Hey tomshardware forum members! I have a few items that I would like to pick a couple brains here. I am saving to build the ultimate gaming machine. My plan is so blow 4,000 and this sounds quite nice to me. Of course my questions are a little early, but it never hurts to plan. I am waiting until February 2004 to buy my new system, that way a good selection of new stuff will be out and the second revisions will be out. Fewer problems this way. Now on to my questions –

1.) I am interested in running a Dual Processor System. My choices are the opteron, (which will be replaced by the sledge hammer) or the AMD Athlon64. I see all good points here (besides the price). Of course there are no benchmarks that I know of for the Athlon64, but by the time I will buy my system there will be. So what do you think? Dual server chips or dual desktop chips? This is also assuming that Athlon64 is dual processor compatible. If it is not that would be a good thing to know.

Recap –
A. I would like Information on the AMD Athlon 64 Processor.
B. As of today what Processor should I get?
C. Any thing else that I missed?

2.) Item Number 2 is The Motherboard. I want a Motherboard that has 64 bit Phi’s. This way I can use SCSI which is the next topic of discussion. Plus all the other main technologies like, USB 2.0, fire wire, 1394 (Yes, there is a difference for those that don’t know. A small one but a difference non the less), dual sockets (for 2 CPUs), AGP 8x, ect. Of course if something else is better then let me know. Since this is a living discussion, what ever is best at the time.

Recap –
A. What Motherboard to Buy?
B. Any thing else that I missed?

3.) SCSI is a dream of mine that I have been entertaining for sometime now. Time is almost at hand. I have been researching SCSI for sometime now and have barely anything to show for it. I have found that Maxtor’s Atlas 15K 72 GB Drive seems to be the best. But I don’t know what card to get and if cables matter (they usually do) what type and kind to get. I see connector terms like wide SCSI, and 80 pin SCSI, and so on. Something to keep in mind I don’t want a huge Drive, like a 200 or even

Recap –
A. What SCSI drive to buy?
B. What SCSI 64 bit Controller card to buy?
C. High Quality Cables?
D. Any thing else that I missed?

Well thanks for your responses and keep in mind that I am looking for parts that I can buy today. Not in a few months. Because I don’t know about you but I lost my time travel device. About the future technologies I am just looking for information. Thanks again.


Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

Negative. If you want to run a multiprocessor AMD system, your only choice is an Opteron. Athlon64 will never support multiprocessor. I can say "never" with confidence because the chips are basically the same, but the Opteron will be marketed as the server-class CPU, while the Athlon64 is the home/workstation-class CPU. Allow the cheaper Athlon64 to support multiple processors, and AMD won't sell many of the more expensive Opterons, will they?

<font color=white><b>_________________________________________________</font color=white></b>
Armadillo<font color=orange>[</font color=orange><font color=green>TcC</font color=green><font color=orange>]</font color=orange> at Lanwar and MML

Wow, big questions for big thinkers! OK
1.)
A. The Athlon64 isn't supposed to be used in dual configuration, the Opteron uses the same core and is specified for dual or quad operation. It isn't that fast with 32-bit code, so unless you really need to run 64-bit code, I'd advise against it.
B.) You could get XEON processors with up to 2MB L3 cache. This is soldered directly to the pin grid and I believe it runs at full speed like the L2 cache. Of course, the standard P4 desktop CPU is always "cutting edge" compared to the Xeons, which are released in a more mature state. But desktop P4's can't be ran in dual configuration.
C. Unless your running some serious apps designed for multithreading, or doing multiple task under ideal conditions for multithreading, you'll probably not see a significant gain from it. Also, dually boards are designed for stability, not speed, they normally don't include the latest features nor offer the best available performance.
2.) You can use SCSI on ANY board! More on that in a minute.
3.) The transfer rates of the fastest SCSI drives still don't exceed the old Ultra80 speed, even though these drives are using Ultra320 protocols. Your best speed would come from RAID 0, 10, or 5.

If you plan on a small number of drives, RAID 5 with 3 drives would be fine, but you wouldn't need more than 80MB/s per channel on a 3 channel card, so buy mine! Otherwise, better performance would come from more drives. For instance, 9 drives on a 3 channel controller (3 per channel) in RAID 5 would be almost ideal! Hmm...that would allow you to at least take advantage of Ultra160 speeds on each channel, and starts to get you into Ultra320 territory.

