Computer planning

[Weeks]

My current computer is about 4-5 years old. ECS K7S5A, AMD 3200+, GeForce 7800 GS. It runs FFXI just fine, but I'm looking for a newer PC to run everything quicker and for multi-boxing purposes. I can get some pointers from the other PC-building threads here, but I'm not really looking for a budget gaming PC.

I don't really play any PC games aside from FFXI, and even if that changes I hate FPS so I'm not likely to ever need a top of the line video card. In my front room, I have my current computer and my Xbox 360. In my bedroom, I have a projector connected to my DVD player/sound system and older consoles. I would like my new computer to serve as a sort of media center to stream music and videos over wireless to my 360 and to the projector via a small PC. The one I'm currently using will be pretty much for running my mule account exclusively.

Basically, I want the new PC to be stable, relatively quiet, have a nice, large monitor, and be capable of running several background tasks (Serving big media files to other computers, web-browsing, running antivirus, etc.) without impacting FFXI performance at the highest settings. Do I need to be looking into anything special with my hard drive setup for this (Eg, a big media one and a small, fast one for OS and FFXI)? Am I correct in assuming that there is no such thing as a computer capable of running a Bit Torrent client without slowing everything else to a crawl? Windows 7 going to be better for me than XP?

I have a 7-year old computer that only lacks a monitor and hard drive (And I can spare one of the two out of my current computer). Would this be sufficient for a PC to connect to the projector? If not, would some sort of cheap netbook?

[Isiolia]

Do I need to be looking into anything special with my hard drive setup for this (Eg, a big media one and a small, fast one for OS and FFXI)?

Probably don't -have- to, but I would say that having a "data drive" (or RAID array even) isn't a bad idea at all. I wouldn't fuss about having a 10-15k rpm system drive though, especially if you want a quiet PC.

Am I correct in assuming that there is no such thing as a computer capable of running a Bit Torrent client without slowing everything else to a crawl?

Right. The slowdown has a lot more to do with the massive amount of hits to your connection than it does the PC.

Windows 7 going to be better for me than XP?

Windows 7 has shown some promise at the very least. If you want to get a 64-bit version then that'd probably be less annoying than XP 64.

I have a 7-year old computer that only lacks a monitor and hard drive (And I can spare one of the two out of my current computer). Would this be sufficient for a PC to connect to the projector? If not, would some sort of cheap netbook?

That'd depend on the media that you're streaming to it.

If you'll be wanting to stream HD content to it, then I'd say probably not. Could be the encodes, in part, but I started to run into problems with some fansubs and the like with a 2GHz P4, which would be around the same vintage.

Part of what can help your PC keep up with that is a video card with acceleration features (most any nVidia/ATI has some level of it these days, in Windows drivers at least). The stuff that's integrated into Netbooks...not so much. Without the benefit of that, you need more oomph from the CPU.

Still, it doesn't take spending too much money to get something that'd play most anything. You can build a system around an AMD 790GX based board or something similar that'll have the video features in the onboard, and with that a $50-60 CPU is easily sufficient. I swapped the CPU, mobo+RAM, and PSU on my P4 (which I already had in a HTPC case) with, at the time, a little less than $300 in parts (Athlon X2 4850e, 780G mobo, 2GB of RAM, Antec Earthwatts 380W). These days, something similar could be had in the low $200s.

That being said, if you're just wanting to stream like, DVD rips or something, then the 7 year old machine should be fine.

[Weeks]

Probably don't -have- to, but I would say that having a "data drive" (or RAID array even) isn't a bad idea at all. I wouldn't fuss about having a 10-15k rpm system drive though, especially if you want a quiet PC.

I guess for a media hard drive, nothing really matters except size, right? Will speed come into play at all if I've got it feeding, say, two HD movies to two different computers? Also, if I want tip-top performance for FFXI and fast loading of Windows, Google Chrome, etc., should I consider a small solid-state drive or something? As I said, not really a PC gamer so a little 32GB SSD should be plenty to hold everything except my media if there is going to be a performance impact.

That'd depend on the media that you're streaming to it.

If you'll be wanting to stream HD content to it, then I'd say probably not. Could be the encodes, in part, but I started to run into problems with some fansubs and the like with a 2GHz P4, which would be around the same vintage.

Part of what can help your PC keep up with that is a video card with acceleration features (most any nVidia/ATI has some level of it these days, in Windows drivers at least). The stuff that's integrated into Netbooks...not so much. Without the benefit of that, you need more oomph from the CPU.

Well, the video card in that system is a Radeon that's about 4 years old. I'm not planning on streaming HD content through to my bedroom, and I suppose when that changes I can always just build another cheap computer to take care of it.

One last question: Is there any real reason to stick with a standard desktop LCD monitor, or is something like Newegg.com - NEC Display Solutions LCD3215 Black 32" 9ms(GTG) Large Format Monitor 1366 x 768 500 cd/m2 800:1 - Large Format Display a good idea? I want a large monitor, but I'm not sure if something like that would have any issues besides the need to sit a little further back from it than you would a 19". I plan on having a little L-shaped desk arrangement with the new computer and this one, so I think the different viewing distance would actually be a plus.

[Isiolia]

With media storage, sure, if you're pulling a lot of data off of it simultaneously, you may want/need that. Personally, I don't tend to do that, and I think more in terms of redundancy. 1TB, or whatever, is a lot to back up (or restore) one DVD-R at a time, y'know? If you have plans to be pulling data off at that rate, then RAID might be the way to go.

That also ties into why I would say to use a separate system drive. If you do wind up having problems, it's a lot simpler to just know you can nuke the system drive and restart.

With the way things are now anyway, just get a lot of RAM. Vista (at least) pre-loads common files/apps into memory (if available) in order to launch them faster n' all.


Far as monitor...some people do use LCD TVs and similar as monitors. Hard to say, as it would vary by model... the one you linked to has a native res of only 1366x768, where normally a 24" (or even some 20-22") monitor would be 1920x1080 or 1200.
They'll be designed for different use too, but I haven't really looked as much into it to offer a better opinion than that offhand. I would say to go browse/post on the HardOCP monitors forum.