Thoughts on this high end workstation appreciated

[rkoenn]

I am a system builder and have built a large number of boxes. However, I currently have a contract to build a very exotic workstation for an engineer who needs as much horsepower as possible (he runs huge numerical analysis models and sims and uses NASTTRAN for some projects). We have decided on this configuration: Asus Dual Athlon MP motherboard, 2 Athlon 2200 MP CPUs, 4 1 GB DDR ECC/Registered RAM memory modules, Radeon 9700 Pro Video card, Supermicro Server Tower case w/550 watt Power Supply, HP DVD/RW IDE Drive, DVD IDE secondary drive, Adaptec 2110S Ultra 160 RAID SCSI controller, 4 Seagate 15K Ultra 160 18 GB Hard drives, Soundblaster Audigy card, Windows XP Pro.

That is the basic hardware configuration. Anyone with any expertise in such a system or anything close with any feedback is greatly appreciated. My biggest concern is with the RAID system. I have never done a SCSI RAID system and this guy is looking for performance only. Can I stripe the 4 drives for performance only, no redundancy? And is setting up the RAID array difficult? I presume that the software Adaptec sends does the job? As I said, any help/recommendations concerning this system is greatly appreciated.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Not thats' power!

What is the workstation going to be used for? I don't how one will ever get windows to fill up 4.1 gb or RAM. In my opinion that is completely unneccesary. Also if this is for a proformance only ditch the ECC ram and go for some good smasung NON-ECC. Everything seems just great. I cannot comments on the SCSI since i've never made a RAID array myself.

 

[Alchemist99]

Well I as far as the Raid goes i can help alittle there as i am just in the proccess of switching my old raid {adaptec 2100s}card out
for a new Lsi Scsi Mega Raid Elite1600. I will be running 4 Maxator Atlas 10k III in a raid 0 config. This is for throughput only. But I am also running a Adaptec 29160 15k cheatah 36gb for my OS and important backup files. I will have this system up this weekend and can let you know how it works. I'll want to post some Benchies too. Raid 0 is the Fastest Raid setup but if you lose one drive you lose them all.
The reason I am switching out the Adaptec is because of the slow performance reliable but slow.

System Specs
p4 2.53 533fsb
Mushkin high perf 2700 512 mb
Asus p4pe
x4 Maxtor Atlas 10k III 18gb scsi
Lsi Mega raid elite 1600 controller 128 mb cache
Adaptec 20160 scsi
Seagate 15k 36gb 3.6 seek
Enermax 550 watt
Yamaha Scsi Cdrw
Pioneer dvd Scsi
Thermaltake Xaser II 6000 Plus
Mitsubishi 22" Diamond pro 2060
Creative audigy
OS wink2k pro

 

[rkoenn]

Thanks for the help. It appears that with the 4 Seagate drives and the Adaptec controller I can then setup the drives in a RAID 0 configuration for performance. I assume my customer is going to back up all of his very critical data on the DVDRW drive. Is the initial setup of the array done with firmware on the card or from software included with the controller? Do you have any special cooling on the hard drives in your system? I am getting a big box for the guy and he wants lots of fans in it. I read a review of this Seagate drive on Storagereview and it seems to run reasonably cool considering the speed. This should be an experience and he wants if quickly since he needs it for a job. This guy and another very good friend of mine do high end engineering analysis for many small and large companies and their livelihood depends on these machines. He wants all the RAM so the sims will run in memory. They sometimes have sims that run as long as 8 hours so you can see why they want the high end system. The other guy plans on having me build him a dual Xeon using an Asus Server Works motherboard. He will probably put 8 GB of RAM in that box. Anyway, thanks and let me know how it goes.

