New Engineering Computer Build, 2000 non-gaming

[cjbruin09]

I am building a new engineering simulation computer and need to know how my setup looks. It will purely be for compiling fortran/C++ code and then running the ensuing binary. I have a server to handle the major jobs, like multiple day runs, but I need a quick, able machine for trials. I have like $2000 to do it, but the cheaper the better. Here are my specs and questions:

AMD 3800+ Retail

NEC DVDR

LiteOn DVD/CDRW

Acer LCD

The preceding I am pretty sure of, but if people have any comments/help I would love to hear them.

2 Gb value OCZ RAM
I am not going to OC, I just want stability. I am right in thinking there is no reason to get high quality RAM? Also, how much of an improvement will I get using 2x1Gb instead of 4x512Mb?

2 36.7 Raptors
Seagate 250Gb
My plan is to run windows on one raptor, linux on the other and then have the huge seagate backing everything up. How loud are these raptors going to be? I have heard people complaining about it, but then many people still seem to buy them.

MSI K8T Neo2-F
I don't need any OC ability, and I don't need any fancy graphics. I have an AGP 9600 SE that I was just planning on reusing, so I need that AGP slot. But, I saw that some of the boards have onboard graphics that are equivalent to 9600 SE. Is this accurate? I am really just looking for the most stable board I can, and I am not going to pay for a PCI-E video card, but still need some graphics ability. Are the Asus/Abit boards more stable? Which could I expect to be the fastest, or are they all about the same?

Antec SLK3700-BQE
I am thinking that this should provide more than enough power and I know Antec makes solid, stable cases/PSUs. How quiet can I expect this case to be? I need a lot of internal HDD slots, and I don't want to spend a lot of money on a case/PSU, but I need it to be stable at load for long periods of time.

I am just looking for a decently quiet, stable, fast PC. It is going to be under full load a lot, even with 2G of RAM. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone.

 

[xsilver]

depending on your app use ... dual opterons may be a better idea.... not sure of the cost though?? actually its probably going to cost a crapload

with your ram choice, I may be wrong but I think getting 4x512 is going to give you better performance because 1gb sticks do not have tight timings
however you may need the new venice core amd cpu's because running 4 sticks on current cpu's I think defaults back to ddr333 performance

also with your motherboard choice... most people are recommending the nforce 3 board instead of the via solution..... at stock speeds may not be faster but apparently more stable

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: cjbruin09
I am building a new engineering simulation computer and need to know how my setup looks. It will purely be for compiling fortran/C++ code and then running the ensuing binary. I have a server to handle the major jobs, like multiple day runs, but I need a quick, able machine for trials. I have like $2000 to do it, but the cheaper the better. Here are my specs and questions:

AMD 3800+ Retail

NEC DVDR

LiteOn DVD/CDRW

Acer LCD

The preceding I am pretty sure of, but if people have any comments/help I would love to hear them.

2 Gb value OCZ RAM
I am not going to OC, I just want stability. I am right in thinking there is no reason to get high quality RAM? Also, how much of an improvement will I get using 2x1Gb instead of 4x512Mb?

2 36.7 Raptors
Seagate 250Gb
My plan is to run windows on one raptor, linux on the other and then have the huge seagate backing everything up. How loud are these raptors going to be? I have heard people complaining about it, but then many people still seem to buy them.


Thanks everyone.

If you want stabilty forget OCZ, CRUCIAL is the memory of choice when it come to servers and workstations(it's the only memory that HP and DELL use in their workstations). I would not get a gaming board like the one you have posted above, a workstation board is a little bit more appropriate for you kind of work. Also ditch tthe athlon infavor of an OPTERON for stabilty reasons. If stabilty is your goal then you have a long way to go. I'll be back with some recommedations later.

