MrSuave wrote:
OUROBOROS wrote:
still would recommend 7800's
and 2 WD raptors instead of the maxtors would be icing.
youre already going pretty far with the specs why not just go all the way?
for some of people a good sound card gives them a small frame boost too.
hope you get good deals on all your buys!
7800 isnt needed for bf2..a 6800gt would be fine and still be able to play on high...
a 10krpm raptor is no better than a 7.2k rpm HDD becuase the end user wont be able to tell the diference..and in some test the 7200 rpm did better than a raptor...
how would a
sound card give frame boost?
the x800 is the best card for its price range.... both ATI and Nvidia are great companies
7800s because if youre gonna go big then go as for as you can. the price break is relatively better if youre going from 6800s to 7800. you will result in better gameplay during all the games of the next cycle before you hit the next pricing level of the ~$700s. if youre going budget then you want the best price to power ratio which is definately the 6800gt range. all ati cards on competitive levels are priced higher then their counter parts or is valued at a power level in between 2 nvidias levels. this makes their pricing abominable. unless you get a really good deal, the price/power ratio sucks.
buying a just good enough to play current market game card if the worst thing you can do. until the next gpu cycle comes out you are going to play all games at moderate and the consecutively lower standards. but you just blewa chunk of cash on a card thats already being cycled out. might as well get a cheaper card that can play the games at moderate levels anyways and save the cash for the next gen card (youre gonna have to get a new card anyways no matter what card you buy under performace level). just get enough to tide you over. it wont be great gamplay either way.
the best price/performance you can get, the longer the card will actually last for its class. youre wasting money if you get top of the line like XTs or GTXs. extra 10 frames for 50 bucks is not really worth it.
the whole point of a raptor you want speed and reliability. if youre getting raptors youre more likely to raid them. speed is critical. not space. having 2 raptors with fast seek time in raid drops your access times substancially. what does this mean? FIRST IN GAME EVERYTIME
besides raptors are built for speed. thats why they come in odd capacities like 36 and 74. the zone density is maximized for speed not for space. that is why they can run on 10k rpm with no hiccups.
you say that maxtors are faster. well that can be true too but that depends on the type of transfer. if you have on large file thast defragmented and runnign sequential data and with the right hardware and drivers then yes maxtors can deliver that file faster it can just push of the data stream straight out from 7200rpm. but what if you read 2 files? read while write? theres a multitude of conditions. and thast jsut platter speed. you still have to consider burst speed, cache, number of platter. not to mention if its using CAV/CLV/P-CAV/C-CAV all which is not worth going into.
games load multiple files. mutilple files waste seek time. more files more seek time. makes RPM a moot point.
when you see battlefield load and the majority of the time spent loading is hashing whats in mem youll understand. and that is practically a cpu limited operation. hell you cant even get a piss of before its done loading.