[FA_Loki]

Hi. I didn't know where esle to put this as I am asking about Raid 0 and a mobo.
I have a Dell Demension 8300, 2 gig ddr 400mhz ram, P4 3gig w/HT 512k 800 mhz FSB socket 478, Audigy 2 platnium, 1 120 gig 7200 rpm maxtor hard drive with an extra 120 gig maxtor hard drive still its the box. I was wanting to set the two hard drives up in Raid 0 but I would have to buy a friggin Raid pci card as my mobo in the Dell dosen't have naitive support. How much more performance would I have if I did set these two hard drives up in raid 0 as apposed to just installing the other hard drive as a slave and moving my windows pagefile to the slave hard drive while windows and all my games are on the master. Then taking the hard drive where my games and OS are and partitioning it into two halfs, say 20 gig for windows and 100 gigs for the games. Which way would be faster?
If the Raid 0 is in fact faster then I was thinking of gutting my dell of everything except the power supply and motherboard. Then buy a new motherboard and move it into my old computer case. If Raid 0 is indeed faster than what I described earlier what motherboard would you suggest for a P4 3 gig w/HT 512k 800mhz FSB socket 478?

[pr0digal jenius]

i don't think it's worth it. You'd see small gains in like, level load times in games and such, or for loading LARGE files...but all in all....it isn't worth it..just go 2 drives

[FA_Loki]

Thanks for the advice. I will probably gutt the Dell then and transfer everything over to my other case(minus the dell mobo and psu). I have a 9800 Pro 128 so what is a descent P4 mobo that I will be able to overclock later down the road?

[pr0digal jenius]

most anything made by Abit or Asus on the 875p chipset

[FA_Loki]

Again thanks for the quick replys =). First thing tomorrow then is to buy a new mobo and finally get an ati x800pro.

[CDsDontBurn]

abit IC7/IC7-G . or look into the ASUS p4C800 series. ePox makes good boards also.

[Judas]

this is what i'd do





Setup your IDE channels like this:

IDE Channel ( 1 if it's labeled 1 and 2 instead of some boards labeling it 0 and 1)

IDE Channel 0
Master- Main Hardrive which will contain Windows/Games/Program files
Slave-NONE

IDE Channel 1
Master-CD/DVD/R/RW/RAM or whatever drive you may have....
SLAVE-Your other hardrive, a secondary drive which will contain in this First order:

First Partition: 5 gb, Swap File specific, ONLY for swapfile NO FILES
Other partition: work out the rest the way you want... either then ENTIRE 115gb or partition them off the way you want.. for example.... make saya 40gb partition for video and 40gb for music and the rest for other downloads and whatnot...

ATM, and IMO, that's the BEST way you can do it (YOU CAN set the cd-rom as SLAVE and hardrive as MASTER if your cables will reach correct, but it's doubtfull as majority of the way system are setup, the slave connector (center of the IDE cable) cannot reach cd-roms (you have a dell.. you may be lucky) )

[FA_Loki]

Sweet info man! Thanks =).

[shumph]

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

abit IC7/IC7-G . or look into the ASUS p4C800 series. ePox makes good boards also.

I Second the epox and abit. Never had a prob with either one

[CDsDontBurn]

Originally Posted by Judas

this is what i'd do





Setup your IDE channels like this:

IDE Channel ( 1 if it's labeled 1 and 2 instead of some boards labeling it 0 and 1)

IDE Channel 0
Master- Main Hardrive which will contain Windows/Games/Program files
Slave-NONE

IDE Channel 1
Master-CD/DVD/R/RW/RAM or whatever drive you may have....
SLAVE-Your other hardrive, a secondary drive which will contain in this First order:

First Partition: 5 gb, Swap File specific, ONLY for swapfile NO FILES
Other partition: work out the rest the way you want... either then ENTIRE 115gb or partition them off the way you want.. for example.... make saya 40gb partition for video and 40gb for music and the rest for other downloads and whatnot...

ATM, and IMO, that's the BEST way you can do it (YOU CAN set the cd-rom as SLAVE and hardrive as MASTER if your cables will reach correct, but it's doubtfull as majority of the way system are setup, the slave connector (center of the IDE cable) cannot reach cd-roms (you have a dell.. you may be lucky) )

i wouldn't slave the larger HDD. it will only slow the HDD down to ATA33 speeds (speed of the optical drive). that would lose MAJOR performance when loading up anything. i would just leave the larger HDD set as slave to the primary drive, and do everything else you said.

[CDsDontBurn]

Originally Posted by shumph

I Second the epox and abit. Never had a prob with either one

my old socket A ePox board (8rda+) simply just died on me a few months ago. when that happened, i got my current set up (in my sig). the only problem that i've had w/my current sig is the NB fan failed, so i got the NB-1C copper cooler, and it works great now .

[FA_Loki]

Ok I have been looking around on the net for possible socket 478 mobo's and here is what I found so far.

Asus P4S800-E Deluxe SiS socket 478 ATX mobo. On Pricewatch.com for $100(has Raid onboard) Up to 4 gig of DDr 400.

Soyo P4I875P Dragon 2 V1.0 Black Label edition Intel socket 478 ATX mobo.(has raid onboard) up to 4gig DDR 400. On TigerDirect.com for $159.99

AsRock P4V88 Raid VIA PT880 socket 478 ATX mobo.(dunno if it has raid onboard but it says it supports it which is the same thing yes?) On NewEgg.com for heh $45. up to 4gig of DDR 400.

Abit AI7 Intel socket 478 ATX mobo based on the 865PE chipset. Says it comes with a Game Accelerator, a BIOS tweak that allows users to increase their performance up to 30%. Don't know if it has raid onboard but it does have the Intel ICH5R Southbridge chipset. Up to 4 gig of DDR 400. On TigerDirect.com for $112.99

Let me know if any of these choices are good or not and if they are which of these are the better of the lot. If these are not goo choices point me in the right direction please =). Thanks.