Ultimate Gaming/Workstation/Media Center

[coremortality]

Hello all!

I've been a long time reader of Anandtech (and related sites) this is my first time posting though. I'm in the market to build a new system for multi-purpose use, hence the thread title. The last system I built has lasted admirably since 2001 (an Athlon T-Bird 900, w/ GF3) unfortunately its time to retire it and look to the future. I'm looking at building such a multi-use system for a few reasons.

With the pending release of DOOM3, HL-2, Stalker and the like, my old system just isn't up to the challenge. I also, as a sort of psuedo hobby, create maps for basically any FPS I can get my hands on (maybe someone in the industry will take notice! ) which has become increasingly burdensome due to the fact that compilation times for modern games are starting to take well beyond what I consider a reasonable amount time. And finally I was hoping to use such a beefy rig as a PVR or even small HDTV (I already have a 21" monitor) to watch DVD?s etc.

I have a general idea for some of the major system components that I want to use and I will outline them below but I want some input as to what everyone else thinks and some suggestions to fill in the holes.

Cooler Master STC-T01
Power Supply: ?
Dual AMD Opteron Model 246
Tyan Thunder K8W
Ram: ?
Video Card: ?
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Dual Western Digital Caviar SE Serial ATA 160 GB
Plextor PX-712SA (Serial ATA) 12X DVD+R Drive
Logitech Z-680 5.1
Belkin ClassicKeyboard F8E206-BLK
Logitech MX 300

Now I am REALLY torn on the video card, mostly due to the GF6 series and x800 pending release. I have been loyal to nVidia since their original TNT and they have never let me down, and do to some very bad experiences with ATI?s Rage cards and that crap support, I am leery of buying an ATI card (even though I?ve read things are different now and I?ve seen the performance reviews.) Also, suggestions are needed on cooling. I?m interested in trying watercooling but if I can get good performance from a traditional Fan/Heatsink setup then I will go with that.

SO?any suggestions and comments are welcome!! The majority of this is going to be paid for with a $2500 interest free loan from my employer and the remainder will probably come out of a small savings I have. Thanks!

-Eric

 

[piasabird]

There was an article on www.tomshardware.com that claimed that a Dual Xeon is faster than a P4EE and that it is cheaper too. However a Dual Opteron would probably smoke almost anything. I think if I was considering spending a lot of $$$, I would see what kind of motherboards and processors Intel comes out with near the end of June. Two things could happen. The processors could be significantly better. The present P4 Processors could cost less. Also some PCI-Express motherboards could be coming out.

Alienware was showing some kind of Dual Video card dream machine. I wonder if that will come out into production any time soon?

 

[BlvdKing]

Just curious, what do you think the advantages of the dual socket 940 Tyan board over other dual socket boards?

 

[coremortality]

Originally posted by: BlvdKing
Just curious, what do you think the advantages of the dual socket 940 Tyan board over other dual socket boards?

Well I would like an ABIT mobo but ABIT doesn't offer a Dual Opteron board currently I haven't heard anything saying they will be offering one and as far as Tyan goes, from what I have heard about them, is they are sturdy reliable boards and have fairly good driver support. Again thats only what i've read, i don't have any personal experience with any Tyan products.

Please keep comments and suggestions coming! Any sort of critique is welcome.

-Eric

 

[jkresh]

since you are saying media center waiting for an x800 AIW and possibly adding ati's hdtv wonder (should be out in june) might make sense.

 

[jkresh]

for cheap/midrange servers tyan is quite good, not going to have the enthusiast features of an abit or asus but neither abit nor asus make dual 940 mobos (as far as I know anyway).

 

[robcy]

PSU - Antec True Pwer 480w
Video Card - X800PRO
RAM - 4x512mb DDR3200 OCZ GOLD ultra low Latency

Then wait for the ATI HDTV Wonder, and if the X800XT or GF6800 are signifacantly more powerful, sell the X800PRO on this forum, and replace it.

 

[Illissius]

Alright, well, few things.

- I assume you're aware of the capabilities and limitations of an SMP system? ie. games will not go /any/ faster than they would with a single processor, whereas multithreaded things will be ~twice as fast.

- If you're more comfortable with nVidia, then go ahead and get that. There isn't a huge difference like there was last generation. The X800XT is somewhat faster overall, but the 6800 Ultra still trounces it at OpenGL and is /plenty/ fast enough at other stuff. Plus you have a good chance of future speed boosts with SM 3.0 and driver updates.

- For the motherboard I'd get something with an nForce3 250Gb Pro chipset, such as the IWill DK8N. Advantages: Significantly better performance overall than the AMD chipset, supposedly significant performance enhancements when using an nVidia video card such as the 6800 you'd be getting (see here), onchip Gigabit which trounces any other integrated solution and is probably up there with PCI-X cards, + hardware firewall, excellent SATA / RAID capabilities, and probably more.

- PSU: Get the best you can find, this thing is gonna suck a lot (of power, heh). IIRC that would be the Antec 550W.

- Cooling: Dunno about watercooling. The Tyan you listed doesn't have overclocking capabilities /at all/, so there isn't much point, dunno about the IWill, but it's probably similar (otoh this uses the nForce3, so it's possible that clockgen would work even if there isn't anything in the BIOS). If you go with air, get the Zalman CNPS7000A-(Al)Cu if you want quiet, otherwise the stock cooling should be good enough. If on the off chance there /are/ overclocking capabilities, then either the mentioned Zalman or a Thermalright SLK948U + fan, alternately an SP-98 if it comes out anytime soon.

- What, no Raptors? For shame. Get two 74GBs and put 'em in a RAID.

- Memory: 4x512MB. Crucial PC3200 (registered ECC of course) if no overclocking, something from Corsair/OCZ/Mushkin/Kingston otherwise, no idea what's available.

- Mouse: Why not MX500/510/700? It's not like you're skimping on any of the other components.

 

[coremortality]

Illissius: Thanks for the suggestions! I am aware of the SMP limitations but i also aware that ID has enabled SMP with DOOM3 and their level editor is built into the game so SMP will be a big advantage with that. Would you recommend anything for PVR? I haven't heard very much regarding nVidia's "A-I-W" card and everyone seems to say ATI is the company to go with for any sort of tv tuner. Are there any alternatives? Thanks for the HD, RAM and Cooling suggestions. The mouse thing is just a personal preference, when it comes to keyboards and mice, the less complicated the better IMO

Robcy: Is there that noticable of a difference with OCZ Gold ULL vs say Crosiar, Kingston, or Crucial?

Thanks again guys!

 

[Illissius]

Sorry, no idea about PVR and stuff.

 

[Mloot]

That Coolermaster case is something of a beast, is it not? Not that I wouldn't love to have one.


As far as choosing a PSU, I believe the general consensus is that the PC Power and Cooling 510w jobber is about the best, and it has power to spare for a dual Opteron system. That's what I had planned on getting, but the PSU was about the last piece I acquired for my system, and about that time funds were starting to get a little tight (I spent about 2-3 months getting the pieces together), so I went with the much cheaper Fortron 550w EPS unit, based on the positive recommendations of others who had the same PSU over at 2CPU.com. So far I have been very happy with the stability of the rig, and it's been running for about 3 weeks now (24/7) or so at full load, doing two instances of a DC program.