Hi,
I know, thats just another request for hints concerning hardware ;-)
I plan to get a new machine and I am interested in some opinions - as I am not really a hardware geek ;-)
I was thinking about a Core i7 machine, motherboard with at least 4 RAM slots (6 would be better), 8 to 12GB of RAM.
GFX I would like to go the "gamer route", as almost none of my applications really benefit from a quadro or firegl card. I think I would prefer nvidia, as some renderers support rendering via cuda on gfx board.
Harddisks - either two big drives, perhaps one small (for fast system) and two big datatanks
USB3 support would be nice, but not important.
Budget - I don´t think that it can be less then 1600,- Euro, so I am prepared to rob the next bank ;-)
thanks,
Walli
P.S What do you think about overclocked systems? Some shops offer tested overclocked systems, running at 4GHz (instead of 2.8 or similar). This is of course significantly more...
good choices so far.
As for disks, for such an expensive machine, another 80€ for a RAID disk isn't a big deal. It doesn't substitute the need for backup but it's comforting to know that when one disk dies, the other one will be there to take over immediately.
As for tested overclocked, I'd say it's tempting, but you need to be in peace with having to buy a new CPU much earlier than with normal speeds, as it's likely they'll crap out earlier in their lifetime. So, mentally, you need to be prepared to be ok with having "wasted" 500€ or so within a year. That being said, I don't know IF it dies early, but it could happen.
What about a two socket board, Walli?
Cheers,
Frank
I have thought that 12 GB of ram is the minimum. This would be enough for about 2 years. I would not go with overclocking. Frank is right about the CPU burning out. Get a 1 TB drive and an external for backup.
Right now the ATI graphics cards are better (in some ways) than the Invidia cards. A system in the price range you have would have a good one included.
I had bad experience with ATI, the drivers often made problems. And Photshop5 needs a Geforce for example. I am still on CS2 but at some point I ill have to update. And some renderers offer GPU rendering, but only on nvidia card. I also heard that at the moment ATI is better, but I am reluctant.
Two socket boards are of course great, I am just using one here. But then you easily hit the 2500-3000 range which is a bit hefty. I would like to find a good compromise of speed/price.
Frank B bought/built a really nice system. He probably will have the best advice.
I would go to the Dell, and HP to see how you can configure a factory built. I think Dell is the more flexable route.
CNET, aka Download.com, has great reviews for computers. They also have pricing from various venders. There may be a more European version of CNET. CNET is run by CBS.
I think Core i7 (as fast as possible based on the budget) with LGA1366 socket would be a good choice. RAM (2GB modules) is not extremely expensive, so I would go with 12GB and a motherboard that makes all this possible. 4GB modules are still pretty expensive so two sets of 3*2GB modules could be nice. LGA1366 based Core i7 processors have triple-channel memory architecture so two sets of three RAM modules should be a good combination. For GFX I also have to recommend nvidia for your usage because of the cuda. As you said, there is relevant software that can utilise cuda (e.g. Adobe CS5, 3D Coat and Octane render). The new GeForce 400 series seems to be running quite hot (which also means noise) and taking quite a lot power and it is not yet fully supported (at least not yet by e.g. CS5 Premiere Pro's Mercury playback engine) so maybe an older GTX285 could be a good choice. I would prefer Ati's 5800-series due to more modest power requirements and less noise, but as you said, at the moment, cuda may bring some advantage for 3D work.
For the hard drives, if budget allows, one might consider an SSD disk for system and software and a couple of more traditional spinning hard drives for storage and backup. RAID 1 configuration would give extra safety against data loss and RAID 0 would give better performance which might help e.g. with HD video editing. External hard drives, e.g. with external sata connection, can of course also help with backups and are easy to add later. I do not know, which are the best drives, but for some reason, all the 3.5" drives I have bought lately are Western Digital drives. At least to me, their present line-up had the most appeal.
thanks, there´s already a lot of good insights and I think my plans are "stabilizing" ;-)
Stay away from Raid !
If you absolute need the speed and reliability you have to use many Hard Disks !
In a corporate environment there aren't the same circumstances !
As a home user the benefits doesn't justifies the hassle it brings in my opinion ! Your mileage may vary , Walli!
