I finally got my rig up and running... Took a total of 12 hours including assembly and software installation/setup. I ran into so many problems that it took a full 8-9 hours to troubleshoot everything. I will think very carefully next time whether or not setting up the latest and greatest on a semi-supported chipset is worth it! I went through memory, countless combinations of drivers/tweaks and punishing lockups and issues. Since this was an upgrade from another CPU/Mobo combo which was from another CPU/Mobo combo, I did a repair install and that was cause for some major headaches.. but alas... I have finally come out victorious..
Here is my gloat list... :D :D :D
Intel Pentium D 3.0Ghz Dual Core CPU
Intel P5ND2-SLI nFORCE 4 Motherboard (Had to use a beta bios release to fix up some nagging issues with the Pentium D CPU)
Corsair 512MBx2 Matched Pair DD2-667MHZ 4-4-4-12-15-2T (I went through 3 pairs of ddr2 memory to find a compatible pair for this setup!! The timings and voltage were still not being detected properly so I had to enter these in manually and force it!!)
Enermax 465Watt Power Supply
Antec Performance ONE P180 Advanced Mid-Tower (4x120mm Fans w/ Air Filters)
LG 16X DVD Multi-Format RW
LG 52X CD-RW
Mitsumi 1.44 Floppy w/ Integrated 11-in-1 Card Reader
eVGA Nvidia 6800GT 256MB Video PCI-E (SLI Primary)
eVGA Nvidia 6800GT 256MB Video PCI-E (SLI Secondary)
Adaptec 29160N SCSI Ultra 160 Controller connected to a Seagate Cheetah 36GB 10K U160 (my gaming drive.. almost 0% cpu utilization)
WD SATA 250GB 7200RPM 8MB (boot drive)
3 x WD SATA 80GB 7200RPM 8MB (setup as a hot-swap RAID-5 array)
Hauppauge 250 TV Tuner (hacked drivers for MCE-XP)
Microsoft MCE eHOME iR remote+receiver and blaster connected to Roger's digital cable box
Logitech DiNovo Bluetooth Cordless Keyboard and Mouse (I use the bluetooth hub for connecting my cell-phone and pda)
MX1000 Laser Mouse (I hated the DiNovo bluetooth mouse, so I got Logitech's laser mouse to use in addition to the bluetooth mouse :D )
Smart-UPS 750VA UPS w/ COM Monitoring
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Apple Cinema 20" Widescreen DVI (w/ Hacked Monitor Controller Driver)
Bose 2.1 Speaker system
Windows XP Media Centre Edition (TiVO! but much better.. It even syncs my pda so I can schedule tv recordings on-the-fly and watch them on a 2.5" screen :lol: )
Plus I have a whole bunch of USB accessories, ipod/webcam/rf gamepad/external hd/printer-scanner/smartphone that all run USB that have had issues in the past working together on certain motherboards that didn't like my usb hub. Luckily since this new motherboard has 10USB ports, I no longer need my problematic usb hub..
The system is finally stable (as of right now) and I burnt the system in overnight without any more lockups or problems.
:lol: :D :lol: :D
Not bad, not bad.
I'd be interested with some SiSoft Sandra benches for memory bandwidth and overall ALU/FPU benches as well for both cores at once.
I'm going to hopefully have either a A64 X2 3800+ or 4200+ next month. :)
Then the better half can have my A64 S939 2.6GHz single-core processor till I get her a duallie as well.
Have you seen the distributed computing site we do work for?
www.grid.org/projects/cancer
Check it out, it would be nice just to see someone with your horsepower added to the community :)
NOS2Go4Me,Jul 10 2005, 03:21 PM Wrote:Have you seen the distributed computing site we do work for? www.grid.org/projects/cancer
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gah! recruiting him! lol
DD1,Jul 10 2005, 10:11 PM Wrote:so is that good ??
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Apologies.. got a little lost in geekdom for a minute.. For the uninitiated, this is $8000 worth of gaming goodness...
I used to run SETI on my pc a long time ago.. but I have since never devoted any spare cpu time for any other distributed computing stuff.. Maybe I should look into this cancer research site. Well, that is when the system is getting "something" from the good ol' bittorrent sites :D :D :D
Aka,Jul 10 2005, 09:37 PM Wrote:NOS2Go4Me,Jul 10 2005, 03:21 PM Wrote:Have you seen the distributed computing site we do work for? www.grid.org/projects/cancer
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gah! recruiting him! lol
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Of course! They've said that in the last year, given the technological advancements in CPU power... if everyone participated in distributed computing projects for medical research - they'd cure most diseases in a year, as long as suitable framework research was already done.
And even I, a diehard AMD geek, can appreciate a properly-configured Intel dual-core box :)
One question - if you were looking for a quick boot drive, why not go 36GB U320 SCSI?
I like power, but not at extreme price points. The Pentium Ds are a good fit right now since AMDs seem to be going the "rolex" route. I have always viewed AMD as the better "bang" for the buck, and my previous setups were an AMD64 3200+ and P4 3.2 540J.. and even a AMD64 3200+ running at a much slower clock speed outpaces most of intel's offerings.. but with the price of their newer line of X2 dual cores, it doesn't seem that way anymore, and AMD has lost a little bit of its luster for mid level budget enthusiasts anyways. My Mobo can handle the Intel 840 XE's (not very stable yet due to the bios revision level), so thats an option later down the road when they come down from $1400 and that is quite close to the best offerings from AMD right now...
