Unlimited Budget for Super Computer

In one of the first posts I said (Any way I am a huge gamer and I do a lot of video encoding. As well as a lot of downloading). So is that unable to run as a x86 or a 64 bit machine. Basically Linux. Nah If only does that then I want a computer that actuality runs windows.

 

i7 975: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115212
Biostar X58: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138135
2 of these 6GB Corsair XMS3: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145253
Three HD5870s when they are released next month
Intel 80GB Gen. II SSD When available http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167016
WD 1TB Performance Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284
2 of these WD 2TB Green Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344
Lian-Li PC-P80 case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112159
Zalman 1KW PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817379009
Thermalright Ultra120Extreme-1366RT Cooler: http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=24727
LG Bluray Burner Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136137

This lot's around $3200 plus shipping, without the graphics cards added, as I don't know exactly how much they'll cost.

 

Thank you very much for your list I will go with the components you've got there. I will look out for them when I go to my computer market next week.

Thanks for all your help

Cheers Hasamoder

 

Again, take note that the graphics cards won't be out until the 10th of September at the earliest.

 

Seems like a rather sad system.

No hardware RAID card, only one SSD, 1TB temp, and 1TB storage?

...And where's the phase change cooling? For $15,000 it should have something like this: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7..._754_775_939_940_AM2_Xeon_LGA1366.html?tl=g49 to make the CPU run at extreme speed.

here is a slightly nicer build for you:
Mainboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128362 (almost the same as Sammoris's recomendation, except it has an extra PCIe x8 slot)
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115212
memory: 2 of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145242 (same spec's as sammoris's memory, but cheaper and physicly smaller)
video: Two HD5870s when they are released next month (three would not help much anyway, as the third would only run at x4 even if there was a slot for it)
Boot Drives: 4 of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167016
Storage Drives: 4 of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337
Raid Controler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116068
SFF-8087 to SATA cables (need 2 of these) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116099
Power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139007
LG Bluray Burner Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136137
Cooler: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/6...754_775_1366_939_940_AM2_Xeon.html?tl=g49c275 -
(with i7 mounting kit on same page)
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112164
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

Nice System!!

 

This is $4000 worth of stuff. We've explained the pros and cons of hardware RAID already. Unless someone actually needs hardware RAID in their main PC, they're better off building a RAID file server instead.
The vapor compression cooler is a good example of spending $1000 for the sake of spending $1000. You don't need it. It's merely showing off. A $75 cooler will be ample.
Don't get two pairs of cheaper memory, when you have 6 sticks of that together they will get very hot.
Also, Seagate 7200.11 drives? I don't think so.
A $10,000 PC with some serious flaws, all in a very midrange case, asking for heat issues. If there's a sorry build, it's this one.

 

-His budget is $15,000 (or more)...My design didn't come close to that. If he had set a limit of $4,000 then I would have shot for that number.
-The cooler I listed allows for extreme overclocks that could never be reached with air or water cooling. A $75 cooler would not do the same. He wants the best performance he can get for $15,000. Going with dual Xeon 3.2GHZ chips is not an option because there are no good dual-socket 1366 boards available with enough PCIe slots. Because of this, the best chip that can be bought is the 3.33GHZ i7. To go faster than this, you need to overclock. To go faster than an overclock, you need to reclock. Reclocking an i7 can only be achieved at very low temperatures.
-The main difference between the memory is that the first set is taller and more expensive, and the second set is shorter with wider fins. I don't see any problems with using the shorter ones, especialy since there will be no heat from the CPU right next to them.
-I chose that particular case because is is supposed to fit on top of the phase change cooler nicely. Normaly I do not recomend Li-On cases because they are too expensive, nor do I recomend mid-towers because they do not have enough room. Considering the case plus the cooler designed for it cost $1220, I wouldn't call it mid-range.
-I don't know what your problem with the seagate 7200.11 drives is, but he could swap them for the WD 1.5TB for the same price, this would reduce performance, but it would also reduce noise. No reason to use 1TB drives anymore.
-Other than the video cards and hard drives, there should not be any heat issues. The video cards might need upgraded coolers (the first 4870x2's had lack-luster cooling). The 1.5TB drives could also use a 4-drive cooler (or 4 1-drive coolers).
-The raid card will be handling a 4-drive raid-5 array (the 1.5TB's), but it will also be handling a 4-drive raid-0 array (the SSD's). A raid-server would not give performance anywhere near where a good hardware raid card would provide (even software raid would be faster than a raid server!) The question was not "please design me a crummy system that will connect to a storage server".

