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Looking to acquire new gaming system in the near f

Post Date: 2011-05-04
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gkbaldwin View Drop Down
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Posts: 14 		  Quote gkbaldwin Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Looking to acquire new gaming system in the near f
    Posted: 04 May 2011 at 7:32pm

Hi;

 

I am new to the forum and new potential customer to Digital Storm.

 

I am looking to purchase a gaming system in the late June or early July timeframe.  I have built my own gaming system in the past, but was impressed with DigitalStorm's configurable systems' offering and am looking to buy rather than build this time.

 

I have done my initial configuration (see below) and do have some questions regarding the configuration. 

 

Looking for feedback.

 

Regards, Gerry

 

Ticket Number: 535326

Total Price with Instant Savings: $9,180.00

 

Specifications:

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Black OPS HailStorm Sub-Zero Liquid Chilled Edition Exterior

Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish

Processor: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 990X 3.46GHz (Six-Core) (Extreme Performance)

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage III Extreme (Intel X58 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s)

System Memory: 12GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)

Power Supply: 1200W Corsair Pro Gold Series (CMPSU-1200AX) (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)

Expansion Bay: - No Thanks

Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 2x (250GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 510 Series SSDSC2MH250A2K5) (Extreme Performance)

Set 1 Raid Options: Configure HDD Set 1 to a Raid 0 Config - Stripe Performance (Requires Two HDDs)

Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 2x (1.5TB Seagate Barracuda (7200 RPM) (32MB Cache)

Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: 2x (1.5TB Seagate Barracuda (7200 RPM) (32MB Cache)

Optical Drive 1: Blu-Ray Player/DVD Player (Play Blu-Ray and Play DVDs)

Optical Drive 2: Blu-Ray & DVD Writer/Reader (Burn + Play Blu-Ray & DVDs) (12x BD-R) (Lite-On iHBS112)

Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)

Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB (Includes PhysX Technology)

Add-on Card: - No Thanks Sound Card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion (Includes Front I/O) (PCI-Express Slot Based)

Extreme Cooling: Sub-Zero CPU Liquid Chilled System & Chipset + Dual Video Cards Liquid Cooling

H20 Tube Color: Blue Tubing with High-Performance Fluid (UV Lighting Reactive)

Chassis Airflow: Upgrade Chassis With LED Performance Fans (Blue) (Up to 6 Fans)

Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (UV) (Creates Glowing Effect for H20 Tubes)

Enhancements: - No Thanks

Chassis Mods: - No Thanks

Noise Reduction: - No Thanks

Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)

Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)

Boost Memory: Memory Fan Kit Only (Does not include memory overclocking service)

Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-Bit Edition)

Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD)

Virus Protection: - No Thanks

Office: - No Thanks

Benchmarking: - No Thanks

Install/Test Game: - No Thanks

Display: - No Thanks

Surge Shield: - No Thanks

Speakers: - No Thanks

Keyboard: - No Thanks

Mouse: - No Thanks

External Storage: - No Thanks

Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Xtra Large)

Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed

Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

 
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gkbaldwin View Drop Down
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Posts: 14 		  Quote gkbaldwin Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 04 May 2011 at 7:46pm

Hi again;

 I see part of my message didn't get through so I have added it here.
 
Budget:  $13,000.00

 

Primarily for gaming (not much into online gaming), but additional for movies, graphics design and home business.

Need large storage area do to large library of movies, pictures, games and graphic design objects.

 

Will be using dual Dell UltraSarp 27” monitors and Logitech 510 gaming keyboard and G9x Laser gaming mouse.

 

These items I have already acquired and have used $ 2,374.00 of the budget leaving the rest for the gaming box (see below).

 

I have three questions regarding the configuration.

 

1)      Is there sufficient SATA ports co accommodate  the two optical drives, the two SSD drives for the OS, the two data drives and the two backup drives.

2)      Can I do mirroring (RAID 1) on the two data drives and the two backup drives.

3)      Is two GTX 580 SLI graphic cards sufficient to support the two monitors (they will be configured and two separate windows to provide more screen real estate.

 

Looking forward to the feedback…..Gerry
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Craig View Drop Down
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Posts: 22 		  Quote Craig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 04 May 2011 at 8:19pm
Good afternoon Gerry,

I've reviewed your config and did notice a few things:


Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 2x (250GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Model: 510 Series SSDSC2MH250A2K5) (Extreme Performance)


Set 1 Raid Options: Configure HDD Set 1 to a Raid 0 Config - Stripe Performance (Requires Two HDDs)


Many people don't know about some of the new technologies out there on the market today. The one relating to SSDs is TRIM. Unfortunately, TRIM support is not yet available for RAID drives. This means if you RAID your drives, you may be reinstalling Windows within a year or so.
Running SSDs in RAID mode actually degrades your performance  drastically.

Also, I don't know if you are aware of the stipulations that accompany our TEC systems. Feel free to review those differences here:  LCS Agreement

Basically:

You need a dedicated 10 AMP circuit for the complex cooling that is included with these systems.
There will be a slight delay during assembly, due to the fact that these systems need to be tested throughly, a little moreso than our normal process.

