Suggestions for POWERFUL build?

[Scottapotamas]

Hi guys...

 

Long story shot, im making a computer for a friend at uni who is needing basically supercomputer at home...

 

The computers main function will be simulation and modelling, but i think he wants to use it for gaming etc also...

 

Cost really isn't an issue. I think he wants to stay under $8000, but will go over if he needs to...

 

So far we are thinking of a skulltrail dual processor mobo with 2 quad core zeons. (well he was) but what about i7's?

 

A mobo compatible with the processor

 

8gb of ram should be enough... but maybe 16

 

Then a nVidia GTX280 or 285...

 

Any thoughts or recommendations?

[icedrake]

Hi guys...

 

Long story shot, im making a computer for a friend at uni who is needing basically supercomputer at home...

 

The computers main function will be simulation and modelling, but i think he wants to use it for gaming etc also...

 

Cost really isn't an issue. I think he wants to stay under $8000, but will go over if he needs to...

 

So far we are thinking of a skulltrail dual processor mobo with 2 quad core zeons. (well he was) but what about i7's?

 

A mobo compatible with the processor

 

8gb of ram should be enough... but maybe 16

 

Then a nVidia GTX280 or 285...

 

Any thoughts or recommendations?

 

Suggestions? Sure. Do note that I'm just about to buy parts for my first hackintosh, so this is exclusively from the last three months of extensive reading of forums (here and elsewhere).

 

Your two options are either a pair of Xeons or a single Core i7 chip.

 

GPUs, cases, hard drives, etc. need not change from one setup to the other, so I'll focus on the CPU, motherboard, and RAM. Here's a sample lineup for the Xeon setup.

 

2x$1679 Xeon W5580 3.33GHz

$399 Intel S5500 HCV, with 9 DDR3 240-pin RAM slots

 

2x$150 Corsair CMS4GX3M1A1333C9 4GB PC1333 PC3 10666

 

You're at $4057 with this build, not including hard drives, optical drives, graphics, case, psu, or extra fans. I also only allowed for 8GB of RAM, but you can always add that later, as needed. The board will support up to 9 sticks, though I'm not sure you can go up to the full 36GB. 32 should be possible, since Apple sells builds with that much.

 

Now the bad news. With this high-power a build, you've priced yourself out of most folks' range. There will be little to no information about whether this build works. A quick search of the forums found no feedback either way on the W5580 chip, and no mention at all of the Intel board. There aren't many dual-cpu Xeon boards out there. Your best bet is to hunt around for confirmed working reports.

 

Core i7 is what I'm about to build. I was also looking at dual-cpu Xeon options, but there's just not as much community support for this config, and I didn't have as lavish a budget to work with, so the motherboard price kind of hurt.

 

That said...

 

Here is a thread talking about a $3000 Core i7 build with a 975 Extreme as the CPU. That's pretty much as high as you can get right now. There is plenty of stuff already on the forums in terms of single-cpu builds, but I've not found anything at all on the forums here about dual-cpu i7 machines, though there are noises elsewhere of such beasts existing.

 

For reference, my build came from this thread, though you'll want to up the CPU to 975, which the Gigabyte board will support.

 

Hope that helps, or at least starts the discussion!

 

 

 

ETA:

Looking at the number of posts you have vs. the number I have, I just told you a ton of stuff you already knew, didn't I?

[Scottapotamas]

Hi. Thanks for the reply. I was thinking about dual xeon's but I think I will take a i7 rig or two, as we hae had rigs working together on stuff before in linux.

 

I agree with the compatibility issues, but they aren't that great as the prog written in osx can be ported by me into Linux... We just prefer it with osx because we all use it.

 

Thanks for your suggestions.

[broken]

$8000?

 

Assuming your friend wants to run OS X, the very best thing you can do is recommend he buy an actual Apple machine.

 

Seriously, for that kind of money its almost foolish to look at a Hackintosh. A Hack makes since when you are on a budget

or when you have certain needs that can't be meet by Apple's less expensive options. Once your budget gets over $2000, I

think its best to just get a machine from Apple. I like to tinker as much as the next guy, but considering the amount of time folks

put into maintaining/updating Hack's, for $8000 I would rather have a powerful machine that works out of the box and doesn't require

worrying if the next OS X update will break something. $800 machine? Sure. $8000? Ohhhh hell no.

