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Mega Computer

S

Slothenger

n00b
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
29
Hi, Ive only just finished my rig q6600, ASUS p5k deluxe 4GB ram blah blah.

But my friend (friend of a friend) has seen me do this and wants to design his own. He has alot of money.

Can some1 help me design a rig that meets these very nice specifications.

$10000 NZD Budget - so thats about $7770 USD
The rig must support 2 30inch monitors (not included in budget these will be extra cost)
Really fast at absolutely everything - lol

So its kinda top of the line.

makes it hard to be proud of my new computer when this thing shits all over it.

sigh

Thanks,
 
for starters, video cards:

in a couple of months

4 Geforce 9800GX2 running in quad SLI

there you go, 4 vid cards and the mobo for around $3500 :D
 
thats alot of damn money for a gaming computer. with that he can make like 7 good rigs.... good in my standards..
 
cool, that sounds good. So will that be 2in SLI for each monitor.
What motherboard is that?

Also should I go with 8GB of ram? that would need a 64bit o/s right?
we have dvd/blue ray drives sorted, but he wants to now the best way to get 2TB of storage that is also fast. any raid options when needing that kinda storage.

I think we are goin with water cooling that a good idea?
 
too right thats alot of money, probally could build heaps of good rigs but he only wants one.
 
SLI can only be used with one monitor. I also don't think you can set up two separate SLI setup on a single mobo for two monitors.

In addition, there are no mobos out there that have four PCI-E x16 slots AND can utilize SLI.

Also note that after $2500 or so for a gaming rig, the law of diminishing return is in full effect. Meaning that a $1000 CPU or $3500 worth of video cards does not offer a significant increase in performance that justifies their price. Basically, your friend can spend $7700 on his build but I doubt that the performance increase won't be over 20% or so over YOUR build. And how much did your build cost?

But if he was building a server on the other hand, then its justified. Also what exactly is he planning to do with this PC? Gaming? 3D rendering? Video editing?

EDIT: Yes for 4GB of RAM and more, you will need a 64bit OS like Vista 64bit. And for 2TB of storage. 5 x 500GB drives in RAID 5 should be good enough. or four 750GB drives in RAID 5 could work as well I think.
 
Please don't SHOUT in thread titles. It gets really old fixing them all the time.
 
Sorry for the title.

Umm well he just wants to do everything. He plays games, office works, no reall video editing, maybe encoding (.avi to DVD or somthing).

Basicly he just wants to have a REALLY good computer that he can sit down and no that it will never get slow. cause he is kinda one of those users that are smart but abuse computers a little if you know what i mean.

I am very new to how a server works, can someone briefley explain.


and i feel better about my system now. It cost 2800NZD which included monitor and k/b / mouse.
 
Never be slow? It all depends on the user. If a user keeps their system regularly updated and clean, even a PIII 866Mhz setup with enough RAM will be all that a user needs if their needs are only web browsing and office work. Though once that user start to do more multi-tasking, thats when then PIII will be slow as hell.

For gaming usage, it depends on the games and what the user's level of "good performance". For many people. as long as they can play at the native resolution of their monitor even at low settings, they'll be fine. For the more obsessive people out there that that want to play every single game at max settings at the highest resolution possible, systems will always be slow for them. Sooner or later there'll be a game that not even $1200 worth of video cards can handle at high settings. (Crysis anyone?).

Anyway, tell your friend that for gaming, sooner or later, systems will become slow to the user eventually, especially for gamers, no matter how much money one spends on a PC.

Hmmm...shit, this is like deja vu. I could've sworn I made a similar post above a few months ago....

Anyway, a server is basically a PC dedicated to certain jobs, applications or serve up content. For example a File Server, Web Server, and Email server shares or provides files to other people, serve up or host web pages, and serves Email, respectively. Here's a wiki entry;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_(computing)

Also, due to curiosity, I stumbled upon a parts list for a high end workstation:
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200711.ars/4

From there I ended up making up a build list that might fit your friend's requirements:

2 x Intel Xeon X5450 3.0GHz LGA 771 Quad-Core Processor - $1846 ($923 each)
Tyan S5396A2NRF Dual 771 Intel 5400 Extended ATX Server Motherboard - $400
2 x Crucial CT2KIT25672AF667 2 x 2GB FB-DIMM ECC Fully Buffered DDR2 667 RAM - $394 ($197 per set)
2 x PNY VCQFX4600-PCIE-PB Quadro FX4600 768MB PCI-E Video Card - $2920 ($1460 each)
2 x Fujitsu MAX3073RC 73GB 15,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Hard Drive - $360 ($180 each)
HighPoint RocketRAID2240 PCI-X SATA II 16-Channel Multi-Port Infiniband RAID Controller RAID 0/1/5/10 JBOD - $385
4 x Western Digital WD7500AAKS 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $620 ($155 each)
2 x Samsung SH-203B 20X DVD±R SATA DVD Burner - $64($34 each)
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad - $170
Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM - $112
Silverstone TJ09-BW ATX Mid Tower Case - $280
---
Total: $7551 Plus Tax and shipping

Apparently Nvidia Quadro cards can be used in SLI on non SLI mobos according to the above article. So two of those Quadro cards in SLI will be some serious gaming power. In addition, the dual quad-core setup should definitely SCREAM in any CPU intensive app. 8GB of RAM should also be useful if your friend does a lot of work with virtual machines.