Every one of these LCS builds is a special order, that we normally do not keep stocked. Due to that fact, we cannot offer our normal 30 day return policy on these. Digital Storm will honor all warranty agreements that are made, but all of the terms and conditions relating to order cancellation and refund are null and void.
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gkbaldwin View Drop Down
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Posts: 14 		  Quote gkbaldwin Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 04 May 2011 at 9:08pm
Hi Craig;
 
Okay!  That is why I was askng the questions.  No problem I can go with the SSD with no RAID configured.  However, I would want RAID 1 (mirror) on the data and backup pair of drives respecitively.  I wanted to use the SSD drives for OS and applications only where change doesn't occur as often. 
 
As to the agreement on this particular configuration regarding power and no 30 day return policy.
 
See above question regarding sufficient SATA controller ports, RAID on the data and backup drives and question regarding running of dual monitors.
 
Anyother feedback appropriate on the configuration would be much appreciated.
 
Gerry 
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gkbaldwin View Drop Down
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Posts: 14 		  Quote gkbaldwin Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 04 May 2011 at 9:11pm
Oops! 
 
As to the agreement on this particular configuration regarding power and no 30 day return policy, I understand and have no issue with the restrictions
 
Gerry
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Dragoonseal View Drop Down
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Posts: 2247 		  Quote Dragoonseal Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 04 May 2011 at 9:59pm
Originally posted by Craig

Many people don't know about some of the new technologies out there on the market today. The one relating to SSDs is TRIM. Unfortunately, TRIM support is not yet available for RAID drives. This means if you RAID your drives, you may be reinstalling Windows within a year or so.
Running SSDs in RAID mode actually degrades your performance  drastically.

Untrue for many SSDs. Performance degradation isn't an issue with Intel or Micron SSDs, even without TRIM support. I used to bench my drives a lot but gave up after awhile because it was always the same story, I hadn't done any benchmarks for over half a year but a week or so ago I happened to and sure enough same performance. They kept peak performance for a few months but then they slowly slipped into a steady state performance medium and write speeds have dropped about 25% from fresh peak scores and held ever since (about a year now). Read speeds are unaffected. In fact, when I benched them the other week it was probably the highest I've ever seen the read speeds, which was amusing (due to Intel RST driver updates). Don't worry about TRIM with modern SSDs. The only downside to RAID is the increased chance of data loss, performance will always be greater than a single drive.
Lilim
Intel Core i7 920 @4.2GHz
HAF 932 - Dual SLI Nvidia GTX 480s
3x Intel X25-M G2 (80GB) SSD RAID0
R.I.P. Sinbad the cat (November 16, 1996 - April 18, 2011)
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gkbaldwin View Drop Down
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Posts: 14 		  Quote gkbaldwin Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 04 May 2011 at 10:15pm
So I can then use RAID with SSD drives?  If yes, then I would certainly combine the two SSD drives into one suing RAID 0. 
 
I use these drives for OS and application only (no documents, or other imortant data).  If I lost one os the SSD drives I can always reinstall the OS and applications with no important data loss (after replacing the drive of course)..
 
 
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DST4ME View Drop Down
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 05 May 2011 at 2:16am
The high-end SB platform is due out in Q4 of this year, you can spend your money on that config, and then 3 month later the 6 core and 8 core SB cpus will eat that config for snack.

now do you really need raid 1 for the OS drive? I mean you got LC but went with 3.9 OC, but you got raid, I rather get a 320 intel ssd, and a higher oc.

you do know if raid breaks you lose all data anyways.

I just clone twice a week and that is more safe IMO.

Edited by DST4ME - 05 May 2011 at 2:16am

Nvidia Drivers----AMD Drivers
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gkbaldwin View Drop Down
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Posts: 14 		  Quote gkbaldwin Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 05 May 2011 at 10:12am
I am not married to the idea of using RAID on the SSD drives and I did some research on it last night and the theme I came away with is RAID and SSD drives are not yet completely compatiable. 
 
SSD drive technology is still evolving and may get there in the future.  For now I am content with not using RAID on the SSD drives.
 
Gerry
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Posts: 36758 		  Quote DST4ME Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 05 May 2011 at 2:00pm
AS dragoon stated raid on intell ssd is just fine, I will take dragoon's word on hdd/ssd over almost anything I read on teh net, I suggest you do the same, one reason is that he has had his 3 x 80GB x25 intel raid for at least a year, I know of dragoon's creditability but I have no idea who the people that post on the net are and their real qualification, there is lot of crap floating around the net, thanks to the fakesperts out there.

I'm not a fan of raid for home use personally, just so you know, but I know that if dragoon said trim makes not much of a difference it does not, specially when other creditable people I know say the same, so I'm just saying be careful what you believe on the net.

I would wait and see what is out with teh highend SB platform and then make my decision.

Nvidia Drivers----AMD Drivers
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