View Full Version : System suggestion
leowyatt
12-02-2008, 10:10
Hi all,
I've been tasked by someone to spec them a system. Unfortunately for me I've been out of the hardware scene for 4+ years now so have no idea what works well with what anymore :(
So I will task the amazing people of BD to help my friend build his system. The main use of the PC will be photo editing. So I'm thinking as much RAM as possible would be a good idea. He seems to think he needs RAID in the system as it would help with speed but I don't really think it's needed for what he is using the sytem for. What do you all think?
Right onto budget, he has around £600 for the box and the gubbins as he'll be getting monitors separately. Only main requirements are that the graphics card run 2 monitors, one would be a 24" and the other say a 19".
My thoughts spec-wise was C2D with 4GB of RAM with something like a GeForce 7300GT but that is just a guess.
Help me BD people, you're my only hope :D
You'd be about right spec-wise. I won't go too far into detail as there are people better than I at speccing a system, but a C2D and 4GB RAM should cope easily, and RAID-0, though it'll probably help a little, doesn't necessarily have the huge performance benefits you'd expect. Having said that, most motherboards come with onboard RAID anyway (a better hardware solution is likely to push the system over-budget).
leowyatt
12-02-2008, 10:22
Aye but does he "really" need RAID? Is there a RAID setup that would suit his system. I think he will listen if I tell him he doesn't need it :p
I would assume he wants RAID for performance, not availability, so it would have to be RAID-0. Twice the risk of failure for maybe a 25% performance gain (probably an underestimate but it's a lot less than twice as fast).
If he's batch processing a lot of RAW files then there may be some argument for it, but for one-at-a-time editing a few seconds isn't going to make much difference.
leowyatt
12-02-2008, 10:41
He is going to be doing a lot of batch processing I believe.
Probably worth reading around on getting the best out of a RAID-0 setup then. Just make sure he knows and accepts the risks. :)
He is going to be doing a lot of batch processing I believe.
Batch processing what though? Photos? Videos? Text files?
Sustained access to chunky data is the only real justification for RAID-0, for most people it's a risk too far imo. If he has a genuine use though I wouldn't put him off it, just make sure he's routinely backing his important data up.
leowyatt
12-02-2008, 11:11
It'll mainly be processing photos.
Davey_Pitch
12-02-2008, 11:28
What OS will he be using? If it's XP then 4GB will be too much as XP pretty much maxes out at a little over 3GB (3.2GB I believe). If he'll be using Vista then 4GB will be fine :)
Not quite true old bean :) It's architecture. 32bit OS's will address ~4GB total, so 4GB RAM minus what you have in graphics memory. 64bit OS's dont suffer such cap, so you could go XP x64 and address that comfortably :) Vista 32bit would be stuck in the same boat as XP.
/posted from his XP x64 workstation in the office, with 4GB of RAM :p
but is there still a lot of software compatibility issues associated with 64 bit systems, specifically in the xp line of things... I never really heard it that had been resolved, but was always teh reason i didn't put x64 xp on when i got it...
Just depends on what you're doing. Ironically the only software problems I've had on this box have been with MS's own admin tools - some of them flat out refuse to install, so I've published some of them to myself through Citrix, and RDP elsewhere for the others.
These days it's less software compatibility and more driver support. I cant use some of the legacy printers for example, but I dont care as they're pap :D
I would have gone x64 if they'd supplied it with my laptop, but they didn't, so I didn't.
Having said that, if I can figure out a way to buy a legit OEM install for it I may buy x64 Ultimate, as the Business-to-Ultimate upgrade cost is more than a new OEM copy.
I've found that a combination of HUKDeals and Dell seems to spring up some bargains, but am a bit out of touch anyway.
i.e. just specced the following:
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q6600 processor (2.40GHz, 1066MHz, 8MB cache)
Windows Vista® Business - English
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Dell™ Enhanced USB Multimedia Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
256MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 2600 XT graphics card
500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache
19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Dell Optical Scroll Premium Mouse
16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives
Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
Internal Wireless PCI Card
Microsoft® Works 8.5 - English
Standard Warranty1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day
IEEE 1394 PCI Adapter card
And it came to £437 inc. VAT and delivery.
Could get another 500GB hard drive for say, £60, 2GB RAM for £40 - £537 for a pretty sweet PC :p
leowyatt
12-02-2008, 14:47
Cheers rich :) i'll have a look at that and pass it on.
Bloody hell. That is a fab deal. I'm starting to think I shouldn't bother building PCs any more. :)
With me retiring the Shuttle, every bit of kit in my house is now Dell. It's amazing really.
The only piece of hardware I couldn't do that with is (a) the Mac (:p) and (b) my fileserver (at least not cheaply - it's got five disks in it).
Admiral Huddy
12-02-2008, 15:14
Having owned a quad core since November, I don't see any advantage to that of a dual core. At this time. If I have to run multiple tasks, then I have to set affinity to ensure that two apps, for example, are grabbing equal processing power. IMO, the E8400 is bargain and 4GHz is easy achievable. This would be my CPU of choice for the time being unless there are some radical changes in mutli-threaded applications. However, server apps may benefit.
