Building Your Own Graphics Workstation, Part One
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Next thing to talk about with the hard drive is the rotation speed. 7200rpm is the way to go over 5400rpm, no if ands or buts about it. If you're going SCSI, then you can consider 10,000 or even 15,000rpm, but anything under 7200rpm will get you a kick in the n'ards, trust me. It's ugly.
But why two separate drives? Keep your Operating System separate from your data, and there's no better way than having two separate drives. I have ultimately set up this rig with the Maxtor 20GB C: drive for Windows 2000 Pro and a host of utilities and applications (WinZip, Word, Norton Systemworks, Snood, Starcraft) and the 80GB D: drive for my graphics apps (Maya, After Effects, Photoshop) and data.[an error occurred while processing this directive]
This way, if my Windows drive crashes, I can reformat the drive and reload Windows without fear of losing any data. Or better yet, I use Norton Ghost (part of Norton Systemworks Pro 2002, but comes free with this Soyo motherboard) to make an image of my C: drive (in a compressed 2-3GB file) so that when I suffer a crash or I mess something up as I tend to do when I noodle with things, I can merely restore the Ghost image and I'm all set with a working C: again. And I don't have to worry in the least about losing any work files or animation. Ghost also keeps me from having to re-install all my apps since I don't have to re-install Windows (which can save your sanity and the better part of a weekend -- damn you, Microsoft!). As far as backing up the D: drive, I use a tape drive, or even a CD-RW, for my data on a regular basis. OK, we've specified a CPU, motherboard, graphics card, memory and hard drives. Now we talk about a case to shove it all in like puppies into a wet sack. A couple of factors come into play here, aesthetics, size and cooling.
Aesthetics play an important part, I think, and they're largely up to you, unless your tastes are a bit weird, in which case you should ask a friend. Lately, case manufacturers have been getting more creative than the old beige cases of yesterday, so you have some choice.
What grabs me first about a case is its size. Since I'm going to be installing all these things to make a PC, I'd like to have a good-size case to work in. Larger cases are more expandable; they hold more drives and are easier to work with, and are generally easier to cool, because of the better airflow inside.
And that brings us to case cooling. Picking out a case that has plenty of ventilation is important, especially for a workstation machine or a machine that will be on most of the time. The better the air flows into and out of your case, the less you have to worry that your gear is getting too hot. The easier air flows, the less you have to rely on pushing it with noisy fans.
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So, I've picked out and bought myself a Chieftec Silver Matrix MA-01SLD full tower case. With 6 5.25" exposed drive bays, 2 3.5" exposed drive bays, and 6 3.5" internal drive bays, this full tower can support whatever you've got to throw in it. This case has vents for up to seven fans, including a side door fan that overlooks the video card, quite a plus for us, I'd say. Also available in mid-tower configurations, the Chieftec cases are steel, heavy as hell, and extremely solid, also making them slightly less noisy when all's said and done. I owned a mid-tower version before this one, and I have nothing but good things to say about them.
Having bought the case without a power supply (after all, I wanted to build everything into this myself) from Directron.com, I contacted Enermax for one of their power supplies. A power supply is a pretty important feature for your system. You want one with more than ample power, one that has a proven track record that can keep itself cool and is not particularly loud. Enter the Enermax EG465P-VE. This heavy (heavy is good) power supply gives out 431W of power, supports AMD as well as Intel Pentium 4 CPUs, has a nifty knob to let you set the speed of its fan to regulate noise, and has more than enough internal connectors for everything inside the case. Enermax was kind enough to send me one of these units for these articles.
Now, we have everything we need to start. I will leave out monitors, keyboards, mice (all of which you need for a working workstation), and soundcards/speakers for now, aside from a quick note: As far as monitors go, get the best CRT you can afford with a flat screen and a small dot pitch size and high resolution and refresh rate. LCDs are still too new and expensive I think to buy for primary screens. A nice setup is a good 19-21" CRT and a 17-19" LCD as a secondary display. Monitors are the things you look at all day, so make sure what you get is comfortable and scalable for what you do.
Mice and keyboards: Get the ones that you like the best. It's best to go to a computer store and try them on for size before you buy. I'm personally a whore for Logitech. The Soyo board has good five-channel digital audio on board, more than adequate for a lot of tasks, so I will leave sound alone for now, though when I tweak this system out a bit in subsequent episodes of this series, I'll be checking out a couple different sound solutions.
So, all that remains now is a handful of cashews, a kitten in a snowstorm, and a sweaty weekend assembling all those components. I'll leave it for next time though; I'm tired and grumpy now.
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NEXT: Building Your Own Graphics Workstation, Part II