Need advice on a high end SLI rig

[malcolmmp]

Hi all, I'm looking to build a really killer machine, but given some of the idiosyncrasies of some of the high end hardware, I wanted to get a little feedback before I go through with any purchases (this obviously won't be cheap). Here's what I'm looking at right now:

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
2 Leadtek Geforce 6800 Ultras
AMD Athlon 64 FX55
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) Dual Channel Platinum DDR 400
2 Western Digital 73 GB Raptors (For Raid 0)
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro
Zalman 120mm All Copper CPU Heatsink/Fan (CNPS7700-CU)
Enermax Noistaker 600W (SLI Certified)

I've got a Silverstone TJ06 case at the moment, which I'd be stuffing this all into. I'm sure I'd have to remove the windtunnel to make this whole thing work, and hence the 120mm Zalman CPU cooler. I'm most concerned about safely fitting my current wireless PCI network card in with the Audigy 4, since the Leadtek GPU coolers are huge. So with two Leadtek GPUS in SLI mode, is there room for 2 PCI boards?

I'd like to have the option to overclock the GPUs, but also have them run relatively quietly. Obviously a certain amount of noise on this system is unavoidable, but I'd just like to avoid the noise I can. Is there a better choice for video boards?

I'm also want to be sure if the memory is a good choice since I've been out of the loop for a little while.

Any comments/questions/suggestions are more than welcome. Basically I've lucked out and so I'm on a pretty loose budget. I want to build that really sweet top of the line rig while I can, but without spending ridiculous sums of money on only slight improvements.

Thanks for your time!
-Malcolm

 

[imported_Kensai]

I wouldn't use two of them. I'd only use one. Screw wireless, wired gigabit.

 

[malcolmmp]

Yeah, I really dig the gigabit lan. The only catch is that because of my living situation, I can only get an internet connection over wireless.
By the way, thanks for the quick response.

 

[Pete]

That rig looks very nice, and should last a while. Rumor is that nVidia's next gen Ultra card will have 24 pipes and run at ~450MHz, so your basically 32-pipe, 400MHz setup should compare nicely, and the 6800U's SM3 featureset should offer you the most potential eyecandy until well into next year. The Leadteks are supposed to have quiet coolers, so even a pair shouldn't be too loud, but they will be dumping quite a bit of heat into your case, so a 120mm exhaust will come in handy.

Even if your wireless card doesn't fit, you can always find an external USB one for ~$20. Considering your budget, I wouldn't sweat it.

Dunno about the memory, but Anandtech ran a couple of memory articles recently, if yuo want to check them out.

The only advice I would offer is maybe hold off until E3, to see if either ATI or nVidia will announce their next-gen cards (even though the latest rumors indicate ATI will launch its next gen in July/August, with nV close behind). SLI 6800Us will probably be as fast as any next-gen high-end card, but it's still a rather brute-force approach. If you can get close to the same performance in a single card that will run cooler and draw less power, that'd be worth waiting a month or two for, IMO. Heck, the next gen might even allow for AA with HDR.

 

[malcolmmp]

Thanks. I appreciate the advice a lot.
I guess I'm not really interested in waiting since I figure at best the next gen cards won't actually be available for purchase until several months after announcement, if current trends hold. If the new stuff ends up really being that great, seems like I shouldn't have too much trouble selling the current cards and upgrading when that's actually possible.

Something else that occurred to me was 3rd party cooling. I never used one of those setups, but are they effective with heat and noise? Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 comes to mind. Also, do these void warrantees? I suppose there's always water cooling too...

For now I'm going to look for those memory reviews. Thanks again.

 

[malcolmmp]

Is it a mistake to get two 6800 Ultras for SLI? I always hear that with a semi-decent cooler you can clock up a couple of 6800 GTs to the same speed/performance. I also saw benchmarks which put the GTs gaining much more from SLI than the Ultras. With a pair of Ultras, would I have similar overhead to clock upwards, and thus gain further performance over the GTs? Or are Ultras basically the same hardware just being pushed higher since they have better stock cooling? I know I'm looking at spending a lot on a high end system, but it just doesn't make sense to pay around $200 extra without getting a performance gain, whether it be stock or potential.

 

[The G Man]

If your thinking of the ultimate have you thought of a dual CPU machine. I am in a similar position to you for wanting the best for now and some future proofing, and as I am coming into some money over the next few months budget isnt a prob.
I was going to get a similar to your proposed rig, but then dual opteron was suggested. I'd discounted dual CPU as a business workstation only as it is a few years since my last dealing with them so I hadnt even considered it for gaming till it was suggested.

