Using two different drive types is not ideal for the physical swap, using identical drives will be better for BIOS issues, although most systems will accept the change with no issues.

So if I used identical system drives and used the physical swap method, would that avoid some of the conflicts that the dual boot configuartion would present or would the issues be the same?

Once I've figured this part out I should be able to go ahead and finalize my order.

EDIT: I've also updated the GPUs. This one is only $50 more than the X1950 and seems to be much more powerful and certainly newer so I'd prefer it. Is it recommended? The reviews are positive but that's what I thought about my 8600, and then didn't find out about the full screen video issue until too late. Is there anything I need to know about this card:

Radeon HD3850 PCS Edition, 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express, Dual DVI, TV OUT (http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/24985/PowerColor R67CPE3)

Identical drives should avoid most of the potential pitfalls.

The 3850 is brand new and untested, but somebody has to start, so you might as well go for it. The Graphics cards you are dealing with are relatively cheap, so the risk is low, compared to my 8800GTX and Quadro3400 cards. Having a spare card or two when you are trying to find pairs that work well together is usually a good idea.

Identical drives should avoid most of the potential pitfalls.

Most? It makes me so nervous... I desperately want this system because my current one is so sluggish and useless - the last thing I want is to have weird conflicts.

If I had one system as XP32 and the other as XP64 that won't lead to trouble?

In all honesty, I can't foresee myself making any changes that might cause conflicts. Once this thing's built, I hope never to open the box nor change a setting... am I being naive?

I use "most" as computers are complex and there are no guarentees. I am also aware of thousands of caveats and disclaimers to the things I post, but I can't go into details on every one, so I try to avoid making strong generalizations that cause people to need to point out the obscure exceptions them.

Having a dual boot system will always have a higher chance of problems, because it is twice as complicated. On the other hand it is twice as likely that at least one side will be working properly at any given time. When I eventually upgrade the facility I work at from XP to Vista or XP64, I will use the physically swapping solution, leaving the older XP32 OS as a fallback for anytime we are having issues in a crunch. I will probably keep the dual option for a few months at least, on eight different systems. It means I will be using 8 more hard drives for the switch, but drives are cheap, compared to the price of the OS, and software.

When I eventually upgrade the facility I work at from XP to Vista or XP64, I will use the physically swapping solution...

That's what I think I'll do too - I just need to convince the guy building it that it's not going to cause BIOS problems. He talked me out of doing it and seemed determined not to let me go down that path. Strange...


Magic Bullet recommends a 7800 and if I remember correctly, Mike, you said thr 7800GT would be fine with Prospect HD & CS3 so maybe I'll just see if I can find another 7800GT on eBay and use that. I can't find them in stores anymore.

The only trouble with that is that I believe that if you update the drivers for the 7 series you get stuck with the same restirctions as the 8 series... Someone else might be able to confirm that for us though?

If I can find one would that be a good idea?

Any Geforce 7-series card fullfills both requirements, I recommend the 7950GT. The new drivers issue is possible, but the old drivers should work fine. The only other option is to get a Quadro 1700 for like $800 or higher.

You might want to verify that is still true of Magic bullet.

Any Geforce 7-series card fullfills both requirements, I recommend the 7950GT. The new drivers issue is possible, but the old drivers should work fine. The only other option is to get a Quadro 1700 for like $800 or higher.

You might want to verify that is still true of Magic bullet.

I trawled through hundreds of posts on Red Giant's support forums and dozens of people are reporting incompatability with ATI cards (and with Quadro cards too by the looks of things). The Magic Bullet FAQ page specifies only 3 ATI cards that it recommends and people are suggesting on the forums that they could in fact be the only three ATI cards that work!

These are the cards:

Nvidia 6600, 7800, 8800
ATI 9600, 1800, 1900
Note: there is no Intel card support

But some people have even reported trouble with the recommended ATI cards. The Nvidia ones seem to be less troublesome...

The 8800 is out of the question. I already have one 7800. There's two 7800s and a 7950 on eBay in Australia at the moment. I'd get the 7950 if it was on Magic Bullet's list but the compatability issues discussed on their forums make me frightened. Am I likely to have trouble with it or you don't think so?

There's also some quite cheap second hand nVidia Wuadro FX-3400 256MB which is pretty tempting... but I have no way of knowing if they'll work. I'd love to buy a pair of those...

Maybe I'll just pull the 7600 out of my even older heap of junk and try that...

