Planetside Software Forums

Yes!!! I have built a new PC!

Can't tell you what a difference it makes, compared to my old Socket 939 AMD X2. I now run ..
Core i7 - 2.66 GHz cooled by a Noctua NH-U12P
8 GB 1333 RAM
ASUS P6T Deluxe mobo
2 x 500GB Maxtor on Raid 1
NVidia 260 Graphics Card from EVGA
Vista 64 Bit

... all in a nice Lian-Li PC-V2110 case

Yipee!

Frank

Looks a very sweet set up, you got the case I was after last summer, very cool, out of stock when I was buying. Let us know your benchmark results :)
richard

What's the Core i7 like? I've been considering getting the 2.93GHz (no point spending double the money on an extra 0.07GHz ::)) but the fact that it's not a 775 socket put me off.

Karsten's benchmark finishes in 46 seconds on a default, not overclocked system. See this:

[attachimg=#]

I haven't followed the becnhmark discussions, so I'm not sure if a newer benchmark exists. If you have any pointers, I'll try these too.

PG, it's true, if you want to run the core i7, you have to have not only a new motherboard, but most likely also new RAM, and a new cooler (although new brackets for the old one MIGHT do). Also, I have chosen to buy the i920, not his faster brothers. The price point was simply not justifying it. Also, overclocking by ~15% is easy and the system can be kept stable.

I'm lovin' it  ;D

Cyphyr, the case is really nice, indeed. It's silent, too. If I count the fan from the graphics card, there are 5 fans running in the case simultaneously, but they only issue a soothing little hum - not to be compared with my old stock cooler, which was really loud when the system was under load.
Now, full load, the cpu temperature seems unimpressed, doesn't go beyond 48 degrees (celsius of course) and keeps humming away silently. I can only recommend it.

Frank

---

coolio. I've got a liquid cooling system which has about a billion cpu plates so that should be ok. ;D I didn't know you had to replace the RAM, is it still DDR2 or are they forcing DDR3 like they did with the switch to core 2 duo and DDR2?

You have to have DDR3, but the good thing is that the Core i7 infrastructure can finally make use of it, with the FSB being history, and the memory controller built into the cpu (if I understood that correctly). So it supports and can make use of 1666 freq DDR3 RAM, which makes it incredibly fast. DDR3 at 1666 is still twice the price like 1333, so I made a compromise here, but that's ok with me.

Soo, what did it cost you? I might be persuaded if I knew that...  ;)

Quote from: Mohawk20 on November 30, 2008, 04:02:50 PM
Soo, what did it cost you? I might be persuaded if I knew that...  ;)

I'm sure you don't wanna know!
But it's easy to do the maths (all in Euro): ~270 for the cpu, about the same for the graphics card, about the same for the mobo, 150 for RAM. Then add the usual suspects like power supply, storage, cpu cooler, case, wlan, and... a KVM switch. Yes, I kept my old PC for work, it stands next to the new one. But who wants to purchase yet another screen (I have a dual screen setup), keyboard, mouse, loudspeakers? Hence the switch. Works great, click a button and your screen(s) switch to the other PC, and your mouse and keyboard switch there, too. Sound as well. Works great.

Cheers,
Frank

So that's about £568 or $873

Actually, I come out at €1140 if my estimates on the 'usual suspects' are correct. So thats actually more like £946 or $1451 PG, and that's quite a lot for me right now...  :-[

I was only counting the CPU, motherboard and RAM. That's all you'd need to upgrade. The rest are just nice new things to have.

Hope you enjoy your new system, Frank.

I'm going for a similar setup this x-mas, what RAM did you get? Also I'm looking at the ABS Canyon 695 for a case (anyone know anyone with this, got a lot of good reviews).

Quote from: Will on December 02, 2008, 07:21:57 PM
I'm going for a similar setup this x-mas, what RAM did you get? Also I'm looking at the ABS Canyon 695 for a case (anyone know anyone with this, got a lot of good reviews).

Sounds like a really awesome machine Frank!  @Will 600 bucks for a case! If you got it buy all means spend it! LOL  I just hook all my parts up loose on the desk top.  ;)

Quote from: Will on December 02, 2008, 07:21:57 PM
I'm going for a similar setup this x-mas, what RAM did you get? Also I'm looking at the ABS Canyon 695 for a case (anyone know anyone with this, got a lot of good reviews).

I got 2 times OCZ DIMM 4 GB DDR3-1333 Kit (OCZ3P13334GK)

.. I have been too cheap for the 1666 RAMs ;-)

None of the platforms support 1600 DDR3 without overclocking anyway, as I understand it.

