Considering upgrading workstation

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:16 pm

Sorry another question about hardware. I'm just not having much luck with my computer setup lately...

I want to upgrade my video card but they don't make agp cards anymore so it looks like I need to buy a new computer. It only seemed like 3-5 years ago that I bought my current setup...

I need advice on a new dual cpu setup that has the same performance or better to what I'm using right now. I will be using this as a workstation to do 3d modeling, rendering, photography and occasional gamming.

Technology seems like it has changed a lot so I have no idea how the performance of my current computer compares to what's available today.

My current setup
CPU: Dual 3.06GHz oc to 3.411
Mobo: Asus PC-DL Deluxe
Ram: 2GB of Kingston PC3200 DDR, Dual Channel
GFX: Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra

CPU Specs:

Thanks!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:34 pm

It depends on what your budget is, but lets just say that there are $200-$300 CPUs on the market that can probably muster 2 to 4 times the performance (or better) in 3d rendering applications compared to your current CPU. What you are using the computer for aside from gaming are applications that lend themselves quite well to parallel processing so you definitely want to buy a quad core part. If you have a large budget over $1500 then there is no question you will want one of the Intel Core i7 processors of which even the slowest one should deliver tremendous performance improvements over that northwood based chip you are using now.

Let us know how much you want to spend and we can narrow down the options for you.

Admiral LSD · Post by **Admiral LSD** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:39 pm

Pretty much any single socket dual or quad core setup will smoke that these days, but if you have your heart set on a dual CPU setup then you probably want to be looking at the 5500-series Gainestown (Nehalem) Xeons and the associated 5500-series Tylersburg chipset as a starting point. It won't be cheap, but nothing can match it at this point.

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 10:22 pm

I really don't know how much I want to spend yet. My current computer cost a little more then 4k. What would be the chepest setup that would give me the exact same speed and performance as two of my 3.4ghz xeons in all aspects from rendering to gaming. Reason being is I don't have any reference point to start from. Then I can decide from there how much I want to spend and what kind of speed/performance increase I want. If i'm making any sense.

Admiral LSD are you saying that even the cheapest single processor will out perform my two 3.4ghz xeons? geeze things have changed fast...

Yea I do want another dual cpu setup. It made a HUGE difference in rendering performance. Just if they aren't as noisey.

Another question I have is about dual core etc. Does dual core mean there are two cpus inside one chip? Would a dual core 1ghz cpu have the same speed as two individual 1ghz cpus?

Thanks.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 11:46 pm

Its difficult to figure out exactly how your system would compare to a modern system because there are virtually no benchmarks out there that show a system like yours verses a more current system. Although Admiral LSD is correct in saying just about every modern dual core processor outside of the low end budget offerings will pretty much beat the pants off of what you are using now. You could probably equal your systems performance in gaming and 3d rendering for $700-$900, most 15-17\" laptops over $1200 will probably be about there if not faster too. A lot has happened in the last 3-5 years.

A dual core or quad core processor is exactly what it sounds like: two or four processors in a single socket. As for a dual core being twice as fast as a single core; it is just like two sockets, assuming you have a program that can take advantage of it you will get nearly double the performance compared to a single core of the same type and speed. However a single threaded program will only be able to operate on a single core and will have virtually no benefit from the second processor which will just sit idle the whole time. The same applies to quad cores, some programs can only use one or two processors at a time and the others go idle, but that is the way it has always been either with multiple sockets or multiple cores on a single socket makes no difference.

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:12 am

Thanks for the informative post Krom.

I'm a bit confused by a post a reviewer made for this cpu http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117211

He says that this cpu has only 1 QPI link and so is only compatible with a single socket motherboard. Does that mean I have to spend more money and look at the Nehalem cpus? I wanted at least a 3ghz cpu.

Edit
I guess the other poster clarified and it does support dual socket mother boards?

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:43 am

Bloomfield is a Nehalem CPU, but it's aimed at single-processor servers. Gainestown is the dual-processor variant. (As maligned as Wikipedia may be, this table is probably fairly accurate to give an indication of what is what on the Nehalem architecture front: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Neha ... 9#Variants)

I note those things are very expensive, but they would have pretty crazy processing power if you need that.

