| [ Total Views: 794 | Total Replies: 21 | Thread Id: 71962 ] |
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 Brad
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 posted on September 26th, 2008 at 08:00 PM |
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Computer Geeks - I need a new box what parts do you suggest ?
Ok I need to get a new computer. Only need the box part as I have plent of monitors, keyboards etc.
So what Processor, motherboard, ram etc do you suggest ?
I do not play games but I do play with video editing, CAD design and run quite a few resource intensive applications as once.
Ideas and options ??
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Andy
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| posted on September 26th, 2008 at 08:29 PM |
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What CAD packages? If 3D modelling spend your pennies on plenty of RAM and big Video card. I use Nvidia at work and they seem to do the job.
Going 64bit is worth the expense, but that will depending on what operating system you want to run?
No idea on the video editing?
Next you'll be asking what's a good motor to put in your VW........
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Brad
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| posted on September 26th, 2008 at 08:54 PM |
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I run XP Pro with 4GB at the moment, from memory XP can't use more the 4GD. It is only 2.00 GHz though so will upgrade that. Only doing 2D stuff. Th
ebiggest issues I run into is when I run SQL Server and a few intsnaces on Visual; Studio 2008 and then open up Enterprise. Combined with local hose
and IIS it seems to push me over the edge.
I also only run an AMD 64x2 DC 3600 + processor and I am thinking it is tapped out. System Resources seem to sit at around 80% when I get into it.
Engine for a VW .. stupid question - SUBARU ....
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Euro_67
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| posted on September 26th, 2008 at 09:42 PM |
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MAC
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Brad
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| posted on September 26th, 2008 at 09:57 PM |
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| Quote: | Originally
posted by Euro_67
MAC
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Yeah .. NO,
I can't use a MAC due to some of the applications I have to use do not work on MAC's
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 vanderaj
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| posted on September 27th, 2008 at 07:36 AM |
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Brad,
I have a Mac and Parallels. Parallels lets me virtualize a real PC (in that it can transfer the drive of your existing PC to an image if you connect
your old disk in a USB or firewire case). With enough RAM, the two OS's running together is no huge issue. I run a CentOS staging VM for changes I
have in mind on the server. I use Vista for those few times a year I need Visio.
However, if you're really wedded to the old PC, then I would suggest any of the following tier one vendors:
Lenovo Think Pads, like the T61 or X300 - solid construction, good warranty
HP Pavillion dv5t series - was going to replace the wife's old Pavillion lappie with this one
Dell have a range of new laptops like the Studio 15 which are pretty good
I wouldn't go with anyone less than tier one for a laptop.
All of these choices are more expensive than a Mac of similar capabilities, and most do not have all the features of the Mac, such as FireWire,
integrated web cam, standard (rather than optional) 64 bit OS, decent screens (Macs really do 16 million colors, most PCs don't), light weight when
taking into account the total amount of stuff you need to carry - my Macbook Pro weighs 3 kg with the adapter, most PCs are 3.5 kg or more with the
adapter), and plus you get all the girls when you go to Starbucks. Seriously, do the math - option the PCs up to the same processor speeds, same RAM,
same disk and speed of disk, same ports, and most PCs are easily 10-50% more expensive than an equivalent Mac.
If you want a desktop, any old yum cha provider will do as long as you do software RAID or have decent backups.
thanks,
Andrew
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sinecure
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| posted on September 28th, 2008 at 12:51 AM |
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What sort of $? For a reasonable spec:
E8400 or Q6600 ($200-$250)
Decent (preferably SLI) mainboard ($150-$500)
9800GTX ($250-$300) or 260GTX ($350-$400)
650W+ PSU ($150-$250)
4g good quality RAM ($100-$200)
I would go the 260GTX as its the latest gen, and if combined with an SLI, DDR3 capable mainboard you can cheaply improve your memory and graphics
performance in 12 months when this model graphics card should still be available.
But whatever the spec, don't skimp on the mainboard and the PSU.
BTW, XP can only use 3.2g of RAM, unless you mod the boot config with the /3GB switch. Vista 64 is still a bit temperamental, but its so easy to set
up XP for dual boot if you do V64 first. I have my rig set up like this and find it absolutely ideal.
XP64 is highly underrated. Device drivers can be a bit difficult to find but it's a rock solid OS with 16gig RAM support.
A POSSE AD ESSE.
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BrisDubba
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| posted on September 28th, 2008 at 11:24 AM |
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Brad,
Avoid buying a Commodore 64 - they probably are getting hard for upgrade parts.
Just trying to help 
VW Toys
64 Beetle - club car - Herbie
RSK 718 Porsche Spyder
76 Southern Cross Offroad racing buggy. "Manx Buggies"
77 Cobra Offroad racing buggy "RipOff"
68 Country Buggy KO200
64 Manx swb
70 Dual Cab kombi
74 Dual Cab kombi
74 Micro bus
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Brad
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| posted on September 30th, 2008 at 09:49 PM |
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mm ok thanks for the advice.
