Anyone running a higher end pc?

[spookyturtle 9,465]

Is anyone using a pc with a core i7 or some other leading edge processor? How about graphics card and motherboards? I'm looking for some feedback and ideas for a new pc. It's getting to be desktop replacement time. Please post your configurations.

What's your budget? (And I presume you want to build it yourself yes?)

The i7 and short list of mobos are definitely expensive - some good values in Dual (or Quad) Cores - many good mobos with good options for SLI and/or Crossfired Graphics cards.

Depending on how high-end you want to go - you can do a simple single-drive HD or multiple RAID configuration (a bit of overkill but...)

Do you use it mainly for gaming? (or similar processor/graphics intensive use)

Our current home desktop isn't high end any more (year or so old now, which is ancient lol)..

What are you running?

[Niels Bohr 72]

Is anyone using a pc with a core i7 or some other leading edge processor? How about graphics card and motherboards? I'm looking for some feedback and ideas for a new pc. It's getting to be desktop replacement time. Please post your configurations.

Intel Core i7 920, with the ASUS RAMPAGE Mobo. Use atleast 6GB. This beast has triple channel memory. You can overclock this baby upto 4.1 Ghz using water cooling. I had mines overclock upto 3.8. It'll reduce the life of your cpu, but, by the time it die I'll be replacing it with a new one.

If you're using two way sli such as the dual GTX 295 nvidia graphics, you must make sure your power supply is approximately 700 watts or higher.

Just to give you an idea it cost about 500 dollars just for the board, cpu, and graphics.

The ASUS Rampage is one of the best board for overclocking.

Edited September 20, 2009 by Niels Bohr

[spookyturtle 9,465]

Is anyone using a pc with a core i7 or some other leading edge processor? How about graphics card and motherboards? I'm looking for some feedback and ideas for a new pc. It's getting to be desktop replacement time. Please post your configurations.

Intel Core i7 920, with the ASUS RAMPAGE Mobo. Use atleast 6GB. This beast has triple channel memory. You can overclock this baby upto 4.1 Ghz using water cooling. I had mines overclock upto 3.8. It'll reduce the life of your cpu, but, by the time it die I'll be replacing it with a new one.

If you're using two way sli such as the dual GTX 295 nvidia graphics, you must make sure your power supply is approximately 700 watts or higher.

Just to give you an idea it cost about 500 dollars just for the board, cpu, and graphics.

The ASUS Rampage is one of the best board for overclocking.

Which Rampage, Extreme or GENE? What are you using for graphics cards? Are you using water cooing or air? Thanks for the info.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Either of the one...The Gene is smaller for form factor. They both use the X58 chipset.

The extreme is larger. However, they both provides the same capabilities.

[William33 110]

Just curious, why the need for all that processing power? Is core 2 quad that weak?

[Ling Ling 22]

Checking in with a Mac Pro...2 x 2.8ghz Quad Xeon...8gb ram, 4 750gb drives, eSata card, and a bunch of external drives including a Drobo.

The MACs at my office aren't as ghetto as the home box. I thought I was a Mac Geek until I met my wife. She has a 20th Anniversary Mac.

I'm not even sure it'll do much more than run OS-9 and play CDs....cost nearly $10K when she bought it. She's agreed that we'll mutually determine

her future computer purchases...well, either that or let Booyah dream up design a computer.

[NickD 202]

Unless you are gathering worldwide data to determine climate changes or even more critical, playing video games, you don't even need a hot box.

I haven't built a hot system in ten years, takes an effort to find the best and always run into incompatibility problems. Then you have to buy the OS separately, but I just run CAD programs, and the only slow about them is me, doesn't make any difference if a regen takes a half a second or less than a tenth of a second. But my box would be worthless if I was playing video games, I don't do that. And off the shelve type computers have come down drastically in price.

But I have to think business wise, anything I buy will be obsolete in less than two years, sometimes just a year. So you can spend 3 or more thousand bucks that in that period of time, couldn't sell it for more than ten bucks or more likely, would have to pay a recycling charge to get rid of it. In buying a computer, you buy what you need and that is to run software. Read the requirements for your software first, then go from there.

[SuperDuper! 230]

Checking in with a Mac Pro...2 x 2.8ghz Quad Xeon...8gb ram, 4 750gb drives, eSata card, and a bunch of external drives including a Drobo.

The MACs at my office aren't as ghetto as the home box. I thought I was a Mac Geek until I met my wife. She has a 20th Anniversary Mac.

I'm not even sure it'll do much more than run OS-9 and play CDs....cost nearly $10K when she bought it. She's agreed that we'll mutually determine

her future computer purchases...well, either that or let Booyah dream up design a computer.