 

[Googer]

Motherboard Suggestions
ASUS 940

Tyan Workstation 940 Motherboard

OR this Board that can be used with only one CPU socket filled and the second one could be added later when the budget permits, for $209
Tyan 940 Opteron Dual CPU Opteron Board $209

CPU x1 opteron 200 series.
Opteron 242 Retail with Heatsink $230 @ newegg
Opteron 242 OEM $203
Opeteron 242 Retail- Newegg.com

The opteron 246 is $328- Retail/ $308-OEM

Memory- All Memory is registerd ECC for stabilty and Accuracy during your trials.
Four 512mb sticks of registerd ECC ram @ crucial.com for $99 each
http://www.crucial.com/store/PartSpecs.asp?imodule=CT6472Y40B&cat=RAM

Or 2x 1gb sticks @ $275each.
http://www.crucial.com/store/PartSpecs.asp?imodule=CT12872Y40B&cat=RAM

As for Video, I am not very sure what you requirements will be so please let me know.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

ASUS K8N-DL Nforce4 Pro motherboard $339
2 x Opteron 244 1.8ghz 2x$203=$406
2gb (2x1024) PQI Turbo Platinum ECC Registered $472

Add the harddrives, power supply, DVD, and monitor that you have listed and you should still be under $2000

For the type work you are doing, this rig would smoke any gaming type rig.
Probabally smoke your server

 

[Googer]

PQI is generic ram, why would you want el-cheapo ram like that? Crucial is stable and has a known reputation for quality in servers and workstations. It's the same reason why engineers dont use x800's and 6800's in thier machines and insted reliey on Quadro's, Wildcats, and Fire GL's; They are inacurate and not reliable enough for serious use out side of playtime. Stick with crucial if you want stabilty and accurate results.

4x 512mb ($396) from crucial costs less and is far more reliable than that stuff.

 

[cjbruin09]

My video requirements are very basic, on-board video should be enough. At least, my old 9600 SE will cover it. How would a single opteron compare, speed-wise, to an a64? Is it significantly slower, but much more stable? If I was to get two CPU's, wouldn't I need specific server oriented programs, like windows/linux? Am I reading the single socket Tyan one correctly in that I could just use non-ECC RAM?

Thanks for the responses so far.

 

[shoRunner]

pqi isn't generic ram this is generic ram and running 4x512 will run at 2T which will give a unnecessary hit in performance

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: cjbruin09
My video requirements are very basic, on-board video should be enough. At least, my old 9600 SE will cover it. How would a single opteron compare, speed-wise, to an a64? Is it significantly slower, but much more stable? If I was to get two CPU's, wouldn't I need specific server oriented programs, like windows/linux? Am I reading the single socket Tyan one correctly in that I could just use non-ECC RAM?

Thanks for the responses so far.

I asume that you could if thats what it says, but if I were doing engineering tests and demanded stabilty I would insist on ecc.

An athlon64 is a little bit faster than opteron, but CPU's designed or sold for enterprise use often run cooler and have greater stabilty. Personaly I would go with the Dual CPU board with the single CPU option the price differance is not any kind of deal breaker since any squeekey voiced and acne ridden McDonalds employee could afford to pay the differance, it's the better board with the better chipset from AMD.

No you would not need special programs or anything like that. Any program that runs with a single cpu will run on a dual cpu system. You can however buy the dual cpu board and only ONE 1 CPU while leaving the other socket empty. I promise the board will still function as it should. Also the dual board has an agp slot and the single board does not have any video slots, just intergrated.

Also avoid any type of -ATA drive (sata or pata) and go with SCSI because it is designed for this kind of applicaton and features ERROR CONTROL that will prevent mistakes from being made. SCSI is a much more robust and proven technology, plus it's the fastest thing out there.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
ASUS K8N-DL Nforce4 Pro motherboard $339
2 x Opteron 244 1.8ghz 2x$203=$406
2gb (2x1024) PQI Turbo Platinum ECC Registered $472

Add the harddrives, power supply, DVD, and monitor that you have listed and you should still be under $2000

For the type work you are doing, this rig would smoke any gaming type rig.
Probabally smoke your server

Originally posted by: shoRunner
pqi isn't generic ram this is generic ram and running 4x512 will run at 2T which will give a unnecessary hit in performance

Two sticks of 1gb ram will run at 2t command rate too.