I can not go with a MAC as I have SOE limitations that prohibit this.
At this stage I am bending towards:
CPU - Intel ATX 8500 Core 2 DUO/3.16GHz
MB - Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L
Ram - Kingston DDR2 4GB (2 x 2G) PC6400 800 Mhz
GC - GeForce 9800GT 512M DDR3 AMP
PSU / Case - something with cross flow and over 400w
HDD - WD 640G SATAII 7200RPM
Was thinking of going AMD but the Core 2 Intel still seem to give better results for what I am looking at.
Not 100% on the GC as I don't play games and doubt I ever will. I do run twin monitors and a KVM(which seems to effect some GC, no idea why) So if
anyone can suggest a good Graphics Card that will run dual monitors without issue and work with the above parts I am keen to look at it.
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Brad
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| posted on October 1st, 2008 at 01:57 AM |
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In Case anyone else out there is looking for a new computer, my research ended up with my going with the following:
CPU - Intel CORE 2 QUAD Q9550/2.83GHz/12MB CACHE/1333MHz FSB/LGA775
RAM - Kingston DDR2 4(2x2G)PC6400 800Mhz - KVR800D2N5K2/4G
MB - Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L P45+ICH10 DDR2 1200 1600MHz PCI-E 2.0 SATAII GLAN 8Ch Audio ATX Ultra Durable
HDD - Western Digital 74G SATA Raptor 10000 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache)
Case / PSU - Coolermaster case rc 333 600W PSU
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vw54
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| posted on October 1st, 2008 at 06:06 AM |
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theres too much Geek talk on here for me LOL
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Sides
A.k.a.: Dave Sidery
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| posted on October 1st, 2008 at 07:17 AM |
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Ooops - only just caught this thread. 
That system you've spec'd should be pretty sweet... I run a Core2 Quad 2.6 and it's pretty nice for serious dev work - 2 or 3 instances of VS, a VM
and a fair bit of SQL access. Going up on the drive specs like you have was a good move - 74G might get a bit small (easily solved by adding a NAS)
but the 10000 rpm and large cache will help you with VS, particularly solutions that have lots of projects (say 20+).
If you can go 64bit on the OS that'd be good too.... from experience it's faster for most stuff, and is really noticable when lots of paging going
on like during a build. Comparisons I've done have the same spec box building 20-25% faster when running 64bit Vista compared to 32bit Vista... but I
work with REALLY big solutions... think 60+ projects ~10,000 files to make up industrial/control/MES apps.
Also - something for "down the road" - adding a second identical drive and then RAID'ing them together (striped - I think it's RAID 0) will give
you even better disk throughput again. Don't normally go this far on a normal dev box, but on build mules where everyone's waiting on it to finish
have found it can give a big boost.
VWDCQ vice pres & web dude - vwdcqinc.org.au
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Brad
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| posted on October 1st, 2008 at 10:22 AM |
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| Quote: | Originally
posted by Sides
Ooops - only just caught this thread.
That system you've spec'd should be pretty sweet... I run a Core2 Quad 2.6 and it's pretty nice for serious dev work - 2 or 3 instances of VS, a VM
and a fair bit of SQL access. Going up on the drive specs like you have was a good move - 74G might get a bit small (easily solved by adding a NAS)
but the 10000 rpm and large cache will help you with VS, particularly solutions that have lots of projects (say 20+).
If you can go 64bit on the OS that'd be good too.... from experience it's faster for most stuff, and is really noticable when lots of paging going
on like during a build. Comparisons I've done have the same spec box building 20-25% faster when running 64bit Vista compared to 32bit Vista... but I
work with REALLY big solutions... think 60+ projects ~10,000 files to make up industrial/control/MES apps.
Also - something for "down the road" - adding a second identical drive and then RAID'ing them together (striped - I think it's RAID 0) will give
you even better disk throughput again. Don't normally go this far on a normal dev box, but on build mules where everyone's waiting on it to finish
have found it can give a big boost.
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Cheers for that, you never realise just how much grunt is needed to run a few instances of VS and a couple of SQL and some local host. I am loosing 10
mins in the hour waiting ..... oh well gives me time to surf.
Also building a server 2000 machine and running SQL and IIS of shore which makes hell of a differemce in itself.
So who do you work for ??
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bond
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| posted on October 1st, 2008 at 10:50 AM |
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"so who do you work for? ? "
sounds like an Austin Powers quote.....
nick
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sinecure
A.k.a.: Sin
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| posted on October 1st, 2008 at 07:21 PM |
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MMM, RAID 0 Raptors. STAGGERINGLY fast, just make sure only your OS is on the Raptor, even as a single drive they have a fairly high failure rate if
they are not kept nice and cool, and always on. These drives DO NOT like powering up/down all the time. And the noise, the glorious noise.
