BF2S Forums Building a number crunching machine for my dad.

1. Don't overclock - he's gonna be hitting the CPU's hard and he'll want them to be STABLE.
2. Note I said CPU's plural - assuming his software is multi-threaded the more threads he can run the better - so go for two, if not more, Quads.
3. Get the fastest RAM you can find - how much you get depends on his exact requirements - if his software loads a lot of data, then crunches it all, then the more RAM the better, but if it just does lots of calculations on a small data-set he'll not need as much.
4. Don't make do with one fast HDD - 3 HDD's in RAID5 mode will be better.

Scorpion0x17 wrote:

1. Don't overclock - he's gonna be hitting the CPU's hard and he'll want them to be STABLE.
2. Note I said CPU's plural - assuming his software is multi-threaded the more threads he can run the better - so go for two, if not more, Quads.
3. Get the fastest RAM you can find - how much you get depends on his exact requirements - if his software loads a lot of data, then crunches it all, then the more RAM the better, but if it just does lots of calculations on a small data-set he'll not need as much.
4. Don't make do with one fast HDD - 3 HDD's in RAID5 mode will be better.

Actually our BizTalk servers @work run great with single quad cores. Two quad core xeon boxes shuck 100k transactions (relative I know, each has several db transactions and several serialization/deserialization actions of messages 1k-10MB) a day without breaking a sweat form a processing standpoint. Most servers I have seen in my career don't have fast memory - typically is not the best bang for the buck.

Last edited by jsnipy (2008-04-07 19:42:39)

Scorpion0x17 wrote:

1. Don't overclock - he's gonna be hitting the CPU's hard and he'll want them to be STABLE.
2. Note I said CPU's plural - assuming his software is multi-threaded the more threads he can run the better - so go for two, if not more, Quads.
3. Get the fastest RAM you can find - how much you get depends on his exact requirements - if his software loads a lot of data, then crunches it all, then the more RAM the better, but if it just does lots of calculations on a small data-set he'll not need as much.
4. Don't make do with one fast HDD - 3 HDD's in RAID5 mode will be better.

QFE. DO NOT OVERCLOCK A WORK MACHINE THAT RUNS 24/7. You need a 100%stable and long living machine. For something like this, look into a decent multi-socket server, it should be considerably faster than an OCed quad.

Bell wrote:

.Sup wrote:

(raptor or SSD)   .<---period

Only thing about that is, if my memory serves me right, solid state hard drives, are guarenteed to fail at some point (prematurely).

Martyn

"but if you write to the same block (that is, the same exact physical spot on the disc) it can fail after only 300,000 writes. However, my point is that not all flash is created equal, and the best flash chips can be rated as high as 1,000,000 write cycles per block.

On top of that, most flash drives nowadays use wear-leveling algorithms: since the wear is only on the write cycle, they swap data which is being written frequently with data that has exhibited a “read only” behavior … doing this can reportedly extend the life of the drive as much as 100 times the base life of the flash media."

PBAsydney wrote:

He's going for 2-3 500GB 7200RPM Seageate 16MB buffer. (Raid1 if 2, Raid5 if 3)

And he's just going for a single socket, so it will just be a Q9550 at stock speeds since you say overclocking is a big no-no for a 24/7 work system.

As for the PSU, I found this
http://www.att.is/product_info.php?cPat … 42ac83b771

Since there won't be a dedicated video card for gaming, 520w should be enough, and I've heard nothing but praise for Corsair PSUs.

Yes Corsair has good PSUs. Go for it.

PROTIP: Sneak an 8800GT into it and use it when he's not around

Sydney, as a fellow high-tax citizen, I can highly recommend ordering from overclockers.co.uk!

Including the shipping and everything, it is much cheaper than what it costs in Norway, and cheaper than what Britts pay, because we don't need to pay VAT!

I checked what my order would cost if sent to Iceland, and it's the same as Norway. I got what I posted in the "permission to buy" thread, but with 4GB 1066Mhz OCZ SLi-ready ram instead, and it cost £401 including shipping and everything! A britt would pay £421 and in Norway it's a lot more. They have a huge selection of products as well

PBAsydney wrote:

Nice, I will check that out.

And keep that in mind for future PC upgrades for myself

And when you say no VAT, I presume you mean the norwegian VAT only, and not double-VAT, right? Because we have to pay 24% VAT off everything we import here that costs more than like €170 I think.

nope, no VAT, no import tax.


We also have huge import taxes, but for some reason it doesn't apply for internet purchases (I think)...

I went all the way to the confirm part for iceland, and no taxes were added

Whoever says a skulltrail is a good idea is an idiot. It gives you about 10% performance increase with lots of bugs and glitches with a 70% price increase. No thanks.

']['error wrote:

Zimmer wrote:

Whoever says a skulltrail is a good idea is an idiot. It gives you about 10% performance increase with lots of bugs and glitches with a 70% price increase. No thanks.

This man speaks the truth.

He does indeed. The Skulltrail is an intriguing idea - shame it doesn't work properly and is typically outperformed by cheaper boards running cheaper hardware.

The idea of using FB-DIMMS on a board primarily targeted at gamers and enthusiasts is absurd, as is the non-existent support for some of the more complex graphics setups the board is capable of.

PBAsydney wrote:

Kurazoo wrote:

rh27 wrote:

Unless you're shitting money, you've made a serious overkill.

You don't need any more than dual-core and at most 2 gigs of RAM for that kind of machine.

I'd reconsider the parts you have chosen first I think.

You guys do realize he's going to be using all four cores under 100% stress for many hours straight?

Besides, it's a work computer, he's not paying for it himself, the university is.

Yes, and watercooling will take too much maintenance for what he's doing. Get a very good air cooler to start, and if there you start getting concerned at heat get water. You said you were doing overclocking, I accept that, but as long as you're not pushing anything the proc should overclock well enough that you won't need a watercooling system.