To wait or not to wait....

[suryad]

Yes Zxian that is my thought as well. That is why I am determined to build it. I am just looking for the juiciest parts, researching roadmaps and product updates. I want to make it so that I dont have to upgrade in a really long while. Problem is that I chose the wrong time to get obsessed with this machine. AMD just released an awesome roadmap at Anandtech...and Nvidia and ATI are releasing newer versions of the graphics cards in Q1 of 2k6!

[keytotime]

If you can pull this off woow.

*wipes drool off keyboard*

[Jeremy]

You guys are f***ing insane.

[suryad]

Yes I am drooling already right now. I can almost imagine the day when I am opening up all the boxes all these parts arrive in so I can put it together. The assembly process will be long drawn out but I will create a step by step thread then showing how to put it together. The raid setups are going to be a bit difficult methinks.

[jeeva]

If you ask me, then you wait until you die. There's no stoping, there's an ongoing process, I for myself had also the feeling to have did a mistake after I assembled my new PC, as the M2 was announced, but hey, you can't stop that.

And about the lifecycle you said with the no need of upgrade, I think you're wrong, the process is going faster and faster, everyone want to make it better, after you're satisfied you'll see the model twice better than yours.

Make it like that: Decide what you wanna do with the PC.

Go and search THG for something that fits your needs, select the model with the most bang for the buck, then you're right, you saved a lot of money and have a great system exactly what you wanted, no waste of money and electricity.

I found, that hte GF6600 GT works great with all new games if you select highest options and low AA and AF settings, but while I see no difference, I don't care.

Think about it.

EDIT: Sorry some mistakes have found their ways into my post.

Edited November 16, 2005 by jeeva

[DocMartin]

Hi suryad, I was just researching a similar system myself and found your thread was active.

Checking on pricewatch for lower-cost alternatives, you may want to look into:

Case:

SkyHawk MSR4615 D7 (www.shg.com.tw) [$30.49 pricewatch]

-EATX board specification 12"x13"

-ALUMINUM, which is a big plus in my book, weighing in around 13 lbs.

My current case is a skyhawk aluminum, and it is very sturdy, very light, and very easy to access. Plus there will be even more room for a water cooling setup, even though mine fits easily in the smaller case.

RAM:

I can't seem to find out whether ECC/Reg is an absolute necessity, but it does seem to run a bit slower than the unbuffered/non-registered.

Pricewatch found me 2 sticks of pc3200 512gb ECC/Reg CAS 3 for $49 each.

I think with dual channel ddr, it's best to install them in pairs? So 2x512gb for each of the CPU's for a 2gb total?

PSU:

HEC ACE480UB (www.hecgroupusa.com) [$61.56 www.avadirect.com]

Of the power supplies recommended on the Tyan website, the Zippy HP2-6460P is only rated at 460W. Taking that into account, the fact that it wants EPS12V, and dual SLI, I found this PSU. 2 fans, dual rails... sounds good to me. I actually went out and bought this one last week for my current system when the old PSU died.

HDD:

Seagate Cheetah ST3146854LW 15krpm 146gb u320 (www.seagate.com) [$299 re-cert on pricewatch]

Comparable to the Hitachi's you have listed, but might be a bargain deal...

Of course, I'm only drooling over the specs too. And just trying to find ways to make it affordable for my own budget ($2,000 still might be out of range) In all honesty I would probably have to start with one cpu/gpu/ram combo. But with a motherboard that lets you scale up so easily, it just seems like the right place to start.

[Thai3g_Eclipse]

It's necessary to use ECC Registered RAM for Socket 940 platforms, so yeah he's got to. Why not wait for Socket M2 so you can use DDR2?

[DocMartin]

Why not wait for Socket M2 so you can use DDR2?

Well, yes, that question was already asked and answered. If you choose to keep waiting and waiting for the next technology to become available, you end up going nowhere (although it does save you money by never buying anything).

M2 is only the next socket design from AMD. The current cpu's are still extremely powerful, and this mb will allow for 2 dual-core chips... plenty of growing room.

And DDR2 is only the next continuation of ram clock speed increase. The current DDR2 design seems to have slightly increased latency and slightly increased clock, which seem to cancel each other out. And I believe that the cpu is limited to 800 Mhz FSB also? So unless you plan to overclock the system, they don't offer any real advantages for the time being. Down the road there may be some performace increase as the technology matures, but I'm not convinced that DDR 400Mhz dual-channel is too slow...

[jeeva]

DDR 2 is only introduced, because Intel systems have their Memory controller in the north bridge and not in the CPU.

[suryad]

Thanks for all the posts and responses fellas...I am indebted.

DDR2 is definitely in the future for AMD. Socket M2 is going to be using that. Then again Intel has started sampling DDR3 and so it could well be that AMD might even skip DDR2 altogether! Who knows? My point is...that since technology is changing so fast and since there are very new products coming soon enough...by the time I arrange the funds for this machine the newer tech will be out. So I have decided to slow down...control my drool...and my pathological desire to get this hardware and be patient....to research more.

For example I found out that I have to use ECC ram on that motherboard. I found out that using scsi and sata controllers instead of the onboard ones is a better idea. For that reason I can get the mobo without the SCSI option and instead get individual SCSI and SATA controllers.

Also I found out a very good power supply and a few more insights as well in the amount of technical knowledge required to operate and build a workstation of this magnitude.

Here is an updated list Ultimate DCC

Thanks for all the feedback especially docmartin. I will be looking into your suggestions soon enough. Till then if you have any questions or any comments about my sanity as well...please feel free to post on this thread.

[suryad]

I am also thinking of getting a tape drive...since every hard drive will be in RAID 0 format...a backup setup like that would be a good idea as well. I think it would be a great way to store the master footage.