 

[FishTankX]

If it's seriously power to the max, I might (at the risk of being tarred and feathered) might suggest dual Xeon 2.6GHZ CPU's on a Serverworks board. Dual Channel DDR and AGP baby! OOH YAH!! It might be a hell of alot more expensive, and out of this guy's budget though. I would suggest benchmarking the systems against eachother. Or finding benchmarks comparing the 2.6/2.8GHZ Xeons against the highest end AthlonMP's avaliable. It's pretty sad. I mean, hell, the Grand Champion WS mobo's have 3.2GB/s of bandwidth and the AthlonMP's have 2.1, so it might not do as good in bandwidth intensive situations. (The Athlons that is) and unless your friend is trying to play games on his system, it might be wise to go with a Parhelia. The Parhelia generally does good in a 2d only envoirnment. If it's 3d intensive, the Radeon9700 pro might be good. But I mean, ATi should have some sort of proper current generation workstation card up for sale... oh yeah, and the WS boards support like, 16GB DDR although 8 might be more practical. And who said you couldn't fill up 4GB of RAM?

 

[amdskip]

Looks awesome but why windows xp? I like xp but I would run windows 2000 for something like this.

 

[Markfw]

The minute you say "numerical analysis" the Athlons rule IMO, and is proven elsewhere. The ECC is required for that much ram, so Ignore the comment about too much. I am not an expert on your exact configuration, but after 20 years in the industry, it seems very sound. I think you just need to follow instructions, and it probably is all done in bios. Good luck, and go for it !!

 

[FishTankX]

I have strong doubts that AthlonMP 2200+'s would school 2.6GHZ Xeons, but hey, it's possible. They do in 3dmax.. so the Athlons are a safe bet. Make sure to upgrade with the advent of the BartonMP's and the 2800+ MP's,

 

[Bovinicus]

That looks like an insanely kickass system. I would love to pimp that bad boy. Man, 4 drive RAID 0 that is just ufking (Yes, that is typed correctly) crazy. The HDD performance will be through the roof compared to a standard system. Also, I would suggest Windows 2000 for this type of system. You don't need the reduced performance of Windows XP. Also, make sure you tweak it thoroughly. It will make quite a big difference, larger than one might think. The Xeons may be faster, but I do doubt it would be a cost effective move to go with them. Tiger makes some really rock stable dual motherboards. I might go with them. They really know the server/exotic arena well, so they can probably oust Asus in this particular department.

 

[jasonsRX7]

The Adaptec 2110s card has a fixed 32mb ECC ram onboard. You may want to consider a Raid controller that ships with more, or allows you to upgrade the ram. The Intel SRCU31 ships with 64mb and is upgradeable to 128mb using a standard PC100 ECC dimm.

I would lean more toward Tyan for a dual board. Nothing against Asus, they're a great company, but Tyan is known for its expertise in manufacturing dual boards.

Definately look into cooling for your drives. Since you're only concerned about performance, hot-swappability isn't a factor. Just worry about keeping them cool.

Since you're already going to have a SCSI controller in the system, you may want to consider a tape backup drive. If backing up a system requires more than a few steps (like backing up to DVD will) chances are that your friend won't continue to backup on a regular basis. In that case, an automated tape backup system could be a life saver. I can't tell you how many times we've had to go to the bank and pull a tape out of retirement just to get some data off that someone deleted accidentally.

 

[sharkeeper]

For the application you list, Athlon MP/XP processors will walk all over ANY Xeon or P4 at the same speed with quite a margin. IF the application has support for SSE2, then the tables are turned to the favor of Intel.


If you're looking for performance from a SCSI RAID system, I would steer clear of Adaptec. LSi, Mylex, ICP Vortex, even Chaparral (hey it's not your money!) are the performance players.

Why RADEON 9700? It's not a worksatan card for sure. Look into Fire GL, Wildcat or nVidia Quadro.

You will NEED REGISTERED MEMORY to work with this platform. ECC would definitely be recommended. One disadvantage with ECC (if it's enabled in the BIOS) that 4GB will add about 1 1/2 minutes to the POST time. This means you won't see anything on the monitor for about 90 seconds after the power switch is turned on. Some people think the machine is dead, but this is normal. This platform (along with NT 5/5.1) is stable that reboots won't need to be very frequent! ?)

