Screamin' machine ordered...
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Hey Tom, HNY...
Decent donk, mate. You shoudn't have any problems there.... The only thing I would say is go for a good quality DVD Drive / burner. I am not expert but when I bought my new system the tech that I deal with [have done for some years now] said It is not that much more to go a good brand [Sony, etc..] and is worth it. Not real fussed on Asus products....
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Looks really nice Tom, I bet you can't wait to get your hands on it
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it looks great, tom. let us know how well it performs.
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Not a bad specification there Tom. Some feedback below:
- Motherboard: Try to get a motherboard based on the P35 chipset instead. I have a (cheapish) DFI "Blood Iron" and it works just a well as the high end motherboards with all the bells and whistles (which I don't need).
- GFX: I see you are considering a nVidia 8800 GTX (which comes at a premium). The 8800 GT is quite a capable GFX card, obviously not as powerful as the GTX but quite powerful nontheless. If you want something more powerful than the GT and the GTX seems a little pricey, there should be some nVidia 8800 GTS (512MB) GFX cards out by now based on the G92 core - awesome stuff there and not as power hungry as the 8800 GTX. I also see a FX 1700 marked there, Quadro cards are better at 3D/CAD than gaming class cards.
- RAM: Good choice there with the 1333FSB CPU. Ask them to put heat spreaders on the modules if they don't come with some already. This helps to keep the memory cool and thus perform better. Also ask them what latencies the RAM runs at, try to get CL3 classed RAM (for 667 MHz this is quite do-able and should cost you an arm and a leg either, but will enhance performance somewhat).
- DVD-Rom: I have a new Asus DVD-RW with the lightscribe capability. No problems there.
- HDD: Good choice to go for 2 drives - one for the OS and apps installs and another for the data. I too only have WD drives (they rock!) That is the way I have my machine setup and it works great. BTW, that 80GB drive is actually 76GB AFAIK (and less after formatting), maybe get a WD 150GB Raptor? Good choice nontheless. I have the 36GB Rptor (10k RPM) for OS and apps.
- OS: XP home? If it works for you I suppose. I believe in XP Pro ATM, possibly only because XP Home have some limitations (when it comes to networking) that I don't want/need. Do yourself a favour though, stay away from Vista for the time being.
- PSU: 500W should be OK, I have an Antec Neo 650W in my machine. Ask for a specification of the amps on the 12V rails, don't accept anything with less than 18A on each of the 12V rails. Antec makes good PSU's so it should be fine.
If your PC case / work environment gets hot, invest in some proper cooling for the machine. Upgrade the cooling on the CPU to something like a Thermalright Ultima-90 with an Enermax Warp 120mm fan - it cools more efficiently than stock Intel cooler and makes less noise. Consider getting some HDD coolers as well, it will help prolong the life of the HDD's (and thus your data).
That there is my 10c's worth. Let us know if you make changes.
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Thanks guys...yeah, Dylan, I'll be salivatin' thru to next week!
Julian, I passed on your suggestions, thank you very much, and did make some modifications (he said, "well, yeah, I'd do that too if it I was building it for me" :`) once I assured him a hundred more bucks (less actually) worth of icing on the near perfect cake wouldn't kill the deal:
Went with the P35 chipset ($20), had already decided to go with the FX1700 Quadro (he hadn't worked with them but also knew they were specifically designed for 3D cadd, so my choice: pity Google-Sketckup-Whoever wouldn't/couldn't weigh-in on this one...?), changed to CL3 RAM (and bumped that up to the 800 MHz when I heard it was only $30 more a chip).
Since I now have less than 20gig of programs (and working files!) we left the HD's alone. The case he's using has two bigger than normal fans...one blows in over the HD's and the other sucks out past the boards, so he convinced me there wouldn't be a problem even knowing I don't use the AC until it gets above 85 or so in the house. Said I shouldn't need the ram heat spreaders either...is that something that can be added later if needed?
Anyway, he's thinkin' I'll have the ultimate without adding hundreds of dollars for the next level of graphics...and I'm even more well pleased.
My very best, Tom.
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Tom, how's the new machine working for you then?
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Let us know what happens on the Crowd Test, will ya?
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Julian...just picked it up late Wed afternoon and then was gone all day yesterday so not much to tell yet, except: SU5 installed in less than 3 seconds...I kid you not, hit install, turned around to get something off my layoff table, and turned back to find it done.
