New System.....

[Mephistopheles]

I'm currently deciding on what to put in my new home computer. I'm a researcher and will be programming a lot, as well as playing games, encoding video, editing in Corel, a small amount of 3DSMAX rendering. As for the programs I'll be running, I want to learn more about SMP programming. I already know the basics, but I want to get more experience. It's also particularly important for me because the physics institute in which I work will be acquiring a cluster and it would be nice if I knew how to exploit the advantages of SMP better...

So these are the basic components I had decided to go for:

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Manchester)
DFI Lan Party UT nForce4 Ultra-D
1GB DDR500 OCZ VX Gold
Seagate Barracuda 300 GB 7200 RPM SATA
Thermaltake Armor - Silver
OCZ PowerStream 520W
DVD/CD Recorder (haven't decided which one, could be any)
BFG GeForce 7800GTX OC

This doesn't include monitor, keyboard and mouse, because these will be recycled from my old computer for the time being simply because I just don't have more money than that.

Now I have a question: I will OC this system and will probably want to settle at a clock generator frequency of around 250Mhz (2.5Ghz on both cores, clock gen in sync with DDR500) for long-term operation of this system.

This will probably require a good amount of cooling. Now I have to go for one of the following choices:

-Zalman CNPS7700Cu Cooler
-ThermalRight XP-120 Cooler + Fan
-Zalman CNPS9500? Where is this cooler? It was supposed to have been launched at Computex, wasn't it?

Now I was more inclined to choose between the first two: CNPS7700Cu or XP-120. But which one should it be? As for the 9500... well, I would have to wait... Any ideas? Or suggestions? Please?

Any other comments on this new system would also be appreciated.

 

[Guest]

Top notch rig, exactly what I would pick. Maybe later on more ram can come in handy if you work with large file in rendering and such!

As for the fan the only one I know is the XP120 and I beleive it would do the trick!Well I think any of these would do!
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2452&p=3" target="_new">Oced 4200+ on aire, stock cooler I think</A>

Asus P4P800DX, P4C 2.6ghz@3.25ghz, 2X512 OCZ PC4000 3-4-4-8, MSI 6800Ultra stock, 2X30gig Raid0

 

[emogoch]

Almost the exact rig that I'm planning. Replace the 3800 with a 4200, turn the mobo to the SLI-DR, up the PSU to 600W and downgrade the HDD to the smalles NCQ I can find from Seagate. Oh, and I want to go with the Antec P180 case.

So with all that: Do the two of us actually need extra cooling, or do you guys think stock cooling will work?

 

[Mephistopheles]

Nice to know I'm not too far off...

About the heat, that's exactly my question too! I'll probably run this system at 2500Mhz, so... would a lot of cooling be needed?... I wonder...

 

[emogoch]

I know that Anandtech says they got a 4200+ up to 2.7GHz on stock cooling <A HREF="http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2452&p=7" target="_new">here</A>. And reading their review of the 3800+, they said they had no problems taking it up to 2.45 on stock cooling. That said, they don't mention the GPU that they were using with that overclock.

I'm guessing that if you have a case with good airflow through it such that the stock cooler can do it's job without other components contributing, than the stock coolers will work pretty well. But that's just a guess. It's all about trial and error anyways.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Hmmm.... I'm still somewhat concerned about longevity... This system is supposed to last a long time...

Also, I wanted a very quiet system. I wonder if I really should give it a permanent 25% overclock?... I'm also kind of afraid of system degradation from running it at a higher voltage, but I think I probably won't need a lot of voltage to do 2500Mhz in the first place....

The only problem here, of course, is that even the 3800 Manchester is quite an expensive chip to play with... :frown: I'm kind of afraid of messing with it...

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 08/10/05 01:17 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jl989z]

Sorry if I'm a little behind the times but I dont see how Dual-cores = SMP. In a way I can see it but if dual-core now = old SMP then a dual-core wont help with SMP dual-cores. What about 4 or 8 dual-core Opteron's that is what I'd call SMP nowadays.

Please correct me if I am wrong.
PS. I assume SMP = Symetrical Multi-processing

Compaq S5000nx
yes the one with an asus mobo and non exsistant apg slot. It was free so dont yell at me LOL.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I guess I know those things, but I'm just scared because I've never bought a processor for this price, that's all...

As for SMP... well, I was under the impression that dual-core was essentially a small SMP system... why not call it SMP?... Having said that though, I see your point: indeed, the cluster we're currently on the verge of purchasing has only 4-core or 8-core nodes, which means my system won't really help in programming for those, but at the very least it should be pretty OK for programming simple multithreaded software...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 08/10/05 01:49 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jl989z]

Yes dual-core can be called a 2 CPU system which in a way can be called SMP. Its just that the Intel 840EE has a total of 4 cpus according to Windows. For my piece of mind SMP would be 8+ CPU's no matter how many physical processors.

I am simply saying that with dual-cores SMP will not die, they will just stick a bunch of dual-cores together. Therefor 1 dual-core is not SMP by todays standards (my opinion only).

EDIT: I am only trying to learn so do not take any of my comments to heart.

Compaq S5000nx
yes the one with an asus mobo and non exsistant apg slot. It was free so dont yell at me LOL.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by jl989z on 08/09/05 10:54 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[emogoch]

I think of the dual-cores are SMP, especially when you look at them from a programming standpoint. Anyone that's taken an introductory level concurrency course will tell you that the hardest part about programming at a multi-threaded level is data consistancy. It's the single largest thing that separates single and multi-threaded programming. To take full advantage of a dual-core, you have to keep that all in mind, whether you've got 2, 4, or 64 processors.