The U160 drive is an older drive from a system pull, I ended up with 2 of these drives. Both have warranties until 2008, so I don't mind using it right now until something better comes along. Actually the WD Raptor SATA 10Ks are even faster than the Seagate 15K3, but being an old school computer geek, I have always sided with SCSI, perhaps blindly..
:lol:
taiyeungjai,Jul 11 2005, 12:49 AM Wrote:Apologies.. got a little lost in geekdom for a minute.. For the uninitiated, this is $8000 worth of gaming goodness...
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taiyeungjai,Jul 11 2005, 09:25 AM Wrote:I like power, but not at extreme price points.
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Excuse me, but $8000 is an extreme price point.
I have a 3-drive U160 RAID-5 for our Exchange databases here at the office, and it's quite fast on the ServeRAID 5i cable-less adapter it's on.
I've benched the U320 RAID-1s we're running, and they're STUPID fast. No other word for it.
If I have the extra cheddar come rebuild time... my 2 x 80GB Maxtor SATA RAID-0 will be replaced by a 2x74GB U320 RAID-0 on an Adaptec card, for sure. Something PCI-Express at that to ensure there's enough damn system bandwidth, none of this 133MB/sec PCI crap either :P
The AMD X2 3800+ is out in August. The one thing everyone keeps forgetting is that you're getting 2 cores (but only one stack of memory). You're essentially building a duallie box on the cheap, like an older Tyan or maybe MSI's dual-processor offerings (with one memory bus). You're spending an extra processor's worth compared to single-core retail prices (with a premium of 50-150 bucks, depending on the retailer), but you don't need to buy the rest of your PC's hardware to support another physical core. I don't need to tell you how much that isn't. :)
I have no problem spending 500-700 bucks, because I'll double my distributed computing throughput. I'll lower my video encode times by almost half (with the right programs, and especially with X86-64 programs in XP Pro-64), and I can encode on one core and easily game on the other. Or, I can run one DC job on one core and game on the other.
It's limitless, really. Once enough enthusiasts make peace with the fact that they're spending another 400 bucks for an entire PC, it becomes easier to swallow.
And, I hate to say it too, but the Intel boxes don't appear to scale anywhere near as nicely because of the Northbridge-based memory controller and the fact that the memory requests share the same FSB. Because most of the DC offerings from Intel (save the XEs) are on the dated 800FSB, you're facing quite the contention issue when two memory-intensive programs are running at the same time.
EDIT - I have it on good authority that AMD and 3rd-party vendors are trying something that blows my mind - dual-core chips on a NUMA-aware and configured board. One set of DDR channels per core. It's a modification of what we currently have (where the two cores are connected via a common crossbar and a common HTT point, one memory bus shared), and most likely a new socket will be created.
Still... NUMA-aware dual-processor boxes bench in the 10GB/sec range with DDR400 channels and ECC/registered RAM... imagine an overclocked dual-channel, DDR400 system with NUMA memory allocation. HOLY... FREAKING... CRAP.
Intel really needs to ditch the Northbridge-based memory access configuration. It's slaughtering their servers, and it's not helping their desktops / workstations, either.
Flofocus,Jul 11 2005, 11:02 AM Wrote:nerds
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Haven't you got some overpriced VoIP solution to pitch? :rolleyes: :P
NOS2Go4Me,Jul 11 2005, 11:03 AM Wrote:Flofocus,Jul 11 2005, 11:02 AM Wrote:nerds
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Haven't you got some overpriced VoIP solution to pitch? :rolleyes: :P
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Overpriced? Its the same or lower than everybody else. Not bad for being 1 of the companies having our services regulated by thge CRTC :rolleyes:
Its just only available in 2 cities right now....and there in Quebec. :rolleyes:
BUY ROGERS HOME PHONE!
hows that for a sales pitch?
Have you bought it yet?
taiyeungjai,Jul 10 2005, 11:37 AM Wrote:I finally got my rig up and running... Took a total of 12 hours including assembly and software installation/setup. I ran into so many problems that it took a full 8-9 hours to troubleshoot everything. I will think very carefully next time whether or not setting up the latest and greatest on a semi-supported chipset is worth it! I went through memory, countless combinations of drivers/tweaks and punishing lockups and issues. Since this was an upgrade from another CPU/Mobo combo which was from another CPU/Mobo combo, I did a repair install and that was cause for some major headaches.. but alas... I have finally come out victorious..
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The scary part is that you probably
still can't run Doom3 with everything turned on, even after spending $8,000. :D
Repair installs are tricky mofo's, esp. under Win XP. I did one when I upgraded the last time to a new MB/CPU combo (both Intel) and I think I lost another few hundred hair folicles to frustration <_<
NefCanuck
I can run Doom III with everything turned on using my Radeon 9800 Pro. Half a frame per second is so awesome!
I can run Doom 3 @ 1280x1024, High Quality, for about 45-50 FPS... but who wants that much detail on a few shadows? :ph34r:
Now Half Life 2... THAT is what graphics are supposed to be about.
NOS2Go4Me,Jul 11 2005, 01:26 PM Wrote:I can run Doom 3 @ 1280x1024, High Quality, for about 45-50 FPS... but who wants that much detail on a few shadows? :ph34r:
Now Half Life 2... THAT is what graphics are supposed to be about.
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turn up your brightness?
I can get 35-45 fps or something i think in Doom III at same resolution, can't recall quality.
HL2 worked fine on my machine, and looked awesome.