with RAID-5.
Lifecycle:
Why not?
I hope to stay away from that answer because it is rather long and slightly subjective, but here goes...

When you use mirroring on a good RAID controller and read data the controller will read half the requests from each drive, but when you write data it has to write data on both drives. So the result from different setups is:
(Storage area is compared to size*disks. Speed is compared to single disc)
Seek times does matter a lot for performance, so keep that in mind when reading this.


2 disks:
mirroring: 50% storage area. 200% read speed. 100% write speed.
note: read seeks are also 200% faster.

striping: 100% storage area. 200% read speed. 200% write speed.
note: read/write seeks are still 100% speed, so reading is slower that mirroring.
note2: no redudnancy, so single driver failiure will destroy all data.

3 discs:
mirroring: not possible. Can get 2 discs in mirror set and one disc for non critical data.

striping: 100% storage area. 300% read speed. 300% write speed.
note: read/write seeks are still 100% speed.
note2: no redundancy, so single driver failiure will destroy all data.

RAID-5: 66% storage area. 200% read speed. 200% write speed.
note: read/write seeks are still 100% speed.
encoding and decoding is a bit complex, this effects cost somewhat.

4 discs:
mirroring: 2 sets of 2 discs. See 2 discs.

striping: 100% storage area. 400% read speed. 400% write speed.
note: read/write seeks are still 100% speed.
note2: no redudnancy, so single driver failiure will destroy all data.

RAID-5: ~75% storage area. 300% read speed. 300% write speed.
note: read/write seeks are still 100% speed.

RAID 1+0: 50% storage area. 400% read speed. 200% write speed.
note: read/write seeks are 200% speed.


Personal reflection:
On almost all systems with 3 discs I would choose 2 discs in a mirror system and 1 disc for non-essential data (e.g. operating system, swap etc) that can be reinstalled in event of a crash.
On a mission critical system that can't be down during a reinstall or disc replacement it could be a good option to go for RAID-5. However on such systems if you need more performance than 2 discs in a mirror I would go for 4 discs in RAID 1+0.

On 4 disc systems where you want good performance you should go for RAID 1+0 since it beat RAID-5 by miles in performance.
The only reson to go for RAID-5 in a 4 disc system is if you must have redundancy on all data AND get maximum storage space.

The real benefit with RAID-5 comes into play when you have lots of discs so you get one very large logical storage space with redundancy. That is the only real good reason I see for choosing RAID-5. However you usually have an option to go with larger discs instead. But if you want more than 500GB of storage space on a single logical drive RAID-5 is a good choise.

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Post by Trip » Mon Dec 01, 2003 7:16 pm

The Sp-94 has been reviewed on:

Abit IS7 i865PE (Springdale)
Abit IS7-E
Asus P4C800
Gigabyte 8KNXP

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 7563#57563

The asus board will run quieter (b/c there's no fan) as Ralf pointed out, but it may not support the new intel chip. I don't think Asus claims the chip is supported on their boards, but Abit does make the claim.

Wouldn't the Abit board HAVE to support the new intel CPU if they make such a claim? I mean couldn't you demand a replacement?

But if you don't mind replacing the Northbridge cooler, then maybe abit is the way to go...

asus board:

Image

Heh, have you considered:
Image

ABIT IC7-MAX3

wumpus
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Post by wumpus » Mon Dec 01, 2003 8:38 pm

Seriously, I think I'm leaning toward silence at this point. So I'll likely just go with a non-raid, dual SpinPoint drives at this point...and periodically back-up my data to DVD+R(w).
Very good call, IMO. I cannot believe how incredibly loud many of the drives I own are.. all the WD "special editions" I own (three: 80gb, 100gb, and 200gb) are literally audible two rooms over. I'm selling them off as fast as I can..

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Post by Trip » Tue Dec 02, 2003 12:27 am

not a good way to make a a sale now is it? Don't you mean those WD "Sepcial editions" are the quietest you've ever heard?

I dunno how noisy the rest of the computer will be, but would a Hitachi be noticeable in a P4 3.0 setup? They aren't as quiet as the Spinpoints, but offer superior performance, right?