 

What do I need then. I'm wanting to start tomorrow or the day after so what do you think I need.

 

IF you realy want a system that is the fastest possible, without buying a mainboard manufacturer to force them to make a realy nice dual-1366 board...here it goes (BTW...This build has 4870x2 video cards, as they are currently the fastest ATI cards out...if you are ordering tomarow, then the 5870 is not an option):

$370 x2 - XFX HD-487A-CDF9 Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB Video cards
$190 - Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with Windows 7 Upgrade Coupon
$360 - 3ware 9690SA-8I-SGL SAS/SATA PCI Express x8 Hardware RAID Controller Card
$15 - 3ware CBL-SFF8087-05M 0.5m SFF-8087 Serial ATA cable
$1000 - Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition CPU
$280 - GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 Motherboard
$240 - CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W Power Supply
$180 - LG Black 6X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 6X BD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner with LightScribe Support
$15 - Alpha and Omega UHDC-BK UHDC HARD DRIVE COOLER
$9 - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
$190 x2 - CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 TR3X6G1600C7D G (I think the non-dominator stuff would work just as well, but at this price, might as well spend the extra $60)
$200 - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series 70SB088600007 PCI Express Interface Sound Card



$120 x4 - Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA Hard Drive (faster, but makes more noise & heat)
-or-
$120 x4 - Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EADS 1.5TB 5400RPM 32MB Cache SATA Hard Drive (Slower, but quiter)


$190 x4 - Fujitsu MBA3300 MBA3147RC 147GB 15000 RPM 16MB Cache SAS Hard Drive (faster sustained reads & writes than SSD, also cheaper and available now)
& $15 x4 - Alpha and Omega UHDC-BK UHDC HARD DRIVE COOLER
& $33 - 3ware CBL-SAS8087OCF-06M 0.6m SFF-8087 SAS/SATA breakout cable, forward, 4x SFF8482 with power
-or-
$230 x4 - Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2C1 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal SSD (faster peak read speeds, slower write speeds, less heat & noise, not currently available)
& $7 x4 - BYTECC Bracket-25350 Dual 2.5" HDD/SSD Bracket for 3.5" Drive Bay
& $15 - 3ware CBL-SFF8087-05M 0.5m SFF-8087 Serial ATA cable


$1060 - Cooler Express 2009 Super Single Evaporator CPU Cooling Unit with 1366 Adapter (this allows for extreme overclocks and increased stability while overclocked)
& $160 - LIAN LI PC-A17B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
& $9 x3 - Scythe SY1225SL12M 120mm "Slipstream" Case Fan
-or-
$75 - Thermalright Ultra120 eXtreme-1366 RT Premium Heatpipe Cooler (some overclocking is possible, but not as much, and not as stable)
& Any Case with at least 9 external 5.25" bays. Lian Li case includes the equivelany of 3 "Alpha and Omega UHDC-BK UHDC HARD DRIVE COOLER" units, and you may need to add these if the choosen case does not have this.
& fans to fit the case you find

(All prices are US dollars, gotten from newegg, except the thermalright cooler from sammoris's link & the Cooler Express unit, found on frozencpu.com)

Equiped with the phase change cooler and the 15,000RPM drives, the total price (USD, before shipping) is $6189, or about $7500 AUD.

 

Thank you Killer bug I'll out for these today. This is the final post I'll be making because I'm going out today so what above is what I'll be getting. Thank you guys for your help and I'll see you later. Bye

Cheers Hasamoder

 

That's all fair enough but back up the info on the Seagates. At least one of them is VERY likely to fail.

 

UM...that's why we are using RAID, because if a drive fails, he looses no data! That's the whole point of RAID5! Drives from all manufacturers fail from time to time...I wouldn't trust ANY drive to store data without redundancy or backup. Also, judging by newegg's reviews, the WD 1.5TB 5400RPM seems to have higher failure rates than the Seagate 1.5TB 7200RPM...be even assuming the seagate is more reliable, I still would not run then without RAID (nor would I run a drive with 1000 postitive reviews and no negative reviews without RAID)


BTW...what choices did you go with? SSD's or 15K's? Supercooling or aircooling? Seagate speed or WD quiet?

 

That's like saying I buy the faulty products off people because I know they have warranty. It's stupid to buy something you know is dodgy just so you can test a redundancy system. For RAID's usefulness, you shouldn't HAVE to use it.
The WD green drives have lots of bad press on newegg. I don't look at newegg reviews for hard disks to be honest, I just take the honest opinions of people I know who use them. I myself have six WD Green drives, and my close mates have another 7 or 8, not one of them has ever gone wrong. The seagates are another story.

