Idea's to build a 20k gaming machine?

R

Raycaster

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 30, 2005
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144
Sorry guys, its not for real, just an assignment for school.

Have to "build" a gaming setup with a budget of $20,000.

Sounds like a video wall is in the budget etc.

If anyone has some urls with details of any high end gaming accessories I'd appreciate it.
I have to document the products in detail...

Thank you guys.
 
Shit I went to the wrong school

2 x i7-3970X and ASUS Z9PE-D8 and your already at $2500 for just CPU and MB
 
and I just assumed none server hardware. 20k for a server is on the low end.
 
Awesome start. Guess a Thermaltake Level 10 PC Case would help.

Looking for video wall 4 x 3 maybe.

I remember a video of a system with a virtual helmet display on a moving floor...
 
Multiple high end monitors would help with getting on the 20 k budget :)
 
stevedave said:
Shit I went to the wrong school

2 x i7-3970X and ASUS Z9PE-D8 and your already at $2500 for just CPU and MB
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How is that supposed to work, you need Xeons for the Z9PE-D8? Dual E5-2687Ws or E5-2690s are what you want, but I wouldn't go with the Asus board, go with a Supermicro X9DA7 instead and do an 8 disk SSD array on the LSI 2308 for storage.
 
It depends on what you are doing... 20k for a server is not the low end. Your typical SQL or commodity NoSQL node will be under $5,000 in hardware, much of that going to storage, and your typical web server will be less expensive than that.

If you are building a machine intended to play host to VMs, well yeah, in that case 20k is not going to go far. A high performance SQL machine featuring a Fusion-IO card? Typically you'll have $12,000 or more invested into the Fusion-IO card alone.

This is for hardware though, software can get expensive quickly. Red Hat and Windows Server licenses will cost you the better part of $1,000 per socket and up, depending on licensing agreements and what you need to get done. Need an MSSQL Enterprise license? Yeah, that will eat up your budget real fast.

Point being, 20k will buy well beyond your typical server.

That said, does the 20k for a gaming machine include peripherals? You mentioned a video wall being an option, so the budget includes displays?
 
That racing seat is perfect!
Maximumpc makes it pretty easy...

Basically just upgrading the machine and adding gfx cards for multi screens would do it.

thx again guys.
 
Go the server-route. Do a ESXi hypervisor with four physical octocore CPUs loaded up with as many NVIDIA cards in SLI as possible, 192 - 256GB RAM, and an SSD RAID10 with 10 or so SSDs. Also, be prepared to budget out some money for higher electricity bills and additional cooling supplies.

Would make one great [low-end] 3DSM/Adobe Pro Premiere/After Effects/AViSynth+x264 rendering machine. :D

And then if you wish, you can create additional VMs to share out your resources. Hookup multiple mice and keyboards and monitors, then specify which peripherals and devices each VM uses.
 
You could try making something like this:

N2sxgdB.jpg
 
Here is something for your school to think about... $20K for a gaming system.. OK.. Buy an XBOX (or whatever console you like) and a 40" 1080p 3D Ready LED HDTV, and give $18K (at least) to another school that can't afford chalk and books and the teachers have to buy supplies that the school can't pay for (see DonorsChoose.org). The project might be hypothetical, but the need of most public schools in the US is not. To me, it would seem an insightful, and socially conscious twist on the assignment.
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
Here is something for your school to think about... $20K for a gaming system.. OK.. Buy an XBOX (or whatever console you like) and a 40" 1080p 3D Ready LED HDTV, and give $18K (at least) to another school that can't afford chalk and books and the teachers have to buy supplies that the school can't pay for (see DonorsChoose.org). The project might be hypothetical, but the need of most public schools in the US is not. To me, it would seem an insightful, and socially conscious twist on the assignment.
Click to expand...
I like this response.

OP, you should do what this man says.
 
sinclair-zx81 said:
Here is something for your school to think about... $20K for a gaming system.. OK.. Buy an XBOX (or whatever console you like) and a 40" 1080p 3D Ready LED HDTV, and give $18K (at least) to another school that can't afford chalk and books and the teachers have to buy supplies that the school can't pay for (see DonorsChoose.org). The project might be hypothetical, but the need of most public schools in the US is not. To me, it would seem an insightful, and socially conscious twist on the assignment.
Click to expand...

The problem with schools isn't equipment, it's something far more insidious. But i don't want to SB this topic.
 
