High performance computing

[bozilla]

Hi guys!

I own pretty powerful computer right now, but I'm just not satisfied completely with it's speed. I think it might be Windows XP limitations or whatever that somehow really bogs this machine down. I mean it's fast, but I expected it to perform lightning fast.

Current configuration:
- Dual Xeons 3.6Ghz Nocona
- ASUS NCCH-DL mobo
- 4 Gb of DDR400 ram OCZ High Performance (unbuffered)
- ATI X800XT Platinum Edition video card (AGP)
- WD Raptor 74gb (OS drive)
- 300 Gb Seagate 7200.8 SATA drive (data drive)
- DVD drive and DVD-R drive this is less important

Now, with the introduction of new technologies I was wondering if there's anything out there that would run faster then this machine. I mean, I'm not interested in like 5% difference, but something a bit more faster. I'll spend $4-$5k, maybe even more on the new machine so money is not really a problem.

If there's something that works lightning fast. I need it and I would suggest if you could post your suggestions with detailed specs.

I use the machine for graphic design (Adobe Creative Suite 2 and Adobe After Effects), 3d visualization (3ds max), web development (Macromedia Flash and the whole Macromedia 2004 suite, now new Studio 8 when it comes out) and of course gaming. Because I game I would really prefer high performance gamer cards instead of one workstation board like FireGL or Quadros because 3d visualization is really like the last thing I do. My primary machine mostly does design and development stuff first then I add effects or 3d when I work on some projects.

I'm just upset because it seems that the fastest/latest technology today seems to be actually slower then previous generation of machines (read dual-core CPUs clocked at much slower speeds then their single core counterparts).

Also please keep in mind that I have 3 big LCDs connected to my current machine so DVIs are also important.

I would really appreciate your responses, because I'm getting a bit frustrated.

Thanks.

 

[dguy6789]

You would want to build a Dual Opteron 275 machine.

You would then want lots of ram. Depending on your harddisk usage, you may want raid, so consider that when you look at mainboards.

Depending on whether you game or not, you can buy NF4 Pro boards for dual opterons which support sli, so you could sli up some 7800GTXs and have the best gaming performance possible.

 

[bozilla]

dguy, thanks for replying. My question is (and I read about the benchmarks of the Dream Machine 2005 in Maximum PC), aren't dual core Opterons actually a lot slower? They admitted that their 2005 Dual dual-core Opteron machine is in several test slower then their FX55 zero-point system. I believe they run at 2.2Ghz. Since some of the applications I mentioned are single threaded, 275 Opterons would actually run slower then my current machine. I guess, I need dual core CPUs that run at higher frequency. Something closer to FX57.

I don't really need to get the new machine now, so I can wait. Does anyone know if higher clocked dual core opterons or X2s would come out? If there were Fx57s for dual dual-core application that would be pretty much what I am looking for.

 

[RichUK]

Motherboard - TyanThunder K8WE with the new NF4 MCP 2200 (not 2050) chipset

Processors - dual core opteron 275's .. quad core = teh WINNER !!!

2x EVGA or BFG 7800 GTX's in SLI

as much RAM as you want (8 slots upto 16Gb) nice expensive ECC tho

ultra 320 68pin PCI-x SCSI controller card with 15k atlas drives

if not using SLI then XFI sound card, as there is only one PCI slot in the midlle of the 2 x16 PCI-e slots, which means that if running SLI then you will have to use onboard sound .. oh teh noes

NOTE: you can not use a normal PCI card in a 3.3+ or 5+ volt PCI-x slot, unless the card stipulates otherwise

also get a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 850W SSI Power Supply, for some SLI capable 850 watt goodness

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: bozilla
dguy, thanks for replying. My question is (and I read about the benchmarks of the Dream Machine 2005 in Maximum PC), aren't dual core Opterons actually a lot slower? They admitted that their 2005 Dual dual-core Opteron machine is in several test slower then their FX55 zero-point system. I believe they run at 2.2Ghz. Since some of the applications I mentioned are single threaded, 275 Opterons would actually run slower then my current machine. I guess, I need dual core CPUs that run at higher frequency. Something closer to FX57.

