New rig time...

[Wags]

Hello all,

 

In preparation for creating new producer notes videos for A-10C starting in Jan/Feb 2010, I'll be getting a new high-end desk top in December. I'm a bit behind the times on hardware, so I'd be curious to hear recommendations.

 

Thanks

[f-18hornet]

Top high-end Graphic cards for NVidia are old GeForce GTX285s or dual GPU GTX295s with DX10.0. Newest high-end for ATI are AMD-ATI Radeon HD 5870s with support of DX11 and newest technologies.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5870,2422.html

 

Best CPUs are today Intel Core i7s with technology of SMT(Simultaneous multithreading) which is an older technology taken from Pentium 4 which had (two threads on one core) also known as HTT(Hyper-Threading Technology).

Edited October 7, 2009 by f-18hornet

[EtherealN]

See signature... :P

 

Nah, to be on the serious side, I do agree with f-18 that the i7 is probably what you would be looking at. However, do note that some people have increased their DCS:BS performance through disabling the Hyperthreading. Splitting a core to several threads is not always the best if your application is single-threaded. :P

 

The i7 chips are a bit low on the clock side, but they do overclock fantastically. Ensure that you couple it to an enthusiast-market motherboard so you can keep that option open for the future.

 

However, do note that AMD/ATI isn't the only DX11 option within your timeframe, since the GeForce 300 series will be launching in december if everything pans out right.

[Feuerfalke]

Unlimited funds? :)

 

Well, you probably don't need that much.

 

At the moment I'd wait for the ATI 5870 to be available in sufficient numbers. The ability to run multiple monitors via DX11 will surely be an advantage when using multiple monitors unless you already have a Matrox TH2G.

There's little detail, yet, about nVidias counterpart AFAIK.

 

For processors, my personal opinion again is to go for the i7 920. It has plenty of room to overclock even without much techie skills and no fency liquid cooling or so. Just do yourself a favour and go for a good aircooler. I have made very good experiences with Prolimatech's Megahalem 120mm cooler. In my case with a 20cm fan above, it cools my CPU passively way below limits at 18db. ;)

 

The choice of mainboards depends. My LanParty (DFI LP JR X58-T3H6) mainboard is one of the newer boards which support nVidias SLI as well as AMD/ATIs Crossfire, which is a great advantage if you want to switch graphics-cards while keeping same basis. It is also configured as tripple-channel (just like the i7), which means that it can access 3 sticks of RAM "in parallel". It's basically the same as the DoubleChannel e.g. from the older 680i and 780i.

This of course is an advantage if you want to go for 6GB, as there are quite inexpensive and really fast 2GB-modules, whereas 4GB+ modules usually are much more expensive and usually slower -> For gaming, you'll rather have the disadvantage, especially if you consider overclocking!

 

For the standard-user I'd suggest to get Vista/Win7 32bit. There's just a handful of games that supports more than 2 GB of RAM anyway. For making videos though, you'll most likely benefit from the 64bit features and the additional memory. In either case, I'd go for the Home-Versions, though, as the Ultimate/Business-Versions are packed with stuff that only networks and companies really use.

 

In either case, I'd keep the X-Fi, as the software also offers a lot of additional settings for recordings and even basic soundmixers :D

 

Well, that's my 2 cents. :smilewink:

Edited October 7, 2009 by Feuerfalke

[Wags]

Thinking about Alienware Aurora ALX with:

 

i975 OC to 3.6 GHz

Dual HD 5870

6 GB DDR3

 

Any news about any of these components being bested between now and December?

[f-18hornet]

Thinking about Alienware Aurora ALX with:

 

i975 OC to 3.6 GHz

Dual HD 5870

6 GB DDR3

 

Any news about any of these components being bested between now and December?

 

No. I don't think that NVidia will release their GeForce 300 (aka GF100 Fermi TESLA) against HD 5870 sooner than late January or February. So your choice looks really pretty well.

 

PS. Give your CPU hell and not only i975 OC to 3.6 GHz but 4.2-4.4GHz. :D

Edited October 7, 2009 by f-18hornet

[Feuerfalke]

Thinking about Alienware Aurora ALX with:

 

i975 OC to 3.6 GHz

Dual HD 5870

6 GB DDR3

 

Any news about any of these components being bested between now and December?

