Come on, admit it...you're a tech geek!

Jizzon · Post by **Jizzon** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 2:17 am

Okay, this thread is dedicated to the discussion* of trends in computing. Hardware specs and rumors, new programs, whatever...talk about them here. You know you want to ^_~

*: Discussion does not mean flopping your computer-compensated manhood out to blind the world. You may have spent five figures on a computer, good for you. You want to brag, do it somewhere else please. If, however, it furthers questions and understanding, by all means.

Grubb · Post by **Grubb** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 2:36 am

I was planning on upgrading my computer...

...well, more like cannibalizing it.

I was going to buy...

A new processor w/ SD ram
atleast a 3 GHz processor. (Current one is 766 MHz)
New Soundcard (My current one's company went out of business)
New Video card (Current one is a TNT 2)

... But I got a PS2 and an assload of games instead.

I still have plans to upgrade. Just not yet.

Jizzon · Post by **Jizzon** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 2:52 am

Grubb...your avvy rocks. I got a fever...and the only prescription is more cowbell! [/hijack]

You probably don't need anything fancy at all if you're browsing and downloading files like the majority of the home PC world. Not that a 3GHz proc wouldn't rock, just feel fortunate that your needs (at least as my understanding of them goes) can be met on a wonderfully light budget. Yay more money for the things that really matter. Like hookers...I mean DDR. Mhm. Grubb, is there anything specific you plan on doing with your computer that might require special considerations?

Post by **MonMotha** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 3:56 am

I swear you must have posted that just to get me to say something :)

Anyway, I'm thinking of building a new system soon.
*Dual opteron (whatever is at a reasonable price when I build it)
*Maybe PCIe video, though nVidia is mostly targeting the SLI market with that right now, and I'm not interested (I don't game much). The board I'm currently looking at doesn't have AGP. I may actually end up going with a Matrox G500 series instead of the latest "gotta have 5FPS more in Doom 3!" type card since I'd rather have the 2d quality. However, with X11 supporting more and more 3d stuff, even in the generally 2d environment of a desktop, I may end up using an nVidia. They're usually about the same price anyway!
*At least 2, preferably 4GB of RAM. DDR of course, becuse DDR is awesome (you know you want to stab yourself now)
*I'm thinking of doing a RAID 5 SA-SCSI setup for the primary OS drive, but SA-SCSI stuff is still ungodly expensive (for the same price as a 36GB 10k RPM SA-SCSI drive, you can usually get like a 200GB SATA drive)
*1TB SATA RAID5 storage

I just waited over 1.5hr for MythTV to compile, and when I load up some of my work, I run out of RAM (I have 1GB right now on my desktop). I'm really outgrowing my current system.

The board I'm looking at is the Tyan Thunder K8WE. Not for the faint hearted though: it looks like it's going to be priced around $450-550 when they start entering the market, and that's without the onboard U320 SCSI controller (which I wouldn't want since I'd be using a PCI-X SA-SCSI controller probably).

Linux compatibility is an absolute must of course. I couldn't bring myself to run the joke that is Windows on a workstation like that. At least with Linux, I can actually get some use out of the extra registers on the AMD64 arch, even though the extra bits won't help for much stuff (other than maybe crypto). The thing is, that board is going to use an nVidia nForce chipset. Great for gaming, but they've generally had iffy Linux support. Hopefully this revision will have decent drivers.

Grubb · Post by **Grubb** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 3:59 am

Jizzon wrote:Grubb...your avvy rocks. I got a fever...and the only prescription is more cowbell! [/hijack]

You probably don't need anything fancy at all if you're browsing and downloading files like the majority of the home PC world. Not that a 3GHz proc wouldn't rock, just feel fortunate that your needs (at least as my understanding of them goes) can be met on a wonderfully light budget. Yay more money for the things that really matter. Like hookers...I mean DDR. Mhm. Grubb, is there anything specific you plan on doing with your computer that might require special considerations?

Yeah, Basically, I'd like a computer that could handle World of Warcraft and games well beyond that complexity.

Mostly though, I'm looking to dedicate my second hard drive to music and things.

I've been working on becoming a DJ, and I would like to make my own mixes and things. I can sort of do that now with this thing. But I would like to beable to make simi-profession recordings with some of my friends as singers.

I've even thought about essentially giving my computer split personality disorder. It's first personality is the game/websurfing aspect. While the other is my DJing/Music Mixer aspect.

Either way, it takes time... which I have plenty of... and money... which I am currently lacking.

But most of all... MORE COWBELL!

But seriously, If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I'm open to them.

malictus · Post by **malictus** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:42 am

Well Grubb I can help on the music side of things. I'm not a gamer and I still have the crappy video card that came with my computer, but I have upgraded my sound card to a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. Now I have direct MIDI in/outs (with a very low latency!), Mic and Line in, and headphone outputs right on the front panel of my computer. Makes things very easy. I'm running Reason for making music and Adobe Audition for sound editing, cd burning, etc. I'm quite happy with both programs, especially Reason, which is really the best music-making program I've ever played around with. Reason pretty much requires that you have a MIDI keyboard for input, though; if you want to do mostly loop-based recording and remixing a program like Acid might be a better fit...

