Just finished building DreamMachine, now Q for the other computer people out there

[IwantMKIII]

Just finished building the workstation for my GM EcoCar Challenge senior design class and had a question about OS's

Currently i have XP32 Pro on it as we need to use PSAT which will not operate on 64 from what we know.

We will be using programs such as CAD, PSAT, SimuLink, MatLab and the most demanding NX 6.0.

My question is, use XP64 or Vista64 Business? The biggest advantage i can see with vista is utilization of DirectX10 and the fact more and more programs will be supporting it as time goes on. This is a 3 year project, we are year 1.

System specs:

Dual (two), Harpertown Quad Core Xeon 5460 3.16Ghz, 12MB L2 {very costly at $1250 per processor}
Asus Z7S Workstation motherboard Intel 5400 chipset
ATI FireGL 8600 1GB {very pricey as well at $1400 :aigo:, almost didn't fit in the full size case}
8GB ECC Kingston 240Pin DDR2
Western Digital 300GB 10000RPM 3MB/s (main)
Western Digital 1TB 7200RPM 3MB/s (storage)
XClio 1200Watt PS (great product BTW)
SilverStone Full Size Case (one of the few to support the new SSI style MB's)

A ways through the build
[thumb]http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/3228/0910081711aat1.jpg[/thumb]
Massive power supply, i think it could power the Saturn VUE we're redesigning lol
[thumb]http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/1751/0910081728iq3.jpg[/thumb]
Just about done in this pic
[thumb]http://img380.imageshack.us/img380/6606/0910081815xw7.jpg[/thumb]
Done building
[thumb]http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/6086/0910081831sk8.jpg[/thumb]

Most can see just from the specs its quite a beastly machine (and should be for about $6000 in components), but Vista's extra features should not really slow down this at all. Im thinking in terms of stability.

I just did PCmark05 and 3dMark06 and was quite disapointed with both results, hopefully a 64bit OS will improve the marks to where they should be instead of getting beat out by some overclocked gaming computer.

 

[figgie]

Well the DDR2 800 mhz will be a slow down. Is there no DDR3 based workstation/server motherboards?

The Drives......would have been better off getting 5 300 GB drives and Raiding them.

As for overclocking. Remember. Overclocking is not only the CPU but also affect the pipes to the Memory, graphics, Hard drives etc. That is why they can score what they do.

 

[Kai]

Return that fireGL straight away and get yourself a Radeon HD4850 for way, WAY less money - all the FireGL features can be enabled through a driver hack!

 

[figgie]

Return that fireGL straight away and get yourself a Radeon HD4850 for way, WAY less money - all the FireGL features can be enabled through a driver hack!

I would go with a 4870 X2 and enable the OpenGl portions that are missing as you mentioned

 

[Kai]

Well the DDR2 800 mhz will be a slow down. Is there no DDR3 based workstation/server motherboards?

The Drives......would have been better off getting 5 300 GB drives and Raiding them.

As for overclocking. Remember. Overclocking is not only the CPU but also affect the pipes to the Memory, graphics, Hard drives etc. That is why they can score what they do.

Wrong. Most boards with overclocking features these days have memory dividers and the PCI & PCIe bus frequencies are LOCKED unless otherwise changed, it's possible to change the CPU & memory speeds totally independantly of any other onboard device.

And DDR2 ECC is expensive, and speed grades above PC2-6400 are progressively moreso, and near impossible to get in higher densities.

 

[IwantMKIII]

Well the DDR2 800 mhz will be a slow down. Is there no DDR3 based workstation/server motherboards?

The Drives......would have been better off getting 5 300 GB drives and Raiding them.

As for overclocking. Remember. Overclocking is not only the CPU but also affect the pipes to the Memory, graphics, Hard drives etc. That is why they can score what they do.

I try to stick with Asus when i can, and there are no DDR3 compatible workstations from any maker I am aware of off hand w/o dropping some big$$ which we already put into processors and graphics cards.

ECC DDR2 800 is quite expensive and effective on this motherboard, starting at about $50/gb. The MB supports 24GB of memory :evil2:, not that ill need that...i hope

As for overclocking, one thing i love about Asus is it does it all for you and safely in my experience. I've heard of people overclocking Harpertown CPUs close to the 9GHz range with very effective cooling.

Return that fireGL straight away and get yourself a Radeon HD4850 for way, WAY less money - all the FireGL features can be enabled through a driver hack!

now ya tell me :icon_bigg. Oh well, university funded. We get 30000/year plus donated parts worth well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for this particular project :love:

 

[Kai]

9Ghz? Thats un-possible.

4.5Ghz sure, on water maybe.

4Ghz on air, possible.

 

[figgie]

Wrong. Most boards with overclocking features these days have memory dividers and the PCI & PCIe bus frequencies are LOCKED unless otherwise changed, it's possible to change the CPU & memory speeds totally independantly of any other onboard device.

I am going to be nice about it this once. So take it as a token. I am well aware of what dividers in the BIOS for NB and SB do and which ones do it. I have been in the IT business for 16 years. Possible no. Most overclocking MoBo allows for chaning just about every single parameter on the motherboards for overclocking purposes.

And DDR2 ECC is expensive, and speed grades above PC2-6400 are progressively moreso, and near impossible to get in higher densities.

With $6000 worth of computer already and then hampering the computer with 800mhz based DDR2? Pay to play (no different than the supra).

 

[Kai]

Well, there are always FB-DIMM's...

And don't forget, i've been overclocking for a looooong time as well

 

[IwantMKIII]

9Ghz? Thats un-possible.

4.5Ghz sure, on water maybe.

4Ghz on air, possible.

dunno, could've just been someone making up a number. Im sure you could do some extreme overclocking if you had a peltier based cooling system. I've been looking into those power hogs for awhile now

 

[IwantMKIII]

I am going to be nice about it this once. So take it as a token. I am well aware of what dividers in the BIOS for NB and SB do and which ones do it. I have been in the IT business for 16 years. Possible no. Most overclocking MoBo allows for chaning just about every single parameter on the motherboards for overclocking purposes.



With $6000 worth of computer already and then hampering the computer with 800mhz based DDR2? Pay to play (no different than the supra).

again, i have yet to see a DDR3 compatible dual processor workstation motherboard.

 

[Poodles]

Why run a desktop OS when you could run a server OS that could actually benefit from the insane hardware?

 

[IwantMKIII]

^in all actuality, its not a server, its mainly to run NX 6.0, which will bog any server sized hardware.

 

[Poodles]

Yes, but the server OS's are less parade float and more business not to mention more stable (hence why I run Windows Server 2003)

Server 2008 is out of my price range, but not out of yours...

 

[IwantMKIII]

true, just depends what the software is compatible with

 

[Poodles]

For the most part I can run any XP software (there are a few that are touchy, it's usually the installers).

 

[Jervis Mcstabby]

If you're going XP64, make absolutely sure ALL your components work for it! There hasn't been a single update for in nearly a full year now!

 

[theKnifeArtist]

my shit was the bomb back when i built it.
now its nearly nothing. haha.