Hi everybody, I'm planning to build a workhorse rig. I hope all you sifus can give me some advice on the mobo, proc, ram and hdd choices. Thx in advance.

The rig will be used mainly for:
1. downloading movies;
2. recording TV/Astro programs;
3. streaming the said movies to my living room's TV via Wireless Media Player (such as the D-Link DSM320 http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318) and
4. to do CCTV recording.

Weekends, my 10-year-old son will also use it to play online games. (He just told me he hopes to play CS on it too ).

I already have spare monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, DVD burner and a new Enermax Coolergiant 480W PSU lying around. And I dont mind waiting for a DirectX 10 budget gc to be available and use the onboard graphic in the meantime. So I hope I'll not need to spend too much on this rig.

For the hdd, I wonder how big it needs to be that's good for one week's of CCTV recording (with motion-detection on of course)? Also, pls take into consideration that it'll also be used to download Korean series/movies (for the home minister lah)during the day when no one is using the broadband connection at home.

Will I be able to get away with around RM1000 for such a rig (I dont mind chapalang casing)?

TQ!

This post has been edited by jonkerboy: Mar 19 2007, 12:25 PM

1k for such a rig?
dream on ~

1k sure not a big problem as u stated u won't mind go 4 chapalang casing
2 meet d 1k budget, all u can consider is budget component such as AMD Sempron proc, all-in-one mobo, s tick of 512MB value RAMs n HDD of desired density...
4 d HDD, u won't get high capacity as ur budget is limited

I said AROUND RM1000.
If not then how much you think it should be?

Anway, my requirements are not processor intensive (except for my boy's game playing maybe), right?

This post has been edited by jonkerboy: Mar 19 2007, 12:00 PM

Unlimited budget will be the best when buying hardware
U can even build professional workstation

Thx for the reply, Liew.
Well, I also wish I were Bill Gate then my budget will be unlimited. Anyway, it's not going to be a fanciful and highly oc LAN party rig. Just a rig to silently download movies and record CCTV in the corner mainly.

What you think of this config I picked up somewhere in this forum then?

CPU: AMD X2 3600+ rm280
MOBO: biostar tforce550 rm300
RAM: 1GB DDR2 667 rm240
GC: Waiting for DX10 budget card rm?
(To use onboard gc first)
HDD: 250GB rm300

I'm not too comfortable with Biostar mobo though cos not sure if I've heard of it.

Thx in advance!

This post has been edited by jonkerboy: Mar 19 2007, 12:27 PM

This is nice combine I would say, budget dual core.
If you're not going to get a GC, you'll have to change the Mobo to Geforce6100Am2 which do offer the onboard graphic.

This post has been edited by kanethesun: Mar 19 2007, 01:23 PM

This will end up over d 1k budget limit dude
Anyway the setup is definately more than enough 4 d stated purpose
Biostar!? I haven't try this brand b4...but been hear positive feedback from sum forumers

Well just get a good mobo that has a lot of integrated stuff, RM1k budget will not get you a separate graphic card AT ALL.

So it will be something like this:
Proc - AMD x2 3600+
Ram - Any brand's 1Gb
Mobo - Good one preferred, I personally always recommend Asus
HDD - Whatever money you have left.
Casing - Get a tower + some additional fans, so it's good to cool your integrated mobo who does a lot of stuff

I would say RM1500 is more realistic to get good setup, RM1k will be very tight. 1 Week's recording won't use up more than 50Gb, assuming standard resolution (600x480 which is around 150Mb per 30 mins on certain compression, even without compression, it will take roughly 120Gb max)

At 1K, you conldn't get everything you wanted out of it. Anyway your main concern would be the CCTV mode. Usually a PC which does CCTV has to be a standalone machine and not be used for other purposes. A regular off the shelf CCTV system requires you to have at least a TNT2 or Geforce graphics adapter. Which none of the bulit in cheap board offers. And you need at least a 160GB hard disk to work with in minimum of 2 partitions. CCTV recordings take up hard disk space!