 

Sounds like a nice rig.

 

No doubt there will be reports about the 5870 in the next weeks. Will take a while for the reports on the nVidia, though.

[EtherealN]

Aye, that one looks mighty fine. If you're decided to make the purchase in december, I'd say just get an eyeball out for the GeForce 300's around that time. If they've been delayed or - for that matter - been released but was unimpressive in performance compared to the 5870, you'll have a real nice system there.

 

In fact, get me one of those too? :D

[CyBerkut]

Wags, since you are planning on producing videos, are you going with just one monitor, or are you looking to go multi-monitor?

[Feuerfalke]

It seems that going for AMD/ATI is advisable if you buy a rig before Summer 2010:

 

According to several official reports nVidia has with immediate effect withdrawn their high- and midend-graphics-cards from the market. That is the whole GTX-series except the 295, which will remain to be produced for now.

The reason was stated that nVidia is not able to make any more profit with the named hardware, as they can't produce it at a competative price and have run into serious hardware/manufacturing problems.

Though the next generation was due to the end of the year, there are solid rumors that hardware competative to the current AMD/ATI-modells will not be release until summer 2010.

It may come even worse - let's hope there will still be a nVidia in 2010...

 

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/10/06/nvidia-kills-gtx285-gtx275-gtx260-abandons-mid-and-high-end-market/

 

Update

nVidia denied the new was true, but admitted, that the number of produced GTX-cards is low due to manufacturing problems and orders cannot be satisfied as they'd like to and this won't change anytime soon. They did also not deny the theory, that next-gen video-cards will be postponed.

Edited October 8, 2009 by Feuerfalke

[Kuky]

For the video card I'd definitely go for ATI 5870. CPU probably i7 920 and overclock that to about 3.5GHz. For overclocking I think PSU and motherboard are more important then CPU as most CPU's of same architecture (i7 920 or 975) are same hardware, difference being the multiplier. The 975 is really expensive, only good thing about it it has unlock multiplier, which means you don't overclock by raising the FSB (actually with i7 there is no more FSB, not quite sure how it work with them now) but just increasing the multiplier... this mean you don't stress out the motherboard, but CPU only.

 

For HDD probably Intel SDD (solid state drive) are fastest at about 170MB/s read/write but are pricey.

 

OS.. erm... I don't like Vista or Windows 7 but if you're to go with the times better Windows 7 then vista.

 

For sound card X-Fi in PCIE version is about best compromise, it gives great sound and very little CPU utilisation and is not that expensive.

[EtherealN]

First of all: difference being multiplier isn't a trivial thing. Depending on motherboard chip you can end up with your motherboard stopping you from further overclocking. However, this risk should be decreased by the i7 compared to the Core2's since it basically abolished the FSB, but it's still a factor to be considered since there are analogs in the new chipset.

 

One very important factor, that actually caused a retraction and re-do of several benchmark tests when the series was first released was that the 920-950 and 965-975 have different I/O buses. The tests had at first applied the old Core2 method of scaling clock to compare models, but when this was revealed they had to revise this method. A 4Ghz 920 and a 4GHz 975 are NOT the same.

 

Whether the difference has serious impact is another question, but you cannot make direct comparisons because fundamental characteristics have changed.

 

To put it simply: between the 920 and 975 there are many uncore elements that are radically different and impact performance, even including overclocking. Whether it's worth the extra money is in the eye of the beholder (I'd say "probably not", but this depends on your economy and what you want from your new system.)

[Kuky]

^^^

i7 920 and i7 975 have different architecture?

[Wags]

Thanks for input guys.

 

Looks like the new Alienware A51 systems are coming out later in the month with overclock of 3.86. Leaning towards that with a single 5870.

 

http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/desktops/alienware-area-51-alx/pd.aspx?refid=alienware-area-51-alx&s=dhs&cs=19

Edited October 8, 2009 by Wags

[S77th-konkussion]

Bookmark this site, too Wags. The quality and components of hand built, but with all the support/ warranty, etc. No bloatware- exceptional support.

 

www.velocitymicro.com

Edited October 8, 2009 by S77th-konkussion

[Wags]

Actually, my current desktop is a VM.

[S77th-konkussion]

Ahh nice. The president of VM is actually a longtime acquaintance & customer of mine as well. (Sold him a bunch of Toyotas over the last 15 yrs or so.)