Edit: http://www.bestpricecomputers.co.uk/reviews/home-pc-raid/
I think this is a little old article .
I had ones a Raid 0 array . One Hard Disk fried . I lost everything on these two disks !
http://www.storagereview.com/guide/why.html
I don't understand this advice, Kadri. I can see little sense in Raid 0, but Raid 1 is a great choice for normal consumer hard disk usage. Since years, on more than one PC, I had 2 identical disks on Raid 1. Never anything happened. For my last PC I almost dropped the idea, but then thought otherwise and now I have Raid 1 again. And guess what? One of the two HDs had a hardware failure just 2 weeks ago. I am so happy I had Raid 1, I just unplugged the damaged HD and continued working.
OF COURSE you have to have a backup, because an HD mirror is not a the same thing as a backup. It is just a guarantee for seamless continuation if one HD dies. I had more than 1 HD die in my lifetime. It happens, and it's ugly when it happens, even IF you have a backup.
Regards,
Frank
I think you should be able to get your machine with two sockets and two xeon at around 2500. It's a lot of money, but wait time is also money. I imagine that it will have payed for itself after half a year of work, assuming increased productivity for yourself.
Regards,
Frank
It is mostly about , if you know exactly what you do or not . For only little speed advantages in homely used PC's it is not worth it !
But if you work with very big files like video editing and so it is significant .
So it is up to your use of your PC .
Ones you setup a raid changing anything on it is more complex.
If you are a "hardware" guy this is not a problem. But most users aren't .
I tend to think that Raid is overrated especially for home use. But as i said this is a complex issue !
The little speed disadvantage i now have without Raid doesn't bother me .
These are my thoughts about it and as i said you are right to have other opinion about it of course :)
Quote from: Kadri on June 18, 2010, 06:25:48 PM
...and as i said you are right to have other opinion about it of course :)
Thanks, but the thing is, I don't just have another opinion - I'm simply right :D
No kidding aside, it's great to know that you're much much much less likely to have the HD die on you, leaving you blank, stopping your work, etc... IF you have Raid 1. I don't mean any other form of Raid, but just a simple Raid 1, supported by your motherboard and bios. And additional backup of course.
Cheers,
Frank
Quote from: FrankB on June 18, 2010, 06:31:26 PM
... And additional backup of course.
Cheers,
Frank
Mostly nobody do this until a critical failure . It would be interesting to know how many users here do backup all the time.
Anyway my stand on this is in a way like my stand on SLI or Crosfire or such more complicated setups.
I think as the system gets more complicated the failure risk gets up too .
But with backup and so , you are right of course :) Did you read the links by the way Frank?
Yes I did read the content behind the links. Even these articles only warn of a false sense of safety with users of Raid 1 thinking its a backup - which it is clearly not. You have to have a backup in addition. I have a backup of my most important data. I've learned this the hard way, too, 10 years ago. Actually I have a mutiple redundancy.
Regards,
Frank
EDIT: actually you don't add complexity with Raid 1, you add redundancy.
Quote from: FrankB on June 18, 2010, 06:41:48 PM
...I have a backup of my most important data. I've learned this the hard way, too, 10 years ago...
I've learned this too the hard way ,13 years ago :) 3 months of hard work (3d , video and such) gone in seconds...
In the Raid 0 loss i had later , i was going to buy a big HD nearly a month later for backup . I guess very bad luck there :D
Don't rely on luck guys ;)
I usually preferred NVidia for gpu's, but I recently got the 5850 and I'm loving it. Great for games, havn't had any serious driver issues at all (the only bug I did have was load times in bfbc2 were SUPER long for having such a nice card. But they fixed that in the following release of drivers). So one minor annoyance for a month - not too bad ;). ATI is really stepping up to the plate and pushing for some good products.
Though Nvidia's do seem to fit into graphics programs a lot better with CUDA etc.
As for overclocking, I avoid it. I prefer not to risk the chance of messing up my cpu, as they are quite expensive. If you do, make sure that thing is stable, well cooled, etc. And monitor it over time too.
I've been using an overclocked i7 for about a year now. It was originally set to 4Ghz, but I've rolled it back to 3.4Ghz on a 2.66Ghz chip (through paranoia more than anything else), and I've got to say I've had absolutely no problems with it. BUT, I did get it thoroughly bench tested over a weekend before it was shipped out, after having extremely good dialogue with the technician putting it together. The only downside to my system, is that I'm limited to 6gig of ram, as ram likes to fail when it's pushed too hard.
