New RIP computer for Caldera and HP L25500

[kustomsigns&designs]

I am looking at putting together a new rip computer, let me explain.

I bought the new HP L25500 along with the Caldera VisualRIP+, this requires a 64 bit system and my rip computer is not. So I'm shopping for new guts for the old box. My main concern is the HD should I get 2 and raid them for more speed to help speed the rip/spooling process? Or is 1 enough? Along with the HP printer I will be running a Epson 9880, so not to much will be going on at the same time. I'm just not sure if its worth the extra $100 for the second drive.

Here is what I came up with so far, please chime in.

MSI 870S-G46 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
MSI N210-D512D2 GeForce 210 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD2500AAKX 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

I have a 430watt power supply, I hope that's enough?

Thank you for your input.

 

[choucove]

Hard drive prices right now are quite astonishingly high, especially for the higher quality larger capacity drives. If I can even still get them, they've doubled in price compared to only a couple weeks ago. If your primary concern is speed, and you don't need a ton of storage space, I'd highly recommend going with an SSD for now. They're going to be more expensive than the same size in a hard drive, but the performance is leagues beyond what you can get from a mechanical drive.

One thing to keep in mind about the AM3 systems is they are going away very quickly. Last update that I had heard was AMD has already stopped production on 75% of the AMD Athlon and AMD Phenom processors in market, and the remaining models will stop production after the end of the year. This is because the new Llano systems (socket FM1) and Bulldozer FX systems (socket AM3+) are going to be pushed heavily.

While you can still get these parts online obviously, they're technically older generation hardware. It'd kinda be like buying a Core 2 Quad system right now. Now, one thing I will say is AMD tends to keep compatibility far longer than much of the Intel systems, so that's not necessarily such a big concern, but the possible lifespan of your system may suffer as it may be harder to find compatible replacement parts a few years down the line.

 

[kustomsigns&designs]

Is the speed from the ssd going to help with my rip times? or is it more memory that would be better?

 

[kustomsigns&designs]

wow, I'm new to ssd, which interface is faster?

 

[cdiesel]

We're replacing one of our old RIP stations due to hard drive failures (luckily it was RAID 5), and it's four years old. It's a very basic machine that we built for about $650. RIP's just fine. All of RIP stations are very basic machines so I wouldn't worry about doing anything too crazy for a RIP station.

 

[kustomsigns&designs]

I was actually putting together cheapest stuff possible, total on these 5 items is $315.

 

[kustomsigns&designs]

hmmm, so I'm retarded.....it seems my old system is 64bit amd after all. I decided I needed to dig inside and look around and um, yeah, its 64! lol

So I do believe I will upgrade the memory from 2gb to 4gb for $55 and thats it.

Thanks for your responses.