Trying to go for the ultimate machine. Good read.

[matrix2003]

Ask Ars: what's the relationship between CPU clockspeed and performance?
http://arstechnica.com/ask-ars/2011/04/ask-ars-whats-the-relationship-between-cpu-clockspeed-and-performance.ars

[Oshyan]

I was having a chat with Matt last night about the "ultimate machine" actually. Here's what we came up with:

Best price/performance is going to be a Core i7 system. There are two similar-ish options here:

1: The 2nd generation i7 2600 which is 4x 3.4Ghz CPU cores with hyperthreading (8 threads total). You can get this with 16GB of RAM in a full system (including 1TB hard drive) for just under $1000 US.

2: The 1st generation i7 970 wish is 6x 3.2Ghz CPU cores with hyperthreading (12 threads total). You can get this with 16GB of RAM in a full system with HD for about $1300.

Now both those are great options. Consider, for example, that the i7 970 is getting you essentially 6 times 3.2Ghz or 19.2Ghz (not including hyperthreading cores). Many people consider more expensive dual CPU Xeon systems, but those tend to be much more expensive for equivalent clock rate, so for $2000-$2500 you might get a dual Xeon 2.4Ghz with 4 cores each (8 cores total, plus hyperthreading, 16 threads total). But if you think about it, 8 times 2.4Ghz is actually the same as 6 times 3.2Ghz, and 6 cores is more efficient than 8, even for highly parallel tasks. Not to mention the cost, power use, and heat difference.

Now, if you really want to go ultimate, and don't want to just buy a bunch of individual i7 970 machines but are willing to pay big bucks, then you can consider a high-end Xeon or Opteron system. You can get dual Xeons at 3.2Ghz with 6 cores (basically equivalent to the i7 970) for somewhere around $5000.

For about $9500 you can get the ultimate which is 4 Opteron CPUs *each* with 12 cores (no hyperthreading) running at 2.2Ghz each, plus 48GB of RAM. That's a total of 48 cores! All in one machine. Opterons aren't as fast clock-for-clock as modern Xeons, but with twice the cores plus twice the CPUs, you'd definitely be outpacing the Xeon system on an appropriately parallel tasks. For TG2 you'd run into threading efficiency issues with even 1 CPU probably (12 threads), let alone multiple. However you could run 4 separate instances of TG2 with good efficiency and render animations at blazing speed.
Build yours here: http://www.ccsiservers.com/pr1_563-2U-AMD-Opteron-6100-4P-Server-.html

But really the i7 2600 or 970 makes the most sense. Almost a no brainer at the price/performance.

- Oshyan

[matrix2003]

Having just purchased a mac book pro for my 2nd year of college: graphics/CG/art major awesome son, "ahem": $2000.00, with music/midi interface, and we doubled the ram ....
It's now time for Dad to look for a new machine.   So... If dad is still a M$ guy, the The 2nd generation i7 2600, and the 'price', both seem vary attractive.  Is there anything on the horizon, (next six months), that would appeal to us "not ten grand for a hobby types"   

"for somewhere around $5000."    If my wife saw this, and the word Terragen in the same sentence, I would not be on this forum anymore.   

[Henry Blewer]

I have been looking into building a machine. Intel will be releasing a new motherboard late summer (maybe). This is my wish list.

ASUS P8P67 motherboard
Intel 3.4GHz Core I7 2600K
WD Caviar Black 2 TB HD
Radeon HD 5770
Corsair AX850 PSU
Corsair TR3X661600C7 DDR3/1600 6GB RAM
CoolerMaster 690II Advanced Case
Lite-On 24x internal DVD Lightscribe (Have this now)

It prices out to about $1255.00. I  am  also looking at cooling kits, but have not decided to overclock or not.

[inkydigit]

...snip...

"for somewhere around $5000."    If my wife saw this, and the word Terragen in the same sentence, I would not be on this forum anymore.   

haha, I like that comment!
I know how that feels!

