My New Rig

[SicEmBaylor]

So, I'm ordering the parts to build my new rig on Monday. I'm pretty excited if I do say so myself.

Here are the specs:

MoBo: Gigabyte GA-970a
CPU: Liquid cooled AMD FX-8150 8-core processor (3.4ghz which I will overclock to 4.0ghz)
RAM: 8gigs DDR3
HD: 2TB Western Digital, 32mb cache
GPU: IceQ X Turbo AMD Radeon 6950, 2GB onboard
Power: 800 watt power supply
Optical: Dual Blu-Ray/DVD-R(W)
Media: 12-in-one media card reader
Sound: SoundBlaster Audigy SE

The excitement...I has it.

[CrimsonKel]

That's pretty cool. Did you order your stuff from Newegg?

They've added new power management features to processors over the years. I'm not sure which of these features your processor supports but if you see C States or C1-E in your BIOS you might go ahead and set them to disabled Having those features enabled can reduce your performance. If you are looking for the best performance you might also set the power plan in Windows 7 to high performance. That might help you get your gun up a little quicker than your opponent.

[Lott's Bandana]

What is that, a scooter?

[TheHumanAlphabet]

Is it a $5500 Mac??? ;)

[Boomer.....]

Is it a new girlfriend?

[NormanPride]

It's better than all those. It plays porn in 3d.

[SicEmBaylor]

That's pretty cool. Did you order your stuff from Newegg?

They've added new power management features to processors over the years. I'm not sure which of these features your processor supports but if you see C States or C1-E in your BIOS you might go ahead and set them to disabled Having those features enabled can reduce your performance. If you are looking for the best performance you might also set the power plan in Windows 7 to high performance. That might help you get your gun up a little quicker than your opponent.

Yep, I get almost everything from Newegg or TigerDirect. Thanks for the BIOS tip! I hadn't thought of that one, but I do always set my power management to 'best performance.'

The first upgrade after the build is going to be doubling the RAM to 16 gigs. After that, I'd like to add an SSD to speed up the boot time.

[SicEmBaylor]

It's better than all those. It plays porn in 3d.

With that GPU, yes it can. However, I don't have a 3D-capable monitor. =(

[KantoSooner]

Just get 3D glasses, then you can assume proper positions.

[soonerbrat]

i thought you got a job as a roughneck.

[oudavid1]

Im getting a degree in computer science so i can be on ya'lls level.

[sooneron]

Just curious, what do you need this "rig" for, exactly?

[SicEmBaylor]

Just curious, what do you need this "rig" for, exactly?

I "need" it for about the same reason that a guy "needs" to buy/drive a GT instead of just a Fiesta.

[oudavid1]

I "need" it for about the same reason that a guy "needs" to buy/drive a GT instead of just a Fiesta.

So your gonna show it to people? Your gonna use it to get chicks?

[SicEmBaylor]

So your gonna show it to people? Your gonna use it to get chicks?
Probably to the former and DEFINITELY to the latter.

[bluedogok]

I have built a bunch of computers over the years on parts from Mwave.com (http://www.mwave.com/mwave/index.asp?) and Directron (http://www.directron.com/) along with parts from Newegg. In recent years most of the parts came from items on sale at Fry's with a few specialty parts like rendering video cards (ATI Fire/Nvidia Quadro) from Newegg. I will probably go back to more mail order like I did when I lived in OKC because Fry's doesn't have a store in Denver, I will miss the store in Austin for that. I built my Core-i7 desktop mostly from parts as they went on sale at Fry's for about $1,200 right after the Core-i7's just came out. I built AMD systems for the most part until recently, they just don't have a processor that competes for the Revit/3DSMax work that I do.

[BajaOklahoma]

Go for the SSD from the beginning. My laptop is quiet and boots up so much quicker than my old laptop - even with all of the **** I have opening up immediately. And get a touch screen. I honestly think they sent me the wrong computer, because I didn't think I was getting a touchscreen - but I love it.

[SicEmBaylor]

I have built a bunch of computers over the years on parts from Mwave.com (http://www.mwave.com/mwave/index.asp?) and Directron (http://www.directron.com/) along with parts from Newegg. In recent years most of the parts came from items on sale at Fry's with a few specialty parts like rendering video cards (ATI Fire/Nvidia Quadro) from Newegg. I will probably go back to more mail order like I did when I lived in OKC because Fry's doesn't have a store in Denver, I will miss the store in Austin for that. I built my Core-i7 desktop mostly from parts as they went on sale at Fry's for about $1,200 right after the Core-i7's just came out. I built AMD systems for the most part until recently, they just don't have a processor that competes for the Revit/3DSMax work that I do.
Fry's in Dallas was awesome. I made it a point to stop there whenever I could. I didn't know they had an Austin location.