I don't really need to get the new machine now, so I can wait. Does anyone know if higher clocked dual core opterons or X2s would come out? If there were Fx57s for dual dual-core application that would be pretty much what I am looking for.

it all depends on what you wanna use it for .. i mean SMP able apps or not

if you want dual core goodness, close to the FX57 speed, the only thing i could recommend is a x2 4800+ and OC it on water to 2.6/2.7, or use a promie to get to 2.8/3.0 Ghz

 

[bozilla]

well let's say that I get what you suggested. What operating system? This machine will probably have same problems I have now with 32bit XP Pro, poor multi-processor handling and 4Gb of RAM that are totally not used fully. Most apps on 32bit XP Pro use only up to 2Gb of RAM. Another problem that pisses me off.

 

[bozilla]

Originally posted by: RichUK

Originally posted by: bozilla
dguy, thanks for replying. My question is (and I read about the benchmarks of the Dream Machine 2005 in Maximum PC), aren't dual core Opterons actually a lot slower? They admitted that their 2005 Dual dual-core Opteron machine is in several test slower then their FX55 zero-point system. I believe they run at 2.2Ghz. Since some of the applications I mentioned are single threaded, 275 Opterons would actually run slower then my current machine. I guess, I need dual core CPUs that run at higher frequency. Something closer to FX57.

I don't really need to get the new machine now, so I can wait. Does anyone know if higher clocked dual core opterons or X2s would come out? If there were Fx57s for dual dual-core application that would be pretty much what I am looking for.

it all depends on what you wanna use it for .. i mean SMP able apps or not

if you want dual core goodness, close to the FX57 speed, the only thing i could recommend is a x2 4800+ and OC it on water to 2.6/2.7, or use a promie to get to 2.8/3.0 Ghz

The problem with apps is that it's like 30/70% ratio and I really need the machine to blast through both SMP and single threaded apps. That's the biggest problem now.

That's why I need something closer to FX57 speeds per core that would handle single threaded apps blazing fast as well.

 

[Bona Fide]

Originally posted by: bozilla
well let's say that I get what you suggested. What operating system? This machine will probably have same problems I have now with 32bit XP Pro, poor multi-processor handling and 4Gb of RAM that are totally not used fully. Most apps on 32bit XP Pro use only up to 2Gb of RAM. Another problem that pisses me off.

Get Windows XP x64.

Also, I really think that for a workstation, dual Opterons is really the only way to go. But if you want FX-57 speeds, get a 4800+ X2 and watercooling, and overclock it to 2.8GHz.

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: bozilla
well let's say that I get what you suggested. What operating system? This machine will probably have same problems I have now with 32bit XP Pro, poor multi-processor handling and 4Gb of RAM that are totally not used fully. Most apps on 32bit XP Pro use only up to 2Gb of RAM. Another problem that pisses me off.

true true .. i forgot that windows xp pro can only address to a total of 4 Gb's physical/virtual memory.

i would recommend maybe using 4 gigs of RAM instead of 16gig lol (on a s939 platform), and use windows xp pro. Since XP pro can only address 4 gigabytes of memory, that would mean that you could get rid of your paging file and use the whole 4 Gig of RAM without the bottle neck of using the swap file .. i wonder what the performance would be on that, if you used enough progs to utilise that amount of RAM that is, lol I suppose you could run two instances of BF2, but I don?t think the API supports two concurrent games.

And by the looks of current day tech, the opteron 275 runs at 2.2Ghz which is AMD?s highest clocked opteron, and it will be a little while for the next release, of what I presume to be 2.4Ghz ?285?, and 2.6Ghz ?295? dual core opterons. And the next release on the s939 platform is to be the 5000+ 2.6 Ghz dual core, according to the AMD road maps (H1 2006 release).

So unless you want to wait until the next platform, which is the AMD socket M2 with DDR2 support, you might want to look into to getting a 4800+ X2 and possibly OC it, I think I have seen review where the 4800+ excels past the FX55 at stock clock :shocked:. But of course if you OC it you might run into stability issues, and depending on how mission critical your work is, it might not be good idea.

