Do I really need NVIDIA SLI?

[Codaeus]

My upcoming custom-build will be for the following uses:
Teach myself different operating systems~ Will have three dedicated SATA (mobile-rack type) hard disc drives. One for XP Pro, one for Linux Mint, and other to switch in and out various OS for trial.

Photoshop/GIMP~ Saw this guy on TV that edits out face of famous paintings, and replaces with his cats' face. My new hobby!

Video work~ Convert my foreign movies collection from PAL/SECAM to NTSC DVDs. Convert my videos to DVDs. Watch free 'Internet TV', and record TV shows.

Miscellany~ Explore internet, shop, print out Google Photos on color inkjet and B&W laser, etc.

So are two graphic cards necessary or not? Advice welcomed!

[sniperviper21]

No.
Id suggest a powerful CPU though.

[IAntDemo]

Originally Posted by sniperviper21

No.
Id suggest a powerful CPU though.

What sniper said and a really fast harddrive because of the converting

[OldSchoolPC]

+1 to above comments.

[IAntDemo]

thanks, shame we don't have rep system - which I think personally draws more members away

[sniperviper21]

i had over 2ooo in rep points. I worked hard for them. i miss them. makes me feel like my achievements are gone.


but yes, a good cpu with 1TB HDDs in raid 0 or a SSD would make your needs.

[KiingDavid]

core i7 2600k!

[Indigo]

Really fast hard drive is a bit of a misnomer, most modern hard drives are plenty fast due to rotational velocity and aureal density (closeness of the bits on the platter) so my advice would be to buy two 500GB drives and put them in RAID 0. Use that setup for the temporary data and then use another large capacity drive (750-1TB) for data storage needs, even putting another one in and using RAID 1 for redundancy.

[OldSchoolPC]

Originally Posted by Indigo

Really fast hard drive is a bit of a misnomer, most modern hard drives are plenty fast due to rotational velocity and aureal density (closeness of the bits on the platter) so my advice would be to buy two 500GB drives and put them in RAID 0. Use that setup for the temporary data and then use another large capacity drive (750-1TB) for data storage needs, even putting another one in and using RAID 1 for redundancy.

Raid 0? Plus another Raid? Not cost effective. Raid 0 plus an external HD for backup, or use online backup from Mozy or Carbonite. You MUST get some form of backup in place if using Raid 0.

[Indigo]

Please do read the post again. Cost was never mentioned as an issue, just that they wanted the best solution for the system's purpose, and I did say to use RAID 1 in addition to RAID 0. Not just simply RAID 0 - that is as you said, essential to use some kind of data storage other than RAID 0 for safety's sake.

External backups are nice and dandy, but they are not the super golden bullet many people set out to make them as. External drives are more prone to more shock due to mishandling and I'm just not comfortable suggesting them when in most cases you can buy a couple of internal drives and put them into RAID 1 with redundancy for the actual media archival/storage. Then maybe an external if you're super paranoid, but I'd suggest dual layer bluray before I ever suggest an external hard drive as a backup solution. Just not reliable enough for long term storage or backups in every case I've encountered. They tend to be more expensive than internal drives, even with the pricing boom going on due to the flooding which occurred in Thailand.

and honestly, if you're buying enough hard drives to do RAID 0 and RAID 1, you may as well just use them all in RAID 10 if the board supports it, and get the best of both worlds. But that's up to the end user and how much effort they want to put into it.