Now, as some of you may know, my computers tend to be somewhat on the side of overkill. I construct them, to the best of my abilities, as monolithic monuments to the achievements of mankind. That's how awesome they are when they're brand new.

This computer has been around for a little over 3 years now. It's still able to play Doom 3 and Far Cry but I feel the growing need for more power.

I want benchmark comparisons. I want image quality analyses. I want impartial suggestions. If you can't give me that, I'll even take your trite rabid fanboyism and marketing slogans. Casemod suggestions are also welcome, and I'll post photos and final specs when it's all done.

Standing requirements:

1.) A water, or unconventional cooling system. This computer has had 2 very powerful processor fans over the years and I think I'm starting to lose my hearing. I don't want to lose my hearing. Suggestions welcome as long as it is within the realm of possibility. If it isn't, I'll harass Sine to ban you.

2.) If you're suggesting that a component be overclocked, include information on how to overclock it and any special cooling considerations that would go with it.

Go nuts guys.

Been wondering how long you'd hold out

CPU: Best athlon you can get your hands on.

Video card: A tougher choice than this time last year, but I'd still go with the best ATI card you can get your hands on....unless you see yourself playing more OpenGL games than DirectX.

Casemod suggestion: if you don't go for either a wave of doom OR darktrooper theme, I for one will be profoundly disappointed no matter how uber what's inside.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonk WoW Petition <- SIGN!
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

I was thinking of something along the lines of a 6800 Ultra, since I'm hoping to have the free time to do some tricksy shader work. Unless the X800 XT or whatever can drastically outperform the 6800 Ultra, I'd have to go with it as my first choice.

My friend just bought a spanking-new water cooling system for his PC. Says he loves it because it does a damn good job, and has no fans or audible moving parts. I think it's a Zalman...

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

The X800 XT, once you get up into the AA and AF, comPLETELY outperforms the 6800 Ultra. I'm talking 6xAA 16xAF type settings. But if you don't do that, then go with the Ultra.

Budget? I'm going to assume there's no limit, and I'll change this to suit the budget I'm given.

Dual Athlon FX-53s
nForce3 motherboard which supports it, can't think of one off-hand, might have to go with another chipset.
2x1024mb PC4000 Kingston HyperX
1xDVD-/+R/RW dual layer, 8x at least
1xCD-RW 52x (Lite-On preferrably)
4x250GB Maxtor 7200 RPM drives in a RAID array
2xthis
Plain case for modding, I suppose.
19+" Monitor, if you're going for LCD just cruise NewEgg for one thats under 25ms in response times, preferrably around 12ms. Look everywhere, hell.
Keyboard, mouse, etc.


Sound good? You'll probably want 500+ watts of PSU if you're going to overclock, and doing that to the 6800 isn't that hard, though the FX-53's aren't really overclockers per-se, they don't really need it. For the 6800, CoolBits, a small registry entry, is what you want to use. After using the registry entry, go into display properties, Settings, Advanced, and in that GeForce 6800 Ultra or whatever it says there'll be a part where it says Clock Settings. Just go into there and play around with it.

I think I covered all the bases except cooling. I'd suggest posting at a bigger computer-oriented forum for that. I'm not really up on the water cooling lingo, and would probably get you to fry all your pretty equipment.

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There is no signature

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductList.jsp?ThirdCategoryCode=010808 <------

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Friends is over. Kill yourself.

I do, but I'm a lot more interested in the DirectX 9.0c part of things.







Already have a 22" monitor.



Are there actually chipsets/mobos that support dual FX-53s? That's pretty crazy. I'm not sure if I want to go the SMP route either way, just because it offers extremely little in terms of game peformance increase. If it comes down to it, a single Pentium 4 might be a better choice than dual FXes. I'd like to hear a little more about why this processor is the best choice.

Water cooling system?

The ocean!

I love being unhelpful.

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What once was...
Snail racing: (500 posts per line) ---@%

What happened to your single-handily developing a quantum computer?

www.apple.com



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To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

I ran out of quanta.



But I want to play games.

DVD burner is on the list (definitely).

I want a really fast hard drive just to boot off of. It should have enough room for both a Windows system partition as well as a Linux root partition. Anything faster than a SCSI/fiber/whatever drive?

Would you recommend a RAID array for files and a home partition? Does RAID 0 have speed benefits or is it just for storage capacity? I don't download a lot of music, movies or software so my main purpose in terms of storage would be for game installs. I'd like it to be faster than normal IDE but cheaper than a huge SCSI array.

A keyboard.

Oh, and a mouse. Preferably optic with scroll wheel.

