My new system...

[ddrueding]

Well, a number of things have caused me to plan my new box. Comments are appreciated.

Uses (most frequent on top):
-Web/E-mail/Office
-DIVX/MP3 encoding and playback
-Media Storage/File Server
-Gaming

Parts:
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (90nm)
1GB PC3200 Mushkin (2x512MB)
Gigabyte 6800 Fanless GPU (already own it)
Samsung 160GB SATA
Seagate 250GB 7200.8 SATA
Samsung 16X DVD±RW
Antec Phantom 350W Fanless PSU
Scythe NCU-2000 Fanless CPU heatsink
Zalman NorthBridge Chipset Cooler
2x Zalman Heatpipe HDD Coolers
4x Nexus 120mm fans
mCubed T-Balancer
Custom Birch-Plywood Chassis*

*design and pics to come, still in the works. Will be a wall-mount, chimney-style case.


Thoughts? In particular on the motherboard...

 

[Tannin]

Bit hard to go wrong with Gigabyte, Dave. But Samsung for the DVD? Most of the Samsung optical drives I've seen have been pretty ordnary. Have they got better?

 

[ddrueding]

Bit hard to go wrong with Gigabyte, Dave. But Samsung for the DVD? Most of the Samsung optical drives I've seen have been pretty ordnary. Have they got better?

Thanks for the feedback. The Samsung was selected from the random list on Newegg's cover 'cause it was under $50 and I've had good experiences with other Samsung products (LCD, HDD, RAM, etc). The only thing I really plan on doing with it is ripping video DVDs. Any suggestions?

 

[Tannin]

I am absolutely and positively no expert on DVD drives. Select at random any other Storage Forum member and, chances are, you will get a 500% better informed answer.

Hell, I still haven't got around to loading up the software for the DVD-R I installed in my home system long enough ago that it is single layer. Why no software loaded? Because I haven't actually wanted to use it for anything yet!

But for what it's worth, I have sold quite a few Lite-On, LG, and Gigabyte DVD/CDR/DVDR drives and been happy with al of them. (I'm virtualy certain that the Gigabyte ones are simply rebadged from someone else, but whatever they are rebadging, it doesn't come back faulty ns that's good enough for me.)

 

[Tannin]

By the way, don't buy an samsung monitors. We sold about a dozen Samtron 17 inch CRTs a while back (Samtron = Samsung's value brand) and they are quite possibly the most unreliable monitors we have ever seen. Two of them have now failed four times each, and all that within only a year. About five of the others have failed as well.

Really bad news. Enough, in fact, to make you think fondly of WD Raptors.

 

[Handruin]

When you guys generously donated me the pc, you also sent a samsung DVD (SD-616). It still works after a couple years. Most optical drives I've had throughout the years haven't lasted this long. It's a bit noisy, and can take a short while to spin up, but other than that it does its job. It doesn't read DVD-RW disks however, but that doesn't bother me much since I rarely use them.

I realize this is one sample of their product, so you can't really make a judgment on my experience.

 

[Tea]

You mean we gave you a Samsung optical drive and a Western Digital hard disc drive? Wow! We must really hate you!

(PS: guys, what did Doug do? Is he the Boston Axe Murderer or something? Did he get locked up for it? Or is it one of those things that a gentleman doesn't talk about? If so, you can tell us anyway - I'm not "gentle", and not a "man" in either sense of the word. And as for Tannin - well, he's no gentleman anyway. If he was, he couldn't possibly have invented me. )

So talk freely.

I am all ears.

(Plus assorted furry bits.)

(Possibly some brain as well, though I am inclined to doubt tht last bit.)

 

[Buck]

I've sold Samsung 17" CRTs, 19" LCDs and Hansol 17" LCDs (Samsung panel) without any problems. I also prefer Samsung opticals for CDs and CDR-Ws, I haven't had one returned yet. The reason I switched to NEC DVD burners is that they're less expensive, equally as reliable (for me), and come out ahead in performance reviews. As for floppy drives, Samsung, Mitsumi, and TEACs have worked equally good.

 

[ddrueding]

Well right now my Optical is a Sony DRU-700A with the latest firmware. It works pretty well, and matches my current case (Antec P-160). As it will be well hidden in my current case, I could keep it.

The one thing I want more than anything out of my optical drive is fast DVD rips using DVD Decrypter. If someone can tell me what the fastest for this is, I'd be most grateful.

 

[.Nut]

Just my opinion:

For your second "large" hard drive, which I assume is your data drive, you should go plug-able. Get 1 SATA hard drive bay for you large data drive, or get 2 and make both hard drives plug-able.

