Gurus only: Ultra-high end build

[SpeedZealot369]

What's the computer's purpose? Gaming?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Daemach
I made some extra money this month, and I need to spend it on hardware for tax reasons. Here's what I'm looking at now:

Quad-core QX6700 or X6800 Extreme (QX is hard to find and overpriced atm)
ASUS Striker Extreme 680i
2 BFG/DangerDen water cooled G8800GTX in SLI
2GB Corsair PC8500 RAM
4 320GB Western Digital 3gb SATA in RAID5
CM Stacker case with water cooling mods: (http://www.svc.com/svc-stc-t01-ubk.html)
HP or Dell 30" monitor

I'm hoping to OC to at least 3.5-4GHz - higher if possible.

Does anyone see any problems with this build other than availability?

The ads for the procs say they have a 1066 FSB. PC8500 RAM is 1066, and the striker extreme ads say the mobo supports 1333/1066/800 FSB. It also says DDR2 800 standard. ASUS's product page says "With the highest speed up to 800MHz..." What gives here? Am I going to get 1066 MHz bus with this config or not? Striker Extreme)

I would love to see the guys at Anand build this machine

Spending $10,000 is easy to do with computer hardware. The QX6700 can easily be found on ebay selling for $1,000-1,300.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Daemach
I made some extra money this month, and I need to spend it on hardware for tax reasons. Here's what I'm looking at now:

Quad-core QX6700 or X6800 Extreme (QX is hard to find and overpriced atm)
ASUS Striker Extreme 680i
2 BFG/DangerDen water cooled G8800GTX in SLI
2GB Corsair PC8500 RAM
4 320GB Western Digital 3gb SATA in RAID5
CM Stacker case with water cooling mods: (http://www.svc.com/svc-stc-t01-ubk.html)
HP or Dell 30" monitor

I'm hoping to OC to at least 3.5-4GHz - higher if possible.

Does anyone see any problems with this build other than availability?

The ads for the procs say they have a 1066 FSB. PC8500 RAM is 1066, and the striker extreme ads say the mobo supports 1333/1066/800 FSB. It also says DDR2 800 standard. ASUS's product page says "With the highest speed up to 800MHz..." What gives here? Am I going to get 1066 MHz bus with this config or not? Striker Extreme)

I would love to see the guys at Anand build this machine

Spending $10,000 is easy to do with computer hardware. The QX6700 can easily be found on ebay selling for $1,000-1,300. I would recomend you get a good LSI SAS raid* card with a pair of 15k.4 SAS drives.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en...e+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

*LSI has super good drivers and bios.

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: benplaut
Spend 2000 on a nice, high end build. In a year, spend another 2000. Etc.

generaLLy i agree - if you hold some money back from buying the fastest, you get more computers to add to your collection.

Imelda had shoes. we have computers.

BUT ... the OP said something about "taxes" and, if it's a Section 179 deduction, that allows you to expense stuff that would normally be depreciated.

i had this happen in about 1993. i had a table set up at Fort Mason and some guy wanted to buy a Mac ... FAST. this was on about December 31. you could tell he was seriously stressed. maybe he had 2 double expresso's. anyway, he was going on about having to spend $6000 THEN - today.

i tried to interest him in buying $6000 worth of 5 1/4" floopy drives, from me, but, i was not able to close that sale.

i would say, start with the monitor and the computer chair. (a La-Z-Boy). for the monitor, 1920 x 1080 resolution, maybe.

 

[BOLt]

Originally posted by: JargonGR
Regarding the 30" Monitor bear in Mind that Dell has anounced the new model with which has a 92% colour gamut instead the 76% of the current one. This will compete with the HP model which is currently out so either wait or search for info on the HP model to get an idea of how the new Dell will perform. I am going for a 30" model too but honestly I am a bit dissappointed with the current state of the LCDs. Anyway check Hardforum at the Dispaly section for info on those 30" some users have got the new HP and there is discussion about it.

Yeah, wait for the new Dell. Good call, JargonGR.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: Daemach
I made some extra money this month, and I need to spend it on hardware for tax reasons. Here's what I'm looking at now:

Quad-core QX6700 or X6800 Extreme (QX is hard to find and overpriced atm)
ASUS Striker Extreme 680i
2 BFG/DangerDen water cooled G8800GTX in SLI
2GB Corsair PC8500 RAM
4 320GB Western Digital 3gb SATA in RAID5
CM Stacker case with water cooling mods: (http://www.svc.com/svc-stc-t01-ubk.html)
HP or Dell 30" monitor

I'm hoping to OC to at least 3.5-4GHz - higher if possible.