I dont get this trend people seem to having of setting affinity for processes, especially now HT isnt in the chips. The scheduler does a perfectly good job of managing threads for you, seems daft to interfere :S
And yeah Huddy, Quad core is great for a lot of server apps, in licensing terms if nothing else, saves you a fortune.
Admiral Huddy
12-02-2008, 15:36
I dont get this trend people seem to having of setting affinity for processes, especially now HT isnt in the chips. The scheduler does a perfectly good job of managing threads for you, seems daft to interfere :S
I've seen a massive improvement to performance when video editing and encoding at the same time if I set the afinity of the encoding to use dedecitated cores seperate from the ones I'm using. This means there is no impact on what I'm doing. It's like a batch run. On the other hand, not settting the afinity takes a chunk of my interactive processing. I've found unless 'm doing something wrong!
I'm sure I read somewhere that HT is returning, giving a futher 4 logical cores on top of the 4 physical :shocked:
'The ones I'm using'... you're, or rather the system is using all of them :p The scheduler is aware of a lot more in the system than you or I, it's better placed to make decisions about process/thread affinity and has done that job well (both Linux and Windows kernels) for many years. If you're really seeing a benefit forcing process affinity then I'd suggest it's bad programming somewhere. Lord knows I've never gone around tailoring affinity on SQL/Exchange/Oracle/<generic transactional database engine> before, or ever felt the need to.
HT's return is certain I think, though second time round should be better. The kernel/scheduler and hopefully in turn the applications will be better aware of the HT cores, so hopefully they'll be used more appropriately.
Every server here that has an HT CPU has it disabled in the BIOS - the performance hit you take doing some things is much worse than the odd benefit, so it was killed as a matter of policy here.
@Daz. No, it seems the scheduler (at least the one in XP) doesn't do a good enough job on its own.
Painkiller, for example, goes nuts. Jumpy graphics, broken sound etc. Set affinity to one core and it all goes away.
Now, this probably isn't the scheduler's fault. Rather it's old software not expecting multiple cores. Either way, it shows that sometimes the scheduler needs help.
Stan_Lite
12-02-2008, 20:07
Many of us in team 10, running the WinSMP client, are using an application called the Fah SMP Affinity Changer (http://distributed.org.ua/forum/index.php?showtopic=1149) which runs as a service and automatically alters affinities to optimise core usage by the SMP client. Most of us are seeing 15-20% gains in output using it. If the scheduler was up to the task, this wouldn't be required.
Windows will probably do a half decent job for most everyday applications but sometimes it needs a helping hand.
MarcLister
13-02-2008, 12:52
Having owned a quad core since November, I don't see any advantage to that of a dual core. At this time. If I have to run multiple tasks, then I have to set affinity to ensure that two apps, for example, are grabbing equal processing power. IMO, the E8400 is bargain and 4GHz is easy achievable. This would be my CPU of choice for the time being unless there are some radical changes in mutli-threaded applications. However, server apps may benefit.But your e-peen score > *.
:D
leowyatt
13-02-2008, 13:01
Erm does the above discussion have any impact on the system suggestions :confused:
Stan_Lite
13-02-2008, 13:28
Ah, sorry. I didn't realise I was in the only thread in BD that's not allowed to go off topic :p
I think you'd be hard pushed to better that Dell system that Rich_L posted for value for money. There's no way I could build that system for anywhere near that price and you also get their "Next business day" warranty.
As Rich suggests, spec it up a bit with more RAM and another HDD (iirc, Dell will do the RAID for you as well, if you want it) and you've got a cracking system that will do everything your mate needs and more. The graphics card in that system will easily run dual monitors and the Q6600 is a very good CPU - quad core may be overkill but at that price ...............
I'd go for it.
Admiral Huddy
13-02-2008, 13:31
..but this is the Computer forum so we can :p
We are trying to decide if the potential RAW power of a dual core (E8400) > benefit of a quad core processor. In terms of pricing, there's little in it but it all depends on the usage of the PC. The way I see it, the quad core takes a little tweaking around to get the most from it.
Don'r forget to check Novatech too :) They normally have decent spec machines at good prices.
(iirc, Dell will do the RAID for you as well, if you want it)
They certainly do on the business systems (Optiplex/Precision/Vostro), and I dont see why they wouldn't on the desktop models. Limited to 1 and 0 but that's all you'll need :)
As I said...relate it to the OP and all's good :D Otherwise I'll be getting my cane out.
/me goes wildly off topic and bends over.... ;)
Admiral Huddy
13-02-2008, 15:23
/me goes wildly off topic and bends over.... ;)
A hazlenut in evey bite :)
I should point out that there'll be no overclocking on a Dell system*, so the thoughts of going to 4GHz on an E8400 is entirely moot. :p
In truth, either will do admirably for this system, so I'd spec based on price. As such, doing a homebuild with an E8400 is going to cost somewhat more than that Dell. I'd go with the Dell - Quad or not.
* May be some hacks to do it from within Windows, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Not certain if this will help but I have just brought the following build for ~570.
Wolfdale 8400
4gb ocz extreme doofer mem
500gb seagate .11 *2
EK cpu water block
Load of wc pipe
Asus P5k black pearl
------------
holding off on the gfx until the next lot are out. My wc'd X1900 xtx is enough, especially with this new cpu under water it should fly
vBulletin® v3.7.4, Copyright ©2000-2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.