Ohh and I wouldn?t personally recommend XP64 as its driver/kernel support for other progs is awful at the moment, loads of compatibility issues .

 

[Vee]

The very first thing you should do, is to suspect throttling.
It was a bit hard to figure out if your Pentium/Xeon was throttling or not before 'Throttlewatch', a piece of software I believe you should be able to find.

Unfortunately I do not know the situation for two CPUs. But again, I would expect it to be hard to find out. Throttling1 has to be benchmarked to discover. It's the only way.

Regardless, if I had anything like 3.6GHz from Intel, and expected to use it heavily, I'd go for a really beefy cooling solution. Maybe even watercooling.
I'm not 100% sure Zalman 7700Cu is enough for 3.6GHz, but that's another suggestion.
- And turn up the fans.

IMO you did pick the wrong CPU manufacturer . But I also feel there is not a terribly big point in changing that now. For most things there are only a few % to be gained, and that's not what you're after. Suspect throttling first.
Then get SCSI harddrives. That's another suggestion.

If those things don't help, you really have to wait for more multithreaded software and multicore CPUs. Execution speed is not going to pick up much pace until we're there.
Nothing to do about it, sorry. But as I've already said, - there is a very good chance your 3.6GHz throttles. I even believe they actually usually do.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: bozilla
Hi guys!

I own pretty powerful computer right now, but I'm just not satisfied completely with it's speed. I think it might be Windows XP limitations or whatever that somehow really bogs this machine down. I mean it's fast, but I expected it to perform lightning fast.

Current configuration:
- Dual Xeons 3.6Ghz Nocona
- ASUS NCCH-DL mobo
- 4 Gb of DDR400 ram OCZ High Performance (unbuffered)
- ATI X800XT Platinum Edition video card (AGP)
- WD Raptor 74gb (OS drive)
- 300 Gb Seagate 7200.8 SATA drive (data drive)
- DVD drive and DVD-R drive this is less important

Now, with the introduction of new technologies I was wondering if there's anything out there that would run faster then this machine. I mean, I'm not interested in like 5% difference, but something a bit more faster. I'll spend $4-$5k, maybe even more on the new machine so money is not really a problem.

If there's something that works lightning fast. I need it and I would suggest if you could post your suggestions with detailed specs.

I use the machine for graphic design (Adobe Creative Suite 2 and Adobe After Effects), 3d visualization (3ds max), web development (Macromedia Flash and the whole Macromedia 2004 suite, now new Studio 8 when it comes out) and of course gaming. Because I game I would really prefer high performance gamer cards instead of one workstation board like FireGL or Quadros because 3d visualization is really like the last thing I do. My primary machine mostly does design and development stuff first then I add effects or 3d when I work on some projects.

I'm just upset because it seems that the fastest/latest technology today seems to be actually slower then previous generation of machines (read dual-core CPUs clocked at much slower speeds then their single core counterparts).

Also please keep in mind that I have 3 big LCDs connected to my current machine so DVIs are also important.

I would really appreciate your responses, because I'm getting a bit frustrated.

Thanks.

1. More memory for the Adobe apps...both Photoshop and After Effects will generally use all you can give.
2. Memory allocation is crucial...Please read this note from Adobe.
3. You might consider using a raid built of the i-Ram disks as a scratch disk as well...

While the Xeon isn't the best choice today, it probably was when you bought the system. Because most of what you're doing isn't heavily multi-threaded, you would probably only see a 10-15% increase going to a dualcore Opteron system. Your best bet is to tweak the system you have now...


Edit: Oh yeah...and always listen to Vee...she's usually correct!

 

[GuitarDaddy]

1. As stated before, check for throttling
2. Use MS server 2003 not XP
3. More ram

 

[dguy6789]

You will unlikely be limited by an Opteron 275' "low" 2.2Ghz clock speed. Keep in mind that a 2.4Ghz Athlon 64 is around as fast as a 3.8Ghz P4.