Does anyone see any problems with this build other than availability?

The ads for the procs say they have a 1066 FSB. PC8500 RAM is 1066, and the striker extreme ads say the mobo supports 1333/1066/800 FSB. It also says DDR2 800 standard. ASUS's product page says "With the highest speed up to 800MHz..." What gives here? Am I going to get 1066 MHz bus with this config or not? Striker Extreme)

I would love to see the guys at Anand build this machine

Spending $10,000 is easy to do with computer hardware. The QX6700 can easily be found on ebay selling for $1,000-1,300. I would recomend you get a good LSI SAS raid* card with a pair of 15k.4 SAS drives.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en...e+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

*LSI has super good drivers and bios.

if you are going scsi get a fujitsu max series and some 15k.5 drives (perpendicular recording and a str of over 100MB/s for a single drive)

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: Daemach
I made some extra money this month, and I need to spend it on hardware for tax reasons. Here's what I'm looking at now:

Quad-core QX6700 or X6800 Extreme (QX is hard to find and overpriced atm)
ASUS Striker Extreme 680i
2 BFG/DangerDen water cooled G8800GTX in SLI
2GB Corsair PC8500 RAM
4 320GB Western Digital 3gb SATA in RAID5
CM Stacker case with water cooling mods: (http://www.svc.com/svc-stc-t01-ubk.html)
HP or Dell 30" monitor

I'm hoping to OC to at least 3.5-4GHz - higher if possible.

Does anyone see any problems with this build other than availability?

The ads for the procs say they have a 1066 FSB. PC8500 RAM is 1066, and the striker extreme ads say the mobo supports 1333/1066/800 FSB. It also says DDR2 800 standard. ASUS's product page says "With the highest speed up to 800MHz..." What gives here? Am I going to get 1066 MHz bus with this config or not? Striker Extreme)

I would love to see the guys at Anand build this machine

Spending $10,000 is easy to do with computer hardware. The QX6700 can easily be found on ebay selling for $1,000-1,300. I would recomend you get a good LSI SAS raid* card with a pair of 15k.4 SAS drives.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en...e+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

*LSI has super good drivers and bios.

if you are going scsi get a fujitsu max series and some 15k.5 drives (perpendicular recording and a str of over 100MB/s for a single drive)

I love SCSI and it is fun to configure, but I give you a BIG NO to your recomendation for him to buy in to a dying technology.

SCSI is on the way out and SAS is it's replacement. SAS controllers also have the advantage of being reverse compatable with SATA drives (possibly PATA via SATA-PATA adapter). So that you could at least buy a SAS controller now with 7,200-10,000RPM SATA drives and later on upgrade to 15,000RPM later when it is more convienent.Buy a SAS controller today and expect to get 5-7 years of use out of it. Maybe 8 years.

Later on I will present a list of parts for you to choose from.


(Nothing quite like consistant 120MB/s transfer rates vs 70-80MB/s for raptors)

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: Daemach
I made some extra money this month, and I need to spend it on hardware for tax reasons. Here's what I'm looking at now:

Quad-core QX6700 or X6800 Extreme (QX is hard to find and overpriced atm)
ASUS Striker Extreme 680i
2 BFG/DangerDen water cooled G8800GTX in SLI
2GB Corsair PC8500 RAM
4 320GB Western Digital 3gb SATA in RAID5
CM Stacker case with water cooling mods: (http://www.svc.com/svc-stc-t01-ubk.html)
HP or Dell 30" monitor

I'm hoping to OC to at least 3.5-4GHz - higher if possible.

Does anyone see any problems with this build other than availability?

The ads for the procs say they have a 1066 FSB. PC8500 RAM is 1066, and the striker extreme ads say the mobo supports 1333/1066/800 FSB. It also says DDR2 800 standard. ASUS's product page says "With the highest speed up to 800MHz..." What gives here? Am I going to get 1066 MHz bus with this config or not? Striker Extreme)

I would love to see the guys at Anand build this machine

Spending $10,000 is easy to do with computer hardware. The QX6700 can easily be found on ebay selling for $1,000-1,300. I would recomend you get a good LSI SAS raid* card with a pair of 15k.4 SAS drives.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en...e+Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

*LSI has super good drivers and bios.

if you are going scsi get a fujitsu max series and some 15k.5 drives (perpendicular recording and a str of over 100MB/s for a single drive)

Fujitsu is the speed king.