I have a Quadro 3400, and it is okay, but not ideal. The 7600 you have will give you the best bang for the buck ;) if you at least give it a shot. As I said before, you could spend months researching and still be wrong, just buy one and try it. You will never know for sure until it is actually working in your system. VGA cards are too cheap to REALLY stress over unless you are buying one of the >$300 ones, which are not what you are currently pondering.

I have a Quadro 3400, and it is okay, but not ideal. The 7600 you have will give you the best bang for the buck ;) if you at least give it a shot. As I said before, you could spend months researching and still be wrong, just buy one and try it. You will never know for sure until it is actually working in your system. VGA cards are too cheap to REALLY stress over unless you are buying one of the >$300 ones, which are not what you are currently pondering.

I'll see how I go with either a 7800 + a 7600 or dual 7800s.

If I go with these older cards, will they give me problems if I go with a 64bit operating system?

I can foresee two problems:
1. The drivers may be too old for 64bit.
2. Updating the drivers will make them the same as the 8 series cards and therefore I'll lose the full screen video overlay.

The thing is I do NOT want to be fiddling in the case this time round. I simply want to have it built and have it work. Every time I've added or swapped a component in my current machine it's like I've almost killed it and it never regained its full life.

It is extremely unlikely that you will get everything perfectly right on the first try. I usually anticipate a first run at installing everything, and seeing how those settings work out etc, usually making ghost images in the process at various points. Trying different drivers, especially for the graphics subsystem in your case. Once I have everything the way I want it, via an indirect route, the next time I rebuild the installation, I go directly to the config I want. (I know which driver versions I want, etc.)
Computers are not designed to be set up once and then work forever. That is why companies have IT departments. You should be rebuilding your OS install at least once a year for maximum performance and stability. That is how it "regains its full life." Ghost images make this much easier. I invest more time in this process than most people, since I beta test a lot of different software, which can screw your system up quickly, and you find yourself needing to revert back to a clean state much more frequently. (As often as once a month)

Well I'm glad that it's not just me whose computer stuffs up regularly. Although mine destroys itself on a daily basis. Multiple times daily...

I've never created a "ghost image" before. Is that kind of like a system restore point?

I should probably do that the day I get it to make sure every single thing that I do to it can be undone...

Yes, that is usually the idea. Ghost is a program that allows you to backup your entire partition or drive to a single file on another drive. I usually store all of my ghost images on an external firewire drive. There are other programs, but Ghost is the primary player, and the only one I have gotten to work flawlessly. The difficult thing is that you can't run ghost while files on the drive are in use, and therefore can't be booted into windows. I have a CD created specifically for the purpose, that allows me to boot from the CD, and run ghost and a few other utilities on the hard drive. It took forever to get the process smoothed out, but now I have been using my BootCDs at least once a week for the last 3 or 4 years. (I maintain about 10 workstations though, not just one.)

Ok! It's pretty much the same as Travis' PC. I'm planning on ordering by the week's end. I've decided to skip the whole dual boot/hot swapping options and just stick with an editing-only machine. This is it:

Motherboard: Supermicro X7DWA-N
Processors: 2 x 45nm Intel Xeon X5450 Quad Core 3.00GHz
Memory: 4GB Patriot RAM 667MHz
System Drive: WD Raptor, 74GB SATA, 16mb cache 10,000rpm
RAID o: 4 x Samsung HD501LJ Spinpoint 500GB, 16mb cache
Video Cards: 2 x ASUS 7800GT 256MB
Optical: DVD-DL Burner SATA
Case: Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 chasis
Power: Antec TPQ-1000
Op. Sys.: Windows XP Pro

Final Questions:

1. Do each of these components work in a 64bit machine?
2. Do I want fully buffered ram or unbuffered ram? I hate ram, I don't understand it at all. Why not 800MHz?
3. We're failry confident that CS3 works ok in XP Pro 64bit but what about Prospect HD and what about Magic Bullet?

I have been watching this thread with quit a bit of interest as I am also considering a major upgrade to my system. Here is the hardware I am looking at for those that are interested.

Supermicro X7DAL-E+ motherboard.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000X/X7DAL-E+.cfm

I am looking at this motherboard for a couple reasons.
1) It is an ATX motherboard, so I can use the CoolMaster CM690 case, 850w power supply, and 160gig WD Raptor I already own.
2) It has a pci-e x16 slot. So I can use my the nvidia 8800 graphics card I already own.
3) It supports the X5400 series processors, upto 1333MHz.