[cyphyr]

Overclockers do some sweet kits, for example an Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz @ 4.60GHz for £540 (inv VAT).
Its a kit so you still need to add your own tower, PSU, graphics and disks but as we already have these it may not add too much to the cost.
cheers
Richard

[Tangled-Universe]

What I've read and understood so far the i7-2600K is peanuts to overclock. It's completely multiplier-controlled so you'll only need to adjust 1 parameter in the BIOS, that's it.
Also, the stock-coolers allow for up to ~4.4GHz overclocks (which so far >90% CPU's seem to be capable of) without having tempartures rise too much.

[Oshyan]

I have been looking into building a machine. Intel will be releasing a new motherboard late summer (maybe). This is my wish list.

ASUS P8P67 motherboard
Intel 3.4GHz Core I7 2600K
WD Caviar Black 2 TB HD
Radeon HD 5770
Corsair AX850 PSU
Corsair TR3X661600C7 DDR3/1600 6GB RAM
CoolerMaster 690II Advanced Case
Lite-On 24x internal DVD Lightscribe (Have this now)

It prices out to about $1255.00. I  am  also looking at cooling kits, but have not decided to overclock or not.

Definitely get more RAM would be my advice. Otherwise sounds like a nice build, albeit a bit more expensive than "absolutely necessary" (due to inclusion of some nice upgraded hardware, essentially, e.g. nice case, PSU, graphics card).

From what I can see, now that revised hardware with the initial Sandy Bridge chipset issue is available, there's no reason not to buy now. Nothing that has a better price/performance ratio than the 2600k is likely to come out within 6 months or even a year as far as I can see. The 6 and 8 core (12 and 16 threads with HT) CPUs are coming out at the end of this year, but they'll be in the "Extreme" line and not cheap. As T-U mentioned, the 2600k is extremely overclockable, but even without overclocking it's still amazingly fast considering that my 1st gen i7 at 2.4Ghz still seems very fast and the 2600k is running a full Ghz faster *plus* Sandy Bridge improves on clock-for-clock performance over 1st gen i7 parts by about 10-15% depending on the application. Given that, and the relatively low price, anyone who can afford it and has a machine more than a couple years old would be foolish not to be jumping on these things.

- Oshyan

[Henry Blewer]

I am building for cheap upgrading. One of the most annoying things about my Dell, is upgrading the mobo and/or the cpu. Besides, I wan to use the Dell for modeling, surfing, movies, and gaming. It will eventually have some failure. So having a good system will eventually be necessary.

[Oshyan]

Over the last 15 years of building systems I've seldom seen long-term upgrade plans really work out. A good system purchase in the mid-range should last you 2-3 years for serious work. At that point you look at upgrading. Within a 3 year time span the CPU socket will have changed, almost guaranteed (AMD is better about this, but still), and about half the time the memory tech changes too (e.g. DDR2 to DDR3). So you need to change 1: motherboard 2: CPU 3: RAM (in many cases). What can you keep? Hard drive, yes, case, yes, power supply, sometimes/often. Now what do you end up with when you upgrade? A CPU, motherboard, and possibly RAM that have little resale value and can no longer do useful work (unless you buy another case, PSU, hard drive).

In my experience the better way to "upgrade" is to build a machine for *now*, often saving money in the process, then when you want to upgrade, buy a whole new system (re-use a hard drive or something if you have a spare - they're one of the few components that doesn't change much), then keep your old system as a secondary, backup, render machine, media machine, etc. Keep 2 generations - current and previous - and by the time you get to the next upgrade cycle, your oldest machine is old enough (~5-6yrs) to really justify either giving it away to a family member/friend with lesser computing needs, or just giving it to a recycling/refurbish place. Importantly though, all along the process every bit of hardware remains viable and in use (unless something breaks of course), instead of ending up as spare hardware sitting outside a machine and unused.

