#1 Thing people haven't told you is that hard drive speeds bottle neck comp speed for compression/video editing/etc. If you are serious about working with large files, you need a serious way of dealing with large files.
I'd recommend getting 4 RAPTORS in a RAID0. RAID5 is slow for a filesystem; its best used for storage redundancy and speed. RAID0 is where its at for pure speed.
If you are really serious about video editing then you'd look at a PCIE controller card with 8 or 12 ports and get an 8 drive RAID0. This would fucking scream. You could backup a DVD in like 50 seconds. (SEE HD TACH FORUMS)
Also, quad core is your best bet. You could look at a multiple opteron rig, but the mobo will be really expensive and wont support SLI or Xfire.
Get:
Intel quad-core
4GB Corsair Dominator Ram
A PCI-E controller card
8 SATA2 hard drives (RAID O)
Asus Mobo
2x 8800GTX in SLI
Big ass powersupply
Water Cool the whole thing
-Alex
Ok...
You've all sold me on the QX6700... does anyone know the upgrade plan? Like will there be a new processor in a month or so? Here is where I get stuck... so let's vote:
Which mobo - Asus Striker or eVGA 680i
Should I go with the eVGA 8800GTX's?
Liquid or Phase Change Cooling? Where will OCing get me?
SAS Cheetah's or SATA Raptors? Raid 0 only way to go IMO - probably 4 drives
Going with the Corsair Dominator
Going with 1000 watts PS
So looks like we're getting close...
IQ1
You've all sold me on the QX6700... does anyone know the upgrade plan? Like will there be a new processor in a month or so? Here is where I get stuck... so let's vote:
Which mobo - Asus Striker or eVGA 680i
Should I go with the eVGA 8800GTX's?
Liquid or Phase Change Cooling? Where will OCing get me?
SAS Cheetah's or SATA Raptors? Raid 0 only way to go IMO - probably 4 drives
Going with the Corsair Dominator
Going with 1000 watts PS
So looks like we're getting close...
IQ1
Dante_Jose_Cuervo
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Could he go for the bfg liquid-cooled 8800GTXs instead since they're already pre-made for liquid cooling?
Also: @ OP.
Def go cheetahs for the RAID config and yes, you WILL notice a difference, believe me, 15k rpms is quite nice. Now, are there any SAS controllers you were looking at? For the drives I'd say just stick with around 147GB max and just get a bunch to get a HUGE array.
Also: @ OP.
Def go cheetahs for the RAID config and yes, you WILL notice a difference, believe me, 15k rpms is quite nice. Now, are there any SAS controllers you were looking at? For the drives I'd say just stick with around 147GB max and just get a bunch to get a HUGE array.
slim142
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As john said
go for the striker
yes go for the evga 8800 gtx (acs3 version recommended)
liquid cooling, get a good one and will make your overclocking results so high, you will die
Remember if you go RAID 0 with 4 drives and in any case a failure happens, its over so if you are going with more than 2 drives I recommend RAID 5. I would go for the Raptors, but since you can afford cheetahs, go for them.
As I said, RAID 0 might give you a headache after you get a failure (if any) so go for RAID 5
I withdraw parts of my setup. I'd change it to a deticated SCSI RAID5 controller; put in a few 15k rpm drives. No PhysX card; that'll be covered when they start offloading physics to the second 8800GTX. I would still recommend the case from XCLIO; two 25cm fans will move alot of air, and it would likely be more quiet then even liquid-cooling, with similar effects.
If you want an excellent overclock, remember to get A/C in your house if you havent already. There are some of us who don't have it.
Anyways I'd say liquid-cooling if you want to, though monster-aircooling would be quite efficent as well. Both would be unreal for cooling.
If you want an excellent overclock, remember to get A/C in your house if you havent already. There are some of us who don't have it.
Anyways I'd say liquid-cooling if you want to, though monster-aircooling would be quite efficent as well. Both would be unreal for cooling.
jlaavenger
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I’ve been dreaming of building that Ultimate PC for months now and I’d like to advise you to do plenty of research. Since PC’s became interesting again, I subscribed to Maximum PC and CPU Power User and I try to pick up the PC Gamer specials on Hardware and building PC’s. Here’s what I’ve learned from what I remember.
There are a few new technologies still to be released effecting computer builds.
PCI 2.0 - http://www.techspot.com/news/24094-pci-express-20-standard-released.html
GDDR 4 – ATI adopted GDDR 4 with it’s last DirectX 9 Graphics card, and even though I swore I would go with Nvidea the next time I upgraded, it wouldn’t surprise me if the new ATI DirectX 10 graphics cards didn’t blow the Nvidea cards out of the water. The ATI or R60 cards are also said to support PCI 2.0
LG announced at the Consumer Electronics show this month a soon to be released LG GGW-H10N Super Multi Blue SATA drive that is compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM (read).
