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external pc?

   Frihost Forum Index -> Computers -> Hardware and Electronics
 


Bannik
silly title but anyways i wanted too ask what hardware on the pc can be external, the reason i ask is becasue i think i found a way too solve all my pc upgrade problems....that is too make as much of my pc external as possible for example, have a basic pc with good ram and a good motherboard then add on and external sound hard, external hard drive, external blu ray/dvd drive etc....

that way i can seperate my gaming drive (drive with all my games) and my music drive so that if i ever catch a virus i know my other drives would be ok......this also works well for me cause i have access too extermemly fast internet at a friends and would rather carry external hard drives( so i can travel with all my goodies plug em into my mini laptop etc)


i was just thinking what else can be externaly placed on a pc
sound card?
ram?
video cards?

etc
and how well they work compared too internal hard ware...and what would be best too use FIREWIRE or USB2.0


(technically all i want in my pc is amazing ram like 8 gigs and a good motherboard....)
sheedatali
You can of course hook lot of hardware via USB, including (Sound Card/Video Card/Network Card) etc, however the problem you have is the USB bus speed, current standard USB 2.0 is already pretty slow in terms of what fast Video/Network Cards can do onboard. Future version USB 3.0 is fast, however not much hardware is USB 3.0 compatible and there are not many/any motherboards supporting USB 3.0 yet. So it is a no no as far I can tell, external hardware will always be a compromise at least with speed. You also have the problem of supported devices by operating systems via USB.


So layout what exactly are your requirements in terms of what you want to do on your PC, then build one that will be good for another 4 to 5 years. I can not see any PC surviving more than 5 years and staying at top performance, the hardware changes are too fast and OS changes are too fast.
rickylau
Bannik wrote:
(technically all i want in my pc is amazing ram like 8 gigs and a good motherboard....)
Just for your information, I would like to tell that 8GB of RAM is very useless unless you have a 64-bit CPU (normally nowadays CPUs are), 64-bit OS, and extremely RAM-intensive work to do (gaming is not the most, I'm saying something like scientific computations, or EDITING HD videos).

Currently (and maybe in the coming few years), 4GB is really enough in most cases (actually in 32-bit OS 4GB of RAM will not be used completely as addressing issues, I have a PC with 4GB of RAM, but I can only use about 3GB of it).

Also, if you get a very high-end RAM / CPU / Motherboard but without good hard disk (with supposed not to be external and connected by USB), the performance maybe as worse as a PC with lower-end config because the transfer rate of hard disk should be one of the major performance factors (However, there is something like eSATA, with is an SATA port to connect hard disk externally, I have not tried it though therefore I can't give too much information about the performance of it.)


IN MY OPINION external hardwares should only be used for portability or size limitation of the motherboard (if you like a tiny motherboard, it would not satisfy you for its performance).
Bannik
you all mention usbs but i am more then willing too buy other connectors like firewire which apparently is faster and I am sure there are other ones (my old pc has like 10 holes in the front for god knows what hardware.....all i knew is that it worked)

also the whole 8 gig is for my own needs...my pc is around 3 years old and it only has 1 gig of ram so i thought if i buy a pc with 8 gig ram i could last me 6 years and its a lot cheaper too buy ram these days....

think about it if I buy only external parts then all i have too worry about is the performance of the main pc i.e a good motherboard and good ram....

I am more then certain there are some time of fast external hardware too use...
ocalhoun
You can have basically anything be external except: motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU.

Problem is, external components will always mean slower performance and higher cost.
They'll also take up more space.
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