The most powerful Pc?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Veritech
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Veritech

Lets just imagine for a second that money didn't exist, lol.
Using on the shelf components whats the most power pc you could build?

I'll start with

4 x 250gb sata HDD in an raid array(1 terrabyte!!)
 
Veritech said:
Lets just imagine for a second that money didn't exist, lol.
Using on the shelf components whats the most power pc you could build?

I'll start with

4 x 250gb sata HDD in an raid array(1 terrabyte!!)
Click to expand...

From the small size of the array I take it that a 28-Xeon blade server is
out of the question?
 
I was think about the best you could fit in your average atx case, not
"super" servers, but every little helps, lol.
 
I've had an amazing workstation in the past (for the times) it was
upgradeable at nauseum...
it was all centered on a SERVER mother board! ATX form factor fits most
towers
ASUS CUV-4X-DLS:
1 or 2 P3 1.13GHz
up to 4 GB RAM
Intel LAN controller
2 UDMA (4 IDE drives)
33MHz Dual channel Ultra160 SCSI (another 30 drives if you ever need the
room)
5 PCI ports
1 AGP 4x/AGP pro

we had 5 of them at work, most were running with 1 cpu, more active users
had 2 (me :D).
I still think server/workstation boards are the way to go if you want to be
able to keep the same mobo for a long time. Multiple CPUs will always allow
you to upgrade the speed of your system (less and less apps are not
multi-threadable).
 
Luc said:
I've had an amazing workstation in the past (for the times) it was
upgradeable at nauseum...
it was all centered on a SERVER mother board! ATX form factor fits most
towers
ASUS CUV-4X-DLS:
1 or 2 P3 1.13GHz
up to 4 GB RAM
Intel LAN controller
2 UDMA (4 IDE drives)
33MHz Dual channel Ultra160 SCSI (another 30 drives if you ever need the
room)
5 PCI ports
1 AGP 4x/AGP pro

we had 5 of them at work, most were running with 1 cpu, more active users
had 2 (me :D).
I still think server/workstation boards are the way to go if you want to
be
able to keep the same mobo for a long time. Multiple CPUs will always
allow you to upgrade the speed of your system (less and less apps are not
multi-threadable).
Click to expand...

I think a "workstation" board would be a better bet than a "server" board,
for the time being anyway. The reason for this is that "server" boards
generally have no video slot. With PCI Express to some extent removing the
distinction between "regular" and "video" slots that should change, but I'm
not sure there are many server boards available as yet with PCI Express.
 
Veritech said:
Lets just imagine for a second that money didn't exist, lol.
Using on the shelf components whats the most power pc you could build?

I'll start with

4 x 250gb sata HDD in an raid array(1 terrabyte!!)
Click to expand...
I wonder what graphics card they gonna use in this....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4150285.stm

:)

--
Jez
'Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable
notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often
led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what
that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be
skeptical of someone else's description of reality.'-
Howard Zinn


NFS Underground2, Americas Army And MOH-PA
 
Veritech said:
I was think about the best you could fit in your average atx case, not
"super" servers, but every little helps, lol.
Click to expand...

Now, that makes for a bit different game from "cost no object" machines.

There are two ways to get "most powerful" in a more or less "ordinary" ATX
case that I can see, one is to go with quad Opterons, but you can't get a
quad Opteron (or Xeon for that matter) board as near as I can tell that has
a video slot, so you're down to a dual board. Go with Supermicro X6DHE-G2
(dual EM64T Xeons and SLI capable), max that out with 16 gig of DDR400 ECC
RAM (note--the board _requires_ ECC) and 2 3.6 GHz Xeons.

For video dual 6800 Ultras with SLI.

Don't scrimp on the storage--go with a MegaRAID 320-2x RAID controller with
20 Cheetah 15K3s for primary storage, 5 per channel, in RAID0+1
configuration for about 360GB of fast storage. Add a Tekram ARC-1120 SATA
RAID controller and 8 400 GB drives in RAID-6 for 2.4 terabytes of
relatively slow storage.

Put it all in one of Jinco's large server towers, with the drives in 3 5x
hot-swap cages plus the internal bays. Add a 660 watt Enermax power supply
and I think we're done. What have I forgotten?
 
Veritech said:
Lets just imagine for a second that money didn't exist, lol.
Using on the shelf components whats the most power pc you could build?

I'll start with

4 x 250gb sata HDD in an raid array(1 terrabyte!!)
Click to expand...
Hmm, 4GB of memory.
Dual Xenon MOBO.
Two top of the range SLI cards.
Severe cooling.

Sounds good to me.
 
For video dual 6800 Ultras with SLI.
Click to expand...
I'd prefer a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 800 w/ Multivew option card

http://3dlabs.com/products/product.asp?prod=293
640MB GDDR3 total memory.
-512MB GDDR3 uni?ed memory with 512-bit-wide interface bus
-128 MB GDDR3 DirectBurst memory with 128-bit-wide interface bus
Independent dual 400 MHz 10-bit DACs
Supports:
OpenGL ® 2.0 (Full support when rati?ed)
OpenGL 1.5 with OpenGL Shading Language
Microsoft DirectX ® 9.0 with High Level Shader Language (HLSL, VS 2.0, PS
3.0)
 
Luc said:
I'd prefer a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 800 w/ Multivew option card

http://3dlabs.com/products/product.asp?prod=293
640MB GDDR3 total memory.
-512MB GDDR3 uni?ed memory with 512-bit-wide interface bus
-128 MB GDDR3 DirectBurst memory with 128-bit-wide interface bus
Independent dual 400 MHz 10-bit DACs
Supports:
OpenGL ® 2.0 (Full support when rati?ed)
OpenGL 1.5 with OpenGL Shading Language
Microsoft DirectX ® 9.0 with High Level Shader Language (HLSL, VS 2.0, PS
3.0)
Click to expand...

Really depends on what you're doing. But that means you need an AGP
motherboard which means an older chipset and slower RAM.
 
It all depends on the application...

For video rendering the bottleneck seems to be CPU/memory
processing speed.
 
Really depends on what you're doing. But that means you need an AGP
motherboard which means an older chipset and slower RAM.
Click to expand...

take a look at the link, the Realizm 800 is:
Board Physical

a.. 16-lane PCI Express, single-slot, full-length and full-height card.
Occupies two slots for the cooling solution
b.. Compliant to the PCI Express high-end graphics electromechanical and
power specification
 
Luc said:
take a look at the link, the Realizm 800 is:
Board Physical

a.. 16-lane PCI Express, single-slot, full-length and full-height card.
Occupies two slots for the cooling solution
b.. Compliant to the PCI Express high-end graphics electromechanical and
power specification
Click to expand...

It utility still depends on the application.
 
I'd prefer a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 800 w/ Multivew option card
So, it's a PCI-e 16bit card... just like most PCI-e video cards will be. It
also needs a hairdryer fan to keep cool. Sounds like an old NVidia board to
me.
 
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