building my first dual processor workstation

[The Internal]

This system will primarily be used for 3ds Max, Adobe Creative Suite, some gaming, and the occasional PVR stuff (if the board can take more than one PCI card.)

Processors: Dual Opteron 246
Motherboard: Tyan Thunder K8WE
RAM: 4 x 512 MB OCZ DDR400 Registered ECC with 2-2-3-6 CAS timings
Hard Drive: two 74 GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID - 0, Maxtor Maxline III 300 GB
Video Card: ATI FireGL V7100
Optical Drives: NEC 16x dual layer DVD-RW drive
Case: undecided (tower case)
Power Supply: undecided

 

[Chosonman]

Looks good. Don't know too much about workstations but I'm assuming that system will need to be good at multi threading. What are you asking BTW?

 

[Cerb]

You might want to check about compatibility with the FireGL.

 

[Duvie]

3dsmax is multithreaded and it will help in rendering significantly.....I run viz renderer and it is very similar to 3dsmax 6 which I have...

 

[bozilla]

My friend, if you're doing video, Photoshop, content creation, video anything Opterons are not the way to go, believe me, especialy if you're multitasking a lot. 3ds max will show some slight speed increase when used with opterons, but this is totally unnoticable. I've tried it both. Not to mention availability of ASUS NCCH-DL motherboard for Xeons that allows you to run unbuffered/unregistered low latency memory, has 4 SATA RAID and all the goodies of i875 chipset, not to mention a $240 price tag and the low prices and great choice for DDR400 memory.

Here's what I finally finished building a few days ago.

Main Design Workstation:
Dual Xeon 3.6Ghz EMT64
Dual Swiftech Coolers "MCX604-V" @ 28 dBA
ASUS NCCH-DL Mobo
4Gb DDR400 OCZ Performance Series (4x1gb)
ATI X800XT Platinum AGP
Arctic ATI Silencer 4
NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive
ASUS 16x DVD-ROM
WD Raptor 74Gb + 300GB Seagate 7200.8 SATA NCQ
Thermaltake Silent PurePower 680W PSU (Replaced with Vantec Silent 520 until I RMA the Thermaltake, something was wrong with it)
Lian Li Black Aluminum Case, "PC-V1200B"

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: bozilla
My friend, if you're doing video, Photoshop, content creation, video anything Opterons are not the way to go, believe me, especialy if you're multitasking a lot. 3ds max will show some slight speed increase when used with opterons, but this is totally unnoticable. I've tried it both. Not to mention availability of ASUS NCCH-DL motherboard for Xeons that allows you to run unbuffered/unregistered low latency memory, has 4 SATA RAID and all the goodies of i875 chipset, not to mention a $240 price tag and the low prices and great choice for DDR400 memory.

Here's what I finally finished building a few days ago.

Main Design Workstation:
Dual Xeon 3.6Ghz EMT64
Dual Swiftech Coolers "MCX604-V" @ 28 dBA
ASUS NCCH-DL Mobo
4Gb DDR400 OCZ Performance Series (4x1gb)
ATI X800XT Platinum AGP
Arctic ATI Silencer 4
NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive
ASUS 16x DVD-ROM
WD Raptor 74Gb + 300GB Seagate 7200.8 SATA NCQ
Thermaltake Silent PurePower 680W PSU (Replaced with Vantec Silent 520 until I RMA the Thermaltake, something was wrong with it)
Lian Li Black Aluminum Case, "PC-V1200B"

I will agree with this....Viz renderer really like the HT function of the p4 delivering 19-22% speed in crease in rendering my animations. It is conceivable the 2 xeons will be seen as 4 virtual cpus which can be quite a boost in speed there....

Are you going to softmod that ATI card???

 

[The Internal]

I planned on running everything stock... All the benchies I've seen indicated that the opterons have an overall lead against the xeons. how much would it cost to get dual Xeons and a mobo that could outperform the roughly $1500 dual Opteron 246s and new Tyan with SLI? I also really want a board with PCI-Express and dual graphic card capability. PCI slots for a sound card and tv tuner would be nifty too.

Here are some links to articles that made me lean towards dual Opterons over the Xeons:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=2327&p=1

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040927/index.html

and the FireGL over the Quaddro:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2307&p=1

http://graphics.tomshardware.c...ic/20040816/index.html

I'm weak on the intel side, so I'd like greatly appreciate some justification for going Xeons over Opterons. 3ds Max, occasionally Adobe Illustrator, Sony ACID, gaming, and watching tv will be my main uses for this system. If the price/performance of the Xeon is better than the AMD, then I'd be willing to jump ship. According to one of the Tom's Hardware Guide links, the Xeon is slightly better than Opteron for 3d, but loses to the Opteron for video editing. We all know the athlon 64 platform is better for gaming.

Once again, I'm all about price/performance. If Intel can underprice and outperform and AMD system that's best bang for the buck, then please let me know.

 

[Blain]

Finally...
Someone NOT BUILDING a PC based on the Athlon 64 3500! :thumbsup:

 

[The Internal]

lol. I've done at least 100 hours of research and mulling over... it took awhile for me to decide to go dualie instead of a single proc. I might evnetually make a gaming rig built around a 3500 though (or more likely a 3200 if in the next few months ) I was originally going to go with the Athlon FX-55, but once I noticed I could get two 2.0 GHz opterons for a little less than the single Athlon FX-55, I started researching and soon found that many of the apps I use would benefit from a dual proc setup.

