A new TIP...3001?

[DaveW]

There comes a point where you know the old gal's had enough. For me, it was when my top-of-the-line X1900XT was added to the legacy list.

Now, it's time for a new computer. Obviously there's going to be a mod, but I'm more interesting in the technology at the moment.

I'm thinking of getting one of the next-gen ATI cards, as they'll supposedly be able to handle up to 6 screens on a single card. I'll be thinking about 3 24" screens rotated portrait-style. I'd be happy getting another two of the one I currently have, as it's a nice screen with a slim bezel (Samsung Syncmaster 245B).

Probably going to get a mid-to-upper-range CPU, either a high end i5 or a mid-range i7, unless AMD come out with something exceptional in the meantime.

I'm considering an SSD, but those are expensive. I might just get a bunch of old school hard drives and set them up in a RAID array, which could potentially offer similar speed boosts. Maybe.

What do you guys think? I've not been following technology all that closely recently, so your input would be nice. Does anyone know when those new ATI chips will be released?

-Dave

[Drum Thumper]

Finish the Christmas Tale first. Then start the new worklog.

Parts wise...man that's a tough one. Equipment isn't really following Moore's Law anymore it seems like. Instead of every two years, it seems to be honing in on yearly.

If you have the $$ to go Intel, by all means do it. Personally, I am extremely happy with AMD's offerings. Also, keep in mind that within the next five years or so we are most likely going to see the death of video cards with the advent of multiple core CPUs. It will get to the point to where we have 32 core machines and due to the sheer processor power available, software devs will be able to take, say 8 cores out of the 32, and dedicate them to graphics.

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Edit: Didn't catch the SSD/RAID argument. SSD is faster because there's no moving parts. You may see some improvement, but it is physically impossible to take a platter based hard drive (or a number of them) and even begin to approach seek times of SSDs. There was a video posted here of some insane amount of SSDs in a RAID array and seek times were virtually nonexistent.

[slaveofconvention]

It all depends on what you really want to spend - one way to spend a fair bit, but not stupid amounts would be to go bottom of the range on the top range of tech. i7 or i5 is a no-brainer for me personally, based on what I have read - i7 920 with 3x2GB DDR2 is the best bang per buck (or in our case quid) and triple channel memory gives it another advantage over i5 - on top of that, the new 6 and 8 core CPUs intel are working on are alleged to be headed for the 1366 socket while the 1156 will be kept for "budget" machines. As for storage, if I had the money to spend, not waste, I'd check out some SSD reviews, and get me a 64GB SSD and then a decent size SATA hard disk - set the SSD up for windows and little else, redirect all documents, pictures etc to the HD as well as temporary internet files, virtual memory etc to keep the thrashing of the SSD to a minimum. 7 64bit o/s is essential with 6GB ram plus video memory. As for graphics cards, the new 5770 is only about £120 and is apparently outpacing the very top of the last range 4890 single chip cards.

All depends on your budget - if you price that lot up, and have money still to spend, look into a bigger SSD so you can install more on it before having to fall back on the hard drive. If you're a big gamer, consider a better card than the 5770 - I'm not sure what cards will run the 6 monitors you're looking at - having said that, there's nothing stopping you running more than one graphics card. I'm currently planning on buying the cheapest ATI PCIe card I can find to run a pair of 19"s to go each side of the 22" wide. Any games I play will still run well direct to the 22 via the 4870 I have now.

[x88x]

If you're looking for bets bang for your buck, look into the 9xx Phenom II's; if you're looking for the best performance, get a socket 1366 i7. For some reason Intel dropped triple-channel DDR3 support on the socket 1156 i7's, so if you get an i7, I wouldn't recommend one of those.

For video, slave's got it; whichever 5xxx series ATI card fits your needs/budget. The big thing that ATI is touting about the 6 displays (I forget which lines/models) was that the card would treat all the displays as a single display at the OS level, so you could actually game across multiple displays.

For the SSD(s), I would highly recommend the OCZ Vertex series. I have two of them and couldn't be happier. I think they still have about the best price/performance balance on the market. One thing I would recommend, to get the most performance possible out of them, is to figure out how much storage you need for the OS, and build a RAID-0 array of smaller SSDs. For example; I figured I needed about 100GB, so I got two 60GB SSDs. It's usually about the same price as getting the bigger one, and you get a nice boost in performance. There is the inherent dangers of running RAID-0, but platter HDD storage is so crazy cheap now that it's easy to justify allocating enough space to do nightly backups to a storage HDD. That way if one of the SSDs does die, you can just restore from the image.

For the LCDs, one thing to watch out for with your intended setup is that vertical viewing angles on most TN panels are not nearly as good as the horizontal viewing angles. I have one of my Samsung 225BW's running in portrait mode, and I love it, but I have to keep it tilted at an odd angle, or the picture looks like crap.
http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/qq3/x13931x/HPIM0482.jpg

[DaveW]

I guess one thing I didn't make clear was that this is a long-range projection, say, 3 months from now, which is why I posted it in the 'tech talk' thread. Say I have £1000 for parts, which is quite a reasonable amount. I could probably recycle some parts, such as the hard drive and power supply, from the TIP-3000, so I'm looking at just high-end core parts. I don't do much that really stresses the CPU, but I'm a gamer, so a powerful graphics card is a must. As for the 3 monitor thing, I'm talking about Eyefinity, ATI's new tech. (http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/11/video-ati-radeon-eyefinity-eyes-on-featuring-left-4-dead-on-a/)


Finish the Christmas Tale first. Then start the new worklog.

