Build Advice Crossfire, RAID 0, PSU and Case choice. Advice needed!

I don't see how, people say that Corsair get the 600W figure by using the 3.3V and 5V rail, but the CX600 has 25A each on those two rails while the Antec has 24A each on those two rails. Corsair state a maximum of 150W while Antec state a maximum of 130W.
I've also seen people write on forums that the amount Corsair expect people to use on the 3.3 and 5V rail to get 600W out of it aren't realistic in a modern system.

 

Here is my proposed build as it stands:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K (£163.40)
GPU: XFX HD 6870 Black (£126.82)
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 (£63.79)
Board: Asus P8P67-M PRO Rev3 (105.20)
PSU: Currently deciding between CX500, CX600 and an HCG-520 (~£53)
HDD: Samsung 1Tb Spinpoint F3 (£39.20)
Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini (£65.00)
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit (£38.49)
Total Price: ~£650

You would advise using RAID 0? The problem with that would be the extra cost, I'd have to buy three drives for your proposed setup and for that kind of money I could consider a small SSD with a 1TB F3 using my pre-owned other HDDs (1x500Gb, 1x250GB) as backups. I understand that making image backups is a better idea in case I lose everything but I fairly regularly reinstall windows and the odd time a system failure does occur I don't much mind reinstalling as long as my important work documents are saved. (I usually have an image saved of a clean windows install with your standard programs installed to fall back on.)

That said, thanks for the detail in your answer, it saves me asking a few more questions. Much appreciated.

 

So your advice would be to go for the 520? It wouldn't really hurt to stretch that far.

 

That's a very low price for Win7 Pro - would that be a student edition?

Best price for a 1TB F3 is under £40 and for 500GB under £30 - you'd only need another 500GB drive which means <£30 extra (RAID-0 here means paying £10 extra, comparing 2x500GB to 1x1TB, to almost double maximum read/write performance).

The cheapest SSD you can get for now would be an Integral 32GB for £55. 32GB isn't likely to be enough for Windows + applications (see the Windows 7 Partition thread for suggested requirements) particularly with games now exceeding 10GB storage, so it wouldn't be a practical option IMHO for long-term use (128GB SSD would be the minimum in my view and that would cost £160).

If you regularly wipe your system then image backups are going to be of less value, but if you only reinstall after a system failure (due to say a faulty driver, update or malware) an image backup can save you that hassle - just take a new backup (or configure the software to do so regularly) before program installs and updates.

 

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're suggesting. The 500gb drive I already own is two years old, I don't know how fast it is, it could be slower than the 500gb drive you're suggesting I buy. And are you suggesting I buy a 1tb drive as well?

Thinking about it, if my 500gb drive is fast enough, I could buy just one more 500gb drive to raid 0 with my current one and use the old 250gb one as a backup. That would offer me enough storage for my uses. The main use of hard drive I have is for video content but I don't ever bother to back that up as I can simply rip it to my pc again if I need to, a 250gb backup drive would offer enough space for one disk image of a fresh install and all my uni work. That saves me a tenner.

I was referring to a student copy of windows, yes. And I reinstall once a year just to keep my system fresh. I'm a slightly obsessivley tidy man and it bothers me to know that there are unused files on my pc that are slowing it down.

 

OK, I thought your existing 500GB drive was a recent one - in that case I'd check its speed with a benchmarking tool first. It doesn't have to match that of the new disk, but there will be less speed benefit if it is much slower (though still some as it will only have to read/write half the data).

In that case you could have your cake and eat it - split the RAID array into partitions (say Windows and Video) and just store image backups of the Windows partition on the 250GB drive.

You may find uninstall tools like ZSoft Uninstaller (free), Revo Uninstaller (free and commercial) and Total Uninstall (commercial) worth investigation. These take "before" and "after" snapshots of your file system and Registry, comparing them to find out what changes have been made. Properly used, these can greatly help in system maintenance (I use Total Uninstall myself) and provide an eye-opener into how much junk some software installs - or leaves behind when removed.

The downside is that these will pick up *all* changes, whether made by a program installer or not, so you will need to identify and filter out those made by Windows itself, background software (e.g. MSI Afterburner) or other programs run during the install (PDF readers, compression utilities). The registry key names often provide a good indicator but one other way to do this is to take a snapshot, wait for 10-15 minutes and then take another (to get an idea of "normal" background activity) and then to take a snapshot, reboot, then take another (this should produce changes aplenty - mostly device-related due to plug-and-play configuration changes).

You'll also need to install system components (Visual C++ 2005, 2008 and 2010 runtimes, DirectX, DotNet, etc) separately to ensure that the changes they make aren't included within another program, and removed (potentially breaking other software) when that program is uninstalled.

You may also want to check out 7Lite for customising your Win7 install (e.g. stripping out all the cruft you don't need). If you're the obsessively tidy type, you'll probably end up using this a lot (he says, looking at his NLited, XPLited and regfile tweaked XP setup).

 

I'll definitely look into those programs, sounds exactly like the type of thing I'd use! Thanks again.

 

That's what I'd buy. Personally I can't imagine ever buying a Corsair CX for myself or anyone I knew. Feel free to take with a pinch of salt.

 

If your a student you can get a free copy of 7 via MSDNAA if your school/college/uni is a member

 

Yes, I heard about that but I didn't know how to find out if I could benefit from it or not. I have a copy of windows 7 now anyway but thanks for the input.

 

You just have to ask the IT support peeps It's always a good option to have though

 

What benchmarking tool should I use? It's currently in an external drive case and I don't have a SATA connection I can plug it in with, would the benchmarking work with a USB external drive? Here is the HDD in question, I bought it two years ago.

 

Most benchmarking utilities should work regardless of how the drive is connected but you will see lower performance due to the bandwidth limitations of USB 2.0 (which can handle a maximum 60MB/s - it will typically max out at 50MB/s). So to get an accurate figure you'll need to connect the disk via SATA (USB 3.0 should have enough bandwidth but your disk's external casing would not be compatible with it, resulting in USB 2.0 performance).

Lots of disk benchmarks around with their strengths and weaknesses - CrystalDiskMark is one of the more straightforward ones to use and interpret.

 

Ok, thanks. I'll try and get it tested tonight.