Either (2) X5450's or (2) X5460's which are finally starting to become available.
http://www.itispl.com.au/products/shopping/details.php?prec=4204
http://pcau.com/l4/CPU1343.htm

Another product to consider for making backups is Acronis TrueImage.
It supports live backups, including boot partitions, from within windows.
So, you don't have to boot into another program to do the backups.
It supports 64 bit, backup to network drives, scheduling, etc.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

You have to have fully buffered RAM.

The hardware should be 64bit compatible. See the Cineform forum for peoples recent experiences in upgrading to XP64, seems mostly positive. No idea on MB.

You have to have fully buffered RAM.

Also, do I want the actively or passively cooled CPUs?? What's the difference?

Active coolers have a dedicated fan on the heatsink. Unless you have a case that is specifically designed to cool the CPUs with the case fans, you probably want the actively cooled varient.

Last question (ever I hope!):

The RAM he's spec'd for me is:

Patriot PSD24G667EFBK Signature DDR2 4GB (2 x 2GB) CL5 PC2-5300 (667MHz) ECC Fully Buffered DIMM

Is it good? In fact is it great?

Should I ask him to put in 4 x 1GB sticks instead of 2 2GB sticks?

The part that concerns me is that it is only 667MHz.

Now on the Supermicro web site it says that 800MHz memory is for 1600MHz FSB CPUs only, which the X5450 isn't - it's only 1333MHz.

This seems a bit strange and "old" to be going in such a new system. Is this likely to cause a bottleneck?

Am I getting the best RAM I can get?

This Kingston RAM here (http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/21654/) is still only 667MHz but is pretty much twice the price and is "Dual Rank". What's that mean?

You should try to get 4 1GB sticks, as the chipset supports quad channel Ram. May not have a dramatic effect on performance, but it is a free speed boost. You want RAM to be syncronized with the FSB, so I would pick 667 over 800 in your case, even if the 800 was cheaper. I went out of my way to buy a 2.4Ghz P4 back in the day, because it would be better synced to the 800Mhz FSB (3 to 1), even though the 2.6Ghz was the same price. I just bought a 4core 2.66 Ghz Woodcrest system, with a 1333mhz FSB, so that is a 2:1 ratio. That is why I chose that speed. My Ram is quad channel 667 (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) feeding dual independent processor busses at 1333mhz apiece, (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) which connect to four total cores running at 2.66Ghz. Sound smooth and efficient efficient? I think so.

You should try to get 4 1GB sticks, as the chipset supports quad channel Ram. May not have a dramatic effect on performance, but it is a free speed boost. You want RAM to be syncronized with the FSB, so I would pick 667 over 800 in your case, even if the 800 was cheaper. I went out of my way to buy a 2.4Ghz P4 back in the day, because it would be better synced to the 800Mhz FSB (3 to 1), even though the 2.6Ghz was the same price. I just bought a 4core 2.66 Ghz Woodcrest system, with a 1333mhz FSB, so that is a 2:1 ratio. That is why I chose that speed. My Ram is quad channel 667 (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) feeding dual independent processor busses at 1333mhz apiece, (theoretically 2.66Ghz of bandwidth) which connect to four total cores running at 2.66Ghz. Sound smooth and efficient efficient? I think so.

Sounds super smooth! But how do I know if I've ordered "Quad Channel" RAM?Is the RAM he's suggested fine? Or is the twice as expensive Kingston RAM better?

You can buy "Quad channel" Ram in the unbuffered world, but I have never seen that option for workstation type sticks. I bought two identical Dual Channel packs, and they seem to work fine. This is in the last 24hours, so I have not confirmed that I have true quad channel operation.

I have always bought the cheapest RAM I could find with a given set of specifications. Not totally clear on the advantages of more expensive stuff, besides warranty. I check the timings to ensure they are the same, and I am not ready to spend tons of money to lower them.

Well I finally ordered it!

Two things:

1. He convinced me to stick with 32 bit XP Pro for stability's sake.
2. He told me that, also for the sake of stability, 2 x 2GB RAM sticks was better than 4 x 1GB. He said it was a much more stable setup.

Why would opinions differ on that isue? Isn't there just one way that is considered best?

Anyway, I ended up getting 2 x 2GB sticks. Hopefully it's not performance inhibiting...

Strange, both are not bad moves, but those are the wrong reasons.