What I would reccomend would be to get

2 AMD Opteron 275 Processors
Windows XP Pro x64(For 64 bit apps as well as support for huge amounts of memory)
Get one of the Tyan NF4 Pro mainboards
Geforce 7800GTX, two if you really want some speed
If you want really fast harddrive access, then I would raid 2 74GB raptors, and then have like a 300-500GB harddrive(or 2) for mass storage.
For powersupply, I would get the Enermax Noisetaker 600W as it is very powerful and imo the best bang for the buck at that price range.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
1. As stated before, check for throttling
2. Use MS server 2003 not XP
3. More ram

Why Server for a workstation?

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
You will unlikely be limited by an Opteron 275' "low" 2.2Ghz clock speed. Keep in mind that a 2.4Ghz Athlon 64 is around as fast as a 3.8Ghz P4.

What I would reccomend would be to get

2 AMD Opteron 275 Processors
Windows XP Pro x64(For 64 bit apps as well as support for huge amounts of memory)
Get one of the Tyan NF4 Pro mainboards
Geforce 7800GTX, two if you really want some speed
If you want really fast harddrive access, then I would raid 2 74GB raptors, and then have like a 300-500GB harddrive(or 2) for mass storage.
For powersupply, I would get the Enermax Noisetaker 600W as it is very powerful and imo the best bang for the buck at that price range.

The 7800GTX isn't really the best choice for his situation...remember that we're talking about a rendering workstation, not a game machine. A QuadroFX 4400 would probably be a better choice...

 

[Duvie]

I agree with above at 2.2ghz A64 single thread capabilities wont be far from your current 3.6ghz Xeons in single threaded apps...That being said 4 cors of a dual core opteron will run in 3dsmax....I think they had a review of this at TechReport.com...cad 3d apps generally use more then 2 cores quite well...

The test I have seen pretty consistent'y put (1) 275 opteron as faster then (2) 248's....eventhough there are both the same speed....

You want faster I would look at possibly better HDD system...Perhaps Raid 5 or some form of Raid drives utitlizing any high speed pci-x ports....

I think your computing power is not that far off now considering like you said 70% is single threaded uses...That being said ofcourse an FX57 (2.8ghz) is going to win those test....



My other suggestion would be check on the throttling issue then OC those things...I have seen some guy get 4.5ghz out of his though maybe you could get close to 4ghz and buy yourself more power then it is currenlty worth upgrading the cpus...

Aslo that vid card in 3dsmax could be better suitied with a modded Nvidia card like mine or perhaps a wilcatt realism card....prof CADD card though I dont know how the wildcat dioes in game. nice thing about my 6800 modded to FX4000..best of both world...CADD and Gaming...

 

[imported_Starglider]

If you want a dual-processor system with FX-57 single-threaded speed, the simplest solution is just to build one with two Opteron 254s, which are available now and run at 2.8 GHz out of the box. I agree that overclocking a 4800+ to 2.8 GHz will have similar performance at much lower cost, though with more hassle and isn't guarenteed to reach this speed. If you are really keen there are some motherboards that will actually let you overclock Opterons.

 

[fishbits]

It seems like there's always something from the gaming side that will impact your professional performance, and something from the professional side that will impact gaming performance. So, since you've got the money to spend, why not two rigs? Keep your apples seperate from your oranges so to speak. 2x dual core Opteron with a boatload of ram and an OS that can use it + render card for one. Other system with SLI graphics and an FX cpu for gaming. Then when your needs change for gaming or work, you don't have to try to shoehorn everything together and run into limitations again to add more ram, cpu, gfx, etc.

Each would be "the best" at what they do, and isolating bottlenecks and upgrading in the future would be easier. Lets say your day job is hauling gravel by the ton, your hobby is local drag racing. Doesn't make sense to me to try to find one vehicle to fill both roles in this case. Get one fast car, one sturdy torquey truck. Now other folks might get away with using one 'puter for gaming and work, but sounds like you're demanding top performance out of each aspect.