Also notice that boards that share memory would be slower than that that has a graphics card. You definitely can't enjoy the CS with your budget. Even guys with FX5200 cards are grumbling.

Cheap boards also does not permit you to upgrade to higher memory capacity. You could get with 2 sticks of 1G memory. But still it would be slow.

In the end RM1000 is just not enough. My sugestion is this,

AMD X2 3600 - RM270
ASUS M2NPV-MX - RM315
Kingston 1G DDR2 - RM 250
Seagate 250G hdd - RM250 (partition 100G for usage balance for CCTV)
icute 450W ps & casing - 130
(Option) Geforce 7100GS Pcie vga card - RM150 (But bump to RM290 and you have a 7300GT!)

At RM 1215, at least your are somewhere close to your budget all in one rig. Even then the CCTV is a bother because everytime it records, it bogs down the system a little.

So is it a little clearer now?

finally there are people who starts to agree with me 1k will not enough
the CCTV is already set up and running?

about the specs, i leave it for the other sifu

but i might be able to help u on your cctv cz im handling my companies cctv project...

questions
1. How many cameras you have
2. Quality of recording?
3. Viewing it on monitor or tv

Regarding media streaming and CCTV recording, would suggest to get 2 identical drives and RAID-0 it

If you do D/L, CCTV, record shows, your hdd sure conk very very fast one...

LOL..
HDD dies regardless to what setup you do, its based on your activities. For RAID-0, the failure rate doubles, not faster.

This post has been edited by e-jump: Mar 19 2007, 10:19 PM

Thx everyone for all your feedback. Really appreciate.

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Added on March 20, 2007, 3:21 amBut I already have an unused Enermax Coolergaint 480W psu (left over when I aborted building a rig two years ago).
Am hoping to build the new rig around it but am wondering if it can be used with current crop of dual-core mobos,
specifically the connectors.

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Added on March 20, 2007, 3:23 amEven with X2 processor?

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Added on March 20, 2007, 3:24 amNot yet. Why you ask?

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Added on March 20, 2007, 3:28 am1. Plan to use wireless CCTV. As it's still very costly, I'll probably start with two cameras at first, adding more units when the price comes down.
(I have in mind the Panasonic Wireless Network Camera BL-C30(http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/en/netwkcam/lineup/c30a.html) I saw advertised in the papers. Wonder if it's any good. Anyone has experience in using it pls give your opinion. Thx)

2. VCD quality will be good enough cos dont plan to keep them.

3. Monitor

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Added on March 20, 2007, 3:30 amWhat if I dont RAID-0 the hdds will my video streaming and CCTV recording actually suffer? In what way?


Thx to all of you once again.

This post has been edited by jonkerboy: Mar 20 2007, 05:01 PM

abt the rig ..

1k ?.. sure .. if ure juz expecting the cpu only ...

if ure son is only going to play games like cs.. dont go for a dx10 card but a 7300gt which is more then enough

so .. this is my suggestion ...

amd x2 3600+ @rm270
biostar tforce 550 @rm290
1 gb ram @ rm220
7300gt (ddr3 version) @rm380
160gb hdd @rm200

this would cost roughly at rm1360 according to price stated abv...
top up a lil more bucks and get it .. and forget abt the dx10 cards unless ure son is planning to play high end games too


juz my 2 cents


and ure at the wrg section

This post has been edited by liren09: Mar 20 2007, 04:40 PM

Yah, I agree with you that I should forget about dx10 gc. I've genuinely made the mistake of thinking dx10 was some kind of low end gc as I hv not been keeping up with the progress in computer world for the past 2 years. Maybe I'll get a secondhand 7300GT or 7600GS/GT if I can find one.

Wrong section??? To be frank, this is my very first post in this forum. So which section should this post be in?

This should go to Hardware Questions & Answers, which is a subforum of this section.

OIC
Sorrrrryyyyyy...... I didnt notice that there are sub-forums

Thx