Now I'm just trying to find out if someone can disprove that this would be the best bang for the buck. It would be great if someone does, that way I won't waste as much money ^_^ By the way... I could still use suggestions on cases and power supplies as well for the dualie.

Thanks! (bed time!)

 

[Terumo]

Originally posted by: Blain
Finally...
Someone NOT BUILDING a PC based on the Athlon 64 3500! :thumbsup:

Give the guy a :beer:

 

[Terumo]

Originally posted by: The Internal
lol. I've done at least 100 hours of research and mulling over... it took awhile for me to decide to go dualie instead of a single proc. I might evnetually make a gaming rig built around a 3500 though (or more likely a 3200 if in the next few months ) I was originally going to go with the Athlon FX-55, but once I noticed I could get two 2.0 GHz opterons for a little less than the single Athlon FX-55, I started researching and soon found that many of the apps I use would benefit from a dual proc setup.

Now I'm just trying to find out if someone can disprove that this would be the best bang for the buck. It would be great if someone does, that way I won't waste as much money ^_^ By the way... I could still use suggestions on cases and power supplies as well for the dualie.

Thanks! (bed time!)

Read the thread by the CGI pros about the topic....

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthre...?t=179186&page=1&pp=15

And read this post....

http://www.cgtalk.com/showpost...?p=1660759&postcount=9

"I can tell you now, 3DSMax users will be sticking with Intel for some time. Regardless of how wonderful AMD's latest are, 3DMax benchmarks speak for themselves: Max loves Intel. Maya, Houdini, XSI, PRMan and Mental Ray users will definitely be wanting to check out AMD."

And this is why he said it.....

http://www.aceshardware.com/SP...w+next+page+of+results

P4 Extreme Edition processors are the best ultra processing bang for the buck for 3DSMax (and especially Lightwave), nearly $500 cheaper than Opteron 850, and only $105 more than an Athlon 64 FX-55.

 

[Terumo]

Okay I'm obsessed with this topic (besides I can't get enough of the site, can't help it I used to live there )......

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthre...&highlight=Xeon+3DSMax

I've just finished beta testing 3ds 7 and from what I recall the feeling in the forum among testers was that Xeon was the way to go for twin CPU MB's though guys who'd upgraded to Opteron's were very happy with them. Personally I think I'd stick with Xeon as there are likely to be fewer issues but I suppose that in the end it all comes back to bangs for your bucks.

And make a choice which is more important to you modelling or render times in deciding which system to go with.....

From my own direct experience and benchmarking, Opterons will give you higher performance within your viewport and during modelling. Xeons give better render times for the default scanline renederer.

So which is more important to you: ease of modelling, or render times?

Seems Opteron is the modelling champ, and Xeon the rendering one so no processor is the winner of all.

 

[The Internal]

opterons are still the better ones for gaming, right? I'll probably play with Maya too... I won't be doing 3d ALL the time, so, that's why I really want the best overall proc I can get for the price.

Also, the ACEShardware link you posted doesn't have a dual Opteron system listed... just a dual Xeon

 

[Terumo]

Originally posted by: The Internal
opterons are still the better ones for gaming, right? I'll probably play with Maya too... I won't be doing 3d ALL the time, so, that's why I really want the best overall proc I can get for the price.

Are you a game developer or CGI animator? They have clearly different in needs. CGI types need fast renderers as they're making animations, while game developers need easy modelling/texturing without hiccups.

A dual workstation isn't recommended if you're planning to invest in all of that software. By the time you've gotten the software needed to do pro quality work, the software is going to be around $10,000 (and with Maya maybe $20,000). Those doing TV broadcasting production their software is even more expensive than Maya (and I'm not referring to Adobe products, either). With all the trouble tweaking for months your worksets, you don't want it to get messed up due to an dll error from a crappy driver.

Also, the ACEShardware link you posted doesn't have a dual Opteron system listed... just a dual Xeon

In case you may not be aware, that art market is heavy on dual Xeon configs. My tech relative would work on some rigs from the art college, and every last one is an dual Xeon -- and that's been ever since Xeons came around. Those rigs should be most abundant.

The latest tests aren't in, since it only has 533mhz FSB Xeons evaluated -- no 800mhz FSB with DDR2.

 

[Terumo]

Internal,

Another thing to factor in is if and when 3DS Max and Maya will optimize their programs for a processor. 3DS Max did that when the P4 were first released (they had god awful results as the chipset architecture changed), and the difference in performance was like 550 seconds to render a short animation, to under 200. Because there's so much more Xeons on the market, 3DS Max would have to tailor their ware for Intel users. From what that 3DS Max beta tester was saying, most testing the next app says it's Intel friendly.

Maya is different (3DS Max is the game developer's platform [Intel/Windows] and Maya the CGI platform [Anything powerful and cheap that can be made into a rendering farm/*nix). Maya is used for mostly animation movie creation, and it needs like 100+ Opteron processors to render a feature length animation. Those guys just build racks and attach bare motherboards to them (no cases because of the cost and cooling problems - max load processing for hours generates massive amount of heat), and then link everything up for multi of all multithread processing. :laugh:

Pick your flavor and tailor your rig around that software -- as it costs more than most computers alone.

 

[Markfw]

Well, I don't have all that other software you do, but my dual Opterons do fine at everything I have thrown at them, and they are great for gaming.

FWIW

 

[ribbon13]

The Tyan Thunder K8WE will kick major ass for rendering if outfitted with a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 800

http://3dlabs.com/products/product.asp?prod=293

And you can use the other PCI-Express slot for a regular X850 XTPE or a 6800 Ultra for gaming