At 18:43 07/08/00, Frank R. Brown wrote: >We are looking at the adaptec 19160 scsi adapter The Adaptec Ultra160 cards should be top notch. See <http://www.adaptec.com/products/guide/ultra160scsi.html>. I'm not 100% sure what performance difference there is between the 19160 and the 29160. (The 29160N appears to be pretty much the same as the 19160 except for price and the fact that the 29160 includes drivers for more operating systems...written by Adaptec.) Since all the new SCSI drives are Ultra160, that's what you want. This means you can use much longer cables than mere Ultra Wide SCSI allows and it gives you 160 MB/sec bandwidth. (Four times that of Ultra Wide. Whether you will ever need that is another question. If you ever add more Ultra160 drives to your computer, you would need the bandwidth.) The 29160 does come in a 64 bit PCI version. (No "N" at the end of the designation.) This card will work in today's 32 bit slots...and (presumably) be ready for the next generation 64 bit PCI slots. A SCSI card has a long lifetime. This is one part that you might reasonably expect to be using still in five years. (Adaptec's 5 year old 2940UW is still a top controller.) So this might be a factor worth paying $10 more for. However, this is not an option with the 19160 and you have to pay $50 to move up to the 29160N card. <http://www.hypermicro.com/store/scsi_host.htm> is a good source of SCSI devices. Go there at least for comparison shopping. Do not get a "bare card" from anyone (no matter how tempted you might be) to save (for example) $36. The problem is that the cables that you will need to purchase separately will either cost more than this or be of lower quality. Also, with "bare card" or "white box" controllers, the warranty will come from the dealer and may be shorter than one from Adaptec. Adaptec is very strict about OEM versions of their controllers. They will not help you. You would need to get a "retail" version before Adaptec would assume responsibility. >we're looking at 7200 rpm disks. Should we be looking at 10k rpm >disks, or do 7200 rpm disks make the most sense for us? I look at it like this. Going from 5400 RPM to 7200 RPM can make your disk activity seem twice as fast. (It's more than the 33% RPM increase. There are usually other technological factors involved.) Similarly when going from 7200 RPM to 10,000 RPM. Now imagine if you could go to 15,000 RPM... You can! A 15,000 RPM Seagate Cheetah X15 (with almost 50 MB/sec *sustained* data transfer rate and a 3.9 ms average access time) would probably make your system seem faster than if you were to double the speed of your processor. (It depends what the bottleneck of your computer is.) My feeling right now is that it's probably not going to be the processor. So disk performance is very important. You yourself said "At some point, increased processor speed won't do much to help the speed of the overall system". I think a faster hard drive will. <http://www.hypermicro.com/store/hard_drives.htm> has your proposed 18 GB Barracuda ST318436LWV for $350. For $555 you can get the fastest drive in the world, the 18 GB Ultra160 Cheetah X15. That's $175 more. Remember this figure when considering the video card...below. Don't forget (for either the Barracuda or the Cheetah) to get something like the BayCooler II (3 fan model) drive cooler for $29.95. See <http://www.coolerguys.com/CPUCOOL/BayCool.htm>. Do *not* be tempted by the 2 fan "Cool-Stor" BayCooler for $11.95. I have tried them both and have discarded four two fan versions. The difference is much more than just the extra fan. The design and ease of use of the three fan system is far superior and the components are much sturdier. I have tried and thrown out several other makes/models drive coolers. The BayCooler II or one of the equivalent (but more expensive) ones from <http://www.pcpowercooling.com/> or <http://www.calpc.com/html/contents.html> is your best choice. Don't plan on mounting a 7200 RPM or faster hard drive *inside the case* where it cannot be cooled by outside air. A good drive cooler should noticeably prolong the life of your disk drive. I'd recommend moving up to an Inwin full tower case if you're worried about losing the one 5.25" external drive bay due to putting the hard disk there. You'll also need at least two 80mm fans...one for the bottom front of your case (sucking cool air in) and one for the top rear (blowing hot air out). These might cost $8 apiece. See <http://www.coolerguys.com/CPUCOOL/sunon.htm>. You might also consider an auxiliary fan for your video card. Coolerguys have them too. (There are also a half dozen other vendors who specialize in cooling add-ons.) >We are also looking at the leadtek geforce2 gts video card. This is a great video card...but you could save almost $200 by getting an older TNT2 card (any make should suffice). Do this if you're worried about spending more for a better disk drive and/or SCSI card. You could then get a new video card in 6 to 12 months (when even better ones are available) and have super performance then....when the GeForce 2 would be almost obsolete. My thought is that the hard drive and SCSI controller will not lose their relative superiority like the video card will in such a short time. >Lastly, the choice of a 750 MHz Athlon is based on the fact that >that looks like about the 'knee' of the price-speed curve. To go >up in speed seems to start costing a lot for not that much >increase...Does this trade-off (and 750 MHz) sound about right? The fact that the 750 costs only $22 more than the 700 but that the 800 costs $52 more than the 750 validates your choice. >motherboard: abit ka7 kx133 Consider also an Asus motherboard. Maybe not as exciting, but maybe more reliable. But Abit is good. >memory: pc133 ram (128 mb) -- any recommended brands? Crucial Technologies sells great memory. See <http://www.crucial.com/>. >nic: 10/100 mbit ethernet (3com, smc, ???) -- suggestions? >cd-rom: old spare (external scsi) I have a bunch of $17 Netgear 10/100 FA310TX PCI NICs that perform well. (I can't speak for other NICs in this price class.) Using an external CDROM could be less convenient...and it will not be a good idea unless it is the only SCSI device on the SE branch of the SCSI controller. (The Adaptec 19160 and 29160 are similar to dual channel cards in that the Ultra160 drive(s) go on one branch and slow Single Ended devices like CDROM readers, CDROM Recorders, and scanners go on the slower and electrically isolated SE branch. This allows you to run the Ultra160 devices without performance loss.) The built in terminator on most CDROM drives would not be suitable for multiple devices. Regards, Bill The NOSPIN Group provides a monthly newsletter with great tips, information and ideas: NOSPIN-L, The NOSPIN Magazine Visit our web site to signup: http://nospin.com