XP or Vista

**mep916** · 11-20-2007, 08:20 PM

I've never run a Raptor unstriped, so personally, I don't know the difference between a single drive and a striped drive when gaming, for example. I'm not uncomfortable w/ a RAID 0 setup and OK w/ the seemingly negligible performance increase when using a striped array. As far as data loss, I backup my OS on an external drive and an independent internal drive on a nightly basis. Overkill? Perhaps. However, I'm aware of the risk that this type of setup presents, and it doesn't hurt to be "too careful."

SLI is another story. With the original cost of the GTX, plus the cost to step up to the Ultra, I paid over $700 for a setup that is currently performing worse than the SLi'd GTXes. Basically, I feel like I !$%*ed myself. Everything I've read (from reliable sources) suggests SLi is not worth the cost. From what I understand, SLi is only beneficial when running resolutions above 1920 X 1200. <- Even that's debatable.

Jabes · 11-20-2007, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mep916

I've never run a Raptor unstriped, so personally, I don't know the difference between a single drive and a striped drive when gaming, for example. I'm not uncomfortable w/ a RAID 0 setup and OK w/ the seemingly negligible performance increase when using a striped array. As far as data loss, I backup my OS on an external drive and an independent internal drive on a nightly basis. Overkill? Perhaps. However, I'm aware of the risk that this type of setup presents, and it doesn't hurt to be "too careful."

SLI is another story. With the original cost of the GTX, plus the cost to step up to the Ultra, I paid over $700 for a setup that is currently performing worse than the SLi'd GTXes. Basically, I feel like I !$%*ed myself. Everything I've read (from reliable sources) suggests SLi is not worth the cost. From what I understand, SLi is only beneficial when running resolutions above 1920 X 1200. <- Even that's debatable.

yea it doesn't hurt to be over careful even tho I never backup my hard drive cuz it would take awhile to backup a 500 gig hard drive

**mep916** · 11-20-2007, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jabes

yea it doesn't hurt to be over careful even tho I never backup my hard drive cuz it would take awhile to backup a 500 gig hard drive

Do have 500 gigs of data? You should partition only the space you need for the OS. Other partitons' could store media and other files.

tlarkin · 11-20-2007, 08:31 PM

Yeah, when I got my current job it was a significant pay increase and I was going to build a brand new PC just for gaming. I really want to play starfcraft 2 and Fallout 3 really badly because I loved the earlier versions of those games as a kid.

I looked into running two slightly cheaper video cards in SLI mode, because my initial thought was, 2 mid grade cards in parallel processing mode would run better than one higher end card. Which, later I found out that my initial logic was completely wrong. I then read into SLI a lot, and the more I read into it the more I found that really it doesn't do anything but cost you more money. I think people just do it for the prestige. It is like all these people buying Vista Ultimate and when in reality Home Premium would have suited them better.

Also, if vista had boasted EFI support then we might have actually seen some bad ass EFI based video cards to come out, but then again MS just put vista out as a cash cow. Hopefully they will get rid of the registry completely, have self contained applications, dual library files (for both 64bit and 32bit) so everything can live in perfect harmony side by side, decent driver support, EFI support, and a command line binary for all gui based applications in Windows Vienna. Then windows would kick ass again, oh and if they locked down the kernel so no more access to kernel hooks. That would even up the security of windows.

tlarkin · 11-20-2007, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jabes

yea it doesn't hurt to be over careful even tho I never backup my hard drive cuz it would take awhile to backup a 500 gig hard drive

Well, what you need to do is, when you build your next PC, retire your old one to a file server. Install Linux on it, run samba services on it, connect all your windows clients to a giant centralized network hard drive, then back up the server via rsync to an external HD or another device and set up a cron job so it does it every night at 3 AM. Then you will be set.

cybereclipse · 11-20-2007, 08:34 PM

i prefer xp... but mostly osx86!!!!

**mep916** · 11-20-2007, 08:39 PM

SLi is obviously a marketing scheme designed to sell more GPUs. Unfortunately, I bought into it. Of course, as you said, nVidia are also appealing to those that are seeking the "bragging rights" and benchmarking scores that come with running two high-end GPUs. All I would really like is performance. I'm gonna install some games and 3DMark06 on a XP partition and see how things run there.

I've read that Microsoft is ditching the 32bit platform completely - as opposed to combining the libraries. What do you think?

tlarkin · 11-20-2007, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mep916

I've read that Microsoft is ditching the 32bit platform completely - as opposed to combining the libraries. What do you think?

That is going to piss off a lot of developers and users that want to be able to access legacy softwares. Personally, I am okay with that as long as everything I want to do is supported. I prefer how redhat and OS X did it with dual libraries for each platform.

Jabes · 11-20-2007, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mep916

Do have 500 gigs of data? You should partition only the space you need for the OS. Other partitons' could store media and other files.

yea around that much i think I have like 440 gigs maybe but I have a vista partion thats 120 gigs I just need to find a hard drive

jutnm · 11-20-2007, 09:00 PM

i think most ppl who choose XP bc they have only experienced XP only and not the side of vista .................................................. ..........