Nowdays with WinXP, Win2000 etc, it has the distict advantage that something doesnt have to be optimised for dual CPU. While it wont use both simultainiously (unless written to do so) something can use all the processing power it wants off one CPU, i.e. a game and anything else can be put to the other CPU by the OS i.e. firewall, AV, messenger etc. Of course if you do have something that is specifically written for Dual CPU it will fly.

The opteron 252 (E4) is comparable to the FX55 in performance, basically you can say it is an FX55 just with the bits needed for Dual CPU.

For SLi, I'm getting a Tyan Thunder K8WE SATA SLI MoBo with 2x XFX 6800 ultras. This also has the advantage that both cards will run at full whack with the full 16 lanes each as it has 2 controllers. The single CPU MoBo shares the 16 lanes between the 2 cards when in SLi so each one only runs with 8 (like a 6600.)
This will also take the dual-core CPU's when they become viable (£$).

It is slightly more expensive, but not as much as you might think - Slightly more for the MoBo/RAM and CPU/CPU-cooler cost obviously doubled. I think it would last longer than a single CPU machine as it will deal better with higher CPU time demands and when eventually it gets retired from gaming service it would still make an excellent 2nd machine.

What I am planning to build :
Case : Lian-Li PC-V2000
Motherboard : Tyan Thunder K8WE SATA SLI
CPU : Dual AMD Opteron 252(E4) 2.6GHz CPU (940pin)
Memory : 4GB 400MHz DDR SDRAM (4 x 1GB (PC3200) ECC REG.s)
Graphics : 2 x XFX GeForce 6800 Ultra, 256MB GDDR3 PCIe 16x
Hard drive : 2 x Western Digital Raptor 10K 74GB SATA (WD740GD)
Additional Drives : 4 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB 7.2K SATA

I'm going to see whats about again when I build to see whats changes for the better i.e. 512MB gfx cards. I'm not going to wait ages for 'next gen technology' though. when that is released there will be something faster and better just around the corner, then when thats released ...... etc etc.

It will be water cooled for performance and to reduce noise. Danger Den do a good waterblock for the gfx cards which also cool the RAM (where most of the overclocking benefit will be seen) as do Koolance.
Water cooling will invalidate warranties unless you buy a ready built water cooled machine so run system on stock cooling for a while to test it. For peace of mind from leaks you can get non-conductive coolant such as Fluid XP+ that wont frazzle your machine if it leaks. More expensive than water but cheaper than a new machine.

As for the O/C gains, well in one machine I have an old Ti 4200 gfx card which is O/C to almost Ti 4600 speeds (Homemade cooling) so it plays modern games a bit better. If I had a Ti 4600 to start with though, I could have overclocked to much higher performance and seen improvement in the games - but not as high % OC as the 4200.
Overclocking depends largly on the quality of the components and their position in the 'family tree' to start with, as well as the cooling and pot luck though. Most chips are built up to the higher specs of the family, but are sorted when tested into their selling spec group.

It is actually really hard and expensive to reliably make a chip (CPU or GPU) and many in the same family are made on the same line. alot fail the higher grades so a 3GHz chip may end up being sold as a 2.8 or a 2.6 chip in the same family.
There is also the marketing factor so a high spec chip/card may be 'disabled' slightly to give lower performance so it can be sold to compete with a cheaper competitors version or simply fill a gap in the market to retain/increase market share. (cheaper than designing a whole new chip/card)
The component specs make a big difference. Take the Ti4200 card I have. This is a 128MB version, but most 128's of the time used cheaper and slower memory so these cards actually ended up slower than their 64MB versions which had faster memory. Fortunately mine has the fast memory, so there is actually a performance increase - always do your homework !!

Oops I've rambled on a bit, but I hope its some food for thought.

 

[2Xtreme21]

FYI: Using an aftermarket HSF voids any warranty.

 

[Munky]

Why are you using an Athlon FX? Those require registered memory, and it will have less bandwidth than a similar A64 system. I'd personally wait until I can get a dual core cpu, but anyway, unless you want to spent the most money possible on a computer, I'd just get an A64 3200+ and overclock it. It would be nearly as fast as an FX, but for a lot less money.

As for SLI, again, you'll never get 2x the performance for spending 2x the money on 2 cards, and in some situatins SLI is not any better than a single high-end card. It's good if you have 1 6800gt, and then add another one later when prices come down, but if you buy 2 outright then:

1. You will not actually notice any huge improvement over a single card, because a single 6800gt or x850xt can handle all the latest games no problem, and

2. A next gen card will likely beat your SLI cards in any situation. I'm not saying it definitely will, because nobody knows for sure, but to me it looks like next gen cards will beat 6800U SLI'd even more than the SLI cards currently beat a single card. Even if they do have only 24 pipes, it will give SLI a good run for it's money, and if they are 32 pipes, then SLI wont even stand a chance.