 

[Googer]

Ok, back to stabilty the PSU is the next weakest link in your system for a tyan board or opteron you will need a 510 XE/EPS12V
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/...formance/turbocools/index_hp_atx-3.htm

Click this link to compaire the differance between Antec and PC Power and Cooling
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/pdf/Turbo-Cool_510_vs.pdf


Reviews
http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/reviews/index.htm
Maximum PC (the consumer reports of PC parts and stuff) has rated it #1 5 or 6 years in a row.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: Googer
PQI is generic ram, why would you want el-cheapo ram like that? Crucial is stable and has a known reputation for quality in servers and workstations. It's the same reason why engineers dont use x800's and 6800's in thier machines and insted reliey on Quadro's, Wildcats, and Fire GL's; They are inacurate and not reliable enough for serious use out side of playtime. Stick with crucial if you want stabilty and accurate results.

4x 512mb ($396) from crucial costs less and is far more reliable than that stuff.

Because I'm not card toten Crucial fan that you obviously are And PQI is far from generic ram, I guess it's so unreliable because its ECC registered and has a lifetime warranty? And 2 x 1024 sticks is well worth the premium over the 4 x 512 your recommending. Sorry if I offended you fierce brand loyalty

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy

Originally posted by: Googer
PQI is generic ram, why would you want el-cheapo ram like that? Crucial is stable and has a known reputation for quality in servers and workstations. It's the same reason why engineers dont use x800's and 6800's in thier machines and insted reliey on Quadro's, Wildcats, and Fire GL's; They are inacurate and not reliable enough for serious use out side of playtime. Stick with crucial if you want stabilty and accurate results.

4x 512mb ($396) from crucial costs less and is far more reliable than that stuff.

Because I'm not card toten Crucial fan that you obviously are And PQI is far from generic ram, I guess it's so unreliable because its ECC registered and has a lifetime warranty? And 2 x 1024 sticks is well worth the premium over the 4 x 512 your recommending. Sorry if I offended you fierce brand loyalty

I also recommend Corsair and Kingston to others, I have little brand loyalty. I also like Samsung BRANDED DIMMS too. For this case Crucial fits the bill, it is the one brand that is found in more oem servers than any other. It's thier reputation of Rock Steadyness that I am recomending here. They have a long history of it.

 

[cjbruin09]

SCSI would mean I would need a adapter correct, since the board doesnt seem to support it. I am trying to figure out how I will be under the $2000 limit if I get this adapter, SCSI HDD's, that power supply, that board, an opteron, etc. I am trying to fully price it out now, but I just cannot see it being anywhere near 2k.

On the other hand, I would never have thought of this option, so please keep the suggestions coming.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: cjbruin09
SCSI would mean I would need a adapter correct, since the board doesnt seem to support it. I am trying to figure out how I will be under the $2000 limit if I get this adapter, SCSI HDD's, that power supply, that board, an opteron, etc. I am trying to fully price it out now, but I just cannot see it being anywhere near 2k.

On the other hand, I would never have thought of this option, so please keep the suggestions coming.

Yes, you do need the right HBA (host bus adapter), Cables and a pair of terminators. An Ultra 160 or U320 HBA can be had for around $150 or so. A great cost saving option that I like to use is ebay.

Personaly I like LSI for their great Driver support and Higher performance vs Adaptec, plus they cost less than Adaptec.
My Pick for a budget machine that needs performance
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-118-020&depa=0

For about the same price as a 10k raptor you can get a 10 or 15k SCSI Drive.
http://jjwei.com/shop/category.asp?catid=19

Acording to my quick estamates with out a calculator handy If I were to build this system you would still have $200-400 left over to spend.

Also I think it is a great mistake to do all of your shopping at newegg.com, you will save a lot of cash just by compairing prices and shopping around. Newegg is no longer has the lowest price on everything like they once did.

