New Work Station! Suggestions Needed

Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
edited April 2008 in Hardware
Okay boys I am pretty good at racking up a system, but I want to see what you guys can come up with for me. My work has asked me to get prices on a new Workstation for me. I use the following porgrams.

3Ds Max 8.0
Photoshop CS2
Vray
MS Office
Adobe Priemer

For the most part I run dual monitors @ 1980 x 1440 with 2 versions of 3ds max all day, I might be rendering in one while working on a project in the other. I need a system that will allow me to run both and my other programs all at the same time without showing a hicupp...

Budget: $10,000 or lower.. the lower the better.

Standard must have specs:

- Windows XP Pro
- AMD Opteron "Dual Core" 285 or FX 62
- 3GB Ram "Xp limitations"
- Nvidia 7950 GX2
- 250GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
- 2 x DVD Burner DVD+RW/DL/+R-R/CD-RW Double Media 4.7/8.5GB
- No Keyboard or Mouse or monitor I have those things

This is what I have so far, let me know if you find soemthing better or give me your input on what I have listed.

l Xi® MTower™ 64 SLI Workstation (Base Configuration) $1,059.00
Upgrades And Options:

l AMD® Athlon™ 64 FX-62 64Bit Dual Core (DC4400) 2x1024KB Cache HyperTransport™ Socket AM2 Only $999.00
l 4096MB DDR2 800MHz PC2-6400 4x1024 Dual Rank Interleave $419.00
l nVidia® EVGA® GeForce 7950 GX2 1024M DDR3 PCIe SLI-Ready Dual Head 2xDVI-I Dual Link HDTV $649.00
l No Monitor ($100.00)
l 250GB 7200RPM SATAII 300MB/s 16MB Cache 9ms $89.00
l DVD+RW/DL/+R-R LightScribe™ Double Media 4.7/8.5GB 16x w/SW-Media $79.00
l DVD 16x40x Reader $25.00
l On Board Sound AC 97 Codec or accordingly to motherboard selected
l On board 1GB Ethernet (10/100/1000) on board LAN
l Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional CD-ROM w/manuals/act.reg.** SP2 $69.00
l Asus® M2N32-SLI DLX. Nvidia® NForce® 590 2xPCIe@16x DDR2 800/1000-2x1GbEthernet+WiFi-g-6xSATA3Gb RAID 0/1/5-1394-8Ch.DTS-Digital $165.00
l 600W OCZ GameXStream™ Quiet 12cm BB Fan PowerWhisper™ UL $65.00
l Three Years Parts & Labor + Three Years NBD On Site Service $372.95
l Xi® MTower Black/Silver 2xFr.USB 460W UL PS 4x 5 1/4" 6x 3 1/2" 2x BB Fan. $0.00

Total: $3,884.00 x 2 :)

Comments

  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Have you looked at the Asus mobo? I haven't worked with either, but I know someone running the Asus. They like it a lot.

    Maybe the PC Power and Cooling PSU. That is the last place to cut corners on this box.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    I'll put in a good word for the PC Power & Cooling as well. Ed is right - in this league, it's worth every penny.

    And don't forget to install folding on this puppy the instant it hits your desk! ;)
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    So you think the 700W OCZ GameXStream™ Quiet 12cm BB Fan PowerWhisper™ UL is cheap?

    I never have used OCZ's PSU's so I can't comment.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    OCZ tends to make good PSUs, actually, but it's more something I'd put in a gaming system. For rock solid world-class reliability, I'd put PC Power & Cooling in a workstation. That is, if I had a budget at all. ;)
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    lol, well i will look into it. I don't know if it is an option.... but if it is I will add it in :)
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    You know I just realized I can't use XP pro with 4 cores... I would have to use XP 64Bit...bahhh! well downgarde to 2 cores :)
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Are you thinking of running a single socket dual core machine, or staying with dual sockets?
    If you go single socket you can run standard memory, non-ECC.

    Couldn't you run server OS? or won't it support your applications?
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Im going Dual coket for the extra cores for rendering power. also ECC ram seems to like to render better.

    3DS Max runs in XP Pro only...
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    I wonder how those Opty 285's fold? I hope better than those Intel Xeons
  • DonutDonut Maine New
    edited June 2006
    Sledgehammer70 wrote:
    You know I just realized I can't use XP pro with 4 cores... I would have to use XP 64Bit...bahhh! well downgarde to 2 cores :)

    Double check on that, IIRC Xp was licensed by the socket, not the core.

    (I think I read it somewhere last fall.)
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Sledge you have me drooling....
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Donut wrote:
    Double check on that, IIRC Xp was licensed by the socket, not the core.

    (I think I read it somewhere last fall.)

    I think I read that Microsoft decided to run all their licensing that way. However, with XP 32-bit, I think it's more of a technological limitation than a licensing limitation that prevents it from properly running 4 cores.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    it wont run on server 2003?, you could always get both processors and just not use one until everything migrates to 64 bit. dunno.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    XP Pro can run 4 cores or 4 intel CPU's with HT.... Not 4 CPUs with 8 Physical Cores. windows XP Pro is limited to 4GB of ram as it is a 32bit OS so it would be pointless for 8 Cores at 512MB...
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    I like my SuperMicro H8DCE motherboard. It is a bit cheaper than the Tyan K8WE but lacks integrated IEEE1394 and trades off the PCI-X slots for additional x4 and x1 PCI-E slots. I'm not too sure that graphics card is going to do a whole lot for the listed apps but knowing your line of work... :D

    Do yourself a favor and get a decent keyboard.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited June 2006
    Sledgehammer70 wrote:
    XP Pro can run 4 cores or 4 intel CPU's with HT.... Not 4 CPUs with 8 Physical Cores. windows XP Pro is limited to 4GB of ram as it is a 32bit OS so it would be pointless for 8 Cores at 512MB...