Yeah, I will. :) Maybe this Christmas? :p


Also, keep in mind that within the next five years or so we are most likely going to see the death of video cards with the advent of multiple core CPUs.

I doubt that, architecturally they're just too different. What you might see is combined heterogeneous chipsets like the CellBE and Larabee, which are very, very different from today's homogeneous multi-core offerings.


For some reason Intel dropped triple-channel DDR3 support on the socket 1156 i7's

That's likely because it performs roughly the same as Dual-Channel in all the benchmarks I've seen, and it's cheaper, so it will have a better uptake.


The big thing that ATI is touting about the 6 displays (I forget which lines/models) was that the card would treat all the displays as a single display at the OS level, so you could actually game across multiple displays.

Actually, you can treat monitor individually from what I've read. I'm curious to see how they'll work that out; apparently, you can 'fullscreen' games to a single display, or spread them across. The rotated monitors is because I'm a programmer; thanks for the tip regarding viewing angles, but I'm hoping that with 3 monitors rotated similarly I'll be able to avoid major problems.

-Dave

[x88x]

I'm hoping that with 3 monitors rotated similarly I'll be able to avoid major problems.

The right and left monitors should be fine as long as you rotate them the right way (right monitor rotated CCW, left monitor rotated CW, assuming a flat array, if you want to curve the panels around you, switch those), the problem will be with the center panel.

[Oneslowz28]

Just wanted to jump in and say that the future cards that will support 3+ monitors will be using the Display Port connector. From what I have read is that all the monitors will also have to have a Display port built in because you can not convert VGA to DS. This is based on my limited amount of research on the topic so don't take my words to heart.

[x88x]

This is partly true; to have more than 4 digital connections on two expansion slots, you would have to use either DisplayPort or DMS-59/VHDCI/etc (the things that shoves 2 DVI-D into one port). DisplayPort outputs can be sent to DVI devices (ie, displays), as seen in Apple laptops for example, but I don't know about the other way around. That being said, I doubt monitor manufacturers will drop DVI inputs any time in the near future, so I doubt that will be an issue any time soon.

[Drum Thumper]

I could probably recycle some parts, such as the hard drive and power supply, from the TIP-3000
-Dave

I would recommend against using the old power supply. I cannot remember what you used in TIP3K, but I doubt it would have enough power even without deprecation factored in.

[d_stilgar]

Definitely get an SSD. Windows 7, Office Ultimate, and Adobe CS3 Suite (what I have) adds up to 61Gb. A 64gb ssd will run you $150, 128gb will run $280. I've really been wanting one, but I'm going to wait til they are $1/Gb. The really great thing is that you can push the power button and be ready to use the computer in less than six seconds. That is so cool.

The new 5870 ATI cards are really great because the power draw drops when you aren't gaming from ~3-400W to ~40W. I would consider getting one of those for that reason alone, although they are also the fastest cards on the market right now.

[x88x]

The price of an SSD will, obviously, vary depending on the model. A good, high-performance (imo, >100 MB/s write, >200 MB/s read) 60GB SSD will run you a little over $200.


The really great thing is that you can push the power button and be ready to use the computer in less than six seconds. That is so cool.

This, actually, in my personal experience, has not been true. My boot times are actually not much different now than with my old platter HDD, but once my OS is running, everything is soooo much faster. TBH, this doesn't really affect me at all since the only times I reboot are when my OS makes me (increasingly rarely), and when the power goes out and my UPS fails (also very rare).

[mDust]

Just my own tidbit of advice: If you do get an SSD, make sure you get Windows 7 for the TRIM support. I don't believe any other OS's support it.

[DaveW]

I would recommend against using the old power supply. I cannot remember what you used in TIP3K, but I doubt it would have enough power even without deprecation factored in.

Actually, the PSU in TIP was a high-end meaty SOB, I suspect it can handle a stronger computer but I'm undecided on hardware so that remains to be seen. I believe it was a 750Watt supply that provided enough power for two graphics cards, although I can't remember who made it. This was just after all the PSU market went crazy with people wanting higher-quality more efficient PSUs. Although I do agree with the principle of what you're saying, old PSUs should really not be recycled for new projects. :)


Just my own tidbit of advice: If you do get an SSD, make sure you get Windows 7 for the TRIM support. I don't believe any other OS's support it.

I will be running Windows 7 professional edition, which I believe I already have via the MSDN.

Regarding the graphics adapters, thanks for the input on that-I'll have to look that up when I make my eventual decision. I'm completely on the shelf with regards to SSDs. I'll have to wait and see what the prices are like in 3 months. I suspect they'll be much better. :)

-Dave

[Kayin]

I'll second the AMD suggestion, I'm running a 720BE that's hit 4GHz validated (check my sig) and I'll be replacing it with a Thuban BE as soon as they release. Waiting on C3 stepping and of course six cores. It plays any game I have, no complaints.

I run a single 32GB SSD for boot, and running 7 Ultimate I boot in under 25 seconds. Granted, I keep a hefty OC, but still.