Who likes building Monster PCs?

[Freebird 0]

Wow Shizzon you definitely have a monster in mind! Quad socket motherboard, that would be insane. I love to build computers, but I dont know if you would classify mine as a "monster" or not. I built it for mainly a gaming rig. It has a core i7 processor with a very conservative overclock from 2.6 to 3.2. 6 gigs of DDR3 ram and 2 EVGA GTX 285's for an SLI setup. I realize that SLI does not scale as well as Crossfire, but I wanted to go ahead and get it so I could play as long as possible without the need for upgrading. I would like to call it future-proofing, but really there is no such thing, especially with how fast the hardware industry advances. But I love to build computers and gaming is nice too. It would be interesting to see your originally proposed build, thats for sure!

[shizzzon 461]

i dont know if u read through this post but i decided not to go through with it.

I did some research and found out that most of the time when video encoding, each additional socket only adds about 17% more speed to the whole process so a waste of money...

It's ironic you post your pc specs because i gotta build a gaming rig for somebody somewhat like yours.

Asus Rampage II with an i7 2.6ghz that wil be OC'ed to around 3.6-3.8ghz within the first 60 days of use and 6gb of Xtreme Corsair Dominator DDR3 sticks, these babies are over $230 so they better be a good OC'er.

This board accepts both Crossfire AND SLI but being the new crossfire fan i am when i used to only run nvidia, he's gonna get a 4850 graphics card. Pretty decent goin from AGP and not breakin the wallet much at all.

For the OC tweak, we will be installin a $155 air cooled system on the socket to ensure utmost stability using air. I like to modify the surrounding cooling area as well just like in SPL to try and gain cooler temps while Oc'ing to get the best possible.

Those GTX285s.... i'm sure they weren't cheap!

And speakin of future proofing, i dont know if the sockets will change but i do know that by the end of 2011, Intel is suppose to have 10 or 12core consumer chips on market.

[Freebird 0]

No, I'll admit I didnt read the whole thread lol. I just saw a thread about building PCs and was intrigued. Ive heard that Rampage II board is a good one and I probably should have used it in my build. But I went with an EVGA x58 board. What kind of air cooling system are you going to install? If you haven't heard of them you might want to check out Prolima Megahalem. Thats what is sitting on my i7 right now.

I dont have a big overclock or nothing, but when running benchmark tests the cpu has yet to get over 30c. But of course my ambient room temp is fairly low as well which plays a big part I assume. But still its worth a look....if you can fit it in the case you choose to use.

No those 285's weren't cheap! But the really sad part is they have already been bested by ATI with their new 5xxx series of graphics cards. But for most games out right now two of those cards is still overkill and I probly should have never bought two of them in the first place lol.

2011 may be when I have to build a new pc! Ive already seen rumors of 6 and 8 core processors from AMD and Intel over on tomshardware so it will be interesting to watch it all unfold in the next few years!

[SuBXeRo 1]

Every 2 years or so, a new socket type comes out for consumer use. Its nice to get ahead of the curve a bit by buying more expensive components, but at the same time, they are going to be outdated in the next 6 months. Its always great to have the newest technology but if you are on a budget, some of the stuff thats a little bit older will just fine!

One thing that really kills performance is the harddrives that you use, a 7200rpm drive works fine but you can gain so much from putting disks in raid 0 or 1/0 for backup/striping processes. Even better would be the raptors in raid. I read in an article, WD is planning a 20k rpm drive to compete with SSD's until their newly acquired company silicon something is able to produce SSD's that can compete in the market.

In my post above i said that intel is coming out with new chips with integrated graphics and mem controllers, plan to more chips like that in the future from intel and most likely Nvidia as well.

Im hoping that within the next 8-10 years we will finally see an optical chip released for public use, i am talking about the IBM chip currently being designed, more or less a supercomputer on a chip.

[sl33py 0]

A bit late to the game so not sure how much help this is.

Most *current* software won't be able to utilize the additional cores of your 16 core dream machine. ECC vs Non-ECC - Non-ECC will *always* be faster since it does not have the additional latency (clock for clock) of error checking. Also ECC is typically horrible at OC'ing (usually no heatsink, not designed to run hot, not high end OC'able RAM chips).

It still would be a cool system! I do a fair amt of video as well. Intel typically beats the pants off AMD specifically when it comes to video encoding. Look at any head to head comparison and look at the benchmarks for video. I've run both, am not a fanboy of either. Whichever CPU is the best bang for the $ is what I build around at that point in time. Same for video cards (though also sometimes depending on chipset of mobo determining what i want to run for both).

My system is getting a bit long in the tooth, but will be doing a Win 7 refresh to speed it back up. For anyone who feels their system is slowing down a lot of the time just re-install windows will perk it back up. Especially if you overbuilt it to begin with. I just won Win 7 x64 Ultimate at a pre-release party on Fri. So need to backup data, wipe, and install Win 7. Maybe next week if i can get the time.

My current system. It was more impressive new... Now about 2 years old (with a few more current updates (CPU, HDD, and GPU)).

Intel Q9550 (Quad 2.83 w/ 12M cache). Easily running @ 3.6 w/o pushing things.

Coolit Systems Boreas cooler (slightly custom) Cooling NB and CPU only (@ 15-20C at load) (worth the effort - replace the stock pump they suck)

8GB DDR2 @ 1066 (nothing special - Corsair XMS2, not really pushing these)

4GB RAM Drive for my swap (OLD from a previous RAM Drive only XP install)

4GB speedboost using USB header on mobo. (haven't seen much of an improvement, but had it kicking around)

300GB Velociraptor 10k HDD for OS (these rock!). May eventually get a second and stripe them.

HD4890 Vid (may pair up in the future w/ 2nd in crossfire)

Couple WD 750's for storage.

Lightscribe DVD Burner and USB Slim Blu-Ray Burner external (great little drive - even works on my netbook)

ASUS Rampage Formula Limited (has NB cooler vs std) - older gen 1 x48 chipset for DDR2 and 775 socket. Great Mobo - been a workhorse.

and Dual 24 Viewsonics. LOVE my monitors...

So - for anyone looking to increase the speed of their current system. You can of course buy new, but look at upgrading your RAM first, do a fresh backup and re-install (from scratch!) the OS. If you have Vista - try Win 7 (runs faster w/ less CPU and RAM requirements).

Also don't turn your nose up at a Mac. I love my macbook pro, and little mini dell 9 w/ OSX. Macs are spendy to start, but IMHO worth a bit of a premium. though not as fun as building your own... Not to say i'd turndown a mac pro DT.

Car audio noob, but don't get me talking computers...

Edited October 14, 2009 by sl33py