The two SAS hard drives are for a RAID 0 setup and where the OS should be installed. Two of those SAS drives in RAID 0 should be faster than any Raptor drive setup. The 4 x 750GB drives should be setup in a RAID 5 setup on that Highpoint RAID controller. It should give you around 2TB of storage. The PC P&C PSU should be plenty of power for the rig above.

Try to see if you can get most of the above items in New Zealand.

For a workstation, this setup is perfect. For a gaming rig, not so much due to the expensive video cards. But eh, he does have a budget of $7700. However, do note that this PC will be outdated in at least two years or so. Maybe less. So for the best value for the dollar, just build him something similar to your rig. Maybe with a few extras here and there. Like I said earlier, a $7700 PC isn't exactly worthwhile for gaming.
 
If you don't want to wait... go triple 8800 GTX video cards, 780i mobo, fastest quad core. four 1 tb segate barracuda 32meg cache HDD's in raid 5. One Raptor 10k rpm by itself for boot. Oh yes and 8 gigs of high speed ram.

Really the build above with the 8 core system should be more than enough.. though I would go with a 1kw power supply just cus.
 
hmmmmmm.

The server sounds pretty fuckin hard core.

Hard dual quad core more specificly.

But is a server like a computer, ie does it jus support photoshop and all sorts of normal programs or is it quite different from a computer in terms of using it.

sorry for all the questions google didnt turn up much that explained servers to me.
 
its not really a gaming computer. He will game tho. He mainly just downloads, and general usage. he does alot of office work.

We all know you need a super computer to run excell - lol

he has alot of movies on his computer. and music.
 
Well it depends on what OS you plan to use on a server. But for the sake of simplicity, yes a server does support photoshop and other normal apps. Anyway, don't worry about this talk of a server. From the looks of it, your friend doesn't need one.

For general usage, gaming, movie watching and downloading, I think the rig you built for yourself will be more than enough for him. So tell your friend that he does not need to spend more than $2500 on a PC for his purposes. The build list I made above is actually more of a workstation meant for heavy 3D, coding, virtualization, engineering, and simulation work. None of which sounds like what your friend will be doing with this new PC.

So please list out all the parts you used for your build and we'll tweak it and go from there.
 
to the OP: NZD = NZ dollars? im from chch, man you gotta remember everything costs so much more here in NZ. my 8800gts 320 was $550 nz when they came out. 8800gt's are $500 here! we pay almost twice the price for hardware. GTX's are still hovering around the 1k mark! with ultras being like $1200

10k NZ could build you 2 great systems, or one awesome one for gaming and one slightly lesser one for other stuff. running dual 30's wont be easy, but if he has a dedicated gaming rig it would be simpler. If he wants sli then he is going to need to computers to run dual monitors.

EDIT: a guy on some NZ forums has just had this put together for him

Water cooled Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.0GHZ Quad Core, 12MB L2 Cache @ 4GHz
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64
4 GB DDR3 RAM
ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/Wifi-APN Motherboard
2x WD Raptor 150GB SATA 10000RPM, RAID 0
2x Radeon HD3870 512M in Crossfire
DVD069 LG GSA-H55L 20X LIGHTSCRIBE
CAS144 SILVERSTONE TJ09B-W Black Tower with window
ACC053 Dual Blue Cold Cathode 10cm
PSU047 Silverstone ST1000F 1000W Modular PSU
Samsung 275T Black 27" Widescreen 1920x1200 6ms

3DMark 20k

and it was about 6k including the monitor
 
That's way too much. Diminishing returns, once again.

I suggest something a bit more modest; Q6600, 4gb ram, P35 or 780i board with an 8800 GTS 512mb, pair of 750gb hard drives, with a Corsair HX 620 and a nice case.
 
squares said:
Why not go 30 inch monitor if he has 7k to spend on a computer?
Click to expand...

The OP's friend is planning to get two 30" monitors. However, those monitors aren't part of the 7K budget for the PC. The 7K budget is for the PC alone. Read the OP's post again.
 
Danny Bui said:
Also note that after $2500 or so for a gaming rig, the law of diminishing return is in full effect. Meaning that a $1000 CPU or $3500 worth of video cards does not offer a significant increase in performance that justifies their price. Basically, your friend can spend $7700 on his build but I doubt that the performance increase won't be over 20% or so over YOUR build. And how much did your build cost?
Click to expand...

QFT. Theres good, and then theres stupid good.

EDIT: Yes for 4GB of RAM and more, you will need a 64bit OS like Vista 64bit. And for 2TB of storage. 5 x 500GB drives in RAID 5 should be good enough. or four 750GB drives in RAID 5 could work as well I think.
Click to expand...