OS 9, is that the "Tiger" OS? If so, you can upgrade it to snow leopard for $30 bucks. Check it out!

[Niels Bohr 72]

Sorry MAC. MACs aren't design for engineers because they're weak.

Engineers needs scalability for their projects. The horsepower provides a way for consumers to help improve the visions of the engineers. The money are used to further the research to improve or enhance the processing capabilities so that we may be able to solve problems of the future.

At my workplace, nobody uses a MAC. So, it goes to show a MAC isn't designed for scientific application in mind. Ask an Engineer (someone who is either FE/EIT or PE licensed) and they'll say MACs are practically useless.

To William,

The Intel Core i7 is a quad core.

Edited September 20, 2009 by Niels Bohr

[Otto 83]

What are you running?

MSI P45 mobo - Core 2 quad chip, 6 gig ram, 1.5TB Seagate (SATA), BFG GTX-275 pushing a 30" Dell monitor. Other items currently installed - D-link wireless, simple LG-light-scribe DVD burner and thats about it. The OS is Vista Business.

Works well - servers our purposes at home just fine, no complaints but if I had to do it over again, I'd probably change a few things.

[NickD 202]

Sorry MAC. MACs aren't design for engineers because they're weak.

Engineers needs scalability for their projects. The horsepower provides a way for consumers to help improve the visions of the engineers. The money are used to further the research to improve or enhance the processing capabilities so that we may be able to solve problems of the future.

At my workplace, nobody uses a MAC. So, it goes to show a MAC isn't designed for scientific application in mind. Ask an Engineer (someone who is either FE/EIT or PE licensed) and they'll say MACs are practically useless.

To William,

The Intel Core i7 is a quad core.

My relationship ended with Mac years ago when my HD crashed with their preloaded OS and they wanted 300 bucks for a CD for a replacement OS. Plus the Mac was never supported by software manufacturers, Apple wanted a small fortune to license out their OS for software development. Gates was nowhere as greedy as Apple and with Gates, did have a choice with your hardware. Since I was also into music composition, Kurzweil and others only supported the Mac, but that is ancient history today. Apple did come out with a Windows compatible box some years ago, the only way they could stay in business.

[Niels Bohr 72]

spookyturtle,

I missed your last questions. It was late at night. So, I am using water cooling. The graphics card I have is the MSI N295GTX-2D1792 GeForce GTX 295.

I found the specs for this at newegg. Cost is like 600 dollars.

This guy has 448 bit memory interface. Supreme mother of all graphics memory bandwidth. Dealing with large scale geometry on a 2096x1820 resolution would not be a problem for this hog. It has nearly 2 GB of memory.

Also, I forgot to mention that my machine also has the Tesla Supercomputer card (costs about 1300 dollars). You can add this card on your mobo. So, it's almost as if you have a computer within a computer.

The computer is really my second wife. So, to me it is like a milf to me.

Water cooling generally is better than air cooling because the pump isn't as loud as the fan that produces like 45 dB. If you have a cheap case, your case will rattle like the construction zone on your local sidewalk.

Edited September 20, 2009 by Niels Bohr

[spookyturtle 9,465]

spookyturtle,

I missed your last questions. It was late at night. So, I am using water cooling. The graphics card I have is the MSI N295GTX-2D1792 GeForce GTX 295.

I found the specs for this at newegg. Cost is like 600 dollars.

This guy has 448 bit memory interface. Supreme mother of all graphics memory bandwidth. Dealing with large scale geometry on a 2096x1820 resolution would not be a problem for this hog. It has nearly 2 GB of memory.

Also, I forgot to mention that my machine also has the Tesla Supercomputer card (costs about 1300 dollars). You can add this card on your mobo. So, it's almost as if you have a computer within a computer.

The computer is really my second wife. So, to me it is like a milf to me.

Water cooling generally is better than air cooling because the pump isn't as loud as the fan that produces like 45 dB. If you have a cheap case, your case will rattle like the construction zone on your local sidewalk.

What case are you using? I'd like to hear your complete build. You have the i7 920, the Asus Rampage atx board, not the micro, the GeForce GTX 295 card, liquid cooling-what brand- model? Also what RAM and HDD setup? Are you using a soundcard or the onboard?

Thanks for the info. That video card is wild! You have a dream machine. It must be awesome.

Edited September 20, 2009 by spookyturtle

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Here ya go!

Combo 700w Modular Psu and Case. COOLERMASTER: $170

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.231301

AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz AM3+ : $120

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103649

Zalman Heatsink: $55

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118020

MSI 790FX: $170

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130223

G.Skill ddr3 1600: $75

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231193

500gb WD: $60

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136073

EVGA GTX 275: $250

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130475

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Heres whatI got!