Breathe some life into your PC

[Jason Dunn]

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 <a href="http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?siteid=39648844&bfpage=search_box&bfmid=19187551&Operator=2&linkin_id=2054462&keyword=XTASY GEFORCE4 MX440">Xtasy GeForce 4 MX 440</a>. 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 <a href="http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?siteid=39648844&bfpage=search_box&bfmid=19187551&Operator=2&linkin_id=2054462&keyword=Samsung Syncmaster 171S">17" Samsung LCD monitor</a>. 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. <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif" /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />So I picked up a <a href="http://www.westerndigital.com/products/products.asp?DriveID=32">120 gig Western Digital Special Edition drive</a>. 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.<br /><br />Best of all? The drive comes in three different capacities (80 gig, 100 gig, 120 gig), and <a href="http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?siteid=39648844&bfpage=search_box&bfmid=19187551&Operator=2&linkin_id=2054462&keyword=western digital special edition">costs as low as $122 online</a>. 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.

[marcusbankuti]

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...

[spinsane]

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.

[Boxster S]

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.

[dhpss]

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

[ubiquityman]

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.

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.

[ubiquityman]

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.

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.

[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.

[Jason Dunn]

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.

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.

[Jason Dunn]

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.)

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...?

[Boxster S]

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.

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.

Cheapest Ti 4200 is $139 (didn't know they had come down that much)
Cheapest MX 440 is $75

I don't know about you, but if I were going to keep this system for a while, I wouldn't skimp out and waste my money on a far inferior video card. An extra $60 isn't gonna break anyone.

Heck, Dell.com even has the GeForce3 Ti 200 for $99. Even that would be a better choice than the MX 440 in the long run.

All I'm saying is that going for the cheapest stuff available isn't always the wise choice.

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.

Going for SCSI was one of the BIGGEST mistakes I ever made in my computing career. I recently bought an Atlas 10K III 18.4GB U160 drive and controller. Didn't notice any big real world difference (DIVX ripping, average uses, defragging, etc) compared to the WD 800BB IDE drive that I had. A HUGE waste of money IMHO if you are only using a single SCSI drive. SCSI only really shines in multiple HD arrays IMHO.

I ended up selling the SCSI drive and controller and picking up the 800JB.

[Jason Dunn]

Cheapest Ti 4200 is $139 (didn't know they had come down that much) Cheapest MX 440 is $75

Up here in Canuckville, the difference between the 440 MX and the Ti 4200 was about $150 CND. For my needs, it just didn't seem like a wise investment, and there's also that dual monitor thing you're forgetting about - that was important to me. :-)

[Boxster S]

Cheapest Ti 4200 is $139 (didn't know they had come down that much) Cheapest MX 440 is $75

Up here in Canuckville, the difference between the 440 MX and the Ti 4200 was about $150 CND. For my needs, it just didn't seem like a wise investment, and there's also that dual monitor thing you're forgetting about - that was important to me. :-)

Ti4200's come standard with nView (dual monitor support).

I'm actually running an 18.1" Planar LCD on the DVI port and a 21" Dell Trinitron on the regular Analog port.

As for the $150 CND price difference...isn't that like $3 US dollars :lol:

Anyway, it's just my philosophy that if you are going to buy a component to last you a while, you don't buy the cheapest thing that comes across...but that's just me :)

[Jason Dunn]

Anyway, it's just my philosophy that if you are going to buy a component to last you a while, you don't buy the cheapest thing that comes across...but that's just me :)

That's a good philisophy, but don't dismiss my choice as foolish - I didn't buy the cheapest thing I came across. The MX card that didn't have the dual view and had slower RAM was $50 cheaper, so I didn't buy the cheapest thing. 8)

[Aceze]

*sigh* Saying ATI Drivers "suck" is like saying all IPAQs are broken/have quality control issues. Dont be hypocritical. I have bought room-fulls or Radeons and Radeon 8500s (hell, I even have much older Xpert 128s, etc), and to a card none of them gave me ANY trouble.

Aceze

[ubiquityman]

Ti4200's come standard with nView (dual monitor support).

If you are talking about software support, then yes, but so does the G3Ti series.

If you are talking about onboard hardware support then NO. The GPU does support dual, but the cards don't always support dual. Just like the G4MX, some are single RGB out only.