32bit Windows should be expected to be less reliable or stable, but more COMPATIBLE with hardware and software.

There are no advantages I am aware of, for limiting RAM to two sticks on a workstation, but one could arguethat it helps lower the latency timings on a dual channel consumer gaming board, for better overclocking. Eith way, it is not the end of the world.

In the future you can buy 2 more 2GB sticks and install 64bit Windows to use it, when the time comes.

In the future you can buy 2 more 2GB sticks and install 64bit Windows to use it, when the time comes.

That's what I thought too.

Well, one month and fourteen days after I started this thread, the system's finally been ordered, and now they just have to wait for the parts to arrive from the U.S.A. which could take about 2 - 3 weeks they said, given Christmas, and I should have the system by late January.

I'll post my thoughts about it when it arrives (and no doubt some more questions) and let you know how it's going.

Thank you so much Harm for putting me on the right track & Travis for providing what ultimately became almost exactly what I'm getting. And to Mike for answering every single one of my questions every day! I owe you so much for what you've taught me, and your generous help is a testament to how wonderful this online community can be.

I thank you.

-- John.

John,

Forgive me if I have lost track of what mobo you have finally decided upon, but if it is the Supermicro X7 one, you MUST use 4 slots for RAM, so 4x1GB and not 2x2GB. The minimum requirements for that type of mobo are FOUR sticks. DDR2-667 ECC FBDIMM is more readily available then the 800 version and quite sufficient for a 1333 FSB.

John,

Forgive me if I have lost track of what mobo you have finally decided upon, but if it is the Supermicro X7 one, you MUST use 4 slots for RAM, so 4x1GB and not 2x2GB. The minimum requirements for that type of mobo are FOUR sticks. DDR2-667 ECC FBDIMM is more readily available then the 800 version and quite sufficient for a 1333 FSB.

Yikes - it is, it's the X7DWA-N.

And the sales guy was determined to be putting in 2 x 2GB sticks.

As a layman, I can't explain to him why to use 4 x 1GB sticks.

Is there a section on the Supermicro page about this board here (http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5400/X7DWA-N.cfm) that describes it? The only mentions of System Memory don't seem to mention it, but then I have no real understanding of what any of it means...

System Memory

Memory Capacity Eight 240-pin DIMM sockets
Supports up to 64 GB 800* / 667 / 533MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory
Dual branch memory bus
Memory must be populated in pairs
Memory Sparing supported

Memory Type 800* / 667 / 533MHz FB-DIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) ECC DDR2 SDRAM 72-bit, 240-pin gold-plated DIMMs

DIMM Sizes 512 MB, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB , 8GB**

Memory Voltage 1.8 V or 1.5 V

Error Detection Corrects single-bit errors
Detects double-bit errors (using ECC memory)
Supports Intel® x4 and x8 Single Device Data Correction (SDDC)

Could you explain it as best you can and I'll relay it to him tomorrow?

Thank you so much!

According to the motherboard manual located here
http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/5400/MNL-0945.pdf
on page 2-6 you can install as few as 2 dimms. But, they have to be in different banks.

I doubt that 4 sticks actually REQUIRED. I haven't heard of any requirements like that since RD-RAM, and before that, it was 30pin SIMMs that required 4 sticks. But as I said before, 4 identical sticks will result in optimal performance.

According to the motherboard manual located here
http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/5400/MNL-0945.pdf
on page 2-6 you can install as few as 2 dimms. But, they have to be in different banks.

I stand corrected. You are correct in that you could make out with two sticks. Nevertheless, using 4 sticks is more efficient and probably costs you less money.

I stand corrected. You are correct in that you could make out with two sticks. Nevertheless, using 4 sticks is more efficient and probably costs you less money.

It is cheaper! But the guy building it says it is not possible... I simply don't know why...

According to the motherboard manual located here
http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/5400/MNL-0945.pdf
on page 2-6 you can install as few as 2 dimms. But, they have to be in different banks.

Could you explain to me what this means? About the different banks?

This is a pretty good explaination of interleaved memory I found on the net. Just replace block with bank.

Interleaving

Interleaving is an advanced technique used by high-end motherboards/chipsets to improve memory performance. Memory interleaving increases bandwidth by allowing simultaneous access to more than one chunk of memory. This improves performance because the processor can transfer more information to/from memory in the same amount of time, and helps alleviate the processor-memory bottleneck that is a major limiting factor in overall performance.