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"We came, we saw, we conquered, we...woke up!"

I envy Jon'C and the computer he is soon to have.

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Kill Your Idols!

RAID 0(which isn't really raid) is purely striping with no redundancy. So no mirroring means you're not losing space.

Big problem with it though is that there are issues with the size of the packets you just for it to use. If you make them too small, it will be slower on large files. If you make them too large, it will be slower on small files.

I'd say just get a plain 10k RPM SATA drive with no RAID, and it will be fine.

RAID 0 basically doubles your speed, and since you have a huge budget, two 36 or 74 GB 10K SATAs (WD makes good ones here, my dad just got two for RAID 0, no info on performance yet). However, it may require a really good RAID controller, many onboard ones were crappy, OS dependant controllers that were still mostly software RAID (on the driver level). I'm unsure about modern ones.

As for the unconventional cooling, I suggest water cooling or thermoelectric using a peltier and a heat sink/quiet fan. Peltiers use A LOT of power though, I believe typically they tell you to get one that uses no less than 200 watts. Speaking of power, you should check out the Super Flower/TTGI power supplies which are on sale at Directron.com right now. I got a really nice 520 watt for $50 after shipping. TTGI/SF is known for high quality PSUs (stable voltage under high load, etc) but at a really good price (PSUs have HUGE markups on them). Not sure if you need a power supply or not though, and the SFs, at least the one I got, have no SATA support. Antec just came out with a ($160!) modular power supply, like a 480 or something (which you supposedly need for the 6800s, at least the Ultra I think), all modular connectors, SATA support, etc.

Now...water cooling, there's something I know quite a bit about, as I am currently building my own water cooling system and have done a lot of research. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the components in a water cooling system, so I'll explain it from the bottom up, for everyone's sake. I don't recommend buying a kit, generally they offer poor performance, are expensive and just not as fun.

Waterblock: Also called heat exchanger, it's basically a heat sink that draws heat away from the CPU and into the water. Anything from a simple spiral design such as this to fins, or pins such as that Swiftech block there. Typically you want something that has cool water flowing right over the die and warm water removed near the edges, like what I've shown here. I'd checkout DangerDen and D-Tek Customs for waterblocks, also be sure to check Froogle and other shopping search engines. Waterblocks in particular that I recommend are the DangerDen blocks, but most especially the Swiftech MCW6000 series, which is one of the best blocks on the market (like over 200 pins on that internal design!), and only $40 USD, compared to the $50 or $60 DangerDen models. Either of those two places should have blocks for any socket you could want, in fact I the Swiftech block has mounting brackets for the K7, K8 and P4. Oh, and get a copper block, the aluminum ones are no where near as good (seeing as how copper's heat conduction is 400 w/mK and aluminum is like 250 w/mK). Don't buy into the expensive silver blocks, they offer little to no performance increase, and are many times as expensive. Oh, Zalman does have some really nice blocks which are gold plated, which is awesome since it'll pretty much never corrode.

Pump: Uh, yeah, a pump. Either a 12 VDC or 110-120 VAC pump. If you go AC, you'll want a relay which can turn the pump on and off when your computer starts. They take up a PCI slot (well, a case slot at least) and cost like $20. For less than a buck you can pickup a 9 or 12 VDC relay whose contacts are rated up to like 120 VAC and 3 amps at a place like All Electronics or various other surplus stores, and build the circuit yourself. You'll probably want an easy to mount AC socket near your power supply, which can then connect to the pump. This may be a bit of a trick if you're in Canada, I guess you can check Canadian electronics stores for these. Or you could drill a hole, but that's not very professional now is it. Now other than that, you need to be concerned with two parts of a pump's specifications: flow rate and max head. Flow rate is...flow rate. You'll want one that does at least a good 200-300 gallons per hour, and one with a max head of a good 5 or 6 feet. Max head is how high it can pump until it cannot overcome gravity. Your average water cooling setup, if done right, shouldn't ever go over two or three feet. DangerDen and D-Tek should have some good pumps, you can also go with a cheapo aquarium pump like the Via Aqua 1300, a 370 GPH pump that costs about $20 at the right retailer. Build quality seems inconsistent; some people say they die in two weeks, some people have had them running for two years. A little noisy until you fix the impeller to the shaft (which is the anti-clog mechanism, something not needed in a WC setup). Procooling.com has an article on this. But with your budget, I'd just go with a high end Swiftech 12 VDC pump. Those things are like, totally quiet.