For a File Server or high I/O operation, Seagate is the way to go and for a gaming machine Fujitsu is better tailored to that kind of disk access.

Retail Box Means that when things go wrong you get a Warranty and techincal support. OEM is not worth it because the savings is not that great. If the OEM drive were half the price of a Retail box then I would be in favor of OEM. (By the way newegg.com is one of the more expensive places to shop for SAS products)

 

[Googer]

Before I post my $7,000 list of components, I would like to give a word to wisdom. Spend 1,000-2,400 on either a new computer or upgrades. Then take the remaining 5,000-6,000 and spend it on a good stock or mutual fund and depending on your choice you could have from 12,000 to 70,000 in as little as six months! Six months ago a family member (in my family) put $3,000 in to one stock and today it is worth $33,000!

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Googer
Before I post my $7,000 list of components, I would like to give a word to wisdom. Spend 1,000-2,400 on either a new computer or upgrades. Then take the remaining 5,000-6,000 and spend it on a good stock or mutual fund and depending on your choice you could have from 12,000 to 70,000 in as little as six months! Six months ago a family member (in my family) put $3,000 in to one stock and today it is worth $33,000!

/end of thread.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Googer
Before I post my $7,000 list of components, I would like to give a word to wisdom. Spend 1,000-2,400 on either a new computer or upgrades. Then take the remaining 5,000-6,000 and spend it on a good stock or mutual fund and depending on your choice you could have from 12,000 to 70,000 in as little as six months! Six months ago a family member (in my family) put $3,000 in to one stock and today it is worth $33,000!

where did he get the advice for the stock? i have some cash piling up and all it is currently doing is sitting in ing....as i have't had time to do research and/or the knowledge to look into this type of stuff. any links you can post me in? sorry for the thread hijack, just need to move some $$$ into an accout where it is making some $$$ at a decent pace instead of 4.5%

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Googer
Before I post my $7,000 list of components, I would like to give a word to wisdom. Spend 1,000-2,400 on either a new computer or upgrades. Then take the remaining 5,000-6,000 and spend it on a good stock or mutual fund and depending on your choice you could have from 12,000 to 70,000 in as little as six months! Six months ago a family member (in my family) put $3,000 in to one stock and today it is worth $33,000!

where did he get the advice for the stock? i have some cash piling up and all it is currently doing is sitting in ing....as i have't had time to do research and/or the knowledge to look into this type of stuff. any links you can post me in? sorry for the thread hijack, just need to move some $$$ into an accout where it is making some $$$ at a decent pace instead of 4.5%

I am not going to give out finacial advice. You and a competent broker will have to figure it out. Two places that I have heard were decent sources are:

http://www.mutualfundstore.com/ (search for a local shop)
and Dave Ramsey, use his site to find a carefully screened advisor.

http://www.daveramsey.com/sa/mutualfunds/

 

[benplaut]

Originally posted by: SpeedZealot369
What's the computer's purpose? Gaming?

for 7500, this computer should be the absolute best at anything you throw at it

 

[LtPage1]

I say throw in 4GB of RAM- with that huge of a monitor (and with 4 cores to help you take advantage of it all), I bet you'd notice the difference.

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: ND40oz

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
for what though? gaming or workstation?

if you want a workstation, the get a Mac Pro like Baked said.

If you want a real workstation, get a Dell Precision 690, it's cheaper then the MacPro once you add options and it actually allows you to run dual 2 slot cards. Or build your own dual woodcrest or clovertown workstation.

the Mac Pro allows dual 2 slot cards. also, all of its slots are PCI-E x16 so that's good for graphic guys. the downside of it is that you need FB-DIMM's which are expensive.

not apple's fault and i assume it will be a requirment of any dual woodcrest or clovertown rig. also, the MacPro works (that is recognizes with out any EFI upgrade) dual clovertown's which allows for easy future upgradability.

all in all though, buying a high end rig is usually a bad idea. for a budget rig, it's better to buy it. but for a high-end rig, you pay a hefty premium usually.

just build it OP.

 

[SuperNaruto]

Originally posted by: LtPage1
I say throw in 4GB of RAM- with that huge of a monitor (and with 4 cores to help you take advantage of it all), I bet you'd notice the difference.

quad core should be given 8gb or more memory.. money to burn right ?

