Good setup for a heavy graphics and game development computer

[Orre]

I'm i way off here or is this a good setup for a heavy graphics and game development computer? I have already orderd it but i have a few days to change my mind... after a bit of reading in this forum i got confused.. If something is tooootaly wrong here, please tell me!..



1 - OCZ Powerstream 600W EU ATX [OCZPS600W]

1 - MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 Ultra 4DDR-DIMM 3PCI 2xPCIe SATA Raid Audio
2xGB-LAN Firewire Socket939 ATX

1 - AMD Athlon64 4000+ 2400MHz/2.4GHz 1MB Boxed (with cpu-cooler!) Socket939

4 - Kingston KHX3200/1G HyperX 1024Mb/1Gb DDR-DIMM PC3200 400MHz 184pin (4gb ram total)

4 - Maxtor L14S300 Ultra16 300Gb 7200rpm 16Mb RETAIL SATA (Used in RAID-5 setup)

2 - Leadtek WinFast PX6800 Ultra GeForce 6800Ultra 256Mb DDR3 TV-out DVI HDTV
SLI-ready RETAIL PCI Express

1 - HighPoint RocketRaid 1810A, 4-ch serial SATA RAID PCI-X

1 - Microsoft Windows XP Pro English OEM

1 - Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3100

1 - NEC ND-3520 Dual-Layer DVD +RW/R -RW/R 16X DVD+R 4X DVD+RW 16X DVD-R 4X
DVD-RW 48X CDR 24X CDRW SILVER BULK IDE

1 - Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000SWA Super Miditower Silver + Window ATX

 

[CheesePoofs]

You could save a couple hundred dollars and take almost no performance hit.

First off, change power supply to OCZ Powerstream 520W; the 600W is way overkill for your system.
Second, change CPU to 3500, or 3200. 3000 if your willing to overclock it. You will save 2-3 hundred by doing this, but will loose very little performance.
Third, do NOT get 4 sticks of ram with an athlon 64, it forces them to run at a lower speed. 4g is complete overkill, even 2g is overkill. 1g is the optimal amount of ram, any more and it runs at higher latencies, any less and you have too little ram. I'd suggest the 2x512 pack of Corsair Value Select ram. its by far the best bang for the buck of any ram out there, it only costs about $80.
Fourth, I'd suggest getting a 6800gt or X800XL instead of the 6800ultra, but that is more of a personal choice on my part; I don't believe in getting super high end parts because they often cost way too much for the amount of performance they give you.

 

[SVT Cobra]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
You could save a couple hundred dollars and take almost no performance hit.

First off, change power supply to OCZ Powerstream 520W; the 600W is way overkill for your system.
Second, change CPU to 3500, or 3200. 3000 if your willing to overclock it. You will save 2-3 hundred by doing this, but will loose very little performance.
Third, do NOT get 4 sticks of ram with an athlon 64, it forces them to run at a lower speed. 4g is complete overkill, even 2g is overkill. 1g is the optimal amount of ram, any more and it runs at higher latencies, any less and you have too little ram. I'd suggest the 2x512 pack of Corsair Value Select ram. its by far the best bang for the buck of any ram out there, it only costs about $80.
Fourth, I'd suggest getting a 6800gt or X800XL instead of the 6800ultra, but that is more of a personal choice on my part; I don't believe in getting super high end parts because they often cost way too much for the amount of performance they give you.

:thumbsup:

 

[uOpt]

I would never argue against getting the best PSU. However, the Enermax Noisetaker 701 is probably as good as the Powerstream 600W for a smaller price tag.

From my experience the Maxtors > 160 GB and up (current generation) are not recommendable. Go Seagate.

Otherwise what they said. And the 4 GB RAM is likely to be overall slower in games and for certain kinds of memory bandwidth compilation (e.g. excessive C++ templating).

If you want 4 GB RAM I would switch the whole thing to a socket 940 setup.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Nothing is wrong w/ your system if you want top of the line, but as CheesePoofs suggested you could go w/ slightly lesser parts and not lose that much performance but save tons of cash. as an FYI I'd go w/ only 2GB of Ram as 4 sticks forces you to go to a 2T CMD rate which is a bad thing, otherwise everything looks good.

Edit: also as an FYI I would not do raid 5 unless you have a card w/ write cache, it's write performance w/out a cacheing controler is truely aweful (worse than a single drive in most cases) I'd suggest raid 0+1 if your going w/ 4 drives or add an Areca ARC-1120 (broadcom based) card or LSI Logic Megaraid based Sata raid card w/ at least 64mb of cache.