If you go the route of having all hard drives plug-able, you will have data drives that you can very easily swap in and out AND you can have custom O/S installs (Winders, Linux) for special purposes.

 

[ddrueding]

A good idea, but these drives will be suspended. As such, they will be pluggable, but not easily so.

 

[Gilbo]

I think the Lite-On 166/167s are the fastest at DVD ripping, as well as CD ripping. That was the story floating around the CDFreaks, CDR-Labs, and CDR-Info forums when I was doing research into the same question about six months ago. They were regarded head and shoulders above other readers, and expecially over all the burners. From the information I gathered, all the burners available were significantly slower --not to mention dealt more poorly with errors. The rationale was that the relevant aspects of their firmware were ignored in favour of burning-related areas.

The Liteon's are pretty inexpensive these days, but I don't know if you want a pure reader in there as well. I do know you want a quiet computer. Unfortunately LiteOns are legendary for their noise (as, I suppose, are most high-speed readers). Of course, the noise only lasts for the duration of the rip.

 

[Bozo]

How about this for hot swappable SATA

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-121-402&depa=0

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[ddrueding]

Yeah, I suppose I should put that into my requirements. I only want one drive, and it needs to be able to burn dual-layer DVDs, and I want the fastest one of those I can find. Noise for the optical isn't an issue, I find 10 minutes of noise a worthwhile cost of having a movie online.

 

[Buck]

Are the Lite-On 166/167 models newer than the 1633?

 

[Gilbo]

It seems to me that the 1633 series is a recent LiteOn DVD-Recorder line.

If the extra 3 was a typo and you meant the 163, a reader like the 166/167's, then yes the latter are newer, but I don't believe there are any differences of note. It's hard to tell though because the LiteOn DVD-Rom situation is hard to figure out. The LiteOn site no longer has DVD-ROM specs. I think this is because the division was sold to JLMS, and became the JLMS LiteOn IT division, which can be found here. This last page seems to indicate there is no difference from a quick perusal of the pages.

The revisions are likely small firmware or minor manufacturing component changes.

 

[Buck]

Nope, I meant to include the extra three. The reason I asked is because Anand did a review a few months back and the Lite-On 1633 wasn't the best contender.

 

[Gilbo]

Oh, okay, the 1633 is a burner. The 163/166/167's that I was mentioning are all DVD-ROMs --readers only, with no burning capability whatsoever. They are much older than anything like the 1633. I think the 166/167's are actually as much as two or even three years old. There are still plenty of them floating around though.

The only reason that I brought them up was because they are still known as spectacularly fast and error-free rippers. They also deal well with disc copy-protection. DDrueding is looking for an all in one solution though, so they aren't really appropriate.

As far as DVD burners go, I would recommend against LiteOns. They made great CD Burners, and great Readers in general (CD &DVD), but their DVD burners measure up poorly in many respects, particularly burn quality. This thread at CDRLabs has the most useful burn-quality information you can get. I haven't kept up with it for at least six months though.

The tests online review sites are forced to use can't account for the fact that burner models are always specially tuned to read the discs they burnt. Well-tuned firmware on a burner in these types of tests can make up for poor-quality burns, but if you try and throw that disc in any other reader it might be useless. Traditionally NEC, LG, and BenQ (Pioneer as well, though less commonly) have always come out on top in the C't tests, which corresponds exactly with the (mostly anecdotal) evidence on forums like CDRLabs, CDFreaks, and CDRInfo (which apparently now has a popunder that gets past my Firefox :x).

I'm working from a six month memory of the drive I decided to buy after a ridiculous amount of research at all the aforementioned sites, and I didn't end up getting it and instead postponed the new system so I can't offer personal experience. On that note, I'd recommend a recent LG to DDrueding due to their ripping ability. The NEC's have frequently tested as poor rippers.

 

[Gilbo]

Just to update myself a little I dropped by CDRInfo and saw that they have reviewed the latest iterations from LG and NEC. CDRInfo does quite thorough optical drive reviews. Their conclusion regarding the the latest LG, the GSA-4163B, is quite complimentary.

The NEC does quite well as well, but recieves slightly lower marks. It's a great burner, but not as well rounded as the LG, so I'd still stick with the LG.

Another good thing about the LGs is that they support DVD-RAM. I wouldn't use DVD-RAM for much, but it's certainly the best format for regular data backups if you just want to rewrite.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks Gilbo!

 

[ddrueding]

My new choice...$10 more