 

[cjbruin09]

I just listed the newegg stuff for convenience. I hadn't on buying anything from there, cuz I live in CA, which means I would have to pay sales tax. I just did the pricing out and was at least 300 over the 2000. Is there anyway you could show me in full what you are recommending, with prices?

Thank you for all this help. I do really like the idea, but I don't know if it is feasible.

 

[andy nowotny]

Suggest you use FX-53 or FX-55, and ECC memory

 

[cjbruin09]

i think that would definitely put me over the edge, pricewise, but thanks for trying

can anyone tell me what the difference is between a 160 and 320 SCSI adapter? will i notice the difference if i just get the 160?

 

[aatf510]

Quote from Googer:
1. An athlon64 is a little bit faster than opteron...
2. Two sticks of 1gb ram will run at 2t command rate too...
3. Ok, back to stabilty the PSU is the next weakest link in your system for a tyan board or opteron you will need a 510 XE/EPS12V...
Response:
1. why is that? I really don't think so, A64 and opteron are the same chips
2. no, two sticks of 1GB runs @ 1T, 4 sticks = 2T
3. PC&C makes great PSU, however, even for two opertons they are not essential for you system, you not running a highly o/c CPU & super power-hungry VGA nor 10+ harddrives, PC&C PSUs are very very noisy.

final suggestion, don't get those 36GB raptors, they are much slower than their 74GB counterpart, and the 74GB raptors aren't that much faster than a high-end 7200rpm IDE harddrive anymore, so the 36GB model don't provide much of any performance advantage and storage space.

 

[stevty2889]

yes, you definatly want to use 2 sticks of ram, 2 sticks will run at 1T, and not only will 4 sticks run at 2T, but they will also downclock to 333mhz(well except with a venice core if they truely corrected the memory controler problem). Also with the types of things you are doing, 2x36gb raptors in raid 0 may actualy be benificial. And dual opterons would probably be a good help as well, but if not, a single fast opeteron or A64 should do the trick.

 

[cjbruin09]

Thanks for the help. I have a few questions. First, the difference between 2 x 242's vs. 1 x 246. I am assuming the 242's would allow me to do twice as much, while the 246 would be faster, ie., I am assuming that there is very little connection between two processors on the same board. Is this accurate?
2, a raid 0 array wouldnt really help me since I plan on installing windows on one, and linux on the other. How much of a benefit would I get from using the 36 or 74 raptor vs. a barracuda on each drive? How much of a benefit would I get from SCSI? Would it be better to go SCSI and only get 1 242?
3, I saw that if I get two CPUs, then I need all four slots filled to be able to run in 128 bit. Does this mean the 2 CPUs would cancel out the memory control problem, since it would be evenly distributed?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: toattett
Quote from Googer:
1. An athlon64 is a little bit faster than opteron...
2. Two sticks of 1gb ram will run at 2t command rate too...
3. Ok, back to stabilty the PSU is the next weakest link in your system for a tyan board or opteron you will need a 510 XE/EPS12V...
Response:
1. why is that? I really don't think so, A64 and opteron are the same chips
2. no, two sticks of 1GB runs @ 1T, 4 sticks = 2T
3. PC&C makes great PSU, however, even for two opertons they are not essential for you system, you not running a highly o/c CPU & super power-hungry VGA nor 10+ harddrives, PC&C PSUs are very very noisy.

final suggestion, don't get those 36GB raptors, they are much slower than their 74GB counterpart, and the 74GB raptors aren't that much faster than a high-end 7200rpm IDE harddrive anymore, so the 36GB model don't provide much of any performance advantage and storage space.

Response:
[*]1. why is that? I really don't think so, A64 and opteron are the same chips

Let me find the article I read a while back The chips are almost the same, but the opterons are usualy the best chips of the batch and are tested over and over above and beyond what an athlon goies through. Opteron has the extra hypertransport links enabled where as Athlon only has one and cannot communicate with other processors in a dual cpu configuartion.