P.S. What platform it is aimed at may or may not affect whether you can run a Bloomfield in a DP server; I really don't know the answer to that.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:15 am

I tend to lean on the side of a dual socket system will only help performance in 3d rendering, and will more than likely hurt performance for gaming. Server boards are validated for reliability and stability more than for performance, where as single socket desktop boards are tuned for performance. This isn't to say that single socket desktop boards are unreliable or unstable, my system is a Core 2 Duo processor E6600 (2.4 GHz) overclocked to 3 GHz and it has no problem running the pre-release version of windows 7 for 20 days solid even with several programs that have obvious memory leaks present and running. And my system is almost 3 years old now, it is also highly likely my system would come out ahead of yours in a benchmark and it was only $1300 to build back in December 2006. The multi-core chips pretty much eliminated any need for multi-socket systems in the consumer space.

You also want to be careful how the programs you use scale with more processor cores, remember the i7 800 and 900 series feature hyper-threading, so to the operating system just one of them shows up as 8 logical CPUs, a dual socket i7 system would appear to the OS as 16 logical CPUs and not a whole lot of applications thread that well.

Also don't be fooled by the clock speed when choosing these new processors, especially the i7 chips which have a \"turbo mode\" they use when programs don't use all 4 cores in the chip. A single i7 at 2.8 GHz will likely soundly defeat a single Pentium 4 at even 3.6 GHz even without using turbo mode, they are that much faster clock per clock. And when using turbo mode the single i7 core will ramp up to upwards of 3.4-3.6 GHz and definitely finish the job faster than a P4.

Also there are very good reasons why most chips don't go beyond 3.5 GHz and it has to do with power and heat. It has been documented that extreme overclocking of the i7 CPUs has lead to the contacts on the bottom of the socket actually burning up and destroying the chip and the motherboard from excess current. The chips would fully be able to run at these speeds if there was a way to safely deliver sufficient power to them but it is just too much current in not enough space. That is the primary reason Intel and AMD have moved from faster and faster single cores instead to slower but more cores. The model Intel was using back in the days of the P4 and your Xeons was to ramp up clock speed, they had planned on reaching as high as 5 GHz but it never happened because the power requirements to reach it were just off the scale and keeping it cooled was entirely impractical. The thermal dissipation of a modern CPU in the same surface area is probably reaching towards twice that of the surface of the sun these days, they are using a lot of power in a very small space.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:44 pm

in short: you can spend less and get something much more powerful that is quieter.

Zantor · Post by **Zantor** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:11 pm

If you want to stick with the high end business-grade processors, take a look at a dual core Opteron for socket AM2 or AM2+. Opterons are of the best out there, and are used in render farms and high load servers nationwide and worldwide. Dreamworks's render farm uses Opterons, and Cray uses them in their supercomputers.

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:59 pm

So it's a give and take sort of thing. You lose raw speed to gain the ability
to do more per clock cycle? How does that affect general computer use such as
switching between programs, loading web browsers,single threaded programs, how
responsive your system is etc. I'm trying to understand what I would be lossing
from going from 3.41ghz to 2.26 GHzI've always thought that the higher the clock
rate the more responsive your computer would be. I understand there was a change
from more ghz to more cores and i'm trying to understand the advantages and disadvantages.

What about the Harpertown and is it important to concider a standard voltage or low
voltage cpu?

Sirius - I found this. Shows which support dual configurations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In ... 2845_nm.29

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Oct 20, 2009 7:59 am

Higher clock speeds are pretty much always faster, however there is a catch when it isn't the same processor you are comparing.

One type of processor could be able to do up to 4 instructions in a single clock cycle, while another type of processor can only do 3. This is the case of the newer Core i7 processors verses your Northwood based Xeons. Even at the same clock speed the Core i7 would still be up to 30% faster in the right program because it is able to execute more instructions per clock.

As for the time it takes to switch between programs, load programs and run single threaded programs and general system responsiveness; modern multi-core systems will be better even at lower clock speeds than older single core systems. The limiting factor in many of those is memory size and disk speed, both of which have been constantly improving pretty much since the dawn of personal computers.

If I were you I would skip the Xeons because they are a higher priced version of the same chip and often require either fully buffered or ECC memory which are both slower than traditional desktop memory.

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 7:20 am

If I were to go with the higher end i7 or Xeons how are they for heat/noise and what options are there for quiter fans, heat sinks and overclocking capabilities?

Should I wait for Gulftown(Intel uses too many naming conventions...) or wait for the 6core Nehelams?

Thanks

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:12 pm

I'm getting closer to posting a build but I'm having trouble finding 4GB 1066 ram moduals. I wanted to max out the motherboard at 24GB. CAS latency also seems high for what I could find. Any suggestions? Thanks.

--Edit--

What does a \"Tripple Channel Kit\" really mean? Is this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820104127

The same as getting 3 of these?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6820231307

I'm a little confused what the difference is. The G.Skill does not say how many channels it is. If I got 3 of those G.Skill modules would that be a tripple channel setup like the Kinston's in the first link?