And
Lite-On announced a 20x DVD-RW Serial ATA Burner with 12X DVD-RAM Write and I’m sure a Lightscribe capable version is planed as well.
I also read somewhere that Ageia is working to improve its PhysX cards.
• As for the build, I’ve about talked myself into buying the new DELL H2C PC because of the price, features and the amazing Liquid/Phase cooling and it’s glowing review.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_XPS_710_H2C/4505-3118_7-32305739.html
• I also looked at the Apple MAC Pro as well. I like that it can be upgraded with up to 16 GB of memory and I absolutely love the Apple 30 inch Cinema HD.
But If I built, here’s what I’ve looked when thinking I’d go with NVIDEA Graphics.
Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor QX6700, quad 2.66GHz cores, 8MB L2 Cache
ENERMAX GALAXY EGA1000EWL "because it is a modular 1000watt power supply."
Either ASUS Striker Extreme "because it seems to have tested best and I like the bling of the light up board, but then again it also has a riser sound card that permanently sacrifices a PCI slot. So either the Stryker board or the
EVGA-LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Board. It has the full 7 PCI slots instead of 6.
2x Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drives in raid 0
Areca ARC-1210 PCI-Express x 8 SATA II RAID Controller Card (Just like with a sound card, I’ve read that using a Raid controller card delivers better performance than onboard raid, but a raid controller card isn’t a must have. A RAID Controller card comes standard on all Velocity Micro built high end gaming systems.)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB SATAII Hard Drive (for data storage)
2x BFG Tech BFGR88768GTXWC25E GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card (water cooled) in SLi. It Frees up 2 PCI Slots.
Some kind of Multimedia TV or HDTV Tuner:
• ATI Theater™ 650 PRO or ATI TV Wonder 650
• Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE
• The Vista View Saber 2020
• DVICO Fusion 5 HDTV tuner
• Kworld ATSC-110 HDTV/Analog Tuner Card
(I really just want to watch TV on my PC, but it might be nice to record HD movies or shows, I’m not sure which would be best.)
Physics Processor 128mb Asus® AGEIA™ PhysX™ Processor (I like ASUS because of the larger fan)
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series sound card
Bigfoot Networks Killer NIC
LG GGW-H10N Super Multi Blue SATA drive compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM (read), (Not available yet, but I’d want it for both Blu-ray and HD disk playability)
LITE-ON LH-20A1S Black Super AllWrite drive 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache support for Serial ATA Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write, LightScribe Technology (I know it hasn’t been announced to have Lightscribe, but I’m sure one will be)
LITE-ON Black 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 1.5MB Cache SATA Combo Drive (Only for the quick CD burning speed)
Koutech IO-FPM220 3.5" Floppy Drive & Multi Card Reader
CORSAIR Dominator XMS2-10000 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 Dominator Series Memory with DHX technology ($649.0 each set, comes with Dominator Airflow Fan for maximum thermal transfer)
CORSAIR Dominator XMS2-10000 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 Dominator Series Memory with DHX technology (same as above)
Internal Cables Rounded Silver Braided IDE and Floppy Cables
Blue UV Cabling w/ UV Lights or Blue Cabling w/ Blue Lights
Keyboard Logitech® Cordless Desktop MX™ 3000 Laser -Keyboard & Mouse –Charcoal
BenQ FP241W Black 24" 16ms (6ms GTG) DVI Widescreen HDMI LCD Monitor $799.99
Creative GigaWorks S750 700 Watts 7.1 Speaker $429.99
Microtek ScanMaker i800 Pro Design with DIGITAL ICE Flatbed Scanner
Canon Pixma Pro9500 Large Format Printer
Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1 MP camera
You'll notice I didn't decide on a case. The case and cooling are tough descisions. But in regard to cooling, I did run accross this site.
http://www.coolitsystems.com/
and Puget Systems also builds some nice but expensive water cooled systems.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/configliquid.php?sys_id=71
There are a few new technologies still to be released effecting computer builds.
PCI 2.0 - http://www.techspot.com/news/24094-pci-express-20-standard-released.html
GDDR 4 – ATI adopted GDDR 4 with it’s last DirectX 9 Graphics card, and even though I swore I would go with Nvidea the next time I upgraded, it wouldn’t surprise me if the new ATI DirectX 10 graphics cards didn’t blow the Nvidea cards out of the water. The ATI or R60 cards are also said to support PCI 2.0
LG announced at the Consumer Electronics show this month a soon to be released LG GGW-H10N Super Multi Blue SATA drive that is compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM (read).