Radiator: So now you need something to remove the heat from the water. Some are mounted outside the case, some inside. I prefer inside myself, much tidier and way less ugly and bulky. You'll want one that's at least 120mm in size, people usually mount them in front of their front case intake, which of course has to be 120mm for it to work well. 80mm radiators are pretty crappy, the 120mms just get you SO much more surface area. You can buy an expensive like, $70 dollar radiator or buy a heater core from a car. Heater cores are under the dash and engine coolant is pumped through them to heat the cabin. They work so well for WC radiators that places like D-Tek are starting to sell them for around $20. The 88 (I think that's the year) Chevy Chevelle heater core is supposed to be great for water cooling.

Reservoir/t-line: Reservoirs usually mount in a 5.25" or 3.5" bay or anywhere else in the case (some are cylindrical), and make filling and bleeding easy. Filling is, well, filling the water, bleeding is bleeding the air out of the water. Reservoirs make nice air traps for this. They're bulky, kind of expensive and just annoying. I like t-lines myself. Basically, it's a T connector which you have in your loop. You fill the loop through the top of the T, and let the air flow bubble up out of that point. Then you cap it. A t-line or res MUST be at the highest point in your loop otherwise it won't bleed properly.

Tubing: Yeah, you need tubing. You can get super expensive Tygon brand tubing, which is a kind of very flexible PVC formula tubing that costs about $3 a foot, or the cheaper ClearFlex 60 PVC which is the same formula for only about $0.60 a foot. Check out McMaster-Carr for both kinds of tubing. Unfortunately I can't link you direct, so just search for "chemical pvc tubing" and you should find both the ClearFlex 60 and the Tygon on the chemical tubings page. The ClearFlex is the generic, unnamed PVC chemical tubing on the left side of the page. It even says ClearFlex 60 on it, I have some in my basement. McMaster-Carr should also have about any type of tube fitting or hose clamp you should ever want. Oh yeah, get some worm drive hose clamps too. Any other kind are pretty crappy. Once those are on and tight, the tube will never come off.

Water: Yeah, you need water. Distilled water, and nothing else. Costs like a buck at a grocery store. Read the label; the more distilling/purifying processes it has gone through, the better. But don't sweat it if they don't have some that isn't super pure. You need an anti-corrosive and an anti-algae agent, some water additives do both. Some people like ethylene glycol (antifreeze), but it's very viscous and isn't very good as a coolant. D-Tek, DangerDen and other places should have decent water additives. FluidXP is a pretty good one, I think Swiftech makes one too. Try and find one that stops corrosion and kills algae, if not then get two seperate ones. Find some Flourinet if you can, it's a coolant used in super cooling systems in Crays and such...It's anti-corrosive and, I think anti-algae. But that stuff is like, expensive. But you might invest in it anyway. See if you can find places that recycle it (yes, it can be recycled very well). Also, if you choose to get a UV reactive dye, be sure to read the instructions. Usually it's like 1 part dye to 2000 parts water, you want like one or two drops in your whole system. I'd start with like half a drop, let it mix, test it and add more half drops (or just small drops, whatever) until it has the desired glow. Too much kills the UV effect. Oh! No matter what, do not use household chemicals such as bleach, ammonia, alcohols, etc for water additives. Besides killing the thermal properties of water, it'll probably throw the pH of your water WAY off and corrode **** in just a few hours.

Oh, one note...don't use dissimilar metals in a water loop, as you may be aware, you'll get galvanic reactions. Although the metals won't touch, and even with an anti-corrosive it still happens. If you get a copper waterblock, make sure the radiator has copper or brass tubing (copper preferably, brass is **** for heat conduction). Try to keep any tube fittings plastic or brass. Though if you have like, a gold plated Zalman block, that's not a big deal since gold isn't that susceptible to galvanic reactions.

Did I cover everything? Gee, I think I did. Not sure why I made such a huge post...Guess I just felt like talking about water cooling. Also check out this article for more on water chemistry.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Liquid cooling is a must for a good high-end PC, IMO. With all that fancy smancy hardware, it will be nice to have consistent temperatures.

How do you folks feel about InertX? I'm hoping to build a new system featuring liquid cooling in Dec/Jan if everything goes as planned, but I'm just now beginning my research.

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www.MentatMM.com (status = down :/)
Napalm Death Squad (status = alpha)

Not sure about InertX, but it rings a bell. Try the procooling and bit-tech forums.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Okay, a single FX-53 is your best bet for gaming. So far they prove to be the best gaming chips out there, while the EE's beat them for encoding, blah etc. There ARE motherboards that support Dual FX-53s, but they're fairly hard to come by. Yecti has dual FX-51's, ask him

Yeah, a single FX-53 would suit you just fine, but hey, why not get duals if you CAN.