If you REALLY want to take advantage of Ultra 320, I'd suggest 15 drives in RAID 5 on a 3 channel controller!

Now, the 64-bit thing, yes, you would need a server board for that. I don't know of any server boards that would give you the other features you're looking for though. I'd suggest PCI-X for best speed right now in a SCSI card and server board slot.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

$4000?

For a gaming machine?

Spend about $2500 for the Samsung 24" LCD and then spend about $1500 on the Gaming computer. You'd still get the same FPS, but the game Doom3 would load about 2-3 seconds slower.

1 - Very few games are geared for dual CPUs. And as stated, the Athlon64 is the consumer version of the Opteron and you I severely doubt you'll find dual-AThlon64 boards on the market (Then again, some folks were running dual Celeron systems some years back).

Dual Opteron CPU boards start around $700.. ouch.


1 - Get the FASTEST AMD 64 you can get.
2 - Get an ASUS board, first choice. Might not be as FLASHY as the other brands (black, purple, blue or silver PCB boards) - but they have features and stability.

3 - Get a KICK ASS case, put lights in it, 400watt PSU and a fast HD or RAID 5 (3 drives) as Crashman said.

Check out this baby:
<A HREF="http://www.coolermaster.com/case/tac-t01.htm" target="_new">http://www.coolermaster.com/case/tac-t01.htm</A>

or on Newegg:

<A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=11-119-023-01.JPG/11-119-023-02.JPG/11-119-023-03.JPG/11-119-023-05.JPG/11-119-023-04.JPG/11-119-023-06.JPG/11-119-023-07.JPG" target="_new">http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=11-119-023-01.JPG/11-119-023-02.JPG/11-119-023-03.JPG/11-119-023-05.JPG/11-119-023-04.JPG/11-119-023-06.JPG/11-119-023-07.JPG</A>

$143 on that site. I'd replace the 80mm coolers righ lighted versions, which should look SWEET

Then buy the FASTEST 3D Gaming card on the market when you are ready to buy.


Amiga - The Original Power

First of all thanks for your responses I very much appreciate them. Here are my thoughts.

CPU –
AMD
If the athlon64 can't be ran dual processor wise, then that shoots that plan out of the water. Would it behoove me to run dual opterons or a single Athlon64? My main purpose will be gaming, but I also do a great deal of multitasking; like video encoding, multiple (Internet) explorer windows (who thought that that would slow down a system), Programming, and a lot digital media (like game mod making). But most of my current applications are 32 bit, with the current information that would suggestion the Athlon64.

Intel –
I have heard very bad things about Intels. So I don’t use them and the way over priced for my piece of mind. Plus I am a big amd fan. But I am open to ideas, have any?


SCSI-
Pertaining to the SCSI issue I would like to run 1 maybe 2 drives and have it be fast as hell. The Maxtor drive that I mentioned above said that it can do 75 MB Sustained Transfer with a maximum of 320 MB/s. That is very very fast. When compared to ide or sata drives which there transfers aren’t sustained but completely bursts ranging from the 10-30 MB range. With SCSI do I have to run multiple drive to get that fast of a transfer rate? Any other ideas pertaining to fast transfer either via SCSI or raid?

Misc –
The ASUS SK8N is $300 Which is for the opteron.
A 24” LCD Monitor is to big. I don’t even like 19”. 17 is my size.
Asus is my favorite Motherboard Manufacturer.
I don’t want a frilly case with lights or a window. Call me old fashioned I guess. I was thinking of a full tower server case. But the case that nfaq linked to is nice.


I think I have covered everything.



Supporting AMD with your breakable stuff.