I'm still not sure what's an acceptable max temp for the i7 920... anyone knows?
Not sure about max temps Frank, but a good PSU was a must in my system (850watts as far as I remember), as well as a good heatsink which is air cooled. It's been a joy to work in TG.
yep, all true. It's like finally PC CPU power is meeting the true fundamental requirements of TG2. Everything before that was absolutely underpowered.
Still, while OC'ing, I wonder how hot I can allow the CPU to go, long term. Because I don't know, I'm not OC'ing mine at all.
Regards,
Frank
I think a number of things come into play with OC'ing. PSU is actually quite important, ie being able to supply the wattage with enough overhead. The case was also a consideration, ie having enough air space to get rid of excess heat. And placement of machine to allow that air to circulate. There's nothing really special about my system, I just think it was well designed via my needs and the technicians advice. This was also my first OC setup.
I've always had custom built machines with good components, whether that being me building it, or in this case, someone who knows about OC'ing advising me. It may have cost an extra £200 for getting better components, but those components have worked out very cost effective. I tend to change my system every 3 years, and my mother still uses a machine I made 5 years ago, a 2.66ghz, my home machine was my last work machine, quad core 2.66ghz. Funnily enough, the upgrade has usually cost around the same price over the years, ie £900.
Quote from: Hetzen on June 19, 2010, 07:04:34 PMFunnily enough, the upgrade has usually cost around the same price over the years, ie £900.
Yep, I spent about 1700 to build my computer the first time. That included monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.
I just recently spent just under 1000 to upgrade the motherboard, cpu, ram, and gpu after ~3years. Its a good upgrade time to keep in date while not spending too much. Since I use my computer so much ;).
I have just seen that Intel now also has the Core i7 875k, which has no built in limitations concerning overclocking. It´s also reasonable priced as far as I can see. So at the moment I think it boils down to a Core i7 860 or 875k, good price, good speed and good to overclock if I need to.
The faster cpu´s are much more expensive. If I need to render bigger animations I use render farms, and as some of my applications are really only using one core it makes almost no sense to spend that much. I am always tempted, but it makes no sense ;-)
And gfx board, after reading the comments and surfing the web and taking a look at what I really do - an ATI 5850 or 5870 would be a good deal concerning speed/proce/energy consumption.
So I think I start to build some configs around above mentioned specs.
Good call Walli, I have an 860 and it's faster than my 920. Unless you really want to overclock, the 875k may not be worthwhile though.
- Oshyan
yes, I might go with the 860 as its much cheaper and also can be overclocked, if you are a bit more carefull.
Unfortuanatly my decision about the ATI might be obsolete. Looks like I might have to be "compatible" with the upcoming Vray GPU renderer and Arion. Arion is cuda only afaik, the vray gpu renderer is cuda and also opencl
I recommend spending a little bit extra on a good CPU cooler and case fans to keep the temperature and noise down during long rendering sessions. You might take a look at e.g. what Noctua has to offer.
that's right, Noctua is a good choice. My case has one 14cm and 3 x 12cm fans, two came with the case and are acceptable, and two are from Noctua, keeping the CPU cool. Overall the server isn't exactly still, but it's just non-intrusive, low tone "humming" and air flow sounds that come from it. Those 4 fans make less noise (and at a nicer frequency) than my previous system which had only one fan :D
Cheers,
Frank
by the way, Walli, I can really recommend this case. It's awesome from top to bottom: http://www.alternate.de/html/product/Gehaeuse/Lian_Li/PC-A71FB/135881/?tn=HARDWARE&l1=Geh%C3%A4use&l2=Big-Tower
14cm fans? Sounds like you could use that to create "Hackfleisch" ;-)
Looks like a very nice case. It´s always I bit hard to spend money for " just" a case, but there are really huge differences and a good case can be recycled over and over again.
I went with this case, from these guys....
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-101-AN&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=
The top fan is seriously quiet, plenty of space inside, and the PSU is at the bottom of the case. Looks reasonable, ie doesn't look like a Nike trainer, and a damned good price too.
