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

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