Maximum PC Dream Machine '05

[josh609]

CPUs: Two AMD Opteron 275s ($1350)
Motherboard: Tyan K8WE ($600)
Case: Silverstone TJ07 ($350)
Memory: Eight (8) 1GB Corsair DDR400 modules (registered) ($200 each)
Videocards: Two nVidia GeForce 7800 GTX ($600 each)
Monitors: Two Dell 2405FPWs ($960 each)
Power Supply: PC Power and Colling Turbo-Cool 850 SSI ($470)
Hard Drives: Five (5) Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500GB drives ($500 each)
Raid Controller: SATA Netcell Revolution ($300)
Optical Drives: Two Plextor PX-716SAs ($150 each)
Soundcard: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi (Unknown)
Speakers: Logitech Z-5500 ($400)
Keyboard: Metadot Das Keyboard ($80)
Mouse: Logitech MX518 ($50)
OSes: Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition ($400)
Total Cost: $12,870 (retail prices)

What do you think of that?

 

[mooncancook]

I have the Plextor 716SA and WinXP Pro! yay!

 

[Mrvile]

If you turn to their Monarch computer setup on page (?) you can see that Monarch's 4000 dollar system beats their 13,000 dollar one

 

[tw33ter]

$80 for a black keyboard without lettering?

 

[Aenslead]

That keyboard is just plain wrong.

 

[josh609]

What are the specs of the $4,000 one?

 

[fstime]

Looks like crap

 

[MDE]

SATA drives in a dream machine? Pssh, the word dream makes SCSI mandatory.

 

[n7]

I'll take one.

And then i'll sell it & put together a much better dream machine

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: n7
I'll take one.

And then i'll sell it & put together a much better dream machine

lol wtf

 

[Duvie]

I would take it....however you should avoid just buying the most expensive and equating that with the best...plextor?? I dont think so....

I think I would definitely have SCSI drives for a true dream machine....I would have a dual gpu Wildcat realism card....I would definetly have a water cooled or more exoctic case and cooling solution as well...

 

[Bateluer]

I could do better with 13k.

I wouldn't touch that mouse though, I love my MX700 too much.

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

Originally posted by: n7
I'll take one.

And then i'll sell it & put together a much better dream machine

Winnar!

p.s. What's with all the DeathStars anyway?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: n7
I'll take one.

And then i'll sell it & put together a much better dream machine

I am doubtfull that you could do better, except add 10 146GB 15,000 RPM SCSI Drives.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: n7
I'll take one.

And then i'll sell it & put together a much better dream machine

I am doubtfull that you could do better, except add 10 146GB 15,000 RPM SCSI Drives.

Meh, i would rather have the 30" Apple Cinema display, & for pure gaming, an FX-57.
There's a lot of things in that system that could be better, though it does depend on what you are doing with it, too.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: n7
I'll take one.

And then i'll sell it & put together a much better dream machine

I am doubtfull that you could do better, except add 10 146GB 15,000 RPM SCSI Drives.

Meh, i would rather have the 30" Apple Cinema display, & for pure gaming, an FX-57.
There's a lot of things in that system that could be better.

The Dell's beat the Cinema display in recent tests of colour accuracy and overall image quality. Plus TWO DVI Connections do not have enough bandwith to power the thing and no graphics card today can play on a Cinema display in it's native resolution, so you will be dealing with some heavy interpolation.

Four CPU's are better than one, I would take a pair of dual core Opterons over a Single FX-57 any day. There is nothing better than Playing Batlefield 2, running a game server, Scanning for a virus, and running folding at home at the same time from one PC! You could not do that with an FX-57, I mean what a cool thouht it is to run a BF2 Server from the same PC you are playing on? And doing it with out taking a performance hit!

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: josh609

Memory: Eight (8) 1GB Corsair DDR400 modules (registered) ($200 each)
What do you think of that?

Freaking 8GB of RAM! That is the only thing I would change, I would have used 2GB (x4) DIMM's instead so it could be run at a lower command rate of 1T and still have room to expand. The only thing I would add is an ONKYO PCI Sound Card to sit along side the X-FI for music.

http://www.audiocubes.com/product_info.php?products_id=1101

 

[fstime]

Plus TWO DVI Connections do not have enough bandwith to power the thing and no graphics card today can play on a Cinema display in it's native resolution, so you will be dealing with some heavy interpolation.

Ahem, The 7800GTX has Dual-Link DVI support, they should run it fine.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: BouZouki

Plus TWO DVI Connections do not have enough bandwith to power the thing and no graphics card today can play on a Cinema display in it's native resolution, so you will be dealing with some heavy interpolation.

Ahem, The 7800GTX has Dual-Link DVI support, they should run it fine.

