Author Topic: What I asked Santa for: (Read 859 times)

Waffle · « **on:** December 08, 2005, 02:21:10 AM »

Got an email back from Mr.Claus that said I need to leave out $20,000 worth of premium scotch (at wholesale prices)....

What gives?

Processor/s: Dual Processor - Dual Intel® Xeon™ Processors 3.6GHz w/ EM64T 800 MHz FSB w/2MB Cache

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2

Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support with Onsite Service

AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit

Case: Alienware® Professional Workstation Chassis - Black

Power Supply: Enermax EG851AX-VH 660 Watt Power Supply

Motherboard: Alienware® X2 Dual Xeon™ Motherboard

Memory: 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 Registered ECC SDRAM at 400MHz - 4 x 1024MB

Graphics Accelerators: Dual NVIDIA® Quadro™ FX 4500 PCI-E 512MB DDR3 - SLI Ready

Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® Acoustic Dampening Level II - 40% Noise Reduction

System Drive: Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 1TB RAID0 (2 x 500GB Serial ATA-II 3Gb 7,200 RPM w/16MB Cache)

A/V Work Drives: High Performance with Data Security (RAID 1) - 500GB RAID1 (2 x 500GB Serial ATA 7,200 RPM w/32MB Cache)

Hard Drive Bay: SATA Hot-Swap Bay for Workstation Chassis

Removable Storage : 3.5" 1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive - Black

Primary Optical Drive: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive w/LightScribe
Technology

Secondary Optical Drive: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive w/LightScribe
Technology

Network Connection: Integrated High Performance Gigabit Ethernet

Additional Input / Output Controller: SIIG® Firewire 800 3-Port PCI Controller

Digital Audio Hardware: Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy® 2 ZS High Definition 7.1 Surround Firewire (IEEE® 1394)

Digital Content Creation Software: Autodesk® 3ds max® 8

Professional Creativity Solutions: Adobe® Photoshop® CS2

Primary Display: Samsung SyncMaster 244T 24" 6ms LCD Display - Black

Secondary Display: Samsung SyncMaster 244T 24" 6ms LCD Display - Black

Auxiliary Display One: Samsung SyncMaster 244T 24" 6ms LCD Display - Black

Auxiliary Display Two: Samsung SyncMaster 244T 24" 6ms LCD Display - Black

Power Protection: Opti-UPS ES1500C 1400VA (980W Capacity)

Speakers: Logitech® Z-5450 Digital 5.1 Speaker System w/ wireless rear speakers

Input Devices: 3D Connexion SpacePilot

Input Devices: Wacom® Intuos® 3 Platinum 9x12 Professional Pen Tablet

Productivity Software: Microsoft® Office 2003 Professional Edition

Free Alienware Mousepad: Free Alienware® Mousepad

Krusty · « **Reply #1 on:** December 08, 2005, 10:59:49 AM »

When you wish, you go all out!

Skuzzy · « **Reply #2 on:** December 08, 2005, 11:06:10 AM »

Obviously, not a gaming rig, but one helluva audio/video work station.

Although, you might want to get the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro,instead of the Audigy 2 ZS (not that there is anything wrong with the ZS, but the X-Fi is just better).

JTs · « **Reply #3 on:** December 08, 2005, 11:28:50 AM »

dang a free mouse pad how do they do it? looks like 660 might not be enough power. go here and get a 1 Kw psu.

tkor · « **Reply #4 on:** December 08, 2005, 01:47:03 PM »

Hmmm, the only specs I could find on the SyncMaster 244T showed a 25ms response time. As Skuzzy pointed out, that may not be too good for a gaming rig.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #5 on:** December 08, 2005, 02:01:55 PM »

No no, the reason I said it is obviously not a gaming rig is the use of the Quattro NVidia video cards. They bite for gaming, but are awesome for video work.

Waffle · « **Reply #6 on:** December 08, 2005, 02:24:14 PM »

lol - been kicking around the idea of getting something more tailored to audio work, that can also work above average on 3d content creation...

but let me weight it out....

a computer...or a new car! lol 20k might be too much, but 4 - 24' monitors would be sah-weet!

I might end up frankensteining something together.. I am curious about the dual processors.

Right now I've got an AMD64 3200 with ati x800pro with 1GB ram.

Who knows...lol prob wait and see what happens with prices of components after the first of the year.

Kev367th · « **Reply #7 on:** December 08, 2005, 08:02:15 PM »

To hell with the dual Xeons, pair of dual core Opterons is the way to go.

My dream system -

2 x dual core Opterons
Tyan mobo
8gb mem
U320 drives
2 x dual GPU 7800's
My own power station to run it!

Krusty · « **Reply #8 on:** December 09, 2005, 12:03:52 PM »

Hrm..... left hand: tried and true, tested, well-known xeons. right hand: New technology that runs very hot and has not been refined or tested...

*shifts hands up and down*

Left hand, it is!

Skuzzy · « **Reply #9 on:** December 09, 2005, 12:30:30 PM »

Given the number of issues I have seen with the dual-core AMD CPU based systems, I think it is premature to use them in a production environment.

And before any of you dual-core AMD/64bit AMD users jump in and start yelling about how perfect your systems are. Know this,..they aren't.