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 12:24 am

Ok. Here is what I have so far:

Total = *3351 CDN*

Case --> Lian Li PC-A70F Black Aluminum E-ATX Full Tower Case = (223.78 ) (ncix.com)
CPU --> Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz = (629.99) (Newegg.ca)
Motherboard --> ASUS Rampage II Extreme LGA 1366 = (419.99) (Newegg.ca)
Power Supply --> Antec Signature SG-850 850W (255.91) (ncix.com)
Ram --> Kingston 6GB DDR3 1066(PC3 8500) KVR1066D3N7K3/6G = (162.99x2=326) (newegg.ca) or Kingston HyperX 6GB DDR3 1333 KHX1333C7D3K3/6GX = (180.99x2=361.98 )
Video Card --> PNY VCQFX3800-PCIE-PB Quadro FX3800 1GB = (868.49) (Newegg.ca)
Hard Drive --> Kingston SSDNow E Series SNE125-S2/32GB = (399.00) (Newegg.ca)
Blu Ray Burner --> LG WH08LS20K OEM = 189.99 CDN (Newegg.ca)
Other --> Scythe Mugen 2(heatsink) = (36.88 ) (ncix.com)

Well I decided to ditch the xeons and save money for other things. As long as I can render the scenes I need then I don't mind waiting for the render times.

I would like to get the cost of this setup down if I could without sacrificing reliability and still have an upgrade path in the future.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 12:48 am

Money is the only sure upgrade path.

besides that, is the quadro really needed?

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 1:01 am

lol I knew someone would say something. I mean 'somewhat' or a 'small' upgrade path.

The quadro is a workstation card and it is one of the only cards that support 10bit color.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 9:04 am

Cyclone wrote:The quadro is a workstation card and it is one of the only cards that support 10bit color.

Pretty much every card under the sun supports 10 bit color these days, they don't advertise it though. Finding a LCD monitor that supports it on the other hand... (The vast majority of LCD panels out there these days are 6 bit color.) Don't waste money on a 10 bit card if you have a 6 bit TN type LCD.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 7:45 pm

Actually Cyclone, since you are building a graphics workstation. The FX3800 Card is a great SLI entry workstation card that can meet all the extra supported features for CAD/3D and CS4 w/12bit SDI

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:09 am

Yea this is a multipurpose workstation for 3D rendering/animation and photography. Hopefully this can make some money.

Total = *2990 CDN*

Case --> Lian Li PC-A70F Black Aluminum E-ATX Full Tower Case = (202 CDN) (performance-pcs.com)
CPU --> Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz = *Combo Deal(675) (Newegg.ca)
Motherboard --> ASUS Rampage II Extreme LGA 1366 = *
Power Supply --> Antec Signature SG-850 850W = (255.91) (ncix.com)
Ram --> Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1333 KHX1333C7D3K3/6GX = (180.99x2=361.98 ) or Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600 KHX1600C8D3K3/6GX (184x2=368) (Newegg.ca)
Video Card --> PNY VCQFX3800-PCIE-PB Quadro FX3800 1GB = (868.49) (Newegg.ca)
Hard Drive --> Kingston SSDNow E Series SNE125-S2/32GB = (399.00) (Newegg.ca) out of stock.

Blu Ray Burner --> LG WH08LS20K OEM = 189.99 CDN (Newegg.ca)
Other --> Scythe Mugen 2(heatsink) = (36.88 ) (ncix.com)

I got the price down some.

It looks like I will be able to overclock the i7 920 just fine but which to get for it DDR3 1333 or DDR3 1600? The DDR 1600 has slower timmings and a few $ more.

Now the last thing I'm trying to do is consolidate the shipping and avoid duty. According to the list so far I need to order from 3 different places (performance-pcs,ncix,newegg). The loose ends are the case,psu,heatsink. I would like to purchase them from one place. Just can't find many canadian retailers...

Are these retailers safe?
provantage.com
performance-pcs.com
sundialmicro.com
frozencpu.com

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 6:57 am

There is little to no benefit to running memory faster than 1066 MHz with a 900 series Core i7. The chips simply aren't that bandwidth hungry, pick the memory you will need for overclocking and nothing more.

Cyclone · Post by **Cyclone** » Wed Jun 16, 2010 5:09 pm

Thanks Krom and everyone else for suggesting I don't get the Xeons. The heatsink was hard to install but I managed to get my comp set up and overclocked a decent amount. The comp is like 3 times faster at rendering a test 3ds max scene, and it was cheaper to.

Thanks again!

Considering upgrading workstation

Considering upgrading workstation

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