View Poll Results: XP or Vista
Windows XP	47	58.75%
Windows Vista	33	41.25%
Voters: 80. You may not vote on this poll

11-20-2007, 08:20 PM	#111 (permalink)
mep916 Moderator - F@H Guru Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Northern Cali Age: 28 Posts: 4,677	I've never run a Raptor unstriped, so personally, I don't know the difference between a single drive and a striped drive when gaming, for example. I'm not uncomfortable w/ a RAID 0 setup and OK w/ the seemingly negligible performance increase when using a striped array. As far as data loss, I backup my OS on an external drive and an independent internal drive on a nightly basis. Overkill? Perhaps. However, I'm aware of the risk that this type of setup presents, and it doesn't hurt to be "too careful." SLI is another story. With the original cost of the GTX, plus the cost to step up to the Ultra, I paid over $700 for a setup that is currently performing worse than the SLi'd GTXes. Basically, I feel like I !$%ed myself. Everything I've read (from reliable sources) suggests SLi is not worth the cost. From what I understand, SLi is only beneficial when running resolutions above 1920 X 1200. <- Even that's debatable. __________________ Q9450 @ 3.4 GHz \|\| Zalman CNPS9700 ASUS Rampage Formula XFX GTX 280 4GB Ballistix Tracer @ 850 MHz 2X 150GB WD Raptors (RAID 0) 1TB Hitachi Deskstar Antec Nine Hundred Case 750W Quad Silencer FOLDING FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND:F@H Team 44358* \|\| Team Stats \|\| My Stats \|\| Hardware Contributions: GTX 280/PS3/P4

11-20-2007, 08:34 PM	#116 (permalink)
cybereclipse Platinum Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Glendale, CA Age: 18 Posts: 752	i prefer xp... but mostly osx86!!!! __________________ HP Pavilion 764n Custom & Toshiba M115-S3094 200GB Hard Drive/80GB Hard Drive 1024 MB SDRAM/1024 MB SDRAM (DDR2) Pentium 4 2.66 Ghz/Intel Centrino Duo WinXP/Mac OSX86/Ubuntu/WinXP/Mac OSX86 FOLDING FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND: F@H Team 44358 To View The Rest Of My Profile Hit Alt+F4 P.S. Can I eat your brain? Visit My Blog!!

11-20-2007, 08:39 PM	#117 (permalink)
mep916 Moderator - F@H Guru Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Northern Cali Age: 28 Posts: 4,677	SLi is obviously a marketing scheme designed to sell more GPUs. Unfortunately, I bought into it. Of course, as you said, nVidia are also appealing to those that are seeking the "bragging rights" and benchmarking scores that come with running two high-end GPUs. All I would really like is performance. I'm gonna install some games and 3DMark06 on a XP partition and see how things run there. I've read that Microsoft is ditching the 32bit platform completely - as opposed to combining the libraries. What do you think? __________________ Q9450 @ 3.4 GHz \|\| Zalman CNPS9700 ASUS Rampage Formula XFX GTX 280 4GB Ballistix Tracer @ 850 MHz 2X 150GB WD Raptors (RAID 0) 1TB Hitachi Deskstar Antec Nine Hundred Case 750W Quad Silencer FOLDING FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND:F@H Team 44358 \|\| Team Stats \|\| My Stats \|\| Hardware Contributions: GTX 280/PS3/P4

11-20-2007, 09:00 PM	#120 (permalink)
jutnm Diamond Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Anahiem Hills Posts: 1,522	i think most ppl who choose XP bc they have only experienced XP only and not the side of vista .................................................. .......... __________________ 1. AMD ATHLON 4600 X2 ~ 2.4 GHz 2. HIS ATI RADEON 1650 IceQ Pro Turbo 512Mb 3. RAM- ADATA PC6400: 2Gbs 4. MOBO-MSI K9N6GM VClass SERIES 5. 550 WATT LOGYSIS PSU 6. MAXTOR 230 GB HDD 7. Windows Vista ULTIMATE 8. Logitech 5.1 X-530 Surround Sound System 9.Ultra eTorque ATX Case (provided by gf "P)

11-20-2007, 08:31 PM	#114 (permalink)
tlarkin VIP Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Kansas City, MO Posts: 6,273	Yeah, when I got my current job it was a significant pay increase and I was going to build a brand new PC just for gaming. I really want to play starfcraft 2 and Fallout 3 really badly because I loved the earlier versions of those games as a kid. I looked into running two slightly cheaper video cards in SLI mode, because my initial thought was, 2 mid grade cards in parallel processing mode would run better than one higher end card. Which, later I found out that my initial logic was completely wrong. I then read into SLI a lot, and the more I read into it the more I found that really it doesn't do anything but cost you more money. I think people just do it for the prestige. It is like all these people buying Vista Ultimate and when in reality Home Premium would have suited them better. Also, if vista had boasted EFI support then we might have actually seen some bad ass EFI based video cards to come out, but then again MS just put vista out as a cash cow. Hopefully they will get rid of the registry completely, have self contained applications, dual library files (for both 64bit and 32bit) so everything can live in perfect harmony side by side, decent driver support, EFI support, and a command line binary for all gui based applications in Windows Vienna. Then windows would kick ass again, oh and if they locked down the kernel so no more access to kernel hooks. That would even up the security of windows.

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