[Gooshin]

Congrats, looks like a fast one!

I built mine recently: amd x2 555 @ 955/4gb ddr3/etc. I love it.

Highly recommend Windows 7, SSD (price is dropping *fast*). Don't recommend 10K hard drive in light of price, or RAID 0 in light of the SSD advantage, or RAID 1 in light of Windows 7's excellent auto backup/imaging tool.

Have fun!

what SSD advantage?

I dont know what kind of SSD's you're looking at, but the price is still your first born + left nut.

And the storage capacity is mainly for basic day to day operation.

[Das Boot]

SSD is still crazy expensive. Starting from scratch, I would recommend that you create different partitions for OS, Programs, data, and possibly swap file. It has saved me before running my data (pictures, documents, etc) on a seperate partition.

[lithos]

Yeah, thanks to the "shortage" *cough*bullshit*cough* of flash memory. Another guy on another forum is staggered that I didn't get an SSD. For the price of the cheapest one down ie (ie, the ones that offer virtually no performance increase over a Caviar Black or Spinpoint,) I could get at least 2.5 tera, which is much, much more important for me and my gratuitously over-scanned, 180Mb TIFF negatives.

I'd also see if it's worthwhile getting a Scythe Kamariki 650W modular PSU. Cable stuffing is a pain, and the overhead is handy. Scythe shouldn't be that much expensive than the Silverstone.

And if you're still on XP, fine, 3 gig of ram is its max, but if you upgrade: for the love of god go 64 bit. Since 2 gig has been the standard for years, 4 gig won't last that long. I don't even know why MS is still spruiking 32-bit systems, but their you go. More RAM is your friend in Photoshop.

[Fl_Gulfer]

I just want to know if it's better getting a full copy of win 7 pro or install my new copy of XP Pro and get the upgrade version of win 7?

[Gooshin]

I just want to know if it's better getting a full copy of win 7 pro or install my new copy of XP Pro and get the upgrade version of win 7?

eermm

no expert.. but going off just this sentence, i would get a fresh copy of 7 and install that

windows "upgrades", should be a compound word in the dictionary, defining "a weird and unexplainable experience of personal mental and physical violation"

[wjt]

by taking two 7200 drives and combining them in such a way (RAID 0) that information is written between the two drives, you achieve faster overall speed than a single 10 000 rpm drive for half the cost (or even less)

the only bad thing is that should one of the two drives fail, your entire system crashes, and getting the data back becomes much more difficult (if not impossible?) than if you had your one drive fail.

what about raid 01, kinda blows out to 4 drives and i am not sure how it affects the speed but you get striped and then mirrored. (and to think the stupid crisco course i had to do for my instrumentation course actually imparted something upon me)

and i would go windows 7 upgrade and save some cash.. Or sell it all and buy mac :P

[Gooshin]

what about raid 01, kinda blows out to 4 drives and i am not sure how it affects the speed but you get striped and then mirrored. (and to think the stupid crisco course i had to do for my instrumentation course actually imparted something upon me)

and i would go windows 7 upgrade and save some cash.. Or sell it all and buy mac :P

raid 01 would be optimal, but like you said the cost would now be prohibitive for the casual user.

with regards to "ugrades", i love windows, but no one i know that has "upgraded" their system ever walked away with a trouble free computer, there is always some error somewhere

a fresh install of a standalone system always works best.

[wjt]

hehe, get a mac. Crashing OS and frozen programs will be a thing of the past.
My last PC ended up with a sledge hammer through it... but it never crashed on me again.

I'm not sure how much storage you need, but i would think a 7200rpm 2tb hdd would be plenty and external ones are cheap now. And like someone else said, max out the ram and you'll be fine.

[Gooshin]

hehe, get a mac. Crashing OS and frozen programs will be a thing of the past.
My last PC ended up with a sledge hammer through it... but it never crashed on me again.

I'm not sure how much storage you need, but i would think a 7200rpm 2tb hdd would be plenty and external ones are cheap now. And like someone else said, max out the ram and you'll be fine.

not this again..

WINDOWS DOES NOT CRASH, all it takes is a little diligence and a restraint from horseporn on behalf of the user.

if your windows crashes, that means you either have a hardware problem (either insufficient cooling or a defective component) or that you are a complete compunoob and have clicked on every single pop up that came your way, and have 20 different "anti-spyware" programs running in the background, filling your crevasse with more shit until your computer turns into a cesspool of corrupt files, malware and viruses.

Upgrading windows falls into the category of not being dilligent enough, because when you have a corrput system, upgrading it is the same as putting a white blanked over a pile of shit.. eventually the smell and stains will go through it..

[lithos]

I just want to know if it's better getting a full copy of win 7 pro or install my new copy of XP Pro and get the upgrade version of win 7?

Get a new copy. Because you won't have any choice.

I just did my upgrade from XP to 7, and the "upgrade" option only applies if you've got Vista. Microsoft wasn't very clear on this, probably because they liked to think that everyone had gotten Vista already.

What happens, at least with my case, is that I bought Win 7 online, and was given two download links: one a for downloading a bunch of upgrade files for Vista, which I think you can run from within the OS, and a full ISO for XP, which requires a traditional install (boot from DVD/USB stick/whatever) and formatted partition.

It's good practice, anyway, to nuke and clean reinstall.

7 install was remarkably painless. And it's got native SATA drivers, which help a lot. Activation is easy, too.

[Fl_Gulfer]

Well I run Super Ad Blocker and AVG AntiVirus and it seems to block everything I want it too.
As far as Hard Drive I have 4 & 3 are backups, 150g & 2/ 75g 10,000 rpm raptors & a 160g 7200 rpm external.

Ok thanks I'll order the 250.00 copy sob sob

[wjt]

and a restraint from horseporn on behalf of the user.

Computers are for accessing the internet, and... the internet is for porn. (i recommend avenue q, the only decent musical in the world)

Oh and if lithos is correct its a shame you cant upgrade from XP to WIN 7. I was actually thinking about dual-booting win 7, looks like i will be sticking with xp

[Fl_Gulfer]

Thanks everyone for all your help and insight, the main parts arrive today and the case arrives tomorrow. The waterblock clamps should be here by monday.
All I need to do now is order Windows 7 Pro FULL and sell my new copy of Windows XP Pro sp2 Full and I'll be in bussiness. Oh yeah! I need to get 4g more of ram.

[saien]

Yep, as mentioned the upgrade is only for Vista. But if you have kids (or know any students) you could get it cheaper from the MS student program - Microsoft Office Discount for Students - It's Not Cheating

[Gooshin]

people still pay for software?

ha-ha-ha