If you're going balls-to-the-wall here, and $4000 is certainly enough to do it with, then the fastest gaming system you can build is going to be an Intel system, not AMD. I'm not a fanboy from either camp, so I don't care about who makes what (my current rig is an AMD, for that matter), but right now, Intel has the fastest chips on the market. Anything above a P4 2.8Ghz/800Mhz FSB is going to outperform any AMD chip, including their top of the line 3200+. Just take a look:

<A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030623/p4_3200-08.html" target="_new">http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030623/p4_3200-08.html</A>

Of course, it won't be 64 bit, but I don't see that being a probem anytime in the foreseeable future. With Intel not having its own backwards compatible 64 bit architecture, gamer developers are not exactly going to be in a rush to create 64 bit games. But then thats open to debate, so your decision really depends on how much weight you personally put on 64-bit.

<font color=white><b>_________________________________________________</font color=white></b>
Armadillo<font color=orange>[</font color=orange><font color=green>TcC</font color=green><font color=orange>]</font color=orange> at Lanwar and MML

Hey man, it sounds like you are aiming at a top end full on stable gaming box. An amd box is *not* the way to go in that case. Don't mean to pop your cherry but amd boxes are generally require more work to get to the same stability level as an intel box, and with the release of the intel c series there is no comparison on speed what-so-ever.

If you are interested in gaming and feel you need a multiprocessor system, you want to step up to a xeon... *but* as an owner of a multiprocessor scsi system for the past 3 years (which is about to become my primary linux machine), I can tell you it does absolutely jackshit for 95% of games... it does help with video work but not enough to justify the lose of the other features (800mhz bus, dual ddr, etc.) A single faster processor with a wider bus and dual ddr memory will do more for you than the second processor will do in games. If you go with an intel xeon the board you want to go with is an E7505 or E7205 based board. The IWill is a good one and I believe asus makes a nice model based on that chipset also.

SCSI isn't going to get you significantly better performance than IDE unless you have a 64bit pci slot to use with it... which are generally only included on higher end server boards... which aren't going to have other features you would want on a gaming box.

If you are after truely fast access without scsi the thing to consider is the western digital raptors... those are 10k rpm drives that compare quite favorably to scsi, especially in a raid 0 configuration but they aren't dead silent and they don't have a large ammount of storage... and the difference in performance on the pc isn't going to be signficantly different than a good standard ide drive in raid 0 configuration. (The raptor 10krpm drives run ~150$ 36.7gb.)

If i were building the 'ultimate gaming box' presently it would look alot like this...

Motherboard - ASUS P4C800 Deluxe - 178.00
Processor - Intel Pentium 4 3.2 HT 800FSB - 675.00
Ram 1 - Corsair CMX512-3500C2 - 151.00
Ram 2 - Corsair CMX512-3500C2 - 151.00
Hard Disk 1 - EIDE 250.0GB 7200 RPM 8MB CACHE - 262.00
Hard Disk 2 - EIDE 250.0GB 7200 RPM 8MB CACHE - 262.00
Sata Disk 1 - WD Raptor 10K RPM 8MB Cache 36.7GB - 151.00
Video Card - Gainward 1600XP Golden Sample GFX 5900 Ultra - 483.00
Sound Card - Creative Audigy2 Platinum - 162.00
CD-RW - Lite On 52x24x52x CD-RW - 40.00
DVD-RW - Sony DRU-500AX - 285.00
Speakers - Creative MegaWorks THX 6.1 650 - 339.00
Floppy - Teac 1.44 Floppy Drive - 12.00
Case - Xaser III V2000A Case - 174.00
Power Supply - Antec TRUE550 Power Supply - 98.00
Monitor - Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2070SB-BK - 738.00
Mouse - Logitech MX500 - 41.00
Keyboard - Logitech Elite Black Keyboard - 26.00
OS - Windows XP Professional - 188.00

This is pretty much a screamer of a box... no problems turning on the eyecandy here. Totals out to a about $4416.00 and is pretty overclockable if you want to go that route... I'd raid 0 the big drives togeather as primary on chain 0 and primary on chain 1 and put the os on the raptor all alone. Install all games and programs on the raid. The dvd-rw/cd-rw would go on as the secondaries on each of the respective chains. If you prefer ati then go the route of the 9800 Pro 256mb card instead of the fx, and it will cut a couple dollars off the price of the system (~5-10$ish).