Based on what Waffle has posted, I can pretty well see what he is going to be doing. No way would I trust an AMD (dual core/X64) based solution for it, unless you just absolutely love to continously tinker with your computer.

Say what you want about Intel. They are slower, but they are far more reliable (system wide) and stable as compared to any AMD based solution for this type of work.

By the way. I do not love Intel. I do not love AMD. I want a reliable solution which works everytime I need it. And Intel still has AMD beat in that area. I have tried AMD. I will try AMD again.
Oh, and I also could care less what some WEB site has to say about either of them. I trust my experience with them more than any WEB site.

buzkill · « **Reply #10 on:** December 09, 2005, 05:01:57 PM »

my AMD64 system has been rock solid stable for a year and a half now('cept for when i screw up the o.s.)and i use it for everything including some of the CAD programming i do for work, so i don't know what you are talkin about scuzzy. ever use one for an extended period?

Skuzzy · « **Reply #11 on:** December 09, 2005, 05:44:22 PM »

Yes (sort of). I still was not happy with the overall performance though and had to under clock the RAM to make it stable (Crucial PC3200).

Also had problems with my Audigy 2 ZS card. When I did get it to work, there was still static in the sounds. Take the same Audigy 2 ZS card and use it in an Intel based system and it is flawless.

For serious audio work, I would not use nor recommend an AMD based system.

I said 'sort of' earlier. I did not keep the AMD system (ASUS motherboard, Athlon XP3200+) very long after fooling with it for a couple of weeks, I dumped it. I have never, ever, had those types of problems from an Intel based motherboard. Put it together, set the BIOS and boom, go to work. No fiddling around, no tweaking for the odd hardware, it just works.

I have not seen any real improvement in that in the newer stuff. Still picky about RAM, still finicky about sound cards. The X2 stuff has some issues I have not figured out yet. Until I do, I am staying away from them.

Kev367 is a staunch advocate of AMD systems, but I have seen how much effort he has put into his system, and the problems he has had. All have been worked out, but that is the point. You have to spend a lot of time working it out. If you want a system which just works, then AMD still has a long way to go as compared to an Intel based system.

Glad yours is working for you buzkil, and you may already do things you know that need to be done in order to get an AMD system up and stable (I do not know how you work around compatibility issues though).

Mustaine · « **Reply #12 on:** December 09, 2005, 05:55:22 PM »

i know we aren't talking state of the art, or running special needs stuff, but my AMD system, with NO tweaks, just plugged and ran has been going for over 2 years now with the only thing happening is a power supply fan dying and nuking the PS

heck i think it even has kingston memory in it

eagl · « **Reply #13 on:** December 09, 2005, 06:01:11 PM »

skuzzmeister,

I recently had to ditch my crucial memory on my A64 platform. I picked up some gskill value stuff on sale at newegg, and it's just as fast and cost half as much. I spent around $200 for 2x512 meg sticks of crucial ballistix back in Jan 2005, and I'm convinced now that they were causing my system instability. It got to the point where every week I'd change the ram to slower settings, and finally it was so bad I bought 2x1 gig sticks of the gskill stuff. I put in the memory, it autodetected fine, and the computer hasn't locked up once after almost 2 weeks of use, including 4 days of stress testing.

I'm still convinced that crucial memory is high quality stuff, but for some reason the memory died on my A64 MSI mobo, and I've heard others report the same thing. A bad batch of memory, or incompatibility? Who knows, but the ballistix memory has a reputation of getting very hot so who knows.

Anyhow, if you're still fighting an A64 setup with crucial memory, consider replacing it with something else. This 2 gig kit cost under $170 at newegg so I'm sure you can find something similiar.

BTW newegg advertised it incorrectly as "extreme series", when in fact it is "value series". Shame on newegg... They've been called on it at least twice in product feedback but they haven't changed the product listing. The only way to tell is to note the price (it's pretty low for CAS 2 PC3200 memory with 2 3 2 5 timings) or go to the gskill website. The heatspreaders also suck. The crucial heatspreaders were well aligned and the thermal tape entirely covered each ram chip. This gskill value stuff has a terrible heatspreader that is totally misaligned, and the thermal tape is only about 1/3 as wide as the ram chips so it probably makes the memory run a lot hotter than it otherwise would. But removing the heatspreaders will void the warranty, so I'm just happy I got 2 gig of nice fast memory that runs fine at stock PC3200 speeds and 2 3 2 5 1T timing for $168 plus shipping. Can't beat that with a stick, and my A64 rig appears to be completely stable once again.

Kev367th · « **Reply #14 on:** December 09, 2005, 06:22:55 PM »

Not so much staunch, if Intel produces a CPU competitvely priced, that can match an AMD64 for performance in gaming, and doesn't run like a toaster oven, I'll quite happily buy one.

Same goes for video cards had both ATI (9800 Pro) and nVidia (6800GT) last couple years. I just think nVidia had the edge on price/performance when I got my current 6800GT.

Perfect match - An Intel produced chipset for an AMD64.

Main problems with dual core still seem to be with Win XP, don't know what MS changed in the Windows scheduler for XP but it 'loses' track of threads when moving them between cores.
Same thing just doesn't happen in Win 2000.
I got the spinning clipboard when I 1st installed my X2, but only because I tried a HAL change on the fly.
Since reinstall of Windows AH2 has run fine apart from the current warpy/slidy thing people are now getting.