And
Lite-On announced a 20x DVD-RW Serial ATA Burner with 12X DVD-RAM Write and I’m sure a Lightscribe capable version is planed as well.
I also read somewhere that Ageia is working to improve its PhysX cards.
• As for the build, I’ve about talked myself into buying the new DELL H2C PC because of the price, features and the amazing Liquid/Phase cooling and it’s glowing review.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_XPS_710_H2C/4505-3118_7-32305739.html
• I also looked at the Apple MAC Pro as well. I like that it can be upgraded with up to 16 GB of memory and I absolutely love the Apple 30 inch Cinema HD.
But If I built, here’s what I’ve looked when thinking I’d go with NVIDEA Graphics.
Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme processor QX6700, quad 2.66GHz cores, 8MB L2 Cache
ENERMAX GALAXY EGA1000EWL "because it is a modular 1000watt power supply."
Either ASUS Striker Extreme "because it seems to have tested best and I like the bling of the light up board, but then again it also has a riser sound card that permanently sacrifices a PCI slot. So either the Stryker board or the
EVGA-LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Board. It has the full 7 PCI slots instead of 6.
2x Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drives in raid 0
Areca ARC-1210 PCI-Express x 8 SATA II RAID Controller Card (Just like with a sound card, I’ve read that using a Raid controller card delivers better performance than onboard raid, but a raid controller card isn’t a must have. A RAID Controller card comes standard on all Velocity Micro built high end gaming systems.)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB SATAII Hard Drive (for data storage)
2x BFG Tech BFGR88768GTXWC25E GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card (water cooled) in SLi. It Frees up 2 PCI Slots.
Some kind of Multimedia TV or HDTV Tuner:
• ATI Theater™ 650 PRO or ATI TV Wonder 650
• Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE
• The Vista View Saber 2020
• DVICO Fusion 5 HDTV tuner
• Kworld ATSC-110 HDTV/Analog Tuner Card
(I really just want to watch TV on my PC, but it might be nice to record HD movies or shows, I’m not sure which would be best.)
Physics Processor 128mb Asus® AGEIA™ PhysX™ Processor (I like ASUS because of the larger fan)
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series sound card
Bigfoot Networks Killer NIC
LG GGW-H10N Super Multi Blue SATA drive compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM (read), (Not available yet, but I’d want it for both Blu-ray and HD disk playability)
LITE-ON LH-20A1S Black Super AllWrite drive 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache support for Serial ATA Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write, LightScribe Technology (I know it hasn’t been announced to have Lightscribe, but I’m sure one will be)
LITE-ON Black 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 1.5MB Cache SATA Combo Drive (Only for the quick CD burning speed)
Koutech IO-FPM220 3.5" Floppy Drive & Multi Card Reader
CORSAIR Dominator XMS2-10000 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 Dominator Series Memory with DHX technology ($649.0 each set, comes with Dominator Airflow Fan for maximum thermal transfer)
CORSAIR Dominator XMS2-10000 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 Dominator Series Memory with DHX technology (same as above)
Internal Cables Rounded Silver Braided IDE and Floppy Cables
Blue UV Cabling w/ UV Lights or Blue Cabling w/ Blue Lights
Keyboard Logitech® Cordless Desktop MX™ 3000 Laser -Keyboard & Mouse –Charcoal
BenQ FP241W Black 24" 16ms (6ms GTG) DVI Widescreen HDMI LCD Monitor $799.99
Creative GigaWorks S750 700 Watts 7.1 Speaker $429.99
Microtek ScanMaker i800 Pro Design with DIGITAL ICE Flatbed Scanner
Canon Pixma Pro9500 Large Format Printer
Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1 MP camera
You'll notice I didn't decide on a case. The case and cooling are tough descisions. But in regard to cooling, I did run accross this site.
http://www.coolitsystems.com/
and Puget Systems also builds some nice but expensive water cooled systems.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/configliquid.php?sys_id=71
I will tell you that it is not a Hoax thread at all. As for the gentleman that said I should buy something nice for my wife - she already gets $10k herself. And to those that said I should do something for the house - its not that I disagree but I want the computer. Not sure what proof any of you need but I work at corporate for one of the big box retailer companies in sourcing. We had a banner year. I could push my budget to $15k if I wanted. I really am going to build this thing and when I do I will come back to this thread and post pictures. Everybody has been so helpful.
On a few review sites the EVGA motherboard got better rankings than the striker... also - the guys at Voodoo seem to really love the X1950's in Crossfire.
To the guy that said I should go with 16 cores - I'm not sure I disagree. Problem is I'd either have to run Linux or Windows Server R3... since R3 is based on Windows 2000 - doesn't seem to me that I'll get the best bang for my buck. Lastly - how the hell would I water cool 16 cores in that tiny form factor anyway? And could you even overclock the Xeon's? And would that help any...