 

[biostud]

Wouldn't you need the nV Quadro?

 

[imported_Kensai]

Bleh, I'd switch it around:

Tyan K8WE
1 X Opteron 275 (Get another one later unless you can afford 2)
4 GB PC3200 ECC Reg
nVidia Quadro FX 3400, 4400
Lian Li v2000B
Antec 550W EPS12V TP2.0

Same other specs, and the K8N Neo4 Platinum doesn't support PCI-X by the way.

 

[sandorski]

I'd stick with an Nvidia video card for Graphics work, though I'd go Quadro unless you plan to game as well(although I haven't seen how 6800 Ultras in SLI perform in these types of Apps, though I suspect they might not work at all, be sure to check into first).

2gb of ram is recommended, especially if you are running Modeling(3DSMax/Maya/etc), Paint(Photoshop/PaintShop/etc), and Game Editor(UEd/Hammer/etc). Personally I've run into heavy fileswapping when running Maya PLE, UEd, and Photoshop simultaneously, that used 1.4gb of memory and I only have 1gb. Oops, I see you have 4gb in your list, that will be more than enough, most likely, depends on what Apps you'll be using.

Overclocking? NO! You don't want to risk flakiness when creating Content. Especially Content that may be the culmination of Weeks or even Months of hard work.

Fill us in on what you are doing.

 

[Boztech]

Awesome build, I would however advise against the 4Gb of RAM for the reasons stated above, and also against the Tsunami case. I have on and it is fairly poorly constructed. The second door on the bezel cracked when I installed my DVD-RW, and the door for the top USB/Audio ports broke very easily and now has to stay closed. It is also unnecessarily loud with the stock fans in it.

If, as I'm geussing, money is not an issue, then you will be happy with the highest end parts no doubt. The 1Mb of L2 cache on the 4000+ alone will help alot in a development environment. No reason to sell yourself short because of the law of diminishing returns.

Also if you pay attention to Anand's latest reviews, you'll notice the higher end video cards such as the Ultra and the X850XT become CPU-limited at 1280 and above when run with a 3500+ or lower CPU. Personally I would only pair one of those cards with the fastest possible CPU to eliminate the bottleneck.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Guys, if you haven't noticed, he'll be doing *heavy* graphics and game *work*. That means he needs to load it all. Faster is better, saves us money if we buy the game.

4GB is the way to go for loading huge mofo fricking files.

 

[Boztech]

WinXP 32 cannot load more than 2Gb file, and the Athlon 64 memory controller has much trouble when all 4 DIMMs are filled. In fact, it will run your ram at DDR333 2T whether you like it or not.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Boztech
WinXP 32 cannot load more than 2Gb file, and the Athlon 64 memory controller has much trouble when all 4 DIMMs are filled. In fact, it will run your ram at DDR333 2T whether you like it or not.

For gaming your statements hold truth, but if he is going to do very heavy rendering more memory will help.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Windows XP can and will load more than 2GB. I've done it, though I learned my lesson never to try transfering 60-65GB files over a 10/100 connection...

 

[everman]

Looks good. I guess you're doing some serious work, so I would suggest a dual cpu setup since I believe all of your 3D development apps should take advantage of it. (you should double check) Dual Opertons would be the way to go.
4GB of ram is great, anyone telling you otherwise is thinking gaming, not development. (It's not exactly going to hurt in gaming on that beast anyways)

 

[Boztech]

Originally posted by: Kensai
Windows XP can and will load more than 2GB. I've done it, though I learned my lesson never to try transfering 60-65GB files over a 10/100 connection...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q294418

The 2-GB user-mode virtual memory limitation

64-bit programs use a 16-terabyte tuning model (8 terabytes User and 8 terabytes Kernel). 32-bit programs still use the 4-GB tuning model (2 GB User and 2 GB Kernel). This means that 32-bit processes that run on 64-bit versions of Windows run in a 4-GB tuning model (2 GB User and 2GB Kernel). 64-bit versions of Windows do not support the use of the /3GB switch in the boot options. Theoretically, a 64-bit pointer could address up to 16 exabytes. 64-bit versions of Windows have currently implemented up to 16 terabytes of address space.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: Boztech
WinXP 32 cannot load more than 2Gb file, and the Athlon 64 memory controller has much trouble when all 4 DIMMs are filled. In fact, it will run your ram at DDR333 2T whether you like it or not.

For gaming your statements hold truth, but if he is going to do very heavy rendering more memory will help.