 

I can say the same thing about Seagate drives vs WD drives...the WD drives I have purchased all died within two years (in fact in my experience they have the second highest failure rate of any brand), my seagate drives last to obsolesence...then get handed down to last years more. I think seagate's biggest problem is that they are often confused with Samsung, the worst drives I have ever seen in terms of reliability.

If you want a 1.5TB drive in a 7200RPM version, then Seagate is the only choice. WD has not been able to make one, nor has anyone else. Given this, seagate is the most reliable and the least reliable drive in this category...because it is the only drive...NO CHOICE! Recomending WD for this is a bit like recomendending a 3COM mainboard...it might be nice if it existed, but it does not exist.

One day you will have a WD fail on you, and then you will be cursing yourself for trusting a brand name rather than RAID.

 

No confusion here. As I said, the reliability problems only plague the newer Seagate drives (latter 7200.11s and all 7200.12s) - the older ones are rock solid, I own a 7200.9 and a 7200.10 and have had no problems with either. Samsung are another manufacturer that used to produce some relatively nice quality stuff but went downhill a bit in recent times. WD I have not heard of any major issues with in recent times, no matter what you might say about their early drives (which in general th
WD have made a 1.5TB 7200rpm drive successfully, it is in the final testing phase before release. Given the popularity of the WD Green drives, it's easy to see why they haven't rushed the release of the black drive. They've shifted a huge number of them, everybody building a file server nowadays is using them, and why not? You certainly don't need 7200rpm drives in a fileserver if you're going for RAID.
One day you will have several seagate 7200.12s fail on you before you got a chance to replace the first one, and the RAID will break, and then you will be cursing yourself for trusting RAID rather than buying good drives.
I've no doubt eventually my luck will run out with drives, hence why I do plan to use RAID (when did I say otherwise?) but since if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing right, I'm waiting until I can afford a proper Areca 8-port RAID6 card.

 

Personally, I cant say anything bad about WD or Seagate. I have a mix of 2 Seagates(1 IDE and 1 SATA), 2 WDs(again 1 IDE,1 SATA) and to top it off a Hitachi E-SATA drive. The Hitachi came packaged as a Simpletech USB drive as a birthday present. Plus a a WD MyNotebook USB Drive. The only problem I had was the psu on the casing broke but it functions fine as an internal drive now. Aside from the obvious performance differences, they all have been rock solid.

 

"hence why I do plan to use RAID (when did I say otherwise?)"

If you plan to use it to secure your data, why do you believe that others should not use it? In numerous threads you have said that it is not for beginners, but it is more for beginners than it is for power users. This is because power users will backup a non-raid drive, with normal users do not.

"One day you will have several seagate 7200.12s fail on you before you got a chance to replace the first one, and the RAID will break"

...So then, you believe that a seagate drive is more likely to fail in 2-4 days than a WD is to fail in 2-4 years? Typical fanboy B.S.

Like I said before, I (and many others that I know) have had bad experiences with WD drives (In fact, the data loss from a WD failure is why I am so gung-ho about raid). Personaly, I consider them to be the second worse brand on the market...but that is anecdotal, just like your experiences with seagate have been. I bet you did see a few failures when the 1.5TB first came out...it had a terrible firmware that caused random data loss with some controlers. This problem is ancient history, and only applies to the first couple of weeks worth of 1.5TB drives they made. I did not recomend the Seagates on the basis that they are the most reliable units around (although my experience with the newer 1.5TB seagates has been flawless...not even one bad sector after a year of abuse in a RAID5 array for my home drives, and no complaints from any customers). I recomended them because they are the only 7200RPM 1.5TB available.

 

Me personally, neither have I, with WD or Seagate, but I know to avoid their newer drives as they're plagued with reliability issues. You may well have the slightly older but more solid drives (in fact, in external drives, you almost certainly will have an older model)

Killerbug: No fanboyism here, just truth. Buy any of the older Seagates (I believe you still can) and you'll be fine, but the 7200.12s are definitely to be avoided. People who are still buying them today are still getting failures. The so called head unloading issue of the WDs was never a problem, and never will be.

 

As I said Seagate and WD havent done me wrong, BUT, I have to agree with Sam here. Not about RAID or any of that, but just on the basis that I to still here of problems with the Seagate drives. Not to say WD doesnt have its failures but its not something as common as the Seagates right now.