ALL Creative cards have issues with SMP systems. You definitely want to look elseware in that department. FWIW, the Hercules GTXP works with no issues on MPX boards.

Iwill's MPX2 is a very nice board. I tried Asus' MPX board and it had problems with my LSi MegaRAID Enterprise 1600 HBA. Tyan's didn't like the Quadro. (that was a bios memory addressing issue that was fixed with a later bios release) I like the Iwill MPX2 because it has nothing onboard but the usual serial/parallel/ide/floppy stuff. I'm on a 1000 Mbps lan so the onboard LAN on the Tyan is of no use to me.

If you have any further questions feel free to PM. The system you desire to build is very similar to the system I use everyday.

Cheers!

 

[Goosemaster]

He system is fine. Just get rid of the Adaptec RAID controller. Bad performance.

 

[mcveigh]

what about XP's known issues with scsi? I'd reccomend win2000.

sharkeeper... what scsi card would you reccomend, you ruled out most of the big players.

 

[Toolman]

Four things I'd change:
1) Go with a workstation graphics card like the new ATI Fire GL X1, which is based on the 9700 VPU
2) Go with 36 gig 3rd generation 15K Cheetahs (18 gig is too small)
3) Go with something other than Adaptec for a RAID controller
4) Go with a different burner, like the new Sony combo unit. You can do better than that HP!

 

[FishTankX]

Yeah, XP has known issues with SCSI. Stear clear of XP.

Besides that, Sharkeeper pretty much summed it up. (He's awesome. )

 

[sharkeeper]

Actually, I recommend Windows XP. The SCSI issue was present mainly in benchmarks (ATTO) and with certain HBA's. When I used a SINGLE X15.2 on a 29160 the writes were low with small block sizes. (in ATTO). This guy sums it up nicely.

sharkeeper... what scsi card would you reccomend, you ruled out most of the big players.

Sorry for the confusion. My jibberish above looks like I don't recommend any of those. I don't recommend Adaptec. My preference would be the LSi Logic MegaRAID Elite 1600. You can search ebay and find good deals on them. Just make sure the HBA includes 128MB of battery backed up ECC cache. That controller (I have the four channel versions) plain screams and at around $300 is a steal.

With a real RAID controller, I've never seen a problem with performance. The LSi MR 1600 really screams in a 64/66 PCI slot though. With 8 X15.2 drives across four channels (externally in hot swap cages) we saw R/W performance of 400 MB/S. That makes NLE run the wind. I know this isn't your target application, however the system run Windows pretty fast too.

For everyday use, I'm using RAID10 so I don't have to worry about hardware failures period. The system is rock solid, I've had both CPU pegged at 100% for 36 hours straight with a lot of disk access and the system hasn't let me down.

One thing for sure, it puts out heat like a radiator! You have to plan around this or people will complain!

Cheers!

 

[Pink0]

have strong doubts that AthlonMP 2200+'s would school 2.6GHZ Xeons

No, they very much would. Quite easily. Take ECCP for example. It's nothing more than raw math on eliptic curves.

The Athlon XP 1700+ does just over 1,020,000 interations per second. That's over a million.
The 2.26ghz northwood does just over 0,403,000 That's 40% of a million. So a 1.47 ghz athlon with optomized client is 2.5 times faster than a 2.6ghz northy. That's pathetci. The Athlon's FPUs are very powerful and the K7 core just absolutely slaughters the P4 in raw math. This isn't an indication of overall performance but the types of applications he's goning to be running it's definitely the right choice.

Also, 4gb of ram is not excessive. For example, I scan in some high quality bitmaps which are 400megs in size. When they are opened in photoshop it takes up 900 megs of ram or pagefile. When I add layers that number grows and grows...2 gigs, 3 gigs. Now what if you ahve 2 or 3 of them open so you can cut and paste and then send some to the clipboard too? You can easily need more than 4 gigs of ram.