New Computer: Which Upgrades Are Worthwhile?

[Brian]

Hi,

This is an update from my previous post, located here.

To sum that post up, I am buying a new computer which will be used with 6 monitors to run a lot of tables, Poker Tracker, player view, etc.

Since that post, I have decided to go with a Digital Tigers Stratosphere Elite, and am curious about which of these upgrades are worthwhile, keeping prices in mind. Here's what I am looking at doing (please feel free to add anything you would upgrade that I haven't listed):

1) Upgrade from 1GB of RAM to 2GB of RAM. $375. I have been told by quite a few people that "Nothing out there uses up more than 1GB of RAM", but I'm not sure if they took into account 20 "nothings" together eating up 1GB of RAM. I can always upgrade later, but I'd rather get it now if I'll need it to run 20+ tables.

2) Upgrade one of the GeForce 6600 GT's (it comes with 2 of those, and 1 Quadro card) to a GeForce 6800 Ultra for use with World of WarCraft, Doom 3, etc. I don't have a price on this yet, but I assume around $300.

3) Upgrade the 2 hard-drives to 400GB for use with RAID-0. This will cost $599 per drive. Again, some have recommended it, while others have said it's barely a noticeable difference. I'm not sure what kind of difference I could tell specifically using poker programs, so I defer to the Zoo. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

4) Upgrade the dual Xeon Processors from 2.8ghz to either 3.0ghz, 3.2ghz, or 3.4ghz. The price to go from 2.8 to 3.4 is $1500. I've heard that as you get to the top of the line stuff, there isn't much noticeable difference for the price you pay. Is that worth $1500? Would there be much of a difference for what I'm doing?

That's all that I can think of right now.

Thanks a ton,

-Brian

[kenberman]

[ QUOTE ]
1) Upgrade from 1GB of RAM to 2GB of RAM. $375. I have been told by quite a few people that "Nothing out there uses up more than 1GB of RAM", but I'm not sure if they took into account 20 "nothings" together eating up 1GB of RAM. I can always upgrade later, but I'd rather get it now if I'll need it to run 20+ tables.

[/ QUOTE ]

you won't know if you'll need more than 1 GB until you get everything up and running. if you do, you can buy another 1GB of RAM for far less than $375 (like under $150), and it's easy to install. wait on this one.

or, just order 1 GB of ram from someplace like newegg when you order your PC, and install it right away.

[ QUOTE ]
The price to go from 2.8 to 3.4 is $1500. I've heard that as you get to the top of the line stuff, there isn't much noticeable difference for the price you pay. Is that worth $1500?

[/ QUOTE ]

I highly doubt it.

[Freakin]

You're always paying a premium for the latest and greatest processors. It's definitely not worth the money. Those harddrives seem excessive. I would get 2 10k RPM raptor drives and stripe them. Much less storage space, but much better speed. They use 18gig platters, so the sizes are either 36gb or 72gb. Ram is overpriced when upgraded by the OEM. Buy it later and put it in yourself (or have any monkey with a screwdriver put it in if you don't want to).

My .02

Freakin

[astroglide]

- start with 1gb and buy more when you actually need it

- the 6600gt is enough for most gamers

- striping won't have any impact on typical single user performance

- the cpu upgrade isn't worth it. neither are dual cpus. and xeons are profoundly bad deals for home users.

looks like a complete ripoff from soup to nuts, but it will function just fine no matter how much money you dump into it. whatever floats your boat.

[otctrader]

Brian -

I echo the other comments on here; most important, I agree the Xeon dual processor setup is a waste of money unless you intend to run some commercial server. For high-end gaming and general home use just get yourself the fastest Intel out there (3.6, 3.8 or whatever it is). The Xeon will probably cause performance degradation with games and many applications since cutting-edge software coded in low level languages isn't going to be optimized for the Xeon chipset.

Can't help on the graphics card, but if you want to play fancy games don't skimp on it - I would get the top of the line Geforce/Nvidia model. You'll pay for it, but these things become obsolete pretty fast so if you buy the top model you'll at least get a few years out of it.

Memory is important IMO; spend the money on the 2 gigs - check prices through your manufacturer and a 3rd party; if you go the 3rd party route make certain your motherboard can handle the upgrade.

Don't know much about the RAID hd, I've heard pros and cons. Don't have one in my rig and I'm glad since when my motherboard fried I was able to just pop my hd into my old Dell and I had access to my data in a few minutes - this would have been impossible if it was a RAID setup.

Good luck

[astroglide]

[ QUOTE ]
Why are Xeons such a bad deal for a home user? Cost too much? I won't get the maximum out of them? Or are they just not good processors period? Are these better than AMD Athlon's for what I am going to be doing? I heard AMD's are better for gaming, but I'm not sure which is best for multiple applications/databases/monitors.

I can tell you are against buying from a company, but if you were computer illiterate and willing to pay more than they are worth to get a tech support line/decent customer service and a warranty ([censored] always breaks for me), what would you do in my situation?

Thanks,

-Brian

P.S. The degree to which I have had computer problems in the past makes me want to go ahead and buy the extra gig of RAM upfront because I know I'd either void my warranty/screw things up if I installed it myself, or the RAM would wind up not being compatible, or I'd have to go into the BIOS to get it my computer to detect the extra RAM, or there wouldn't be a slot for the extra RAM (because both slots are used by 2 512's), etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

quoting his private message (please keep the conversation here).

the most aggressive chipsets/fsbs are found in the consumer space, and the additional cache found on xeons will be largely worthless for your applications.

if you want to buy from a company, dell xps is still a highly affordable option. shuttle (click the name) sells prebuilt small form factor systems as well, which are great in terms of resale/movement/noise. you could also consider the venerable highly overpriced alienware, i can't attest to the quality of their service. there are many technically competent english speakers at shuttle but the service isn't in-home.

i would honestly suggest getting a dell xps with an in-home warranty, monitor techbargains.com for coupons. you can pay extra for upgraded support options. if you want to pay a lot extra you could go for a single processor precision workstation with dedicated support, it would probably still be much cheaper.

[Nfinity]

1) A Gig of RAM should fit your needs, and it's painfully easy to install, and you can definently get an extra Gig later for less than $375. Wait on this one.
2) I think your good on graphics, but if your one of the hardcore gamers who absolutely must be able to se the fine detail of every leaf on every tree, go for it.
3)800 Gig of storage is a TON. I still haven't been able to max out my 250 I got 2 yrs. ago. I don't think RAID-0 will be a noticeable enough difference for this set up to shell out the extra $1200 for it.
4)Your processors are good, especially since there are 2 of them. The dual processor may seem a little overboard but if your going to be 20 tabling with Playerview, they might just come in handy.

So to sum up, if you really must sink more money into this machine, go with the graphics card and maybe RAM later. On the plus side this should be all the computer you will ever need.

[Nfinity]

I forgot about those processors being Xeons in my last post. Astroglide is correct as they are geared towards higher end server functions. Not sure about the performance degradation of games but it is possible. If you can see if you can downgrade to the highest end Celeron or the like. You can still get 2 of 'em, cuz your hardcore like that. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Kev7554]

2 processors are pointless unless the software program is designed to use both processors. Windows XP Pro will Benifit slightly but not pokertracker. Stick with the Single processor and don't pay for the very fastest due to the premium and IMHO Stick with AMD processors to save a buck. Stay away from raid if all you want is a speed performance. If you want a fast hard drive go with SCSI even though its not necessary.

[waffle]

Don't use RAID0. It wil increase your performance marginally, but it will also double your mean time between failures. (If one disk goes kaput, you lose the data on both drives).