I've saved a lot of money and time over the years this way because, rather than spending money up front to buy upgradeable components, and time in the middle to actually switch out hardware and upgrade, instead I just unplug my old machine and swap in a new one when I get it. And I always have a spare system should mine go down and extra computing resources around should I need them.

- Oshyan

[Henry Blewer]

Good advice. I have been pricing components at various places. I can't afford to buy all the components at once. Shipping is getting more expensive, especially for the larger pieces. Amazon sent me an email which featured an Antec 300 case for $59.00. It's a good case from what I have read. I still have to look at more motherboards. The motherboard will be one of the last components I get, I think. That and RAM. PSU's will power the particular style motherboard...

[Zairyn Arsyn]

i'll be going with sandy bridge 2600(k) as well i think.

i had planned on using SSD drives for the OS & programs, but i think i'm just going to hold off on that, & get 1 or 2 regular harddrives instead, SSD's are a bit expensive at higher capacities, so ill get some later.

last configuration i set up:

Antec Performance One 183 V3
Corsair TX650 V2, 650W
Asus P8P67 LE Rev 3.0
i7 2600k 3.4GHz
Zalman CNPS10X Quiet CPU Cooler
Kingston 16gb (4x4gb) Hyperx blu 1333Mhz
Evga GeForce GTX 460 EE 1gb
Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black
Western Digital 500GB Caviar Black
Sony AD-7261S Black 24x DVD±R/RW lightscribe
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE

[efflux]

I just bought an ASUS P8P67 with i7 2600 (Quad 3.4 GHz). The rest is all top top notch parts including a Quadro FX and an OCZ SSD.

This is my first new PC for a long time. I've just got the parts today so not built it yet.

There is one problem. I use Linux. Windows will absolutely not be touching this system. I do have a Macbook but TG2 is slow and taxes it too much.  I do't think I can run wine to use TG2 unless I dual boot with a 32 bit system.

I also managed to get a Cintiq 21UX second hand (awesome).

One reason I stopped using landscape software (TG2 and Mojoworld) was the horrendous render times but I'd be keen to see how the i7 performs.

This computer is in fact mainly for 2D work. You might ask why so powerful? It's because if I do 2D work in Gimp and Mypaint at huge resolution and lots of layers, I need power. I also want to use 3D coat hence the Quadro and possibly Blender and another render engine.

I actually come from a 2D painting background. I'd like to integrate TG2 into this but I've largely given up on using this tech on it's own. Too tedious and restrictive in the kinds of environments you can get. The various apps restrict you in various ways. Although I love the concept of creating entire virtual worlds.

[Henry Blewer]

You'll find the render time will be reduced massively using Terragen 2. I can output a 1920 x 1080 in about 12 hours using my Pentium 4 system. The new version, Terragen 2.3, is now 64 bit. This has made it much faster. There may be a free 64 bit version to try out by now. If not now, then soon. Planetside is quite good about allowing people to use and learn the software (and so love it) with the free version.

[efflux]

Just a point about SSD. A lot of people hold off on this option. I have an old PIV here that has SATA. It's still a great machine for it's age. An Abit IC7-G. It also has quiet fans and CPU cooler so I'm using that as an audio system which doesn't ned huge power but needs to be quiet. I put an OCZ vertex in it. The difference even on this machine was incredible. It's unbearable to go back because you are waiting for apps to load, files to load or move, terrible boots times etc. Since I use Linux I was able to strip my audio system right down to dedicate it to this task. Bios section of boot takes quite a few seconds but once the grub boot loader starts I hit the desktop in a few seconds. It is incredible and this is a PIV 3.0 GHz.

I dread to think what the i7 is going to be like.

Don't hold off on the SSD. Get a decent one though like OCZ vertex. The smallest capacity just for system then use a spinning drive for the rest even a USB drive.

I'd suggest if you are using Windows then SSD becomes even more valuable.