    But your spec only has 2 CPUs / 4 cores so that's fine isn't it?
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    My original setup was a 4 CPU x 8 core system, It has been changes since than.

    Here is my new layout... I am thinking 2 systems with the following specs...

    l Xi® MTower™ 64 SLI Workstation (Base Configuration) $1,059.00
    Upgrades And Options:

    l AMD® Athlon™ 64 FX-62 64Bit Dual Core (DC4400) 2x1024KB Cache HyperTransport™ Socket AM2 Only $999.00
    l 4096MB DDR2 800MHz PC2-6400 4x1024 Dual Rank Interleave $419.00
    l nVidia® EVGA® GeForce 7950 GX2 1024M DDR3 PCIe SLI-Ready Dual Head 2xDVI-I Dual Link HDTV $649.00
    l No Monitor ($100.00)
    l 250GB 7200RPM SATAII 300MB/s 16MB Cache 9ms $89.00
    l HD Ctrl. According To Motherboard and HD Type Selected $0.00
    l DVD+RW/DL/+R-R LightScribe™ Double Media 4.7/8.5GB 16x w/SW-Media $79.00
    l DVD 16x40x Reader $25.00
    l 1.44MB 3 1/2" Floppy Drive $0.00
    l On Board Sound AC 97 Codec or accordingly to motherboard selected $0.00
    l On board 1GB Ethernet (10/100/1000) on board LAN $0.00
    l No Keyboard ($8.00)
    l No mouse ($7.00)
    l Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional CD-ROM w/manuals/act.reg.** SP2 $69.00
    l Resource CD - contains Diagnostic links & Drivers $0.00
    l Asus® M2N32-SLI DLX. Nvidia® NForce® 590 2xPCIe@16x DDR2 800/1000-2x1GbEthernet+WiFi-g-6xSATA3Gb RAID 0/1/5-1394-8Ch.DTS-Digital $165.00
    l 600W OCZ GameXStream™ Quiet 12cm BB Fan PowerWhisper™ UL $65.00
    l Three Years Parts & Labor + Three Years NBD On Site Service $372.95
    l Xi® MTower Black/Silver 2xFr.USB 460W UL PS 4x 5 1/4" 6x 3 1/2" 2x BB Fan. $0.00

    Which would be faster? regular desktop CPU's seem to work with Max pretty well. so FX line with AM2 or Opteron 285?
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    The cool thing is no matter how I look at it I will be adding 4 more CPU's to my Folding farm, hopefully boosting me up further in ranks :)
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    The more cores the better if your rendering applications are multithreaded. I personally would go with the dual-processor dual-core Opterons.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    The reason why I am thinking I need 2 Towers is having one will still slow me down as the program will use whatever CPU's the system has, I can't set the affinity to work around it. So having 2 systems would allow me to submit and render on one and move to the next so I can seamlessly keep working..

    The main Question is....

    Opteron or FX "AM2"

    The AM2 system has far more potential than the Opteron setup... but I haven't used both to be able to comment on which is better.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Well I am pushing the FX-62 system with my boss :) 2 of them! woot....
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Sledgehammer70 wrote:
    XP Pro can run 4 cores or 4 intel CPU's with HT.... Not 4 CPUs with 8 Physical Cores. windows XP Pro is limited to 4GB of ram as it is a 32bit OS so it would be pointless for 8 Cores at 512MB...

    Home supports ONE cpu with as many cores you want, Pro supports 2 cpus with as many cores as you want. None of either Home or Pro 32-bits supports more than 3GB of ram after service pack 2. (Microsoft stops supporting Service Pack 1 any day now)

    Anything that has 2 or more physical cpu's is bound for either a fat Linux boot or a Windows 64-bit boot.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    Yeah There config only comes with 2GB or 4GB, I have already talked with them to configure with only 3GB.

    Yeah I understand about the cores, I was talking about Physical CPU's that is why I cant run 4 880's in windows XP Pro. But I found that 2 FX-62's would give better performance and will alow me to switch between stations when I am rendering on one and not the other.

    Thge only reason I see the FX62 running better and being the better choice is becuase of AM2 and DDR2. We would have a much better upgrade path for the CPU and Ram. I think a 285 Opty is about the same as a FX-62 in benchmarks, and our budget only allows me to buy this month, so the new Opty's are out fo the question...
  • TheLostSwedeTheLostSwede Trondheim, Norway Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    What board are you gonna use with 2 FX-62's? You do know the difference between a FX-62 and a 2xx series Opteron right?

    Edit, i see that you are gonna use 2 systems with one FX-62 in each.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited June 2006
    yes it is on my bosses desk for either...

    1 Dual Opty 285 "2 x285's" system
    or
    2 FX-62 systems
  • x_ternax_terna
    edited March 2008
    hmmm. okay I guess your right,
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    THREAD REVIVE! jeesh man this thread is seriously old. I think the best idea for you is to start a NEW thread dedicated to your problem
  • DanGDanG I AM CANADIAN Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    GnomeWizardd wrote:
    THREAD REVIVE! jeesh man this thread is seriously old. I think the best idea for you is to start a NEW thread dedicated to your problem

    I was just looking at the specs that Sledge wanted and was trying to figure out what he was smoking.... Then I saw the date. ;D
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