SirPhobos · Post by **SirPhobos** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 11:34 pm

here we go. a thread i can relate to.

I just built myself a new machine at the start of december. i think i spent around $1,700. whatd i get, you ask?

Intel LGA775 3Ghz CPU
1024MB PC2-533 DDR2 RAM
ABit AA8-Duramax board
ATi Radeon X700 Pro 256MB PCIe
200GB WD Caviar SATA HDD
Aspire X-Navigator case, all UV reactive lighting, cabling.
Antec Neopower 480 ATX v2.0 PSU (modular.)

So far it's an okay machine, but next time i'll go back to AMD for a 64-bit machine.
The PSU is amazingly great. completely modular, with a seperate 12v rail for PCI-e video cards. 120mm temperature controlled fan.

i've thought about switching to a liquid-cooling system, but i haven't messed with any of that yet.

Jizzon · Post by **Jizzon** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 12:41 pm

Do you overclock? No real reason to make such an involved mod with that system so long as you're ventilation's fine, which it seems to be if you have 120mm fans in place. Unless, of course, you just love projects; by all means if you do. And again, please refrain from simply spewing specs and money you've blown on your dream comp; this isn't a brag thread. You have to actually discuss your happy toys too d= Yay PSU info though. Future postings of "I spent $XX,XXX.XX to get these parts (yadda yadda)" will be deleted, or ripped hilariously down. There's always bigger and better, kids.

SirPhobos · Post by **SirPhobos** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 1:44 pm

i do love projects, but water/liquid cooling is something i'm gonna have to brush up on before i attempt it with my system. part of it is so i CAN overclock more than i currently am... which is very minute, at a simple 60mhz over. I'd rather not stress my stock cooling fan any further than i have to. another part is for the look. the other part is sound. the more i can lower my decibiels, the better.

you wouldn't believe how cutting a 6x6 square of air conditioner foam and slapping it in front of a 120mm side window fan lowers noise. it's incredible.

sam · Post by **sam** » Mon Feb 21, 2005 3:22 pm

why do we have to have threads dedicated to a topic

hey mon how'd that ddr hacking ever end up?

Jizzon · Post by **Jizzon** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:44 am

Uhm...Whatever that means, sure.

So MonMotha (or anyone), what SAS controllers exist currently? As of now, I know a great place to pick up like 8 18 GB 15K U320 SCSI drives for about $100 a pop. What SAS drives and controllers are out? I'm not planning on building anything for like a year, but this deal seems so good...around a grand for an 8 drive RAID 0 boot array for video editing would be so yummy...

Post by **MonMotha** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:01 am

Well, you won't be able to use U320 SCSI 3 drives with an SA-SCSI controller.

And you know, I found some sources for SA-SCSI drives (though they're ungodly expensive, even compared to normal SCSI), but I hadn't looked for controllers. I had just assumed they were available. Silly me I guess; it seems the only people using SA-SCSI right now is Cisco and HP in their giant storage systems that are like $5000/GB or something silly like that.

I guess U320 it is then... The Tyan mobo can even come with U320 built in if that floats your boat (IIRC it's Adaptec or the the Fusion Multihost thing, both supported in Linux, and I assume Windows).

Oh, and the DDR hacking has gone on hiatus for a while. The last major accomplishment was the changing out of the announcer sounds.

Gumby · Post by **Gumby** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:38 am

My computer is the "Badass Motha 4000: Twice as fast as your ass!!"

/ATHF reference

JB · Post by JB » Tue Feb 22, 2005 2:45 pm

Has anyone seen the posting on voidedwarranty.com about the overclocked lga775 3ghz running at 6ghz and above? Really how far do you need to push these little processors? What real benifit does overclocking have if it sacrifices system stability?

Possiblyjust bragging rights, pushing the envelope?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ge=1&pp=25

What's everyones thoughts?

Post by **MonMotha** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 5:21 pm

Overclocking was fun back when you could get another 5MHz or so out of your system, but that was like a 25% increase in speed (I remember running a 486 DX/2 50 @ 66, and a DX 25 at 50). Nowadays, it's not really that impressive. It's fun sure, but the amount of work you need to go through to get a 3GHz P4 running at 6GHz must be incredible (I've seen people immerse their boards in liquid nitrogen).

P4s do tend to overclock well. The idea behind the arch was to make the CPI very high, but in turn make the clock speed very high by making the critical timing path as short as possible. This has some advantages: it allows you to execute any instruction in very near the minimal amount of time required for it, rather than letting parts of the proc sit idle during some instructions (for example, a multiply takes a LOT longer than a logical OR). This also lets them pipeline the hell out of the system to further increase performance by using multiple parts of the processor at once (that wouldn't normally be used at the same time).

The downside, of course, is that clocking something at 3+GHz requires a lot of clock buffering. Clock buffering uses power and, consequentially, generates a lot of heat. This is why P4s put out so much power. My P4 laptop (which is even a P4m) actually doubles as an effective space heater. I've actually used it to deice part of my windshield, just to prove that I could.

IndyDDR.com

Come on, admit it...you're a tech geek!

Come on, admit it...you're a tech geek!

Fast as it needs to be