In addition - the X1950's let you use the GPU for video compression - wouldn't that speed up some of my projects?
To the guy that said Raid 0 with four drives is a disaster - not if I only use it for Apps and use my Buffalo terastation for my final media storage...
I looked at the Dell H2C - I think that is their response to the Gateway Factory OC'd system. I dunno - feel like a weenie buying an OC'd system from the straights at Dell.
Lets continue...
On a few review sites the EVGA motherboard got better rankings than the striker... also - the guys at Voodoo seem to really love the X1950's in Crossfire.
To the guy that said I should go with 16 cores - I'm not sure I disagree. Problem is I'd either have to run Linux or Windows Server R3... since R3 is based on Windows 2000 - doesn't seem to me that I'll get the best bang for my buck. Lastly - how the hell would I water cool 16 cores in that tiny form factor anyway? And could you even overclock the Xeon's? And would that help any...
In addition - the X1950's let you use the GPU for video compression - wouldn't that speed up some of my projects?
To the guy that said Raid 0 with four drives is a disaster - not if I only use it for Apps and use my Buffalo terastation for my final media storage...
I looked at the Dell H2C - I think that is their response to the Gateway Factory OC'd system. I dunno - feel like a weenie buying an OC'd system from the straights at Dell.
Lets continue...
jlaavenger
Distinguished
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Don't buy the X1950 yet. Wait till the new ATi cards come out next month with DirectX 10. If your not buying DirectX 10, then your not really upgrading much.
Unlimited budget? Dreaming outloud here:
- Asus Striker Extreme
- 2x BFG GeForce 8800GTX Watercooled Edition
- Intel Core 2 QX6700
- 2x Corsair TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF (PC-10000 2x1GB > total 4GB)
- 2x Plextor PX-760SA
- 12x Western Digital Raptor 150GB
- Areca ARC-1231ML (+ 2GB DDR2-533)
- Lian Li PC-V2000BplusII
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
- BFG PhysX 128P
- Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W
- Asetek Waterchill Xtreme Kit (With triple radiator)
For various cables and other mod material I recommend some stuff from AC Ryan.
You'll need to do some modding to fit that water cooling kit inside the case.
If you don't want to do that , Asetek also has thesame case with the kit pre-installed. (At an extreme price however)
Reason you need the watercooled video cards is that you need all the slots on the motherboard.
The watercooled versions only take up a single slot and leave the slot next to it useable.
You could also use a Vapochill on the CPU but you'll still need a watercooling loop for the videocards tho.
Most people in this thread simply hang the HD's right off the motherboard.
If you use a professional SATA RAID controller however you get:
- A dedicated RAID processor
- A dedicated cache for the HD's
The Areca ARC-1231ML can support a 2GB cache and its processor can do +700MB/sec.
Most motherboard RAID engines can only achieve half that and have no cache at all. (Or they steal it from the main RAM)
This config will probably go over your 10K budget but you'll make your friends turn green with envy if you show up on a LAN with this thing.
[EDIT] jlaavenger - It seems we think alike. I didn't read your post before posting this. 😛
- Asus Striker Extreme
- 2x BFG GeForce 8800GTX Watercooled Edition
- Intel Core 2 QX6700
- 2x Corsair TWIN2X2048-10000C5DF (PC-10000 2x1GB > total 4GB)
- 2x Plextor PX-760SA
- 12x Western Digital Raptor 150GB
- Areca ARC-1231ML (+ 2GB DDR2-533)
- Lian Li PC-V2000BplusII
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
- BFG PhysX 128P
- Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W
- Asetek Waterchill Xtreme Kit (With triple radiator)
For various cables and other mod material I recommend some stuff from AC Ryan.
You'll need to do some modding to fit that water cooling kit inside the case.
If you don't want to do that , Asetek also has thesame case with the kit pre-installed. (At an extreme price however)
Reason you need the watercooled video cards is that you need all the slots on the motherboard.
The watercooled versions only take up a single slot and leave the slot next to it useable.
You could also use a Vapochill on the CPU but you'll still need a watercooling loop for the videocards tho.
Most people in this thread simply hang the HD's right off the motherboard.
If you use a professional SATA RAID controller however you get:
- A dedicated RAID processor
- A dedicated cache for the HD's
The Areca ARC-1231ML can support a 2GB cache and its processor can do +700MB/sec.
Most motherboard RAID engines can only achieve half that and have no cache at all. (Or they steal it from the main RAM)
This config will probably go over your 10K budget but you'll make your friends turn green with envy if you show up on a LAN with this thing.
[EDIT] jlaavenger - It seems we think alike. I didn't read your post before posting this. 😛
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