What would you do? (new pc hardware options)

I am in the middle of having a new computer quoted. I am fortunate to be able to spec. my own system as long as I keep it within budget from my boss. I really didn't have time to go through all of the details of hardware specifications and benchmarks. So, I gave my computer builder some basic guidelines, as well as the budgeted amount, and told him to cram as much power into the box as possible.

The guidelines that I gave him were: Intel P4 processor (one or two steps back from the fastest available, for cost savings) Intel MoBo

2 Gig of good fast RAM nVidia Quadro FX 700 or better

He came up with this: MoBo - Intel D915PCYL (915P LGA775 MAX-4GB DDR2 ATX PCIE16 2PCIE 4PCI SND SATA 800MHZ) Processor - P4 540 - LGA775 800MHZ 3.2GHZ 1MB CACHE HT SOC-T Memory - (4X) Kinsington 512MB PC266 64MX64 CL2.5 DIMM (2 Gig Total) Graphics - PNY NVIDIA QUADRO FX3400 PCIE 256MB DDR3 DUAL DVI

With all of the other misc. stuff (OS, Burner, HD, Case) this came in right at my budget limit. The graphics card is obviously a much higher-end card than I anticipated. But it should be a kick-butt card according to the specs. (and it is a PCIE card).

He also gave me an option of a "PNY NVIDIA QUADRO FX1300 PCIE 128MB DDR DUAL DVI" card (PCIE card as well). This card is about half the price of the FX3400 which would bring the total well below the budget limit.

Like I said, I haven't had time to really research the other hardware options on my own. I know that a lot of you out there are diehard AMD fans but my boss wants to stay Intel (his money). I personally thought that the memory he quoted should be at least DDR2-400 or even DDR2-533. And the processor should maybe be an Extreme Edition. Plus, the latest chipset from Intel on the MoBo is 925 instead of 915. But what do I know. If I choose the FX1300 graphics card I may be able to upgrade some of these items and still be within budget.

Here is the questions. Would you stick with the original configuration with the higher end FX3400 card? Or, would you bump it down to the FX1300 and spend the saved money on boosting the other hardware? And why?

TIA

Reply to
Seth
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what type of projects do you intend to do with it?

Reply to
neil

I design molds. Some fairly complex. Some not too complex. Assemblies and in-context rebuilds are what is the bottleneck now with my current machine: P4-2.4 GHz

1 Gig Rimm memory Quadro4 750XGL
Reply to
Seth Renigar

If you are doing mold work go with the fastest CPU and knock down the graphics card a few notches. You will need fast rebuild times as a priority. You say you want a couple steps back from the fastest available which is the AMD FX53 or FX55. What he is giving you is quite a few steps back. I would go with Corsair or Mushkin memory. I have had trouble with Kingston though the price is right.

Is he putting in a SATA HDD?

Reply to
P.

yes imo go for a fast AMD processor expect to halve the rebuild times of your 2.4 actually you could keep the 750xgl... I have one and find SW2005 is considerably better at handling realview graphics over SW2004 and will rotate views without stuttering.

Reply to
neil

Have you read about those new PCI Express cards? Some the recent benchmarks I seen on them ran circles around the Quadro FX AGP series that are out now. If I hadn't had my boss recently purchase me my Quadro 1100 FX, I would consider looking into these PCI Express cards.

Regards, Scott

Reply to
Scott

I have always been an Intel fan. However, I was going to look at AMD very seriously this time around. But, my boss told me to stick with Intel. He has got it in his head and I can't convince him otherwise. It's his money, so....

Therefore, I am trying to get as much Intel power and speed as I can for the money. I know that some AMD systems would be faster. For those that are up to date on Intel stuff, my questions are basically: Should I stay with the high end FX3400 (PCI Express) and leave the rest of the Intel configurations that he quoted me alone? It does fit the budget. Or, should I downgrade to the mid-range FX1300 (also PCI Express) and boost the Intel stuff a little?

If I'm not mistaken, there is higher end Intel hardware than what he has quoted me. But it would take days of reading and re-quotes to determine the best bang-for-the-buck Intel configuration since I have not kept up with it over the last couple of years.

Reply to
Seth Renigar

Snips

I can't tell you anything about the cards (we're running the same card you are now) or the processor and board details, but I would consider getting 2

1GB sticks. With 4 512MB sticks, if you decide you need some more memory, you have to throw out some of the old RAM. (If you can hand it down to someone else, you might want to stay with the smaller sticks.) SW seems to want more and more RAM, as well as more and more disk space.

Thinking about disks, I'm beginning to think that a RAID setup might not be a bad idea. I spend a lot of time watching my disk light flash since we went to SW04.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

Reply to
Jerry Steiger

Jerry,

Turns out, my computer builder just come back with a stronger system for a lot less money. He saved in several areas.

Part of that savings was that he could actually put in one 2Gig stick of memory cheaper than two 1Gigs or four 512Mb sticks.

As far as the hard drive, he has come back with a WD 74GB 10000RPM SATA with

8MB cache. Supposedly this drive matches SCSI performance and reliability while providing simplified connectivity and at a significant cost savings. I am not familiar with RAID at all, other than it KILLS BUGS DEAD. What is it and what are the advantages/disadvantages?
Reply to
Seth Renigar

Wow! That is really surprising. Just a few weeks ago we couldn't even get

2GB sticks. I could imagine that the sweetspot for RAM had moved to 1GB sticks, but I find it very hard to imagine that it has moved to 2GB sticks already. Make sure it is good quality RAM from someone you can trust.

I haven't heard anything bad about the SATA drives. The one system we have with one seems to work just fine.

RAID stands for something like Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. You run multiple disks to get faster performance, data redundancy (safety) or both. Google turned up the following explanation:

formatting link
I was thinking of running RAID-0, but I'm a bit nervous about the fact that if you lose one disk you lose everything. Our system administrator put a RAID-1 setup on our new FEA system and says that it is actually faster, as well as safer. It seems to be pretty fast, but it is the new SATA drive, so I can't really compare.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

Reply to
Jerry Steiger

To bad about the bosses preconceptions. Does he still drive a Model T to work? :)

The WD 74GB is pretty fast. I have one. It is quiet, fast and runs cool.

I've never seen RAID help much. You want the fastest possible CPU. SW spends a lot of time crunching. Neither a fast graphics card nor a fast hard drive help much there.

On the memory front make sure that the 2GB stick is from a reputable source that tests their memory. Corsair and Mushkin come to mind.

Reply to
P.

personally I would go for the 1300 if you want a new card should be quite adequate imo I have raid-0 7200 disks and have had no problem after 2 yrs however I don't think I would bother with this again it really doesn't help that much for practical SW use...although it really does move data along...cad as you are aware is mostly about calcs...AMD is noticeably better at this ..spend your extra cash on the fastest processor you dare pay for. cheers.

Reply to
neil

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