Edited October 8, 2009 by S77th-konkussion

[Wags]

Ahh nice. :)

[Groove]

Im eager to see the price Alienware wants for that machine.

[EtherealN]

^^^

i7 920 and i7 975 have different architecture?

 

Not different architecture, different I/O.

[Wags]

Im eager to see the price Alienware wants for that machine.

 

About $4k

[AussieFX]

About $4k

Are you serious and why would you want an intel EE? That's throwing beer money down the drain.

Have a look at some benchmarks before tossing money away.

In reality Core I7's are no faster in gaming than AMD and you're paying ~3x more.

Have a look at this review, it's the only one in English where they compare the 5870 on both intel and AMD systems.

http://bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1682

 

But throwing 2 grand down the drain on Alienware is just uninformed madness IMO.

I'm yet to see any expensive I7 system outdo my system in framrates for BS. Yes Core I7 will give AMD a hiding in synthetic benchmarks but unless you play Sisoft Sandra, superpi or Everest all day then it's rather pointless.

 

Sorry if I come across a bit harsh but throwing at least $1500 down the drain for no reason just doesn't add up.

 

I could advise you to go and buy a 12 core Magny Cours processor at Christmas time, they will win every benchmark around but what's the point when you will not get any better framerates.

Clockspeed is King and any decent intel or AMD processor should hit the high 3Ghz to low 4Ghz range.

Whatever you do though, get a quadcore if you're going to make videos. Most quads overclock just as high as dualcores do now so dualcore is becoming irrelevent.

 

My advice with videocards is to stay away from Nvidia for now, they are in as much trouble now as ATI was 3-4 years ago.

My 5870 is wonderful esp with a high gamut monitor like mine, nobody has mentioned it but the new cards have dynamic contrast and the picture quality is amazing, it has bought BS to life. No more drab looking forests and paddocks.

 

In the end it's your money and your decision, good luck with whichever route you choose. :thumbup:

 

EDIT: If your doing video editing (which I think you are) then fast hard drives will be the most important items. A couple of 300Gb velociraptors would be the go for that. SSD's are faster but at those capacities they are still prohibitively expensive.

Edited October 11, 2009 by AussieFX

[Kuky]

^^^

 

That benchmark is not good referrence for scaling up the CPU... AMD have nothing to match Intel CPU. What those benchmarks show is that pretty much any later CPU is enough to play games like Crysis because they are are limited by the GPU

 

AMD are not good for flight sims like this one.

 

And by the way, when you get benchmark showing that with diferent GPU you get same framerate then you can conclude that it's CPU being the bottleneck... then you can take same software to scale up CPU's.

Edited October 11, 2009 by Kuky

[Feuerfalke]

^^^

 

That benchmark is not good referrence for scaling up the CPU... AMD have nothing to match Intel CPU. What those benchmarks show is that pretty much any later CPU is enough to play games like Crysis because they are are limited by the GPU

 

AMD are not good for flight sims like this one.

 

And by the way, when you get benchmark showing that with diferent GPU you get same framerate then you can conclude that it's CPU being the bottleneck... then you can take same software to scale up CPU's.

 

Exactly ;)

 

If you want to play a game that's heavy on the GPU and you are using XP, an i7 is pure waste of money. If you have Vista/Win7 and play games like BS or intend to work on videos, you'll very much profit from the i7's features. Especially video-editing is one of the strongpoints of the i7 cores, as well as the VT-technology, which gives you 2 virtual cores for each core, maximizing each cores usage.

 

But 4k$ is a damn lot of money for this rig, Wags. As AussieFX posted, this is at least paying 1,500$ for the name, a fency case and a water-cooling you don't really need. Add the money for another gfx-card and a stronger PSU and you get around 1200 Euros. With an i7 950 some extra funds for a nice case and cooling, you're at 2,000 - 2,200 $.

 

And I still wouldn't go for the i7 975. Yes, granted it has a better I/O value than it's brothers, but this is in no relation to the doubled price IMHO.

[AussieFX]

 

AMD are not good for flight sims like this one.

That's a rather silly and uninformed statement. Is between 50 and 100+ fps not good?

 

EDIT: Thanks Groove.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2009 by AussieFX