 

 

I would go with the Dual Quad core 2.93GHz (8 cores plus Hyperthreading), then just add memory and other options to suite.

 

Looking at the Geekbench website, that machine should post about 15000 points on the Geekbench benchmark app. Providing

that the applications he intends to use make use of serious multi threading, that CPU config should just about crush any cpu heavy

applications and I believe that most modeling and simulation rely heavily on CPU power and scalability.

 

I work at the US EPA and most of our scientific folks complain about just not having enough cpu power to get things done in the

time frame they want. 8 physical cores plus hyperthreading is the way to go. There is no way to cheaply put together a Hack

with 8 physical cores similiar to Apple's offerings that flawlessly run OS X. Last thing your want to do is drop a couple thousand

dollars (or more) only to realize that parts of the build aren't compatible or unstable.

 

 

Do your friend a favor and suggest he buy an Apple machine. Better investment for that kind of money.

Warranty+Support+Serious CPU power = a better experience.

[icedrake]

Actually, that's a question I'd be most interested in seeing the answer to. Scottapotamas, you seem to know what you're doing. What's the reason for your wanting to go the Hack route instead of a direct from Apple purchase?

 

I just did a quick price-check, and a nearly maxed-out MP 8-core 2.93GHz with maxed out memory, two 2TB drives, a RAID controller, and a Radeon 4870 HD 512MB is listed at $11,399, quite a bit over budget. Of course considering that you'll be spending an *extra* $3,700 on memory alone, when you could get the same from NewEgg for $1200 total... I've bought computers from Apple before, but I've no intention of ever taking them up on their upsize offers.

[Scottapotamas]

The real idea is the fact that we already have a dual 2.9ghz mac pro (last gen) and its not enough... we were thinking of something higher than that, and although it doesn;t have to be compatible with osx, its just preferred...

 

We can always port it to some variety of linux, and that may be the case if the machine is too powerful or "exotic" to run osx... We'd probs get better performance in linux anyway...

 

Upgrades are the biggest deal breaker from the genuine mac pro... The idea is if we could, we would go with a dual i7 rig with OK processors, and as others come out that can go faster or oc better, then upgrade... i mean sure, mac pro's can be upgraded in terms of ram and CPU, but its far more limited and that's the issue with the current pro...

 

I mean, that much money can't grow on trees... he says if we need to, he'll go to 10... rich **** but im pretty sure that when 3+ years come along and the pro is outdated, but more life can be squeezed out of a better rig, then thats it...

 

Another concept is parallel computing or an optertron rig... Another friend has 4 identical asus mobo, 2gb ram, some amd quad phenom working synchronously and thats a path we could go down... probably cheaper than a single dual cpu rig...

 

Thanks for your replies... Ill keep you posted about what ends up working....

[icedrake]

At $10K, you're almost in the price range of a Cray.

 

No, I'm not kidding. The Cray CX1-LC bottoms out at around $15K, but there are other places like HP, where you can spend around $10K for a 6-CPU build.

 

ETA: Also, what on *earth* are you going to be modeling on that sort of a monster?

 

ETA pt. 2: Still poking around at the server idea. Haven't ever played in that particular sandbox, having too much fun spending someone else's (imaginary) money

 

Stack a pile of these in one of these.

 

Nice and modular, and you can throw $700 at it whenever you need more power. Get the 20u if you're really feeling rich.

[Scottapotamas]

Yeah thats a little far to get a cray... although it would be cool to say... hey... i gots a supercomputer at home that will outbench ANY other consumer pc x10... (not quite but you get the idea...)

 

And we aren't moddeling just stuff on earth... hes doing a phd on something liek Astrophysics and collisions of chunks of blackhole etc.... but the name and content are longer and more complex than that... his current pro 2.9ghz dual proc takes a week to do some collision moddeling... we try to use the uni one, but its booked out loads and he needs/wants more convenience than that... and the same comp would also be used by friends etc for whatever... another guy's gonna chip in a few k toward it... I didn't think of blades... The hp blades would be a good option... ill look around for more choices also... ive also gone for a cray quote... ill see what comes in for that... propably need to have a slight sedative before the email or call comes in...