Get the 260 over the 9800. The 9800's are just 8800 GPU's on a twin SLI bridge board with a few more pipes. Nvidia even recalled unsold 8800's to
strip the GPU and use them on the 'new' 9800 boards.
The 9800's are last gen tech, the 260 will give FAR better performance and longevity.
Or bite the bullet and go for an Nvidia Quadro if its application (CAD, DCC, etc) specific work. Even a mid-range FX570 ($300-$350) will smoke the
gaming specific cards in CAD.
My modest Q6600, 4gig OCZ Reaper, Asus P5N-E SLI, 2x 8800GT's runs 3 VM's (1 S2003, 1 W98, 1 WXP) under VMware VIM without breaking a sweat.
N.B. I've seen a Q9550 at 4.8GHz on liquid cooling. Tick, tick, tick ...BOOOOM!!!! LOL
A POSSE AD ESSE.
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Brad
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| posted on October 1st, 2008 at 07:26 PM |
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there will be no over clocking in this house :>
I hate games and I am confident that in stock trims with the cache and capacity it will be more than quick enought for a while.
In relation to HDD I have 4 TBs off machine in a stack so only run applications on the primary and then a temp file for what I am working on at the
time.
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Sides
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| posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 09:05 AM |
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Man I love those movies - "who does... number... 2 .... work... for...."
Well I work on the dev side for a company called Citect, which is a software and engineering company that started out Aussie but has recently been
bought up by Schneider-Electric (big French company). We do SCADA control systems for running factories, power plants, space-shuttle launch towers
(literally) and other industrial plants as well as MES software for planning, optimising and tracking materials through processes.
So yeah - 'dems my Geek credentials.... 
btw - IMHO over-clocking is OK when the load is mainly number crunching such as with games etc., but when you get lots of IO based stuff,
over-clocking doesn't really achieve much and can add a bit more stability risk (heh - VS is unstable enough as it is).
VWDCQ vice pres & web dude - vwdcqinc.org.au
Join a car club - get car peeps
My toys
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'60 KG Coupe - resto kinda started
01 New Beetle - gf's car, but I turn the spanners |
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grumble
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| posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 10:33 AM |
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I'm with Euro 67 Mac's have everything that I can handle ( which isn;t much ) but are user friendly and if it breaks or I have a problem I ring
beerman and he fixes it . Les
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h
A.k.a.: Towely BuMpEr KING! ILLegal ALIEN on a roadtrip
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| posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 07:00 PM |
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yeah get into the real world and get a mac.. nuff said..
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h
A.k.a.: Towely BuMpEr KING! ILLegal ALIEN on a roadtrip
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| posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 07:01 PM |
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| Quote: | Originally
posted by bond
"so who do you work for? ? "
sounds like an Austin Powers quote.....
nick
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"laser"
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sinecure
A.k.a.: Sin
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| posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 08:23 PM |
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| Quote: | Originally
posted by Buggy Brad
there will be no over clocking in this house :>
I hate games and I am confident that in stock trims with the cache and capacity it will be more than quick enought for a while.
In relation to HDD I have 4 TBs off machine in a stack so only run applications on the primary and then a temp file for what I am working on at the
time.
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Well I'm a hardware fiend and a gamer, not a coder (QR IT Operations infrastructure management). I don't OC as a rule, I upgrade, but I've done
some serious cooling setups for mates. OC'ing is fairly run of the mill stuff and is quite safe if you take the proper precautions. OC'ing is just
like working an engine really, how many people mod a stock engine with just a smidge more boost, or a bit more gas flow for the obvious payoff?
It's really MUCH safer to OC your CPU/GPU than turn up your turbo boost, as thermally-induced overload shutdown is built in to all modern processors.
Most engines I know of will just go bang if you push them too far from factory spec. Just increase cooling, keep the input power stable and you
won't shorten the lifespan of the chip significantly. "Factory" OC systems are everywhere now (even Dell does them) and are even covered by
warranties shock horror.
We have hundreds of SCSI/SATA Raptors across our farms, and the failure rate of those in racks with the worst (measured) air temp/circulation is quite
a factor above their happy, 18 degree friends. The SAS 10k's don't seem to suffer as much though.
I don't hate much at all, and very little of that with a passion.
Get a Quadro, you will feel more at peace with your machine knowing that the evil heart of a gamer won't make its presence felt and try to entice you
to the dark side, and we won't feel cheated out of a card that some poor, starving gamer couldn't buy because of you.
Enough of this, I just got Race Driver: Grid so I'm off to test some damage modelling.
GAME ON!!!!!
A POSSE AD ESSE.
I live in my own little world, but it's okay, they know me here.
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Brad
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| posted on October 2nd, 2008 at 09:55 PM |
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Well Box is built and online.
Seems to run much happier than the old one, then again I woul expect it to, I even splurged and got a UPS as well.
Now I get to spend the next 5 hrs loading softwar eback on it and looking for CD's and Keys.
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