The Gigantic Pc Build Thread


AireTamStorm said:
And at 8 videos I finally saw the hard drives actually weren't able to keep up with all the seeking. Quad core, for pretty much any application other than gaming, is the way to go.
Its also likely that you had reached some sort of memory bandwidth bottleneck as 8 * 1920*1080 pixels per second is a lot of data to shuttle about ...
 
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Peter R said:
Its also likely that you had reached some sort of memory bandwidth bottleneck as 8 * 1920*1080 pixels per second is a lot of data to shuttle about ...
Well, that and uh, I bet the 8800 GTS wasn't too happy about it either. : )
 
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AireTamStorm said:
Peter R said:
Its also likely that you had reached some sort of memory bandwidth bottleneck as 8 * 1920*1080 pixels per second is a lot of data to shuttle about ...
Well, that and uh, I bet the 8800 GTS wasn't too happy about it either. : )

At 60FPS that is about 3.7GB/s....
 
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QUOTE

It looks like the necessary amperage is there, although I'm not sure. Thoughts?



Yeah, but I'll keep them to myself :lol:
 
I just finished a complete system overhaul myself. It wasn't nearly as aggressive (or expensive) as the system ATS is putting together, but I'm very happy with the improvement in performance. It's been nearly three years since I've done any major upgrades to my rig, and I was getting antsy. I think that's the longest stretch I've gone without upgrading something since I bought my first PC in 93. Just on the off chance anybody is interested, here's what I changed:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ (Manchester 2.0GHz) → Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (Wolfdale 3.0GHz)
RAM: 2GB PC3200 DDR → 4GB PC8500 DDR2
Motherboard: Gigabyte K8N Ultra9 → Gigabyte EP45-DQ6
Cooler: Zalman 7000B-CU → Zalman 9500
Video: nVidia 7600GT → nVidia GTX 260
PSU:Ultra X-Connect 500W → Zalman ZM750-HM 750W
System disk: Maxtor 160GB ATA166 → WD Velociraptor 10k rpm SATA 3.0Gb/s

I also ditched my old PATA DVD burner for a SATA drive and swapped out the old floppy / multi card reader for a newer multi card reader that is SDHC compatible. The only things I kept were the case and the stack of storage drives.
 
Chip said:
Video: nVidia 7600GT → nVidia GTX 260
How does that card handle? I'm wavering between the two, because for the motherboard / CPU I'm getting, it looks like I will see zero benefit by going with 280's over 260's.

Edit: Oh, and does your mobo have quad gigabit LAN!? Any particular reason you went with that board? : )
 
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AireTamStorm said:
Chip said:
Video: nVidia 7600GT → nVidia GTX 260
How does that card handle? I'm wavering between the two, because for the motherboard / CPU I'm getting, it looks like I will see zero benefit by going with 280's over 260's.

Edit: Oh, and does your mobo have quad gigabit LAN!? Any particular reason you went with that board? : )
The card works great so far, not that I generally do much to stress it.

Yes, the motherboard has quad gigabit LAN. That's not why I got it though. The 10 SATA 3.0Gb/s connectors, that's what sold me :D
 
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Chip said:
The card works great so far, not that I generally do much to stress it.
Then I guess I'll go that route, and put the saved money somewhere more useful :D . Any particular brand you recommend? You seem to like Gigabyte.

I would love it if you could find the time to benchmark that card in the OpenGL department, as it looks like this PC is going to be a three month project. I've got bills to pay too ;) . In two weeks I'll get the Case, Motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSUs, and a hard drive. A month later I'll grab the video cards, and then another month later I'll grab the screens. In the mean time I'll have the onboard graphics (Potential of 10!!! displays) to hold me over.
 
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I built a budget rig this spring. It's a e2140, 4gb ddr2, 3x750gb and 1x500 satadrives and 1 usb 500gb, 8600gt, two 19" tft's, gigabyte sli mb in a Antec sonata III case. I had some of the pieces (screens and the external drive) already and without the hd's it cost around 400€ or so. I'm piss poor currently as it's my last year of studies, but I'm hoping to upgrade to a 26" screen and get possibly two 9800gt's to drive it and the old screens. The big screen so I'd finally be able to watch 1080p, current setup does a decent job with 720p.

If all goes well and I'll get a paying work practice (whaddyacallit, you know when you go to work as part of your studies), I'll upgrade to a nehalem system, with an eye on a lot of sata ports, and move the components of this machine to a htpc for a 720p projector.
 
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