"Rate my Rig" thread

[phongn]

THINKPAD.

[Lord Relvenous]

THINKPAD.

I'm guessing you're telling me to get a Thinkpad? I can't get even near to the performance of the Gateway with a Thinkpad unless I spend a significant amount more. My last laptop was a Thinkpad, and while it was a good laptop, it sucked when it came to games.

[Uraniun235]

Why are you looking at such a large laptop? Do you actually take it anywhere or do you just leave it on your desk?


Also holy crap why are you even thinking about financing

[Lord Relvenous]

Why are you looking at such a large laptop? Do you actually take it anywhere or do you just leave it on your desk?

Mainly it acts like a desktop, but I still need the ability to move it around easily.

Also holy crap why are you even thinking about financing

Building credit. I have no credit history, so I need to find stuff that I can pay off easily (as in I have it saved up already) so that when I need to get a larger loan I have the history for it. At least that's what my banker told me... Make sense?

Any thoughts on the laptop other than size?

[phongn]

Consumer laptop build quality inevitably is compromised, hence why I suggested a ThinkPad. Also, the T500 is not that expensive even with discrete graphics and a higher-resolution screen (comparable in price to that Gateway) There's also a coupon code - USPEMAILMD - right now.

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Just got a new HP Compaq 8510w Mobile Workstation. Some specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz processer
Intel Centrino with Santa Rosa update chipset
NVidia Quadro 570M graphics card with 512MB Cache
2GB Ram
15.4" monitor
Lightscribe DVD R/W optical drive
3/3/3 Warranted--Parts/Labor/Onsite
160GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
Windows Vista Business 64-Bit

I plan on upgrading to at least 4GB RAM in the future. So far I'm really happy with this machine--runs Fallout 3, TF2, HL2, and Portal jes' fine.

[Uraniun235]

You got a Quadro? Do you actually do professional workstation-y stuff that benefits from a workstation graphics card?

[Darth Mall]

Consumer laptop build quality inevitably is compromised, hence why I suggested a ThinkPad. Also, the T500 is not that expensive even with discrete graphics and a higher-resolution screen (comparable in price to that Gateway) There's also a coupon code - USPEMAILMD - right now.

Thinkpads also have great customer service. Lenovo has kept up with IBM's history of it.

I just had my nearly 3 year old X60s replaced with a brand new X200s, and had a free docking station thrown in, since I had been having mainboard issues with my computer, which have recently become much worse. Any other problems I've had have always been quickly resolved, and to be honest, I'm sure some of them have been from my less that delicate handling of the computer.

The 3 year warranty is well worth the investment if you go that route. Also they give sizeable student discounts if applicable to you.

[Starglider]

Damn, I hope this rumor is true, because I really want one. Or maybe two. Sixteen cores, eight DDR3 memory channels and 48 MB of cache in a desktop platform you can overclock to 4 GHz.

Practically though, an EX chip will clock lower, cost (even) more, be harder to get waterblocks for and likely suffer from memory interface issues compared to an unlocked ES chip, so a 'Skulltrail 2' based on the (upcoming) 6-core Westmere Xeons would be more practical.

[RThurmont]

How does 8 dual core 2.8 ghz Opterons, 32 GB of RAM, dual 73 GB 10,000 RPM SAS drives, four hotswap PSUs, and no GPU sound? Connected to a Sun StorageTek 6140 FC SAN with 16 15k RPM FC drives (146 GB each).

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4600/

There's the specific model.

Its not terribly modern and I could probably whip its ass with a 1U x4170 with equivalent RAM, but its still pretty awesome. I also recently got a pair of brand new SPARC-based T1000s for $650 each, a Sun x4150 for $1200 (with 4 GB of RAM and 5400 Xeons IIRC) and a Juniper EX3200 gigabit switch.

The Juniper can do BGP at line speed and has 24 gig E ports, of which four are powered. Its a full L3 switch running JUNOS with JWEb et al. I got it at a rather nice price, $1,344, about $7,956 off list.

Back in January I bought some Sun Ultra 24s that should be good for gaming rigs. One has a Core 2 Extreme and the other a Core 2 Quad. THey could use more RAM, but they have rather nice Nvidia GPUs (I forget the model number).

I should post some photos of my datacenter setup and also the laboratory in my garage sometime.

[ZGundam]

New member, 1st post.

Please be gentle

I am building an entire new system. The only way I was able to do this was my wife made me sell my entire comic book collection. Thats' over 13 boxes totaling 4550 comics! Well, even after all that, I got about $600. Even after all that she said whatever money I made is mine to build a new system.

I currently have had this for the last 5 years:

OS Windows XP Pro 32-bit
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum MB
Corsair 2GB DDR2 RAM
GeForce 7900GT 512 MB
IDE 250GB HD; SATA 250GB HD
Rosehill 500W Power Supply
Whitebox Case

After searching from Ebay, NewEgg, TigerDirect, and obscure computer sales sites, I bought and am ready to build this system:

OS Windows 7 RC 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 940
Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3P MB
OCZ 6GB DDR3 RAM
BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC 896MB
SATA 250GB HD; SATA 1TB HD
OCZ 600W Power Supply
Antec 900 Case


So what kind of difference will I see over my old system when playing games like Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and other current and newer games coming out?

And how many years before I need to upgrade anything?


Thank you for your time

[phongn]

PSU is overkill. I generally prefer Seasonic or Corsair units - quiet, efficient and reliable.

Why use two hard drives?

If you do not plan to overclock, you can probably go with relatively inexpensive RAM.

[ZGundam]

PSU is overkill. I generally prefer Seasonic or Corsair units - quiet, efficient and reliable.

Why use two hard drives?

If you do not plan to overclock, you can probably go with relatively inexpensive RAM.

The PSU was cheaper after rebates.

I use 2 HDs so one is my OS and the 1TB HD is where all my games go.

I wanted to build a system that will last me for a good number of years and simplicity in upgrading when needed.

[phongn]

The PSU was cheaper after rebates.

Don't cheap out on the PSU (granted, OCZ isn't too bad - they own PCP&C after all).

I use 2 HDs so one is my OS and the 1TB HD is where all my games go.

Why? If you have to replace your boot drive you'll have to reinstall all of your games anyways. If you want redundancy then go RAID-1 - and better yet, backup your data.

I wanted to build a system that will last me for a good number of years and simplicity in upgrading when needed.

It'll last you fine. By the time you upgrade you'll be ripping out most of the key components anyways.

[ZGundam]

The PSU was cheaper after rebates.

Don't cheap out on the PSU (granted, OCZ isn't too bad - they own PCP&C after all).

The PSU was not cheap originally. It was $75. And I also got it based on ratings by other customer on NewEgg.

I use 2 HDs so one is my OS and the 1TB HD is where all my games go.

Why? If you have to replace your boot drive you'll have to reinstall all of your games anyways. If you want redundancy then go RAID-1 - and better yet, backup your data.

Ok. So 1TB should be more then enough for anything I do. Currently I have 1/2 of the HD space on the 1st drive and used up all the HD space on the 2nd drive. So if I can't even fill up 500GB, 1TB is not an issue. Maybe a 2nd 1TB HD for backup issues later?

I wanted to build a system that will last me for a good number of years and simplicity in upgrading when needed.

It'll last you fine. By the time you upgrade you'll be ripping out most of the key components anyways.

That is what I was hoping.

[phongn]

The PSU was not cheap originally. It was $75. And I also got it based on ratings by other customer on NewEgg.

Most customer reviews there need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Also, "cheap" is a relative term.

[ZGundam]

The PSU was not cheap originally. It was $75. And I also got it based on ratings by other customer on NewEgg.

Most customer reviews there need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Also, "cheap" is a relative term.

So are you saying I chose poorly? I managed to stay close to the price range I was hoping for.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Are you talking about Rosewell or something? I thought that was the NewEgg brand and I would stay away from that like plague. Get an Antec or Corsair or something. 450-500W is sufficient.

Also, I think the newer Corsairs might be from another company other than Seasonic. I have forgotten the name.

[phongn]

Are you talking about Rosewell or something? I thought that was the NewEgg brand and I would stay away from that like plague. Get an Antec or Corsair or something. 450-500W is sufficient.

Antec quality control has issues; I'd stay away from them. Rosewell makes some competent products, but PSUs are probably not one of them.

Also, I think the newer Corsairs might be from another company other than Seasonic. I have forgotten the name.

Some of their PSUs are from CWT, as it turns out, but they're all solid designs.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Antec quality control has issues; I'd stay away from them. Rosewell makes some competent products, but PSUs are probably not one of them.

ARen't some of Antec's power supplies made by Seasonic?

[phongn]

Antec quality control has issues; I'd stay away from them. Rosewell makes some competent products, but PSUs are probably not one of them.

ARen't some of Antec's power supplies made by Seasonic?

Some of them, though they might be cutting a few corners to reach a certain pricepoint.

[ZGundam]

My o,d rig uses a Rosewell 500 W PSU that has worked flawlessly for 4-5 years.

My new rig uses an OCZ 600W PSU.

[Uraniun235]

Personal server I'm looking at putting together:


Case: Antec Twelve Hundred

Power: Corsair 650TX

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P

CPU: Intel Q9400 (2.66GHz)

RAM: Corsair 2x2GB set (x2; 8GB total)

RAID: Areca ARC-1230

RAID BBU: Areca ARC-6120

SATA Backplane: Icy Dock 4-in-3 (x3; twelve slots total)

Storage Drives: Western Digital 1.5TB GP - (x11; to be configured as a RAID-6 array, plus hot spare; total storage should be ~10.9TB)

[phongn]

Is that machine going to be used for anything else? A Q9400 is a bit of gross overkill for that.

[Uraniun235]

I want to be able to host a dedicated server for a game (any game) on it at some point. I considered a dual-core, but I was concerned that future games may implement multiprocessing in their dedicated servers as well, and I also wanted the server to be fully responsive (without impeding the dedicated server) even if one or two cores were maxed out.