Interleaving works by dividing the system memory into multiple blocks. The most common numbers are two or four, called two-way or four-way interleaving, respectively. Each block of memory is accessed using different sets of control lines, which are merged together on the memory bus. When a read or write is begun to one block, a read or write to other blocks can be overlapped with the first one. The more blocks, the more that overlapping can be done. As an analogy, consider eating a plate of food with a fork. Two-way interleaving would mean dividing the food onto two plates and eating with both hands, using two forks. (Four-way interleaving would require two more hands. :^) ) Remember that here the processor is doing the "eating" and it is much faster than the forks (memory) "feeding" it (unlike a person, whose hands are generally faster.)

In order to get the best performance from this type of memory system, consecutive memory addresses are spread over the different blocks of memory. In other words, if you have 4 blocks of interleaved memory, the system doesn't fill the first block, and then the second and so on. It uses all 4 blocks, spreading the memory around so that the interleaving can be exploited.

Interleaving is an advanced technique that is not generally supported by most PC motherboards, most likely due to cost. It is most helpful on high-end systems, especially servers, that have to process a great deal of information quickly.

X5460's in stock at NewEgg!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117137&Tpk=x5460

The X5450 is also in stock. In is about 30% cheaper, doesn't use half step multipliers, and should have better sync with the DDR2 667 Ram (9:2 instead of 19:4 clock ratio)

Interestingly, the one reviewer who posted about this CPU at NewEgg said the following:

"Pros: Works well except with Adobe After Affects and Premiere Pro
"Cons: Does not work with Adobe AF and PPRO, Do not buy this processor until Adobe has fixed their software"

Is this guy all wet or is there a possibility this is true?

Interestingly, the one reviewer who posted about this CPU at NewEgg said the following:

"Pros: Works well except with Adobe After Affects and Premiere Pro
"Cons: Does not work with Adobe AF and PPRO, Do not buy this processor until Adobe has fixed their software"

Is this guy all wet or is there a possibility this is true?

If that's true I will find the world's tallest building to leap from.

I'm still waiting on the motherboard to become available in this country so the system isn't built yet. If I have any stupid problems like that I will want to jump off a bridge!

I'm in sort of the same boat, as I'm trying to put together a very similar system to yours, in part based on this thread.

I assume the reviewer on NewEgg is crazy, just as we have frequent posters here who scream their cams are "defective" because they didn't read the manual and set something wrong.

I posted about this issue at the Adobe boards and no one had heard anything about this, with the consensus being that this was unlikely to be an issue.

I guess we'll both have to wait and see.

But it'd be an expensive mistake if true...

Had an update on the system, which is built, but failed testing!!

Apparently, that motherboard wouldn't support all five HDDs unless they put some of them into RAID. I said "But that's what I wanted - RAID 0 on the 4 x 500GB Samsungs."

They said, "O, ok, well that's what we'll do then. How many drives do you want it to be?"

I said "One two terabyte stripe."

He said "O, really?" as if it were a mistake. I asked if that was a bad idea. He said no but didn't explain why he had sounded surprised.

Is 2TB too big? I thought it was the right idea...

It is not every day you get an order for 2TB :p

2TB RAID 0 is fine as long as you don't use it for storage. Backup to somthing else. If I had $5000 for evertime a RAID 0 failed, I'd have $1,000,000,000. =)

Call up Drive Savers or do a google search and ask them how much it would be to recover data from a failed RAID 0.

John,

A 2TB Raid is not exceptional. What is exceptional is putting that storage in a raid0 with 4 disks, thereby quadrupling the chance of failure in comparison to a single disk and losing ALL data on that raid. With the system you have in mind it might be wise to add a 5-th disk and create a Raid5. That gives you added security in case of a disk failure and minimal performance loss in comparison to a raid0 with 4 disks.

I'm currently looking at a 6 TB Raid5 configuration.

RAID 5 would be the way to go. You might need an external enclosure form somthing like that. eSATA mabe.

Do you recommend the RAID 5 for the security of the footage?

I handle all my own back ups of important footage to external HDDs so I don't feel I need to take an extra security step. Am I right?

Also, I forgot to mention that they were having trouble finding the right driver to make the 4 discs run in RAID 0 without re-installing Windows. He said it was just trial and error until they found the right one.

Does that sound right? I don't understand it at all. Can someone explain to me what he may have meant? The trouble was caused by them installing the four 500GB Samsung drives as separate drives rather than as a RAID 0, and now that they are going back to correct that, they are having difficulty.