For gaming purposes, unless you get a vapochill and go the serious overclocking route, this is probally the hands down top of the line gaming system currently buildable... and with video editing and such it will make you shudder with delight heh. I suppose you could go up to 2gig of ram if you wanted to but it's really unnecessary and redundant in most cases unless you are doing alot of rendering or video work (although it is nice to be able to pop out a gig ram drive and put your swap file over on it... *grin*.) I highly recommend the monitor, you may think it's to big, but it is really a superior monitor for gaming and video work, the colors are true, the blacks are black and it has plenty of real estate for running the newest games at high resolutions without making everything to tiny to deal with. If you are going top of the line, go top of the line, don't half ass especially on the display. You also do NOT want LCD for a gaming rig. You want a *good* crt. In a couple years, I'm sure LCD will be the only route, but a good crt is still superior to an lcd.

Shadus

Edit: You could add more SATA raptors to raid togeather for the os drive, *BUT* windows is oft times funny about living on a raid... so I would suggest giving it a lone raptor all to itself.

If you are nor upgrading until next February, why not go with the new Prescott core from Intel?

I'm not a fanboy of either, but I have an Intel 2.4Ghz, and I run Intel on another machine, and they do make a quality processor. I do agree that if you are after a stable high-end performance machine, Intel is the way to go.

If I was as sexy as I was smart.....I'd still be ugly..DAMN
**Finally made Newbie...HAPPY DANCE..HAPPY DANCE..**

I was going with what was available today, shrug, hard to guess prices that far out, so anytime I build a pc that has a price attached I build it current timespan or availability.

Shadus

With the Prescott due out later this year, and the new PCI express due out mid 2004, if I were you, if you could, I would hold off until then.

PCI Express is reported to be twice as fast as the current AGP 8x, which will (apparently) be the last revision.



If I was as sexy as I was smart.....I'd still be ugly..DAMN
**Finally made Newbie...HAPPY DANCE..HAPPY DANCE..**

Shrug, if you wait a few months something better is always available... until NV/ATi put out something that is PCI Express however it doesn't matter if its 10000x faster )they both will have new chipsets out by then of course, and nv at least has commited to pciexpress on the nv40 from the press releases i've seen... not sure on ati.) Shrug, like I said, I build for current time not future

Shadus

No offense, but what you're describing sounds like <i>exactly</i> the perfect reasoning to buy a single Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading. Unless you really expect to be running 64-bit software, I can't support your obsessive desire for an A64. Go with an AthlonMP or AXP if you need an AMD solution.

I do not understand your strange hatred of all things Intel. Ever since the Northwood core I haven't heard a single bad thing about Intel. And as for Intel's prices, have you seen AMD's lately? And have you compared the performance of AMD's CPUs at those prices to Intel CPUs? Frankly with as much cash as you're planning to blow on this system I can't even understand why you'd care about price at all, but even if you do, Intel has become very cost-effective for anything but low-end systems (which yours certainly won't be).

If you truly are open to ideas, then I suggest that you be open to the possability that AMD just isn't what it used to be. In the P3 era AMD rocked. In the Willamette P4 era AMD rocked. These eras ended years ago though and AMD hasn't rocked since. They've barely even held on for the ride.

As Crashman said, 1 or 2 drives on SCSI <i>won't</i> be fast as hell compared to what SCSI is capable of. It isn't even worthy of a 64-bit PCI card. You might as well just run that on a 32-bit bus. If you're going to get 64-bit PCI SCSI then you should at <i>least</i> look at a RAID5 setup and at <i>least</i> five drives. Otherwise there really isn't a point.

"<i>Yeah, if you treat them like equals, it'll only encourage them to think they <b>ARE</b> your equals.</i>" - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030603" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>

Shadus, I have to support your sentiment, but I'd seriously reconsider that 'ultimate gaming box'. I'd take the same basic concept, but throw in another two 512MB sticks of RAM to bring it up to 2GB. Then I'd find a SATA RAID card like a HighPoint RocketRAID 1640 and pick up at least four Raptors to run in a RAID5 configuration instead of messing with RAID0 at all.

That or get a SCSI card and run a SCSI RAID5 array. Heh heh.

"<i>Yeah, if you treat them like equals, it'll only encourage them to think they <b>ARE</b> your equals.</i>" - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030603" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>