G'day all!

I'm expecting the parts of my new FSX system to arrive tomorrow. I managed to save up a decent amount and decided to splurge on a computer that will hopefully last me several years. I've built the system on the new i7 940 and followed the recommendations posted by NickN a little bit ago.

Here's what I ordered:

Core i7 940

Asus PT6 Deluxe

G Skill 6G(3x2G) DDR3 PC12800 9-9-9-24

Seagate 80GB SATA II 7200RPM 8mb Cache for the OS

2 Western Digital 250G SATAII 7200 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache) for data and games

Antec Nine Hundred Tower Gaming Case with side window Black

Zotac GTX280 1G AMP Ed with a 700mhz core oc

OCZ GameXstream 850W SLI Ready PSU

Acer P244WB 24 wide 2ms Black VGA/Analogue HDMI

OCZ TXT Memory Cooler

Antec TriCool 120mm Blue LED Case Fan with 3-Speed Switch (This is in addition to the fans that come with the case)

2 Pioneer DVR-216BK 20x Dual Black OEM with software - SATA  

Netgear WG311 Wireless PCI Card 802.11G

Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 4000 Vista/ XP USB

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium64bit(OEM)

Now I'm not sure if I should RAID the hard drives or not. I'm think that when I save up some more I'll buy a RAID controller and two more 500gb hard drives.

Also in the Asus manual online it says some thing like you are only allowed one 1600mhz stick per dimm, does any one know what it means exactly?

Very nice, how much?
I did mine for £1604.41 inc vat but not really used it yet as waiting for next set of ati drivers as still not quite right yet for the x2's.

Mazza wrote on Dec 27^th, 2008 at 7:01pm:

yeah

Wingo wrote on Dec 27^th, 2008 at 5:08pm:



I presume your talking about the 940?

Quote:



But you missed one in the paragraph

lol

Yes.. Motherboard RAID in FSX is trash and quite suicide

Here is a post that lists the fastest to the slowest in FSX:

2 Velociraptors in RAID0 (256K STRIPE) on the right card are very close to SCSI performance

2 Velociraptors in RAID0 (or SCSI/SAS) on the right card are overkill for todays processors and memory susbsystems in conjuntion with the video adapter in FSX and will deliver very large amounts of data faster than the system can process/render it

Therefore the best solution for FSX is

a. 2 VelociRaptors on RAID0 on a SATAII PCIe 256-512MB card

b. A single VelociRapor on a SATAII PCIe 256-512MB card


Both of which will do the job but the RAID0 configuration on the right card with those drives will do the job and then some.. LOL

The OS drive should be on another single drive connected to the same card.. does not have to be RAID0 and does not have to be a VRap but should be a decent spec cache SATAII drive



The next step down is A single VelociRapor on Motherboard SATAII

The next step down is 2 VelociRaporin RAID0 on Motherboard RAID ... NOTE: Due to the Vrap design the single and RAID version of motherboard based storage is about equal

The next step down is A single 1st Generation Raptor on Motherboard SATAII

The next step down is A single 32MB cache large platter hard drive on SATAII

The next step down is 2 1st Generation Raptors in RAID0 on motherboard RAID

The next step down is 2 of any other drive in RAID0 on motherboard RAID




So there is your list

Wingo wrote on Dec 28^th, 2008 at 3:58pm:


Heres the deal

You can either pay 300-400 bucks for the right card and battery pack

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116042


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116051



...and run 2 standard SATAII drives in RAID0, or, SINGLE drives without RAID, and, you MUST know how to set it up for performance too..


http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=28350&PID=161336#161336

make sure you install the latest driver and control set for that card


or you can buy a VelociRaptor(s) (150GB or 300GB) and run them as single drives on the motherboard SATAII plugs (or use it with the card too)


It depends on what you want to spend

The right card (as posted above) will make any SATAII drive run faster than on the motherboard SATAII plugs

but with the introduction of the VelociRaptor you can get close on a 'single' drive with the motherboard connections without the card.

The advantage of the card and the proper setup is that any SATA II drive you attach to it will definitely beat any drive you plug into the motherboard (even matched drives) and RAID0 on the card will be blazing fast without issues (make sure STRIPE size is 256K on array setup with the posted settings)

You can get excelllent performance with a single VRap on the motherboard ports at a greatly reduced price over the card. The drives themselves do all the work

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH...