OK, here's the situation. I'm assigned the task of building an array of systems strictly to play multiplayer games, and play them well. I know, my job sucks, eh?
Anyway -- I'd love to say "price is not a consideration", but obviously this is the real world. I have access to parts at cost. Literally, because it's a computer store doing this, and they're the ones buying their own parts. The main focus will be on playing Doom 3 as smoothly as possible, in a LAN-type setting, with five players max to start. However, othe games would be added shortly thereafter; Doom is just the current "big one". Eventually we'd probably be bumping it up to eight. Online multiplayer play is also a possibility, and the cluster will have a 3mbit cable connection dedicated to this.
I know there are a lot of options, and most of the time I can recommend something no problem... but there's way too much "new" technology coming out. My original plan:
AMD Athlon64 3400+ CPU
ECS 755-AL Motherboard
2x512 Meg DDR400 (Kingston)
80 Gig SATA HDD
CD-ROM
Some shiny evil gamer looking case
MSI GeForce 6800 256 Meg AGP Video
Win XP Pro
Keyboard
Logitech MX-510 or equivalent mouse
Zalman 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones
This setup appears to spec for around $1200. You guys know more about the latest technology than I do, so I figured I'd throw the question to you -- what would you do different? Without raising the price too much? I'm uncertain why they want XP Pro, but that's only a $20-$30 cost savings if they go with Home anyway (per system of course), so I've got to bring that up still. I don't know anything about PCI Express boards/etc... so hopefully someone here can let me know if there's a better option!!
Thanks -
- Will
Anyway -- I'd love to say "price is not a consideration", but obviously this is the real world. I have access to parts at cost. Literally, because it's a computer store doing this, and they're the ones buying their own parts. The main focus will be on playing Doom 3 as smoothly as possible, in a LAN-type setting, with five players max to start. However, othe games would be added shortly thereafter; Doom is just the current "big one". Eventually we'd probably be bumping it up to eight. Online multiplayer play is also a possibility, and the cluster will have a 3mbit cable connection dedicated to this.
I know there are a lot of options, and most of the time I can recommend something no problem... but there's way too much "new" technology coming out. My original plan:
AMD Athlon64 3400+ CPU
ECS 755-AL Motherboard
2x512 Meg DDR400 (Kingston)
80 Gig SATA HDD
CD-ROM
Some shiny evil gamer looking case
MSI GeForce 6800 256 Meg AGP Video
Win XP Pro
Keyboard
Logitech MX-510 or equivalent mouse
Zalman 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones
This setup appears to spec for around $1200. You guys know more about the latest technology than I do, so I figured I'd throw the question to you -- what would you do different? Without raising the price too much? I'm uncertain why they want XP Pro, but that's only a $20-$30 cost savings if they go with Home anyway (per system of course), so I've got to bring that up still. I don't know anything about PCI Express boards/etc... so hopefully someone here can let me know if there's a better option!!
Thanks -
- Will