Hi,

My wife and I run our own company from home, and we use the computer about 11 hours a day running multiple programs at once. Always having 1 monitor checking how our web sites are doing in real-time. I also enjoy playing FEAR multi-player on Friday nights for a couple of hours!

I have built my last 2 computers and thought I was doing a good job. Until a friend cam over, and said that I had 'mis-matched' hardware causing performance issues with the RAM. Saying I had too much RAM for my hard drives to handle. I have 4 1GB strips, but the computer says I have 3072GB, and not sure why.

Our current set up is now nearly 2 years old, and time to build again. But before I do, I am after help please on what to get next.

Here is our current setup:

Antec P180 Case
Enermax 600W PSU SLI / Server Ready, PFC
Thermaltake Jungle 512/Socket 775 CPU Cooler
Intel D955XBKLKR Socket 775 Motherboard
Intel Pentium D 820 2.8gGHz DT 800FSB Socket 775
Crucial 4096MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz (4 x 1GB strips)
Segate 160GB Serial ATA 7.2k 8MB Cache (3 in a RAID 5 set up)
ATI X800XL 256MB (x 2)
17" Samsung 703b Monitor (x3)
19" Samsung 931b Monitor
TigerVista multi-monitor software
Microsoft Windows XP Professional W/SP2

I wish to keep the following:
RAID 5
We did have a disk failure 7 months ago. It was great how we just removed the damaged disk and inserted a new one, and did not have to close the computer down.

Intel Motherboard
It has never let me down yet, and I am not interested in over-clocking.

My thoughts for the new computer are:
1) Intel 975XBX2KR Motherboard
2) Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
3) 10k or 15k hard drives (SCSI)
4) Corsair DD2 - Dual Memory. What is the max the Intel board can take, as in size and speed?
5) ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB (x 2)
4) Power supply - not sure what power level to get.

Thanks!

2) You may want to consider a quad core intel. . .The price drop makes them actually affordable for normal people, and it will definitely have staying power in the future.
3) Go for it. . .I really have no experience with scsi. But, I'm not sure about setting up a RAID with scuzzy drives. . .Someone else will know.
4) Really, I don't see any huge need for over 4 gigs of ram in the near future. . .I would get 2 matched sticks of 2 gig, then it leaves you 2 more slots if you need to upgrade ever. It seems you have the money for this rig, so you may as well go all the way.
5) Eh, I think nvidia better, but whatever you like.
6) [4?] You'll probably want at least a 500 watt good power supply.

Friends mean well, but sometimes their advice can be incorrect. The RAM issue is an OS problem, not a hard drive problem. Windows (32 bit) can only address 4gB of memory, and this ends up with Windows only recognizing about 3 to 3.5 gB of that memory (here's an article with more details: http://www.brianmadden.com/content/article...it-really-mean- )

Depending on the driver availability for your hardware, you may want to consider a 64 bit version of Windows in order to make use of it's additional features (and it'll recognize up to 128 gB of RAM).

I prefer the PC Power and Cooling PSU's even though they're a bit more expensive than other similarly rated PSU's. They're hefty, they do very well in the comparison tests, and I've never had one die on me. With all the hardware that you'll be using, even 500 watts may not be enough.

I've had good luck with Intel mobo's also. My current mobo (tho') is an MSI with the 975 chipset and it works great. Some issues with Vista and the SATA drivers, but nothing that wasn't easily overcome.

Thanks for the advice.

I will take a look at the 64bit Windows OS tonight.