For games, spending the extra $75 or so might be justifiable, but for others, if you are never going to use it, why waste your money? Technology depreciates too fast to buy features that you never plan to use.

[ubiquityman]

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...?

Are you running a realtime system?
If so you more definitely more talented than I am.

Many people don't get VIA systems to work with RT cards due to the PCI parking problem. AMD or Intel chipsets work flawlessly though.


Fellow Canuck

[rfischer]

I bought a GeForce Ti4600 a few months ago and I could not be more pleased with this card. I used to be a big ATI fan, but when I spent $200 on a All-in-Wonder years ago, shortly thereafter Win2K was released and ATI the offered no drivers or apps to use any of the features of the card. I will never buy another ATI product for that reason. I can now play all my games at 1024x768 or higher with every enhancement turned on. If you can afford the $300 (may be cheaper now) the Ti4600 is awesome.

[Jason Dunn]

*sigh* Saying ATI Drivers "suck" is like saying all IPAQs are broken/have quality control issues. Dont be hypocritical. I have bought room-fulls or Radeons and Radeon 8500s (hell, I even have much older Xpert 128s, etc), and to a card none of them gave me ANY trouble.

If you ask around online, I think you'll find that ATI is universally reviled for several reasons when it comes to drivers:

1) Very infrequent driver updates. They're getting better lately, but I remember last year waiting 4+ months for a driver update, and this is while having serious stability problems - every BSOD I had was on an ATI DLL file!

2) Rapid product abandonment. They were 6+ months in releasing drivers after 2000 had shipped, and ditto for XP. I'm pretty sure nVidia Detonator drives work with every nVidia card made, which is a far cry from what ATI offers consumers.

3) Unstable drivers. As I've expressed, I had major system stability problems with my Radeon and it's drivers. About 20% of the time, if I started to play a video file, my entire system would bluescreen and die. ATI has had over a year to address this issue both under Windows 2000 and XP, and they didn't. Even on my old ATI All in Wonder 128, I couldn't switch the resolution on the TV out to 800 x 600 without the screen splitting in four parts. Never fixed in any driver release I tried.

I'm not spouting rhetoric here - I used to be a big fan of ATI, and have owned 4+ generations of their video cards, but I'll likely never buy another ATI product ever again. As much as I'd like to support my Canadian bretheren, they're not working hard enough for my dollars. I paid just under $500 CND for that card last year, and two weeks ago I sold it for $45 CND because I was too frustrated to keep it. Good investment? No.

Just my opinion, but it's true as far as my experience goes. 8)

PS - I don't know why you're saying I'm hypocritical. I don't recall ever extolling the virtues of ATI desktop video cards...?

[Jason Dunn]

Are you running a realtime system? If so you more definitely more talented than I am.

Nope, I'm not THAT hard core...yet. :-) I'm using a Pinnacle Studio Deluxe package - I needed analog capture, and couldn't find much in the way of options locally. Tried a few products, this was was the best I could find. I wasn't interested in dropping $1000+. :lol:

[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.

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.

Cost maybe a few years ago but it's worth the little extra, I see people spending more on video cards that don't do as much for overall preformance. But as far as complexity, its improved vastly over the last 4-5 years I can't remember the last time I had a compatibity problem between a SCSI device and a SCSI card. I've had fewer problems with my SCSI setups and drivers than friends have had with the various issues with recent IDE enhancements.

And have you compared the CPU load that IDE puts on the system? You'll never see that on a SCSI system, I never understood the mentality of offloading from the HD controller to the CPU, just doesn't make sense in other than cheap systems, the cache they added is just doing a better job of hiding the issues of IDE.

[Jason Dunn]

So speaking of RAID, what's the best way to go about this? A new motherboard with a built-in RAID controller? Or a dedicated RAID card? I'm looking for speed, not data security, so I don't want to go RAID 0+1 and get four drives. I know basically nothing about this, so I'm open to suggestions... :-)

[bblock]

I've used the FastTrack100 TX2 IDE Raid Controller for a year now in a couple machines without a hitch. I think it only does RAID 0 and 1, though (striping and mirroring). The card was about $140CDN, and if you want speed, not security, get two IDE disks and set up a RAID 0. You'll be screaming. Windows 2000 (and I believe XP, but not sure) can't be run from a software RAID 5 partition, but it can run from RAID 0, so you can speed up both system access and have lots of space for video. I'd suggest, however, creating a RAID 1 (mirror) partition for your OS - it's a bit faster (simultaneous reads) and will give you disk security for your OS. Then create a RAID 0 partition for your video.