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Post by Joe DeFuria » Tue Dec 02, 2003 6:42 am

Trip wrote:I dunno how noisy the rest of the computer will be, but would a Hitachi be noticeable in a P4 3.0 setup? They aren't as quiet as the Spinpoints, but offer superior performance, right?
The Hitachi 7K250s seem to be the best performing 7200 RPM drives around. Here's a review from Storagereview.

I can't say myself if the noise would be "noticable", as it depends completely on your ears and the rest of your rig. Ralf certainly thinks it would be. :)

Storage review has some Idle noise measurements, but not seek noise measurements. Idle noise appears to be good for a high performance drive, but still louder than the Seagate 7200.7 'cudas, (Storage Review measured them at < 40dB in another review) let alone the 'cuda IVs or spinpoints.

Also on the "minus" side for the hitachi's, is (again according to StorageReview), they seem to run pretty hot. (Just as hot as the 10000 RPM Raptors). The SpinPoints are just the opposite, (run relatively cool) which means you'll require less airflow (noise) from case ventilation.

Trip
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Post by Trip » Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:02 am

here's SPCR review of them. They are supposedly quiet for performance drives, but I've never heard them. Heh, it depends a good bit on the individual as to whether you'd notice the high pitched wine.

But if they are loud AND hot, I dunno, that's a pretty bad combination... though Mike said in his review that they don't vibrate as badly as the others so you could mount them easier.

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Post by Ralf Hutter » Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:05 am

Trip wrote:Heh, have you considered:
Image

ABIT IC7-MAX3
You're joking, right?

Trip
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Post by Trip » Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:13 am

:lol:

silent pc nightmare, huh?

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Post by Ralf Hutter » Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:47 am

Trip wrote::lol:

silent pc nightmare, huh?
Dayem, all you'd have to do to complete that abomination would be to find one of the late, lamented(?) GeForce FX-5800 "Vacuum Cleaner" vidcards to throw on it! What a sweet combo that would be. :)

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Re: Building Semi-Silent performance PC....thoughts?

Post by Joe DeFuria » Tue Dec 02, 2003 9:18 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:You may want to consider the Asus P4P800-D instead. Passive NB cooling but ?? Prescot support.
Finally got around to actually looking at that MoBo, and it too claims Prescott support, and is otherwise a great feature match for my needs. Given the passive cooling on the northbridge, I may indeed make this my leading MoBo candidate at the moment.
Dayem, all you'd have to do to complete that abomination would be to find one of the late, lamented(?) GeForce FX-5800 "Vacuum Cleaner" vidcards to throw on it! What a sweet combo that would be.
Lol...I'm a 3D hardware "junkie" (my "forum home" is over at Beyond3D), and back when the 5800 came out, I made a little JPG of my own for this card:

Image

BTW...I'm scratching the Radeon 9800 Pro form my list...as I just picked up a Retail 9800 (non-pro) yesterday for $199 at Circuit City. That'll be a "little" easier on the juice, and still pack major punch. Definitely the best bang (performance) for buck you can get. Still waitng for those VGA silencers to surface though. :)

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Post by Joe DeFuria » Tue Dec 02, 2003 9:26 am

Trip wrote:here's SPCR review of them. They are supposedly quiet for performance drives, but I've never heard them. Heh, it depends a good bit on the individual as to whether you'd notice the high pitched wine.
Actually, the Hitachi drives reviewed here back in May are not the 7K250's that I'm talking about. The 7K250's are both faster and supposedly quieter than the GXPs..

Trip
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Post by Trip » Tue Dec 02, 2003 9:42 am

hey you're right! I hadn't realised that.

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... ight=7k250

you prob. know how to search and all that, just figured I'd point you towards one of the threads.


Y'know... the old IBM "deathstar" is what drove me to SPCR.

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Re: Building Semi-Silent performance PC....thoughts?

Post by Inexplicable » Tue Dec 02, 2003 10:55 am

Joe DeFuria wrote:...when the 5800 came out, I made a little JPG of my own for this card...
:lol: But I guess she was quite used to screaming fans.

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