Emon pretty much covered water cooling, and RAID 0 striping is pretty much just splitting up data between 2 (though I think you can get more in there) hard drives. 2 Cheetah SCSI's would be amazingly fast, but it's your call. You could always stick with Raptors, which are still fast as hell on their own. Basically, a RAID 0 stripe with 2 WD Raptors puts you at a doubly-fast access time. Just something to think about.

And actually, if I were you, I'd look into getting two 6800 (GT or Ultras) for the new SLI stuff coming out. Looks to be intense. What it basically is is the screen's split up into two, and each half is handled by one of the video cards. It's CRAZY fast, and only available on PCI-Express. Like I said, look into it.

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There is no signature

If turning on your computer doesn't result in a local brownout, I will be severely disappointed in you, Jon.

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GhostOfYoda - General doer of stuff.

Are there going to be any NForce3/Athlon FX motherboards that support multiple PCI Express slots for this purpose?

I wouldn't doubt it in the least, but I can't say for sure.

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There is no signature

Doom will come out for MacOSX.. eventually.

Aside from that.. yeah you're screwed.

ooo! We've got Star Craft too!

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To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

And Diablo 2, and WC3, and WoW. But yeah...I think after that you're screwed.

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There is no signature

Screw Water cooling
http://www.crazypc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=120199&Product_Code=9280

There you go.

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"Honey, you got real ugly."

Why not have a four-way Opteron box? That would be cool. I think most server motherboards now have PCI Express slots, so you'll still be able to use a good video card. Otherwise, get a top of the line Athlon 64.

Phase-change cooling is definitely the way to go.

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[This message has been edited. Deal with it.]

Maybe if you want to add 30 dollars a month to your electric bill...

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

"phase-change cooling"? Is that what they're calling refridgeration these days?

Hey, he said "go nuts"

Prometia Mach 1 phase change cooling is pretty nuts.

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"Honey, you got real ugly."

I like this case:


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"I'd rather be hated for who I am rather than loved for who I pretend to be." -Janis Joplin

I reiterate my question about hard drives:

Which would be faster? SCSI or a SATA array? And why?

GeForce 6800 Ultra, or SLI together a pair of slightly lesser cards (if possible?)

So many questions remain unanswered folks.

::swoon::

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[16:38] Correction: dick tracy was a real man
[16:38] happydud: Actually... He wasn't.
[19:08] Dormouse: hi, my name's happydud and i'm passive-aggress.. SHUTUP!! *stabs nearby orphan*
[You have gained 3 Dark Side Points]

2xGF6800 GT, SLI'd. They're underclocked 6800 Ultras, basically. Imagine the sex...I mean. <_<

As far as HDD's, ask someone who knows. I think GBK would be a good help here.

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There is no signature

10K RPM SATAs are faster than Ultra 160 SCSIs, by like, a lot. The only SCSI drives faster are the Ultra 360s, which cost about $500 each for 18 gigs if I recall. So, yeah, go with an array of 10K SATAs. Western Digital's Raptor line is very good, my dad just got two of their 74 GBs for RAID. On Newegg, the 36 GBs are listed as slightly slower in seek time, which seems strange, so I'd check WD's site. I know you have a pretty large budget, but an array of two 36 GBs (if they are as fast as the 74s that is) may be a wiser choice, as you may not need more than the 74 GB that array will offer for your installed programs. Then again, you just may fill it up, so the 74 GBs are probably a better choice, especially with a large budget.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

The only time I've ever filled up my current 80 GB hard drive was when I was downloading lots and lots of Star Trek episodes. ~70 GB of unholy speed is good enough for me.

The rest is what the DVD burner's for.

My preliminary calculations estimate the price at around $2200 USD. Further investigation is required!

I think I'm going to start referring to Emon as "The Wealth of Knowledge".

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I figure that one day I'll either be famous, or in prison. But I guess if I'm going to prison, I should probably try to do something that would make me famous anyway.

Only 2200? Yecti pulled off an 11,000 dollar machine. C'MON MAN!

List your specs.

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There is no signature

Sony DVD+/-RW & a DVD-ROM drive
2 Western Digital 74 GB Raptors
2 GB HyperX
ASUS SK8N
Athlon 64 FX-53
Audigy 2 ZS
GeForce6800 Ultra.

And if Yecti paid $11,000 for any PC he got majorly ripped off.

Pfff.. I just built a $19,460.98 laptop on that site

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When guitars are outlawed, only outlaws will have guitars.

[This message has been edited by MaD CoW (edited August 08, 2004).]