I have to say for the record that I've had a Compaq Professional Workstation for three years now, with built-in SCSI. I've got two 18GB 7200RPM Atlas IV (III?) drives, and two Compaq 4GB drives, all SCSI, and I've never had a disk-based burp.

That is, until I tried to add an IDE drive, and found my system wouldn't then boot from the SCSI...but that's not the SCSI's fault - it's Compaq's.

Interestingly enough, I've also got a ThinkPad A21p (850MHz, 30GB IDE drive, 256MB RAM) and I can play back digital video I've recorded via IEEE1394 no problem, at full resolution. I haven't tried an hour's worth, but I've done 15 minutes with zero problems.

[st63z]

Hey smart choice, I didn't know the $120 WD800JB uses current 40GB platters (not until I read StorageReview's article just now, anyways)! Sheesh, I paid like $175 for each of my three 80GB Maxtor D740X FDB (fluid-bearing) drives not too long ago :( I mean, they work OK and everything for my swapped-HDD-as-backup setup, but the WD JB would've been more awesome...

If you're serious about hardware IDE RAID, get like an Escalade controller, but check SR's reviews first to see how its competitors fare (it's been awhile so I forget). I haven't been obsessed with speed nor RAID 0, so I've been content with cheap FastTrak firmware RAID cards. I've tried to stay away from the HighPoint IDE RAID controllers because of their reported compatibility problems in the past, but I don't know what their current situation is.

(As mentioned, SCSI works well for servers and in arrays, IMHO.)

I wonder how ATI's unified-driver Catalyst will (eventually) compare to nVidia? I don't want to be a blind optimist, it's just I like ATI's current AiW and mobile chipset hardware... The ATI cards I've used (and use) at home and work have been mostly OK, but I haven't exactly been playing games on those systems.

Multi-head monitor setup is good, I just need to get bigger desks. I have a unique situation where I have more 21" CRT monitors than I have computers at home, but I don't have the space for them :( No $$$ for LCDs... What I would like is just to get a big-a$$ humongous desk for my main PC and get a three-monitor Parhelia setup :D

[ubiquityman]

Just a note about RAID striping you should consider.
For IDE disks, although the sustained throughput increases, but there is a negative impact on performance because latency increases.
(this problem isn't present on SCSI RAIDs because of spindle syncrhonization).

Jason, in your case since you are using it for DV, I would recommend that you do NOT use RAID. Run them as single drives. Typically, if you are doing any editing or encoding with a NLE system, you want one drive for the source and another one for the output. This saves a lot of head seek and improves overall performance. Now if you have several of these drives, THEN I would consider striping the drives together as long as there is a separate physical unit for your final work.

Similarly if you are using a RT editing system, having different clips on different physical drives will let you run more simultaneous DV streams in realtime.

[Jason Dunn]

Just a note about RAID striping you should consider...

Hmm - thanks for the tip! I didn't know the latency increased. You're right, a seperate output drive would be better. I don't know what I'm complaining about though - it's so much faster than it was before! I wonder if it is this damn VIA chipset?

I'm really keen on the Clawhammer/Opteron CPU, but waiting until the end of the year seems like a long time... :-)

Serial ATA hard drives will hopefully be a big chance from what we have now - that's the technology I'm really looking forward to.

[rlitchfield]

Jason, where did you purchase this drive? I'm just down the road in Montreal and I am going do buy this on your recommendation alone.

Robert

[ricksfiona]

I went and bought the 80GB version of the drive. Performance is better, maybe 15%. But it's SO quiet! If it weren't for the fans, I wouldn't even know my computer was on. I like that.

I don't know what I'm going to do with that much space....

FYI: Got Windows 2000 with AMD Thunderbird 800MHz, Matrox Millenium G400 MAX, 512MB RAM.

I've been pretty happy with this setup, but I'm really waiting for the new Matrox board that can display 1 billion colors. Look for it in October. It should beat all current video cards hands-down.