Also think you might be suprised at how well a "cheaper" gaming rig will meet your gaming desires. If an A64 3700-4000 with a 7800 GTX or pair of SLId lesser cards meets your desires, that side of the problem is solved. Then you've got a clean install of XP on that rig with nothing to worry about.

 

[uOpt]

The Opterons are much faster for the money than Xeons for many applications, and there are very few where the Xeons are faster.

To make the right choice you need to evaluate how many CPU-bounds threads you can distribute your work over.

If you can do 4, then a dual-cpu dual-core Opteron 275 system is best. If you can only do two cpu-bound threads, then a dual Opteron 254 (out for a few days now and pretty cheap) is better. The 275 is only 2.2 GHz, the 254 is 2.8 GHz.

For mainboards I recommend the Tyan Thunder K8W (not the Tiger). Make sure you get a new dual-core capable revision.

Of course you can always do 4x 854 then you have 2.8 GHz AND four cores. Won't be cheap, though.

 

[bozilla]

Ok, it seems that I should wait for the next generation of dual core processors (beginning of 2006) to really get what I want, since they'll probably catch up with the fastest single core CPUs.

Btw, I just want to say that I'm not planning on using this for like 3d work only. I just wanted to point that out..actually 3d is not my primary thing, but I do work quite a bit with 3ds max, so workstation graphics cards are not really something that would be suitable for me because I want SLI definitely or even CrossFire with R520 if that thing comes out at all so I can play games too.

Now, since I"m gonna actually wait for a couple of months, I'm thinking of improving this existing machine as best as I can. Let me list what I might get and how to set it up to squeeze every ounce of power out of this machine and let me know if you would change something, add something or whatever.

1. Right now I have WD Raptor 74gb as primary OS drive. I want to add another 74gb Raptor and RAID it with the existing one and add ANOTHER Raptor as a blank drive for Windows swapping and Photoshop swap file. This 3rd raptor would be totally empty and it would just serve for swapping.

<UPDATE> I actually got an advice from a friend that I should keep each Raptor as individual drive without RAID and keep OS on one, applications on another and use the 3rd one as swap drive. This should show the most performance increase. What do you think about it?

2. Should I get Low Latency memory to replace these 4Gb of RAM that I already have. They are 1Gb modules in pairs but run at 3-4-3-8. How much speed am I going to get if I go with Corsair XMS LL modules - 4x1Gb DIMMs? Are they overclockable?

3. I want to overclock my Noconas 3.6 to 3.8 on air. I think it will work because I have Lian Li 1200B case and very good Cooler Master coolers for Xeons with additional very powerful 80mm TT fans blowing on it with 2 x 120mm fans (IN/OUT). My temps of Noconas now are around 40C and 45-46C when under load. I think I can go up to 60C under load even when overclocked without problems. If this doesn't work I'll get Exos 2 liquid cooling but that's only if my current setup doesn't provide enough cooling.

4. How much processing power on-board sound takes? Should I get SB Audigy or something similar as a PCI addon card. Will this improve system performance in multimedia applications/games/etc..?

5. Should I actually consider replacing this mobo with AGP slot for newer chipset with PCI-E and SLI capable board that uses DDR2 and more memory capacity I think? I don't know if this would improve performance at all? I prefer ASUS boards, so if you have any suggestions they are welcome. But I know that DDR2 ram so far is still a bit behind fastest DDR1 ram.

6. If I go for a newer board I can actually get dual 7800GTXs now because I think that it will be a while until ATI comes out with fully working and optimized CrossFire solution.

7. Right now I also have another ATI 9250 Radeon PCI (regular PCI) with 256 Ram DirectX 9 support and DVI so I can plug in my other 2 LCD monitors to it and in case I don't upgrade until Vista comes out I can use it. This allows me to keep the widescreen LCD connected to primary X800XTPE DVI port. I hope this would solve some desktop icon repositioning when I launch games and so on.