[*]2. no, two sticks of 1GB runs @ 1T, 4 sticks = 2T

That's what I thought, but I have been told over and over by everyone on this forum that at this current time 2bg (1gb x2). Just search the forums, some one who was runnig two sticks of 1gb said he had to run his machine in 2t. I know on Winchester, Newcastle, Hammer, Clawhammer, and Sledgehammer cores having 4 memorry slots filled causes ram to run at 2t, but AMD Has fixed the problem on Venice and newer cores.

[*]3. PC&C makes great PSU, however, even for two opertons they are not essential for you system, you not running a highly o/c CPU & super power-hungry VGA nor 10+ harddrives, PC&C PSUs are very very noisy.

I use them alot and don't find them to be very noisy at all. Noisy to me is a window air conditioner. I only recomended PC Power and Cooling for two reasons. [*](1) They are a Mission Critical Component, I don't know of any other PSU that is made to as high of a standard as the pc power and cooling, it's able to provide the cleanest, most stable and accurate power to the motherboard, cpu, and ram. As most of us know by now instable, inaccurate, and dirty power leads to system instabitly, Blue Screens of Death (BSOD), and errors. [*](2) The antec he has in that case will be useless for an opteron system. Pc Power anc Cooling makes the 510 XE/EPS12V especially for the Two Tyan boards that I listed above, I chose it using their Power Supply Refrence Sheet.
Stabilty is the Key here and Quality is the first ingrediant, no flashing lights or whistles on this PSU; If it does not serve a funtion twords providing better stability then it's not on this PSU.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: cjbruin09
Thanks for the help. I have a few questions. First, the difference between 2 x 242's vs. 1 x 246. I am assuming the 242's would allow me to do twice as much, while the 246 would be faster, ie., I am assuming that there is very little connection between two processors on the same board. Is this accurate?
2, a raid 0 array wouldnt really help me since I plan on installing windows on one, and linux on the other. How much of a benefit would I get from using the 36 or 74 raptor vs. a barracuda on each drive? How much of a benefit would I get from SCSI? Would it be better to go SCSI and only get 1 242?
3, I saw that if I get two CPUs, then I need all four slots filled to be able to run in 128 bit. Does this mean the 2 CPUs would cancel out the memory control problem, since it would be evenly distributed?

Answers:

[*]1) You could use a single 246, in place of a single 242 if you like. The only differance is clock speed: 246 is a mere 200mhz faster. I don't know what kind of software you are running, but most engineering software that I know of will run faster on a pair of 242's than a single 246; provided that the software is multihreaded. If you are runnung xp professional or linux then you will notice a differance when using two cpu's and mulitasking between two programs of any type.
Generaly in programs like photoshop and autocad (etc) the performance will be some thing like 60-80 better using a pair of 242's over a single 246.

[*]2) Raid 0 is not what you want if you are going for stabilty. Metaphorically it's like overclocking your harddrives, instead of causeing damage to the drives you are more prone to errors 10 fold. Raid 1 or 0+1 is what you want. If you are trying to run two os' on the same machine them you can do it from one drive, just partition it in to two parts. Two 10k 74gb Fujisu Scsi Drives are in order here (from jjwei.com @$200 each). the second one is a back up to the first one. A third one could and should be added to provide parity or error checking to the other two.

[*] 3) Yes, you will have two separate memory controllers, 512mb x 2 on two processors = 2gb total at 1t command rate.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
yes, you definatly want to use 2 sticks of ram, 2 sticks will run at 1T, and not only will 4 sticks run at 2T, but they will also downclock to 333mhz(well except with a venice core if they truely corrected the memory controler problem). Also with the types of things you are doing, 2x36gb raptors in raid 0 may actualy be benificial. And dual opterons would probably be a good help as well, but if not, a single fast opeteron or A64 should do the trick.

Yes, opteron is the right processor for the job :beer:

I would not however use raptors, becuase the SATA or any other ATA interface does not provide a source of error control and correction. The rapotor is a gaming and enthusiest drive, not meant for mission critical systems like this one.

 

[piasabird]

Some chipsets slow down when you use 4 X 512 Meg RAM.