Sorry guys if I didn't explain it enough in the first sentence

"Sorry guys, its not for real, just an assignment for school."

Our school doesn't even have a budget for a original XBOX!

We actually set up a lab with 11 obsolete machine and used ncomputing boxes in them to build 3 more off of each. Just added crappy monitors and mice and away we went, full lab!

This is just a theoretical project that I will have to document why choices were made for each part.

"If a rich guy wanted a gaming pc built with a budget of 20k... etc.)
 
Ok time to lighten things back up a bit...

Go to the nearest casino, find the roulette tables and put it all on black. Since its all hypothetical anyways then you win and build a $40k machine.
 
Oh this is a really easy one, just do what any seasoned politician would do:

- Take $20k
- Talk to "friend" and have them set up a shell company (offshore, of course. Can't be paying none of them taxes) that "builds" custom computers. Have your lawyer set up a trust (which you have legal access to) that has shares in this company. Thus, severing any direct connection.
- Have this newly formed company invoice you for a $20,000 rig. Obviously, it'll kick butt, but only really cost $3000. This will be a no-bid contract, so you don't have to justify the high price .. just like those defense contracts.
- Profit!
- Hide money in your freezer, it's the only logical place.

If you want to get *really* creative, you can then take that profit and start an investment fund. Use the cash to fund the initial investors profits, thus giving them a reason to dump more in. As you get more investors, you funnel some of their cash to the older ones, rinse and repeat. It's a classic. Don't worry about the SEC, they're paper officers. They won't bust you until you're safe on your G650 flying to your private island .. unfortunately, it doesn't have internet, so you'll be stuck playing singleplayer and LAN co-op with the hired help. But by-damn, does it play Crysis well.

Creativity wins :)
 
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With a budget of 20k you can get an entry level Mac which is far superior to these so called "servers"...
 
talk2troy said:
Ultimate Battlefield 3 Simulator - might be above your budget?
http://youtu.be/nQR49JGySTM
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Estimated cost was about 500,000 euros.

In terms of this project though this is an example of what you should be going for (as well as that replica cockpit example), focus on the end user experience basically. Output to the user (eg. display and audio systems) and user interaction. This would be the much better way to go than focusing on the actual specs of the machine (that should only be a relatively small part of the budget in this even for a i7 lga 2011 multi gpu based machine).
 
Phase change cooler. For around $1000 (+ 4 others for the GPUs). If you get the dual head ones, then you can use them to power a mini fridge too for drinks and stuff)
 
mr_zen256 said:
Screw the multi-monitor setup.. Go for multi projectors.

Can't stand the bezels of multi-monitor
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If he scrimps a little on the storage and goes for consumer processors rather than server ones he could squeeze in an inexpensive 4K projector maybe and just do one kick ass projector ;) ... if you wanted something as immersive as multiple projectors I am sure you could probably get a custom Occulus Rift style head gear made for 5-10 K for total immersion :)
 
http://www.geekbox.com

Get the Ego Maniacal X79, max everything out other than software and monitors.

Buy 3 Dell U3011's

Buy 8 4TB interal HD's

/done

If you have to design it yourself just use the same parts and add more HD's.

After the 10k point with consumer PC's your limited to Projectors, fancy seats, car paint jobs, etc.
 
I don't understand why some of you keep arguing about server hardware, when the OP clearly states that this is about a GAMING SETUP.
 
stop!theradio said:
I don't understand why some of you keep arguing about server hardware, when the OP clearly states that this is about a GAMING SETUP.
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Because with server hardware you can obtain configurations that are not always possible with consumer hardware ... more cores ... more cpus ... more RAM ... more drives etc ... if you are trying to operate within a certain budget those trade offs are not always worth it ... but if you have a skies the limit build why not go for broke ...

as the maximum PC dream machine build indicated on their 2012 build, at the time there was no consumer 8 core processor ... they went with the Xeon processor to get the full 8 cores and hyperthreading ... if you don't need the added capabilities offered in the server hardware then you are right, you should stick with consumer components but server chips play games just like consumer chips do ;)
 
I understand those points, but I'm referring to those saying things like "it depends on what you want to do with it..." and then going over server theory as if it's a knowledge pissing contest :p
 
stop!theradio said:
I understand those points, but I'm referring to those saying things like "it depends on what you want to do with it..." and then going over server theory as if it's a knowledge pissing contest :p
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I think you just answered you own question there :D
 
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