Building new system.

[KGB 0]

So, I'm thinking of putting together a new system for getting some work done at home from time to time.

Wanna know if you guys have any input.

I have a Quattro card and Xeon Processors at work, but I want to make the system out of consumer parts cause money is in short supply :-)

Here is what I'm thinking:

 

 

Thermaltake LANBOX Case

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R Micro ATX Motherboard

EVGA Geforce 8800GTX

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0Ghz

4 Gigs of RAM...maybe go for a 4x1gb instead?

 

Gonna go with a WD Raptor for the system drive.

And maybe dual Seagate 750Gigers in a RAID 1.

Its gonna be tight and warm in there, but I think it might work out.

 

Also, thinking of getting you know...power supply, Win XP etc.... :-)

 

Any thoughts, suggestions, possible conflicts?

Experiences with vid cards?

 

Looking to do a lot of 3D work(3ds max) and AE

Possibly watch pr0n...

 

 

 

EDIT: gonna go with the Dell 24" for the monitor (2407FPW)

Edited August 20, 2007 by KGB

[deedeee 0]

Go with the Benq 24, better than the Dell.

[KGB 0]

Isn't it Acer? I used to have bad luck with Acer products.

[stoiqa 0]

what do you think about?

[Duder 0]

Yeah man, go with a Q6600...you can easily overclock this thing to 3.0Ghz and have 4 cores at $280. Overclocking is very easy nowadays. These CPU's were made for OC'ing.

 

For porn, even a Pentium 166 with Dialup will do.

 

For monitors, I like Samsungs...or LG.......I think the Dell 24" is on sale right now, Dell dropped them by $100 or so.

 

As far as that little box, I wouldn't recommend it...the 8800GTX is a HUGE card, it will block at least one of the PCI ports....those things get really hot, probably cause more heat than your 3 drives combined.

 

Look at this case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811129017

 

I built one for somebody and it's very quiet, and also the fans have 3 speed settings (You should be fine at the lowest). Fry's had this thing on sale for $70, see if they still have it.

 

For the drives, Seagates are fast, but loud...but also have longer warranty. WD is nice, I am a fan of both, so....this is your choice.

 

As for RAM, go with OCZ. Get two kits of these

 

Either way Windows won't see more than 3GB....but you might put in WinXP 64bit...

 

For Power supply, take a look at this

 

As far as motherboards, always stick with Asus and you won't have problems. The P5B Deluxe is pretty cool (You can get the non deluxe version as well)...they have the new P5K's out, but those are too new...but worth getting because of a longer life span and faster speeds.

 

Hope this helps man, just telling you what I've learned over the years...always remember to buy good components and it will last you for a long time.

Edited August 21, 2007 by Havok.Dzn

[stoiqa 0]

I was thinking the same thing last night:Q6600+24"

[KGB 0]

Thanx for the replies guys.

I knew I might run into problems, but I want to stay microATX on this machine. I need it to be a bit more portable and not take up much space.

I didn't go for a quad-core by default because the 3.0GHz Quad is 1300 bucks!

But youre right, I might be able to overclock the Q6600.... the Q6700 is out now as well...

Still gotta do more research, but I'll probably end up ordering this stuff this week :-)

[Duder 0]

You don't need the 3.0Ghz Quad. I have a buddy who just got the Q6600 and OC'd it to 3.01Ghz without a problem. He's capturing uncompressed HD with it and storing it on his server. This quad will be king for your 3dMax work. Just make sure to get a good CPU cooler, like the Zalman CNP9500.

 

If you want to stay MicroATX, then like I mentioned, you might run into some issues with that video card, and with your 3 drives in there, no doubt you'll have issues. You might want to take a look at those HTPC cases (Home Theater PC's) they are a bit bigger and you can lug them around.

[Duder 0]

I was thinking the same thing last night:Q6600+24"

 

If you look on the net, you'll notice alot of people have OC'd the Core 2 Duo's...these things can take it. Intel owns the competition at the moment...

[KGB 0]

Hmmm... Looks like that case can fit a 8800GTS, but not the GTX without removing the drive cage.

[KGB 0]

Update:

 

Built the system, didn't overclock yet.

Getting the RAID set up was A BITCH (caps for emphasis, not rendering)

I had to rip out a floppy from my old comp to pre-install drivers....barf!

 

The case I got is tight, barely got everything in, but the GTS fit just fine, don't know how much longer the GTX card is, but there is about an inch of room left.

 

Here is the Cinebench score thus far:

 

 

CINEBENCH R10

****************************************************

 

Tester :KGB

 

Processor : Intel® Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

MHz :

Number of CPUs : 4

Operating System : WINDOWS 32 BIT 5.1.2600

 

Graphics Card : GeForce 8800 GTS/PCI/SSE2

Resolution : <fill this out>

Color Depth : <fill this out>

 

****************************************************

 

Rendering (Single CPU): 2420 CB-CPU

Rendering (Multiple CPU): 8471 CB-CPU

 

Multiprocessor Speedup: 3.50

 

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 3057 CB-GFX

 

 

****************************************************

 

 

Idle temp readings were:

 

CPU 40C

GPU 60C

 

Hope those aren't too bad, cause it IS going to get hotter once I overclock.

