06-17-2002, 07:59 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Breathe some life into your PC
I tend to think of myself as a fairly serious power user, and I like to have top-tier hardware. The machine I'm currently using (1 Ghz Athlon, 768 megs of RAM) was cutting edge when I bought it last year, but lately it has been looking a little long in the tooth - so I did a few upgrades. A few weeks ago I had a blue screen of death on my Windows XP box, the one that finally edged me into a video card upgrade. When I bought my machine last year, I dropped $500 CND on a 64 meg ATI Radeon card - top of the pack at the time. Since purchasing it, I've been cursing that card daily - ATI has the worst drivers known to man! I finally broke down and bought an Xtasy GeForce 4 MX 440. Not a top of the line GeForce 4 Ti, but I don't play many FPS games, and the price was right with the dual monitor support (and I saw a significant performance increase with screen redraws). Having a card with dual monitor support, it seemed like a shame not to have two monitors, so I picked up a sibling for my 17" Samsung LCD monitor. I highly recommend both the monitor and the video card - superb performance on both, and surprisingly affordable. So now that my machine had excellent visual components, was anything missing? Sadly, yes. 
I've been getting into video editing again (after taking a three-year hiatus), and even with a 1 Ghz processor and 768 megs of RAM, playing some full-resolution DV clips (720 x 480) would bring my machine to its knees - the video would play for a few seconds, sputter, stop, play again, sputter...very frustrating. I was using twin Maxtor 40 gig drives that were screamers at the time, but I felt pretty certain that they were the system bottlenecks. Having read about a new hard drive recently, I knew I had only one choice: get the fastest non-SCSI drive on the planet.
So I picked up a 120 gig Western Digital Special Edition drive. What makes this drive so fast? The secret is in the sauce: a massive 8 meg cache. After installing the drive, my system performance was dramatically different: my un-cached drive speed over the 40 gig Maxtor drives increased by a factor of 10 (I kid you not). System boot time, application load time - everything was radically faster. And keep in mind this is on an XP install that's only two weeks old - I'm running lean and mean with very few apps installed. What about the video you ask? What a difference! My 4 gig video captures play flawlessly - no sputtering or stopping. I haven't been this thrilled about a hardware purchase in a long time - by far the best hardware investment I've made this year.
Best of all? The drive comes in three different capacities (80 gig, 100 gig, 120 gig), and costs as low as $122 online. If you're looking for a boost in overall system speed, get this drive. Don't be fooled by its lack of ATA133 support - it will crush any ATA133 drive on the market and run neck in neck with even Ultrawide SCSI drives. Killer drive, killer price - check it out.
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06-17-2002, 12:13 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 29
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I have a Trident Microsystems video card. It came with my computer.
It drives me crazy. Windows XP isn't compatible with the driver, so it resets randomly sometimes, and I have to use non-accelorated graphics with Madden 2001.
The other day I was writing a review for my website, I saved a few times throughout. As I was writing the last sentance, my CPU reset. I figured it was no big deal, because I saved almost all my work. When the computer was ready to use again, I found the file was corrupted, and all I had was my title 
I had to write it again...
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06-17-2002, 12:47 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 5
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In total agreement
I got the 80 gig version (read somewhere that is has two out of the three discs the 120-version has), and my computer is blazingly faster.
I agree, that this is truly the one upgrade with which I've noticed a real performance boost without having to use any benchmarking tool.
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06-17-2002, 01:25 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 253
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1) Even though you don't play many games, the GeForce4 MX series is a DOG!! A better choice would have been the GeForce 4 Ti4200 which can be had for around $180 US dollars. The GF4 MX is nothing but a GeForce2 MX core souped up to the max and doesn't even support DX8.1. It's still only a DX7 part. As the benchmarks show, the GF4 MX is always near the bottom of the pack while the Ti 4200 is simply a lower clocked Ti4400/Ti4600 and has all of the features from the family. It is also the BEST bang for the buck of any video card available today.
2) I agree on the ATi driver part. There drivers have ALWAYS been subpar compared to NVIDIA. They just released a new driver class called Catalyst, but even it has problems.
3) I agree on the special edition drives. I just picked up a 80GB Special Edition from NewEgg for $121 shipped.
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06-17-2002, 02:06 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 209
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PC Tech refresh
It is great, I am looking to upgrade or better build a new PC (while waiting for my dream PocketPC..). I am thinking to get a Aluminum case with front USB, Audio control, etc. Now I know what to get as far as hard drive and video card. Any suggestion on great affordable motherboard out there for P4. Other component suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks in advance!
Dinh Phan
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06-17-2002, 02:55 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 10
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Quote:
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Even though you don't play many games, the GeForce4 MX series is a DOG!! A better choice would have been the GeForce 4 Ti4200 which can be had for around $180 US dollars. The GF4 MX is nothing but a GeForce2 MX core souped up to the max and doesn't even support DX8.1. It's still only a DX7 part.
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There is no difference between the Ti and the MX when it comes to video editing unless you have a package that does 3D rendering. let me repeat.. NO DIFFERENCE. If you are not a gamer and are not going to be taking advantage of the 3D features, there no reason to waste your money on the Ti.
That's why Jason qualified his comment as such.
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06-17-2002, 03:04 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 10
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Quote:
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I've been getting into video editing again, and even with a 1 Ghz processor and 768 megs of RAM, playing some full-resolution DV clips (720 x 480) would bring my machine to its knees - the video would play for a few seconds, sputter, stop, play again, sputter...very frustrating. I was using twin Maxtor 40 gig drives that were screamers at the time, but I felt pretty certain that they were the system bottlenecks.
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I have 4 Maxtor 40G HDs. Three are 5400 RPM and one is 7200 RPM. They all exceed what is required for DV significantly. I'm using Canopus equipment and I've never had a problem with throughput or stuttering EXCEPT when I was using a VIA chipset. (VIA baaaadd.... Intel goooood, but that's a whole other topic.)
No doubt the WD Special Edition helped, but I wonder if there may be something else in the system that could have been tweaked.
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06-17-2002, 03:40 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 115
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Nothin' and I mean nothin' beats SCSI for overall system performance. It handles multitasking much better and it also offloads much of the CPU work to the controller. And you can get drives fairly cheap if you watch the auctions and the 10,000 RPM drivers with SCSI3, you can't beat, the harddrive is by far the slowest peripheral in your system overall and since I went SCSI I've never went back.
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06-17-2002, 04:01 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by kennyg
Nothin' and I mean nothin' beats SCSI for overall system performance. It handles multitasking much better and it also offloads much of the CPU work to the controller. And you can get drives fairly cheap if you watch the auctions and the 10,000 RPM drivers with SCSI3, you can't beat, the harddrive is by far the slowest peripheral in your system overall and since I went SCSI I've never went back.
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Well...before this hard drive, I would have agreed with you, but in every benchmark I've seen this drive performs on par with even the fastest SCSI drive. I'm curious to see what kind of performance I get if I pair it with a twin and do some RAID 0. Never done RAID before, and the whole concept seems quite intimidating to me. :-)
I've always shied away from SCSI due to the cost and complexity.
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06-17-2002, 04:02 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by ubiquityman
I have 4 Maxtor 40G HDs. Three are 5400 RPM and one is 7200 RPM. They all exceed what is required for DV significantly. I'm using Canopus equipment and I've never had a problem with throughput or stuttering EXCEPT when I was using a VIA chipset. (VIA baaaadd.... Intel goooood, but that's a whole other topic.)
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Hmm...interesting. I have a VIA chipset on my ASUS A7V motherboard. :-) It's funny, but all the stores I shop at in my area don't even carry the Intel boards...?
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