Quote from: Kadri on June 18, 2010, 06:52:40 PM
... I guess very bad luck there :D
Don't rely on luck guys ;)
2 days later then i said that , i tried to turn on my PC today. There was some smoke and spark !
My mainboard literally fried ! It is under warranty but 2 to 4 weeks no more my own PC . I hate such days !
"
Don't rely on luck guys ;) " yeah so it seems :(
I'd caution against Lian Li cases. In my experience as a system builder (I've put together over 100 machines over the years), they're just not worth the price. Not to say they're not decent cases, they're just damn expensive and not usually better quality than e.g. a nice Coolermaster, Antec, etc.
Sorry Frank, no disrespect intended. ;D
- Oshyan
It's true they are very expensive, but at least the one I have is top notch quality in every single aspect.
I've read this review (German) http://www.hardwareoverclock.com/Lian_Li_PC-V1110B.htm
and after that I was convinced. After having used it now, I can certify the assessment of that review was correct.
Of course I acknowledge that comparable quality can also be obtained at a lower price, but then probably with a mix of steel and plastic, instead of pure aluminium, I don't know.
Regards,
Frank
i like Antec's Performance One cases, i currently have a Antec P182, and it works very well for me.
I want to get a P193 or a P183 for my next computer
I use Lian Li cases. Yes, they are very expensive but very good quality. I have a rack for music gear and I built a dedicated Linux DAW. A Lian Li rack case was used:
(http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7228/rackdaw.jpg)
The Lian Lis are solid and can be easily opened with motherboard quickly removed for cleaning (but not in the rack case). They last forever and look good.
I can also vouch for SSD drives. They are fantastic. Not cheap but you shouldn't need vast storage for TG2. External drives can be used for backup. SSD as a system drive boots and opens apps very fast.
I wouldn't bother with overclocking but if you buy parts that are capable of overclocking you'll find they are better and will stand up to endless hammering.
Like I said, no argument here that Lian Li is high quality (with a few specific exceptions - they've had some "bad apples" over the years like any manufacturer). It's just that I think you can get either comparable quality, or at the least "more than good enough" quality for a lot less with other brands. I guess it all depends on how fancy you need your computer to be, where you want to spend your money. For me if it's between spending $200 or more on a case that's solid aluminum but won't make my computer faster, or spending $100 on a case that's still nice but not the equivalent of high-end audio gear (a good analogy for Lian Li) and putting that extra $100 into a faster CPU, the choice is very clear.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Walli on June 18, 2010, 09:31:16 AMHi,
I know, thats just another request for hints concerning hardware ;-)
I plan to get a new machine and I am interested in some opinions - as I am not really a hardware geek ;-)
I was thinking about a Core i7 machine, motherboard with at least 4 RAM slots (6 would be better), 8 to 12GB of RAM.
GFX I would like to go the "gamer route", as almost none of my applications really benefit from a quadro or firegl card. I think I would prefer nvidia, as some renderers support rendering via cuda on gfx board.
Harddisks - either two big drives, perhaps one small (for fast system) and two big datatanks
USB3 support would be nice, but not important.
Budget - I don´t think that it can be less then 1600,- Euro, so I am prepared to rob the next bank ;-)
thanks,
Walli
P.S What do you think about overclocked systems? Some shops offer tested overclocked systems, running at 4GHz (instead of 2.8 or similar). This is of course significantly more...
There is no need to rob a bank. From where I am 1,600 Euros would get you the following:
3 HDs, 1 small (200 GB or so) and 2 large datatanks (1.5TB X 2), total cost for all 3 HDs are about 150 Euros.
GC, assuming you are not getting the latest most powerful GC, 200 Euros will land you a very nice GCs.
RAM, even with 24 GB of RAM won't set you back much. Around 400~500 Euros.
CPU and mobo, 300 Euros can get you a very nice combo.
And the PSU. I'll get one that is at least 800 Watt or more, Silverstone or better brand.
All the above cost, sans the box, would still be less than 1,600 Euros.
PS. I wouldn't overclock if I were you. The performance difference (less than 3%) just ain't worth the risk.
Quote from: piggy on June 23, 2010, 10:00:06 AM
The performance difference (less than 3%) just ain't worth the risk.
Hrm. Did you mean 33%?