IF I remember correctly, Dual Link DVI falls short of the needed bandwith to run it at full resoultion and besides any thing greater than 1080P is basicly useless for the foreseeable future. Also where are you going to find a high resolution mouse to match it? (your cursor will barely move.
If you want to talk about the ultimate in displays APPLE or Dell is not the way to go; The $16,000 IBM T221 (DG5 version) or the $4,700 (was $5,500) Mitsubishi Diamondtron UWG RDF225WG (CRT) beats DELL and Apple like a bunch of Noobs in Counterstrike.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-54982


http://www.necdisplay.com/products/Prod...lassificationFamily=1&Classification=1

The only place where a resolution as high as the Cinema Display's is in the Engineering, Medical, and Scientific Fields. No where else. It is impractical for Gaming or Movie Watching.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: BouZouki
Looks like crap

Yea I was thinking the same thing. 5 500 7200 rpm hard drives? No way for 12 gees I don't have scsi, all scsi. 8 gigs of memory for XP? Yeah OK. They just took some popular parts and slopped it together.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: classy

Originally posted by: BouZouki
Looks like crap

Yea I was thinking the same thing. 5 500 7200 rpm hard drives? No way for 12 gees I don't have scsi, all scsi. 8 gigs of memory for XP? Yeah OK. They just took some popular parts and slopped it together.

Yes, but where Maximum PC Stands out from the bunch is in their execution of the whole thing. The case and assembly are almost always something special. Plus it's not like this is some kind of wish list, they are actualy going to build it!

 

[munchow2]

jee... that CPU is crazy expensive. However, I agree with a previous poster in saying that I'd rather have a cool HDTV instead. Maybe 50'' You could always pop in a BOSE or Pioneer professional sound system. I'd put the SCSI as the OS drive for sure. I don't see how that would outperform a regular dual core for general purposes unless you were some sort of super network server. I don't know too much about server computers but I just know that in general they deliver about the same performance but much better reliability.

P.S. My gosh, who needs that many Hitache drives for porno??

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Googer

Originally posted by: classy

Originally posted by: BouZouki
Looks like crap

Yea I was thinking the same thing. 5 500 7200 rpm hard drives? No way for 12 gees I don't have scsi, all scsi. 8 gigs of memory for XP? Yeah OK. They just took some popular parts and slopped it together.

Um, you kinda need XP for those video cards if you want to play games.

For those of you who are scoffing at this system as if you could come up with something better, this thing is actually pretty good compared to much of the other "ultimate" garbage that gets published.

I could even go as far as to say SCSI is lame compared to some insanley expensive solid state setup.

Googer makes a great point about the power of the system, and how you could host a server and play on it all the same and then have loads of power to spare. Although if you could even afford such a system without blinking I'd think you wouldn't mind paying for completely dedicated servers hosted on your private OC line

 

[josh609]

I would have gone with a 4800+ and overclock it to 3GHz+. It would run circles around that dual opteron setup in gaming.

 

[EvilRage]

Originally posted by: BouZouki

Plus TWO DVI Connections do not have enough bandwith to power the thing and no graphics card today can play on a Cinema display in it's native resolution, so you will be dealing with some heavy interpolation.

Ahem, The 7800GTX has Dual-Link DVI support, they should run it fine.

Negative. The 7800GTX has Dual DVI-I. The highest performing (gaming) card with Dual-link DVI is the 6800 Ultra 512MB.

Originally posted by: Googer

IF I remember correctly, Dual Link DVI falls short of the needed bandwith to run it at full resoultion and besides any thing greater than 1080P is basicly useless for the foreseeable future. Also where are you going to find a high resolution mouse to match it? (your cursor will barely move.
If you want to talk about the ultimate in displays APPLE or Dell is not the way to go; The $16,000 IBM T221 (DG5 version) or the $4,700 (was $5,500) Mitsubishi Diamondtron UWG RDF225WG (CRT) beats DELL and Apple like a bunch of Noobs in Counterstrike.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-54982


http://www.necdisplay.com/products/Prod...lassificationFamily=1&Classification=1

The only place where a resolution as high as the Cinema Display's is in the Engineering, Medical, and Scientific Fields. No where else. It is impractical for Gaming or Movie Watching.

Dual-link DVI is the ONLY connector that has the necessary bandwidth to power a 30" Apple Cinema Display.

Greater than 1080P is useless? Okay, you enjoy your less-than-1080p, I'm gonna go back to gaming in my 16:10, 1920x1200. And what the hell are you talking about, your cursor will barely move? In 1920x1200, I have NO problems whatsoever with a lowly MX700. MY cursor moves just fine. Granted, this isn't 2560x1600, but it's the closest comparison I can give from experience.

Cost not withstanding, there is only one reason why you wouldn't put a 30" Apple Cinema Display in any Dream Machine: You can't use it while in SLI mode. Unless NVidia fixes that with new drivers and releases a dual-link DVI version of the 7800, I'd stay away from the 30" Cinema Display.

Oh, and I'd rather spend $900 on a 24" Monitor that supports 1920x1200 than $16,000 on a monitor that has the same limitations as the Cinema Display (Dual-Link DVI; using the cable-changing adapters it offers as an alternative often degrades signal quality) and even less relevance for gaming. Good luck getting drivers for it...