Lian Li cases are nice, but overpriced IMO. A nice Antex Sonata III will do well, for example, and generally much less expensive. But personally this is the case I really want: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119147

- Oshyan

Quote from: Oshyan on December 14, 2008, 06:59:49 PM
None of the platforms support 1600 DDR3 without overclocking anyway, as I understand it.

Really? Well, not that I would know, but it surprises me.

QuoteLian Li cases are nice, but overpriced IMO. A nice Antex Sonata III will do well, for example, and generally much less expensive. But personally this is the case I really want: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119147

- Oshyan

Yes the Lian Li was expensive, compared with the benefits of having one, but I couldn't resist :-)

Your choice looks good, too, but the pricing doesn't look so much cheaper than the Lian Li.
Doesn't matter much, though. The most important thing is the CPU, with regards to TG2, and the Core i7 is a runner. I am very happy with it and can definitely recommend it.

Best regards,
Frank

Yes, the case I pointed out is also expensive. I just meant, if I'm going to spend that much on a case, it would be that one, not Lian Li. Just personal taste. ;) But normally I go for much cheaper Antec with a decent built-in PSU (400+ watt with Sonata III). For average builds it works great.

Anyway yes Core i7 is perfect for TG2. It's amazing to see how much more prolific you have been since you got this new system. It's great! :)

- Oshyan

That certainly looks like a sweet setup tho I'm not sure how much better those i7 perform against normal quad cores in TG2. I have a C2D Q9400 2,66ghz @ 3,4ghz and my bench score was pretty close to yours. Of course you have to consider this is overclocked so it doesn't really compare because you are running yours with defaults

Setup:
C2D Q9400 @ 3.4ghz
8800 GT
4096 DDR2 RAM
1TB harddrive
Asus P5K-e-wifi mobo

I think you said it right there, if your bench is the same as his and he's running at nearly 800Mhz behind you (*per core*), Core i7 shows its worth. ;)

- Oshyan

Yeah I guess. I did a re-test with default clocks and the rendering time increased exactly 10 seconds

Quite honestly I don't think that old benchmark is terribly representative these days. I hope to work on a new one soon...

- Oshyan

a new benchmark would be a good idea. Cinema resolution, higher detail, multiple cloud layers, a bit of water, a few displacements and fake stones... just the average render project would be about right, I guess.

Cheers,
Frank

It needs to be something that can render in about 5 minutes for a computer like yours or mine and not really more than an hour for the baseline machine.

sounds about right

I made this. It's nothing flash but I can render it in about 8 minutes. How about yours? It doesn't have any vegetation because my only source of plants was floraworks.

5:38 min.

But I think you shouls set GI to 2/2, AA to 3. What's your rendertime with these settings?

Thanks,
Frank

Yeah I tried that. It took 22 minutes.

On what resolution did you render? I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to cinema resolution? Lemme know and I'l try to do a render so we can get some comparison

I have just rendered using the "full render" with the parameters as they came from PG's file.
I have set the min threads to 8, thought, because I can render with 8 threads.

Frank

Quote from: freelancah on January 07, 2009, 08:28:41 AM
On what resolution did you render? I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to cinema resolution? Lemme know and I'l try to do a render so we can get some comparison

Cinema resolution is 2k or 4k, which means:

2k = 2048x1536/1556 pixels
4k = 4096×3072/3112 pixels

Good luck with rendering these resolutions in TG2 ;)

Cinema resolution...well, this is good to know.

Okay I did the test with full render. Min threads 4, max5. Results were 6 minutes 49 seconds. My setup is same as before. 3.4ghz quadcore etc..

edit: Obviosly you gotta take into account that my processor is overclocked and still it's like 20% faster. But for me I dont consider it to be a profitable choice since I'd had to change the whole setup to get it. Perhaps if I build a second rendering machine I'l deffinetly consider it. I haven't read how it overclocks but I think my current one has a bit potential left in it :)

Quote from: Tangled-Universe on January 07, 2009, 08:46:45 AM

Quote from: freelancah on January 07, 2009, 08:28:41 AM
On what resolution did you render? I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to cinema resolution? Lemme know and I'l try to do a render so we can get some comparison

Cinema resolution is 2k or 4k, which means:

2k = 2048x1536/1556 pixels
4k = 4096×3072/3112 pixels

Good luck with rendering these resolutions in TG2 ;)

I did some renders at 4K, having them printed as ~50x60 cm posters. Some took 500 hours to render, but an early version of my Irish scene took only 13 hours.

let's forget about the cinema thing...

Well, I don't really have the fastest system... just an AMD 64 x2 @ 2.4 GHz and only 2 Gb RAM on that system.
You might do it A LOT quicker!

Yeah benchmarks are designed so they can be run by everyone. It's not a stress test so it doesn't need to run for several hours. That's why I specifically decreased the resolution from default.