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug
$7500 to spend and you go with 2gig instead of 4??

lol that was my first thought too

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
CM Stacker case - $500

$500 ? ? ? ??

Which model? Is that with a ton of mods / water cooling stuff included?

Even the fancy schmancy Stacker 830 Evolution nVidia Edition is only $300.

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: bob4432
where did he get the advice for the stock? i have some cash piling up and all it is currently doing is sitting in ing....as i have't had time to do research and/or the knowledge to look into this type of stuff. any links you can post me in? sorry for the thread hijack, just need to move some $$$ into an accout where it is making some $$$ at a decent pace instead of 4.5%

Plastics.

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: benplaut

Originally posted by: SpeedZealot369
What's the computer's purpose? Gaming?

for 7500, this computer should be the absolute best at anything you throw at it

Not true / not possible.

All thgese have different purposes and different parts:
best quiet media center pc: Lots of tuners, lots of storage, moderate processor (possibly underclocked or a mobile core 2 duo), 2D-centric video card, sound card with great outputs, very expensive speakers and monitor and cabling.
best rip-roaring gaming pc: Fastest core 2 duo processor, light storage (too much just saps your power supply), lots of ram, SLI 8800's, sharp fast response time monitor
best pro audio workstation: focus on sound quality and software; great speakers, great audio (not gaming) sound card, pro tools, two monitors. Actually a mac pro with protools would be your best bet.
best video editing pc: 4 cores, video software, multiple huges monitor, hardware video encoding, good sound, tons of storage, lots of ram.

When you start talking really high end, like pro tools or avid video editing workstations, $7500 doesn't go as far as you might think.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: SuperNaruto

Originally posted by: LtPage1
I say throw in 4GB of RAM- with that huge of a monitor (and with 4 cores to help you take advantage of it all), I bet you'd notice the difference.

quad core should be given 8gb or more memory.. money to burn right ?

then a 64bit os is needed and xp64 doesn't have good driver support...so either run the linux or be stuck with the 3.25GB that 32bit xp will give you

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: SuperNaruto

Originally posted by: LtPage1
I say throw in 4GB of RAM- with that huge of a monitor (and with 4 cores to help you take advantage of it all), I bet you'd notice the difference.

quad core should be given 8gb or more memory.. money to burn right ?

then a 64bit os is needed and xp64 doesn't have good driver support...so either run the linux or be stuck with the 3.25GB that 32bit xp will give you

Or you can throw in 64bit Vista in January. Vista 64bit should (key word), have much better support than XP64.

 

[ND40oz]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster

Originally posted by: ND40oz

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
for what though? gaming or workstation?

if you want a workstation, the get a Mac Pro like Baked said.

If you want a real workstation, get a Dell Precision 690, it's cheaper then the MacPro once you add options and it actually allows you to run dual 2 slot cards. Or build your own dual woodcrest or clovertown workstation.

the Mac Pro allows dual 2 slot cards. also, all of its slots are PCI-E x16 so that's good for graphic guys. the downside of it is that you need FB-DIMM's which are expensive.

not apple's fault and i assume it will be a requirment of any dual woodcrest or clovertown rig. also, the MacPro works (that is recognizes with out any EFI upgrade) dual clovertown's which allows for easy future upgradability.

all in all though, buying a high end rig is usually a bad idea. for a budget rig, it's better to buy it. but for a high-end rig, you pay a hefty premium usually.

just build it OP.

Take a look at how you can configure the lanes to the PCIe slots on the MacPro. You cannot configure x8 and x8 to the two slots that would allow you to run 2 dual slots cards. The best option you'll have is an x16 slot and an x4 slot, not exactly ideal for high end video.

PCIe lan options for MacPro

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: SuperNaruto

Originally posted by: LtPage1
I say throw in 4GB of RAM- with that huge of a monitor (and with 4 cores to help you take advantage of it all), I bet you'd notice the difference.

quad core should be given 8gb or more memory.. money to burn right ?

then a 64bit os is needed and xp64 doesn't have good driver support...so either run the linux or be stuck with the 3.25GB that 32bit xp will give you

Or you can throw in 64bit Vista in January. Vista 64bit should (key word), have much better support than XP64.

good luck it will be interesting to see how the 32bit version of that works once it is getting used by all the people who are getting their first computer with their tax return checks....let alone the 64bit version. personally i ran win2kpro on my main rig (still use it on my home server) until i was forced to upgrade by some software i really used a lot, so i am sure i will be doing the same with xp.

 

[avi85]

Where's the OP?