Raid 5 is a form of data security, not performance increasing. Raid-0 increases performance, and raid 10 gives you the performance increase and data security. Things more then frequently go wrong when you try to run two raptors in raid-0, and i shudder to think of the concequences of going raid 10 with four raptors. The numbers are nice to dream about in your head, but the nit picking through technical difficulties you will go through will kill it. I suggest four 500 or 750 gig 7200.11 cudas, which will give you total storage of 1Tb, or 1.5Tb of storage respectivly, and will tolerate a maximum of two drives failing simultaniously.

I cant stress the importance of the hard drive configuration enough here. So many people build these wicked rigs with 4 gigs of ram and killer graphics cards, and then use their old ATA 5400rpm 40 gig drive, and I'll tell ya something, it wont reduce your 3d mark scores, but it can sure as hell cause games to lag like f00k and will more then quadruple your load times. Get a raid-10 array with four cudas, that will blow everything away with a continious 100mb/s read, at least :D.

Also, for that much money, your looking at 8 gigs of ram no sweat, all modern chipsets support a maximum of that much. Get the DDR2 800, dont get anything higher as, even if you plan to OC, you wont need it (so long as your going with something with a CPU multipler higher then 8, which you almost certainly are).

suggesting future products is bloody annoying, but im going to do it anyways:
-Big ass alienware curved triple DLP projector: windows desktop supports it and the damn thing is niiice. heres a pic. It was only at CES this yeah though, so it might not actually be out until as late as x-mas this year, hell it may never hit the shelves.
-Skull trail, X48, with two Q8500s, and four HD3850s or two, or three if ATI can get it down HD3870 X2s, or even four HD3870's if you feel like heading down the liquid cooling road.

Considering the fact that it isn't primarily for gaming, an X38 board with two HD3870's (or, again, two HD3870X2s if you can wait just a few weeks) and a nice new quad core penryn proc would be an excellent idea. The best performance you can get in game today is without a doubt four 8800 Ultras, but 680i (due to a little hissy fit between Nvidia and Intel) will not support 45nm quad cores, And I think you want the new quad core 45 nm part, I think you want it alot (I know I do :mad:). so, if you want to get him the best possible graphic performance, and are willing to go with only a wolfdale (45nm dual core) or Kentsfield (65nm quad core), then by all means go 680i and three 8800 GTX's, as it will rock every game out there including crysis, but it wont open exel as fast :p.
 
with that much money i would go 6x HDDs in Raid 50.

Raid 5 does increase performance by a little but not as much as Stripe.

or 2x Raptors in Raid 1 for OS so you can defrag the OS drive often without defragging your entire setup. (so you dont need to partition either)

then 4 raptors in raid 10 for other stuff, like games.
 
I would tell him to buy a new $2000 computer every year for the next 3 years instead of spending it all now. More new hardware = ftw.
 
hmmm.

I dont no how to quote but in respone to SoAndSo , hi im in wellington and you should try pricespy http://www.pricespy.co.nz/. That will save you a bit.

But Ive told the guy so hes just goin to do my kinda computer but with a higher processor and the likes. Servers sound a bit unessesary.


Thanks for all your help guys.

Hes goin 2 have alot of spare money.

Cheers
 
For 7k, I would get 4xQuad Core processors with at least 16GB RAM. Why not look at a new Mac Pro?
 
I would definitely go with the qx9650 8gigs of ddr2 1000 3 ultras and a couple of terabyte hdds.
 
He sounds like the kind of guy who doesn't know *that* much about computers.... Just get him 8GB of RAM and like 6TB of Hard drive storage so he can brag about big numbers :p:p
 
MrWizard6600 said:
Raid 5 is a form of data security, not performance increasing. Raid-0 increases performance, and raid 10 gives you the performance increase and data security.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to argue, but this is not true.
With a dedicated RAID card (aka "real" raid, instead of crappy on-board stuff that doesn't work, aka expensive), RAID 5 with (N+1) drives should run as fast as RAID 0 with N drives.
In english, a RAID5 with 5 drives should always be nearly as fast as a RAID0 with 4 drives.

RAID10 (aka RAID 1+0 or 0+1) is the same as RAID0 with a mirrored set of drives as backup. That means it takes (2*N) drives to make it as fast as RAID0, and much less efficient than RAID5 unless you're looking for absolutely insane redundancy.

I would set him up with 4-5 drives in a RAID5 setup. The part that MrWizard has absolutely right is that hard drives make a huge difference in perceived lag and speed of the computer.
Also, if you have the money (haha, scary but true.. this is over the top) get SSD RAID5 like Hazaro says :D
Or get a 16GB hyperdrive 4 (~$2500 usd lol)
http://www.hyperdrive4.com/
 
zmjone2992 said:
I would definitely go with the qx9650 8gigs of ddr2 1000 3 ultras and a couple of terabyte hdds.
Click to expand...

3 8800 ultras here in New Zealand (where the OP is, and where i am as well) will cost $4 - 4.5k

our hardware prices are retarded
 
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