32-bit Windows is limited to 2GB without using hacks which can extend the addressing space further. But the hacks do not remove the limit of 2GB per application, so getting anything more would be pretty pointless, you'd never use it. The hacks also inflict about a 10% performance hit according to MS, so not only will the extra memory not be useful, it will actually make your system slower under all circumstances.

That RAID controller is a piece of junk. If you seriously believe you need RAID 5, 3-Ware is the only way to go.

 

[Diasper]

If it is that heavy go for dual opterons with 2GB of RAM. I guess to use more you'll need to start looking at Linux possibly although I'm not keyed up on how everything would work then.

Otherwise, if you're going down the single core route you might want to consider the 3700 san diego if it's cheaper than the 4000. Just depends.

Opterons seem more natural for that work however.



Also do get a quality case - midi tower I'd recommend the Antec 3000B else I'd start looking at Silverstone for a stylish and more elegant case with not quite as good cooling.


Further suggestions:
- unless going dual cpu that PSU is overkill.
- would this situation benefit from NCQ? Maxtor's hardrives - it might be worth looking at another manufacturer if you can (Seagate *cough*)

 

[uOpt]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: Boztech
WinXP 32 cannot load more than 2Gb file, and the Athlon 64 memory controller has much trouble when all 4 DIMMs are filled. In fact, it will run your ram at DDR333 2T whether you like it or not.

For gaming your statements hold truth, but if he is going to do very heavy rendering more memory will help.

32-bit Windows is limited to 2GB without using hacks which can extend the addressing space further. But the hacks do not remove the limit of 2GB per application, so getting anything more would be pretty pointless, you'd never use it. The hacks also inflict about a 10% performance hit according to MS, so not only will the extra memory not be useful, it will actually make your system slower under all circumstances.

That RAID controller is a piece of junk. If you seriously believe you need RAID 5, 3-Ware is the only way to go.

The "hacks" (forget the MS name) actually give you more than 2 GB memory without the need to drop and reestablish mappings on your own. However, they suck, they are pretty much what you used to have > 64 KB in DOS 3.3.

Then, some Windos variants allow you to push the userland/kernel barrier up so that you have 3 GB virtual address space in userland, just like Linux and FreeBSD offer by default. Except for Linux you can run the 4GB/4GB patch (now mostly defunct) to get 4 GB - 20 MB virtual address space per application.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Don't ask me, I've opened files bigger than 2GB. That's all I can tell you. Where they went is another matter.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: Boztech
WinXP 32 cannot load more than 2Gb file, and the Athlon 64 memory controller has much trouble when all 4 DIMMs are filled. In fact, it will run your ram at DDR333 2T whether you like it or not.

For gaming your statements hold truth, but if he is going to do very heavy rendering more memory will help.

32-bit Windows is limited to 2GB without using hacks which can extend the addressing space further. But the hacks do not remove the limit of 2GB per application, so getting anything more would be pretty pointless, you'd never use it. The hacks also inflict about a 10% performance hit according to MS, so not only will the extra memory not be useful, it will actually make your system slower under all circumstances.

That RAID controller is a piece of junk. If you seriously believe you need RAID 5, 3-Ware is the only way to go.

The "hacks" (forget the MS name) actually give you more than 2 GB memory without the need to drop and reestablish mappings on your own. However, they suck, they are pretty much what you used to have > 64 KB in DOS 3.3.

Then, some Windos variants allow you to push the userland/kernel barrier up so that you have 3 GB virtual address space in userland, just like Linux and FreeBSD offer by default. Except for Linux you can run the 4GB/4GB patch (now mostly defunct) to get 4 GB - 20 MB virtual address space per application.

There are couple hack switches. PAE (Physical Address Extension), and a 3GB switch.

With AWE (Address Windowing Extensions), applications can address more than 2GB of RAM, but the application has to be specifically coded to take advantage of the feature. No graphics programs I'm aware of support it.

The amount of RAM you have has no bearing on how large a file you can open. They're unrelated issues.

 

[Orre]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
Nothing is wrong w/ your system if you want top of the line, but as CheesePoofs suggested you could go w/ slightly lesser parts and not lose that much performance but save tons of cash. as an FYI I'd go w/ only 2GB of Ram as 4 sticks forces you to go to a 2T CMD rate which is a bad thing, otherwise everything looks good.

Edit: also as an FYI I would not do raid 5 unless you have a card w/ write cache, it's write performance w/out a cacheing controler is truely aweful (worse than a single drive in most cases) I'd suggest raid 0+1 if your going w/ 4 drives or add an Areca ARC-1120 (broadcom based) card or LSI Logic Megaraid based Sata raid card w/ at least 64mb of cache.