What does that mean and is it bad?

I don't know if this is helpful, but I downloaded and read the whole manual for the system I'm putting together now (based on a Supermicro barebones server) and it's very insistent that the RAID config must be set up BEFORE installing the OS.

From the SuperWorkstation 7045A-WT manual:

"After all the hardware has been installed, you must first configure the Intel ESB2 SATA RAID before you install the Windows Operating System and other software drivers." (p.111)

Not sure if this is applicable to your system or not...

EDIT: Just went back and found your system specs and your motherboard is in fact the same specific one referenced in the 7045 manual.

EDIT: Just went back and found your system specs and your motherboard is in fact the same specific one referenced in the 7045 manual.

You're right - I went and found it too. It says exactly that

Page 99 of the X7DWA-N (http://www.supermicro.com/support/resources/results.cfm) manual:

"To configure the SATA RAID functions, you must first use the Intel ESB2 SATA RAID Utility program to configure the RAID Level that you desire before installing the Windows XP/2000/2003 operating system and other software drivers. (The necessary drivers are all included on the Supermicro CD that came packaged with your motherboard.) Note: the current version of the ESB2 SATA RAID Utility can only support Windows XP/2000/2003 Operating Systems."

EDIT: I had been rambling in this post for hours about my Magic Bullet woes... and I finally cured them. I did have to update my nVidia drivers to the current ones, which unfortunately disable the Full Screen Video option when working in a Cineform Prospect HD project.

I was getting Blue Screen of Death when using Looks, but now it's gone...

A couple of questions for advice:

1.
First thing I did when I got it was open it up to find the DIMMS installed in the wrong spots. They'd filled 1A, 1B, 2A & 2B instead of spreading them over 1A, 2A, 3A & 4A.

I rang them and they apologized and told me to correct it. So I did.

QUESTION: Have I done the right thing?

In System, it says that I have 2.75GB and After Effects sees 2GB.

2.
At one stage, after the blue screen of death, the computer booted and told me it had found new hardware and needed to restart. I didn't know what to do. I clicked OK and it restart and when it booted, there was now a mysterious "E:" Drive of 465GB (one of the 500GB Samsungs) and the "D:" Drive (what was previously the 2TB RAID 0) is now unformatted!!!!

QUESTION: How is this possible if the 4 x 500GB Samsungs are supposed to be in RAID 0 in the BIOS?? And how the heck do I fix this?

3.
The HD Audio Program keeps telling me that a Jack has been plugged and unplugged, but it isn't! I haven't plugged or unplugged anything!!!! It's extremely annoying!

QUESTION: Could this be a loose wire within the case?

1. Yes. 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A is correct. See page 2-6 in the manual.

2. You may have to boot into the BIOS and set up you raid0 array again. Why this happened I do not know. Be sure that you have the latest drivers available.

3. Check page 2-23 in the manual for the right connections.

On a totally different note, I figured I would post the configuration I finally purchased here:
XW8400, Dual X5365 Xeons (3.0Ghz), 8GB RAM, Quadro 4600
Disks will be a combination of Raptor OS, 4x500GB Raid5, 2xSAS 15k 300GB Raid0, and possibly a 1TB in the future, if I make my Raid5 external.

Cost me under $5k not counting the 30"LCD I bought a while back, based on a unit from HP's refurbished site.

I plan to benchmark it in a number of Apps in the near future, and also compare XP32 to XP64.

1. Yes. 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A is correct. See page 2-6 in the manual.

Excellent! Thank you so much for looking it up for me!

2. You may have to boot into the BIOS and set up you raid0 array again. Why this happened I do not know. Be sure that you have the latest drivers available.

RAID was disabled in the BIOS. The technician said that one of the Blue Screens of Death could have caused it but didn't say how.

Anyway, I enabled it and changed the controller from Intel to Adaptec, as per the technician's instructions (is this a good move or bad) and the RAID appears to be working fine now.

I've attached a screenshot of the Adaptec Storage Manager in Windows and would love if you could tell me if all of the settings are correct.

ALSO: I understand that the best configuration for storage is to have Windows and CS3 installed on the System Drive and to use the RAID 0 for footage storage and creating the rendered files, yes? Is it also better to have the project file saved on the RAID or is that insignificant?

And the Media Cache Database? Where should that be? It defaults to My Documents\Adobe\Common...