8. Btw, I have PC Power and Cooling PSU now model 510XE (that was the most powerful one when I got this machine together). Is it possible that my PSU is causing some slowdowns or something? ASUS NCCH-DL manual says that I need a 600W power supply for this board to run 2 CPUs, but PCP&C manual says 510XE PSU pumps out up to like 650W of power easy.

That's pretty much it. Would these upgrades give me some missing power or not? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for replies.

 

[imported_Starglider]

If you really have the money to burn, try this: up to 8 dual-core Opterons, 128 Gigs of memory, twin PCI Express and 4 way SATA raid in a standard tower case!

 

[uOpt]

Originally posted by: bozilla
Ok, it seems that I should wait for the next generation of dual core processors (beginning of 2006) to really get what I want, since they'll probably catch up with the fastest single core CPUs.

Btw, I just want to say that I'm not planning on using this for like 3d work only. I just wanted to point that out..actually 3d is not my primary thing, but I do work quite a bit with 3ds max, so workstation graphics cards are not really something that would be suitable for me because I want SLI definitely or even CrossFire with R520 if that thing comes out at all so I can play games too.

Now, since I"m gonna actually wait for a couple of months, I'm thinking of improving this existing machine as best as I can. Let me list what I might get and how to set it up to squeeze every ounce of power out of this machine and let me know if you would change something, add something or whatever.

1. Right now I have WD Raptor 74gb as primary OS drive. I want to add another 74gb Raptor and RAID it with the existing one and add ANOTHER Raptor as a blank drive for Windows swapping and Photoshop swap file. This 3rd raptor would be totally empty and it would just serve for swapping.

<UPDATE> I actually got an advice from a friend that I should keep each Raptor as individual drive without RAID and keep OS on one, applications on another and use the 3rd one as swap drive. This should show the most performance increase. What do you think about it?

2. Should I get Low Latency memory to replace these 4Gb of RAM that I already have. They are 1Gb modules in pairs but run at 3-4-3-8. How much speed am I going to get if I go with Corsair XMS LL modules - 4x1Gb DIMMs? Are they overclockable?

3. I want to overclock my Noconas 3.6 to 3.8 on air. I think it will work because I have Lian Li 1200B case and very good Cooler Master coolers for Xeons with additional very powerful 80mm TT fans blowing on it with 2 x 120mm fans (IN/OUT). My temps of Noconas now are around 40C and 45-46C when under load. I think I can go up to 60C under load even when overclocked without problems. If this doesn't work I'll get Exos 2 liquid cooling but that's only if my current setup doesn't provide enough cooling.

4. How much processing power on-board sound takes? Should I get SB Audigy or something similar as a PCI addon card. Will this improve system performance in multimedia applications/games/etc..?

5. Should I actually consider replacing this mobo with AGP slot for newer chipset with PCI-E and SLI capable board that uses DDR2 and more memory capacity I think? I don't know if this would improve performance at all? I prefer ASUS boards, so if you have any suggestions they are welcome. But I know that DDR2 ram so far is still a bit behind fastest DDR1 ram.

6. If I go for a newer board I can actually get dual 7800GTXs now because I think that it will be a while until ATI comes out with fully working and optimized CrossFire solution.

7. Right now I also have another ATI 9250 Radeon PCI (regular PCI) with 256 Ram DirectX 9 support and DVI so I can plug in my other 2 LCD monitors to it and in case I don't upgrade until Vista comes out I can use it. This allows me to keep the widescreen LCD connected to primary X800XTPE DVI port. I hope this would solve some desktop icon repositioning when I launch games and so on.

8. Btw, I have PC Power and Cooling PSU now model 510XE (that was the most powerful one when I got this machine together). Is it possible that my PSU is causing some slowdowns or something? ASUS NCCH-DL manual says that I need a 600W power supply for this board to run 2 CPUs, but PCP&C manual says 510XE PSU pumps out up to like 650W of power easy.

That's pretty much it. Would these upgrades give me some missing power or not? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for replies.

No, that's all superficial.

No way you reach the power of a fast Opteron that way. It won't even improve the subjective speed of your box.

Low latency RAM improves AMD64s a lot, P4s not so much.