I'd really rather have had an i7 of course, but I went with the FX out of bang-for-the-buck considerations. Even with 8 cores, I think the benchmarks show the FX to be comparable to a top-tier i5.


Go for the SSD from the beginning. My laptop is quiet and boots up so much quicker than my old laptop - even with all of the **** I have opening up immediately. And get a touch screen. I honestly think they sent me the wrong computer, because I didn't think I was getting a touchscreen - but I love it.
I'd like to have got the SSD, but I had to make budget considerations. It's #2 on the future upgrade list though.

[bluedogok]

We got my wife an Asus i5 laptop to replace her Phenom x3 desktop, it is definitely faster. The Phenom x3 is going to become a HTPC. I have a Core-i7 laptop, I have maxed out the RAM (8GB) and changing to a SSD drive is in my future.

My former work computer was 1 y.o. Boxx, it had one SSD drive and a 10,000 rpm hard drive, the CPU was a Core-i7 Extreme, 24GB of RAM and a Quadro 4000 video card. The computer itself (no monitor or software other than Win7) was almost $6,000. The new office is needing upgrades, I hope to be able to spec something close to that.

[SicEmBaylor]

We got my wife an Asus i5 laptop to replace her Phenom x3 desktop, it is definitely faster. The Phenom x3 is going to become a HTPC. I have a Core-i7 laptop, I have maxed out the RAM (8GB) and changing to a SSD drive is in my future.

My former work computer was 1 y.o. Boxx, it had one SSD drive and a 10,000 rpm hard drive, the CPU was a Core-i7 Extreme, 24GB of RAM and a Quadro 4000 video card. The computer itself (no monitor or software other than Win7) was almost $6,000. The new office is needing upgrades, I hope to be able to spec something close to that.

I do love the i7's, but they're definitely not cheap. The FX-8 core chips still aren't up to the i7 level, so their performance falls somewhere between the i5 and i7 chips.

There's actually a little bit of disappointment by a lot of people with the performance of the FX-8's. From everything that I've been able to read, Windows 7 has a hard time figuring out exactly what to do with 8 cores and it has difficulty efficiently dividing tasks between the cores. HOWEVER, I've also read a lot of really good things about the FX's performance in Windows 8 which is optimized to take advantage of 8 core CPU's. They're working closely with AMD on that front.

So, it appears that I'm exchanging a temporary performance hit in the short term for optimized performance with next year's release of Windows 8. That's fine by me -- it should mean that I'll get more life out of my CPU.

[bluedogok]

The problem with the number of cores is really more tied to the software that is being used for now, most still only address one core. Revit still only uses one core for everything but 3DSMax will address as many cores as you can throw at it. I know the render times between the two programs are drastically different due to the multicore capability of Max. I also think Autodesk cripples some parts of their programs to get you to buy another program, Revit seems to have an older version of the Mental Ray renderer when Max has the most current version.

Most people have no need for what a Core-i7 offers, but it is always nice to have because software requirements just get greater and greater.

[oudavid1]

I want to party with all of you ^^^

[dwarthog]

Gotta throw out the obligatory use a "real" operating system post.... Linux is a lot better in this area.

If you want to exercise all of those processor cores/threads, then load up something like Seti or some of the other distributed computing options out there. They will have been optimized to figure out how to use all of the your processors resources.

Or, just disable your virus pgm and start visiting lots of porn sites, that should get those used processor cycles working too!

[sooneron]

Probably to the former and DEFINITELY to the latter.

So, no one will see it is what you're saying...

[bluedogok]

Gotta throw out the obligatory use a "real" operating system post.... Linux is a lot better in this area.
When the software you use only runs on Windows and there is no version available for Unix variants then you don't have much of a choice in OS. I started out on Sun workstations running Unix (before Solaris) and wished it would have taken over the market but it didn't. You could get an Acad station on a PC at that time for around $6,000, a Sparcstation 1 Acad station was around $18,000, the SGI Iris Indigo with Acad was around $12,000, it is easy to see why the PC version took over the market and Autodesk dropped everything but Windows. They have slowly been adding back an Apple OS in the past year.

[dwarthog]

When the software you use only runs on Windows and there is no version available for Unix variants then you don't have much of a choice in OS. I started out on Sun workstations running Unix (before Solaris) and wished it would have taken over the market but it didn't. You could get an Acad station on a PC at that time for around $6,000, a Sparcstation 1 Acad station was around $18,000, the SGI Iris Indigo with Acad was around $12,000, it is easy to see why the PC version took over the market and Autodesk dropped everything but Windows. They have slowly been adding back an Apple OS in the past year.

Yeah, that whole, "only works on Windows", is a real bummer at times.

Given the kind of "horsepower" he has, he could easily install some sort of virtualization like Parallels. I've been meaning to give that a try myself actually. Got some friends running in on their macs and they swear by it.

[StoopTroup]

I thought this was gonna be about one of those dildos that strap on to the forehead.