 

Will post a pic in the "workspace" thread later :-)

Edited September 4, 2007 by KGB

[Duder 0]

What kind of CPU cooler did you use? The stock one?

[KGB 0]

I had another heatsink lined up, but it wouldn't fit :-) Too tall.

 

I ended up getting a Zalman..forgot which one...i think this one:

http://www.zalman.co.kr/usa/product/view.a...45&code=009

 

The only thing I dont like about it, design wise, is that its mount allows the heatsink to travel about 2 degrees left and right

 

The GPU is stock.

Edited September 4, 2007 by KGB

[Duder 0]

I recommended the CNP9500 which pushes air out sideways instead of upwards....dunno about the one you bought and if it will be ok in the long run. There is an exhaust fan in the rear of your box right?

 

Also those idle temps are going to jump up a ton once all cores are in use even at stock speeds. I wish you luck with the airflow

Edited September 4, 2007 by Havok.Dzn

[govinda 0]

Look at where that Cinebench lines up. You're way over the other Dual Quad 6600 2.4.

 

http://www.3dfluff.com/mash/cinebench/dual.php

[troyA 0]

A little monitor note: I've got two of those Dell 24s and they've been great.

[KGB 0]

The original cooler I ordered was an Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, but during the build I discovered that it would not fit :-)

So I had to run out to Microcenter and pick up the flatter Zalman one.

There are two 60mm fans right near that heat sink though.

 

Regarding the Dells, I love those monitors. I got two at work as well, the one I bought for this rig though seems to a newer version with better color response.

[KGB 0]

Here is an overclock to 2.7GHz at stock voltage.

Has been running a couple days now, and is stable.

 

 

 

 

CINEBENCH R10

****************************************************

 

Tester :

 

Processor : Intel® Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.70GHz

MHz :

Number of CPUs : 4

Operating System : WINDOWS 32 BIT 5.1.2600

 

Graphics Card : GeForce 8800 GTS/PCI/SSE2

Resolution : <fill this out>

Color Depth : <fill this out>

 

****************************************************

 

Rendering (Single CPU): 2683 CB-CPU

Rendering (Multiple CPU): 9194 CB-CPU

 

Multiprocessor Speedup: 3.43

 

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 4051 CB-GFX

 

 

****************************************************

 

 

 

 

I haven't been able to hit 3GHz, the comp usually restarts during post.

I have been wary of raising the voltages a bit so maybe thats why.

[Duder 0]

Good jump man. Stick to 2.7. I think it's a voltage issue. Did you change the settings for the RAM too? You need to change both the CPU Ghz and the RAM timing in the bios

[KGB 0]

I dont know what it is, you might be right.

I actually had to restart my comp because I installed quicktime, and it failed to boot at the previous settings(even though it ran for a couple days).

It hangs at the memory count, turns off, turns back on, and resets to defaults.

 

I did change the memory multiplier so that the resulting speed is below 800, since at over 800 it doesn't seem to have luck booting.

[Duder 0]

What are your temps on full load? Speedfan should be a good app for this.

[monovich 0]

So. Its time for me to upgrade. I remembered this thread and thought I'd ask the mograph guys for opinions first.

 

I'm going to do to do this on the cheaper side, so I'm going to gut one of my existing boxes and throw the new stuff in. Right now I'm looking at a new mobo, new processors, and new ram.

 

Do you guys think 8 core is worth the expense over 4 core? Most of my big apps are multi-threaded, so I know they'd use all the juice. any recommendations for proc/mobo combos for this? I don't need the absolute latest bleeding edge. Do I have to get Xenons to go 8 core?

 

Alternately I could just go with a 4 core, which seems a lot cheaper because I don't have to go with a server/workstation mobo and of course I'm only buying one processor. Do people seem happy with the performance of their 4 cores?

Edited March 13, 2008 by monovich

[Phil 0]

I've been more than happy with my q6600 running 64bit XP. The parts came to about 800 quid back in October, back then for a dual socket 8 core xeon, home build, you're talking 1700 quid.

 

Having said that, you can get 8 cores on the cheap if you look at Dell's server boxes (4gigs, 2 x 2ghz Xeons for 1000 quid)... dunno if they've got PCI express slot though...

[movibe 0]

Hey monovich,

 

You may find this article on building ur own MacPro equivalent interesting:

 

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=942&tag=nl.e550

 

thou the claim that one can get it build in 1/3 of the mac price seems no long valid since the introduction of the new MacPro series recently:

 

http://createdigitalmotion.com/2008/01/08/...8-core-mac-pro/

 

btw, I am using a self-build Q6600@3.2G system with HD 2600 xt (softmod to firegl v5600), the cinebench score is:

 

CB 1: 3736 CB X : CPU 13310 OGL Std: 6641

 

hope u find this useful

[monovich 0]

wow that is a great article. great starting point. thanks for that info. this whole learning curve is cumbersome but fun in a geek sort of way.