So if i choose to change the raid controller card to a Promise SATA150 Fasttrak RAID SX4M 64MB i would be a wise man?

And i guess 4gb of ram is overkill, but 2gb i need, that is what i have right now and some of our inhouse apps need 2gb ram to run. I'm currently looking at these:

4x 512mb - OCZ EL DDR PC-5000 Dual Channel Platinum DFI nF4 Special

2x 1gb - OCZ DDR PC-3200 2GB Dual Channel

Someone said that useing all 4 slots is a bad idea.... but they are alot faster? right?

 

[Orre]

Originally posted by: Boztech
Awesome build, I would however advise against the 4Gb of RAM for the reasons stated above, and also against the Tsunami case. I have on and it is fairly poorly constructed. The second door on the bezel cracked when I installed my DVD-RW, and the door for the top USB/Audio ports broke very easily and now has to stay closed. It is also unnecessarily loud with the stock fans in it.

If, as I'm geussing, money is not an issue, then you will be happy with the highest end parts no doubt. The 1Mb of L2 cache on the 4000+ alone will help alot in a development environment. No reason to sell yourself short because of the law of diminishing returns.

Also if you pay attention to Anand's latest reviews, you'll notice the higher end video cards such as the Ultra and the X850XT become CPU-limited at 1280 and above when run with a 3500+ or lower CPU. Personally I would only pair one of those cards with the fastest possible CPU to eliminate the bottleneck.

Thanx for the good advises.... and no, the price isn't an issue, i'm getting it all for free. *yeeeha* Thats why i'm even considering 4gb of ram... because it's free.. But i wont take it if it makes my computer slower of course!. That would be stupid.

So the changes so far will be:

1. Look for another Raid controller card that have at least 64mb cache
2. Go for 2gb of ram instead of 4gb. Any suggestions for a 2gb ram setup?
3. Consider antoher case, Tsunami sux
4. Go for AMD Athlon64 FX-55 2600MHz or an Dual Opteron system to take full advantage of the SLI conected Ultra cards
5. Change to Segate disks because RAID5 doesn't use the 16mb cache on the Maxtor disks anyways?
6. Go for OCZ Powerstream PSU 520W EU ATX because 600W is overkill

did i forget anything?

 

[Orre]

Originally posted by: Kensai
Bleh, I'd switch it around:

Tyan K8WE
1 X Opteron 275 (Get another one later unless you can afford 2)
4 GB PC3200 ECC Reg
nVidia Quadro FX 3400, 4400
Lian Li v2000B
Antec 550W EPS12V TP2.0

Same other specs, and the K8N Neo4 Platinum doesn't support PCI-X by the way.

??... the MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 Ultra does not support PCI-X you say.... but the raid controller card HighPoint RocketRaid 1810A, 4-ch serial SATA RAID PCI-X does?... so, is there any problems?... to be honest, i don't realy know what PCI-X stands for.... and what it does...

 

[MobiusPizza]

If price isn't an issue dual opterons is the way to go; Since developing anything is better on server class equipments...

Using 2x1GB sticks is a better choice currently. Get EEC registered RAM for dual opteron setup

As you are "developing" games you ought to use workstation class 3D cards such as Quadro FX; etc.

The gaming cards are for gaming only. They don't compute accurate geometries for used in CAD

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: Orre

Originally posted by: Kensai
Bleh, I'd switch it around:

Tyan K8WE
1 X Opteron 275 (Get another one later unless you can afford 2)
4 GB PC3200 ECC Reg
nVidia Quadro FX 3400, 4400
Lian Li v2000B
Antec 550W EPS12V TP2.0

Same other specs, and the K8N Neo4 Platinum doesn't support PCI-X by the way.

??... the MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 Ultra does not support PCI-X you say.... but the raid controller card HighPoint RocketRaid 1810A, 4-ch serial SATA RAID PCI-X does?... so, is there any problems?... to be honest, i don't realy know what PCI-X stands for.... and what it does...

PCI-X is the long 66Mhz PCI slot that is commonly seen on server class motherboards. Most RAID controllers that has built in RISC processors (Which is required for RAID 5) run in PCI-X slots. If you are getting a harddisk controller for RAID 5 you would need a PCI-X slot. The Tyan server motherboards would have it.

Also the opterons would run on socket 940 motherboards. They will need the more expensive ECC registered ram otherwise it wouldn't work.