[Jason Dunn]

Jason, where did you purchase this drive? I'm just down the road in Montreal and I am going do buy this on your recommendation alone.

Just down the road eh? :wink: I purchased it from a local Calgary retailer called "Memory Express". Try local computer shops - most stores like Future Shop won't carry it, but smaller custom shops will. I paid about $365 CND for it.

[Jason Dunn]

Matrox board that can display 1 billion colors. Look for it in October. It should beat all current video cards hands-down.

What are you going to do with all those colours? :wink: Yes, spec-wise it looks awesome - but I'm leery of Matrox cards as well (been down that road of driver hell with them too), so we'll see.

[ubiquityman]

but I'm leery of Matrox cards as well

Amen.

Been there as well with Matrox and ATI.
Never again...

Nvidia may or may not have the best hardware, but their drivers work reliably.

[Aceze]

*sigh* Saying ATI Drivers "suck" is like saying all IPAQs are broken/have quality control issues. Dont be hypocritical. I have bought room-fulls or Radeons and Radeon 8500s (hell, I even have much older Xpert 128s, etc), and to a card none of them gave me ANY trouble.

If you ask around online, I think you'll find that ATI is universally reviled for several reasons when it comes to drivers:

1) Very infrequent driver updates. They're getting better lately, but I remember last year waiting 4+ months for a driver update, and this is while having serious stability problems - every BSOD I had was on an ATI DLL file!


So let's tar and feather forever right? Ever since the Radeon, driver updates have been much better - in fact, ATI has turned tables on Nvidia, releasing more drivers in the past year. And as I said before, how do you know that it wasnt other components in your computer. I've rolled out literally 2-3 hundred machines with ATI cards in them, with NO serious problem (just a few glitches here and there).


2) Rapid product abandonment. They were 6+ months in releasing drivers after 2000 had shipped, and ditto for XP. I'm pretty sure nVidia Detonator drives work with every nVidia card made, which is a far cry from what ATI offers consumers.


Everything since the Radeon is supported by one family driver. As well, ATI just released a driver for their Rage family (chips that have been around for almost 10 years). I wouldnt call that product abandonment.


3) Unstable drivers. As I've expressed, I had major system stability problems with my Radeon and it's drivers. About 20% of the time, if I started to play a video file, my entire system would bluescreen and die. ATI has had over a year to address this issue both under Windows 2000 and XP, and they didn't. Even on my old ATI All in Wonder 128, I couldn't switch the resolution on the TV out to 800 x 600 without the screen splitting in four parts. Never fixed in any driver release I tried.


As I said before - how do you know whose problem that was? Did you replace the card (maybe you had a bad card)? Did you try clean installs? I had a Radeon VIVO which exhibited few to no problems at all - the problems I had were addressed in drivers. Exactly what support do you receive from Nvidia concerning driver bugs? Answer: None, because Nvidia does NOT support their chipsets - they tell you to deal with your vendor, which in most cases is a Taiwanese OEM that sells bulk to your local mom'n'pop computer store. Good support there.


I'm not spouting rhetoric here - I used to be a big fan of ATI, and have owned 4+ generations of their video cards, but I'll likely never buy another ATI product ever again. As much as I'd like to support my Canadian bretheren, they're not working hard enough for my dollars. I paid just under $500 CND for that card last year, and two weeks ago I sold it for $45 CND because I was too frustrated to keep it. Good investment? No.


Hey, buying whatever you want is your call. However branding a company bad because of a problem that is NOT mirrored by every other user of the card is somewhat foolish. As I was trying to say, it's like someone globablly branding Ipaqs as rubbish because some of them have hardware problems. Get the parallel now? That's why I said to not be hypocritical (do you call all Ipaqs rubbish?)

Anyway, that's my piece. I'm a systems administrator, and I've installed countless ATI cards, and I even use them at home (shock! horror!) - specifically the 8500 radeon. A card _significantly_ cheaper than Nvidia's equivalent products, which runs as good if not better (roughly equivalent to the Ti500). Closing your eyes to what is _here_ and _now_ rather than millenia ago is foolishness. Do you really think no one has issues with Nvidia chipsets? I could tell you stories...

Aceze