The worst file I was complaining about is twice as fast now (but still not pleasing)...though the beachball/hopscotch is all but gone. Other slow files go to color-only rather than wireframe, but still have some bump and start. Still slow exporting big file jpegs (guess I was expecting blink of an eye), but all settings on the graphics card "general" screen: quality, performance, and mixed, export the exact same quality image...SU anti-alias on or off?
Also hoping SU6 is more suited to the 64bit processors...we'll see.
Spending today loading programs and doing the other honeymoon stuff, so more later I'm sure. Meantime, anyone have an FX1700? I'm thinking there might be some tweaks and there isn't an SU profile included in the drivers, so help me out if you can, thanks.
Best, Tom.
Reread this and seems down about the 'chine...not so: my new neighbor has been cutting down all the beautiful trees in his yard for 4 days now (including the ones shading the entire west side of my home all summer
so I'm suffering more than a little bit from "you stupid idiot" madness confounded by the constant chainsaw racket. If I wasn't renting we'd already have lawyers running around in the yard! -
Hank, what do I bench mark with the crowd test file?
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I guess just total machine config and performance.
With the whole crowd showing mine turns to wires at scene 11, whereas I can partially zoom in (show about 1/3 of the crowd) to scene 12 and the rotate and only the peeps inthe back go to wire frame. the peeps in the front stay colored. -
Such a nice machine deserves a great monitor. What did you get?
I built a system very similar to yours except I used an E6600 CPU and overclocked it to 3.2 GHz. Now SketchUp will only use one core, but if you do any rendering, say with Kerky, you can use both cores and start generating some real heat. I replaced the stock Intel fan with a Zalman CNPS9500LED which really cooled down the CPU. The 8800GTX has a nice builtin fan but it still runs at around 52-58 degrees Celsius.
Download a copy of SpeedFan to display the temperature of all your components - CPU (each core), HD and video card. Then you can decide if you need some fan upgrades.
Have fun...
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Oh Yeah...I also saw that SU did vet the ForceWare driver nvidia uses: but not since ver50, the current is ver162. For you high end 3d app folks, there are quite a few preset driver configurations and the ability to have the program start change the preset.
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PSP was similarly disappointing at first blush...much slower in fact, but I lucked out when my DC filters didn't work at all (giving me a "missing file" error). Saturday I went to that sit thinking there was an installation file I have since deleted (but found that was not the case). But while backing out to check ONE MORE TIME I barely noticed the "missing file error" graphic hyperlink (if you've been to the DC site you'll understand why I nearly missed it: a beautiful psychedelic experience that is hippy-dippy hard to read). Anyway the .dll for the windows/system folder not only fixed the DC filters, it speed up PSP to match my "only uses one core" expectations.
So, pleased again! Honeymoon's are hard work, but when they work: WOW!
Now my only sadness is my stolen copy of PyramidPaint doesn't work...seems the license of the Adobe trial (now deleted) I copied it from is still on my laptop allowing me to use the KPT filters there in PSP. Go figure...:`)
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Okay...it's been an interesting honeymoon so far. The neighbor's guy is still cutting trees down: 5 days and counting...sure hope he honors the sabbath and gives it a rest today! I need to be fresh Monday to start fabricating (err, formulating) my tax forms. So far 5 healthy and beautiful pines down, the christmas legacy of days and families long gone, ranging from 20 to 30 foot tall. Also a lovely 40 foot linden and a wild ranging redbud, not tall but a good 30 foot spread and so beautiful over the used-to-be honeysuckle along the fence. Go figure.
BTW, I figured out where I recognized the tree monkey from: our little town has a public service TV station...a computer, really, showing powerpoint presentation style public announcements and meeting adgendas with background music. They also put the mugshots or driver's license photos (hard to tell the difference) of anybody who has an outstanding warrant: that's where I saw him first...nice, huh? (It was surreal over the holidays with christmas music playing over the flashing not-so-happy faces of the current crime-stopper personalities.)
Anyway, after a disappointing first night...and hours of site searching and nvidia pdf downloading I found an installation notes that suggested turning vertical sync "force off" and setting the global preset to 3d app - default global settings. So now: WOW! The crowd test (the one I found here only had 11 scenes) works like this: SU5, wireframe on 9, bounding box around the entire group (with a wire frame showing for the first-scene 1, component) sometimes in scene 10 and most times in scene 11; SU6, by the third or fourth orbit (especially if I start with the screen filled with components - little or no surrounding white space) in scene 10 we stay full color, or sometimes partial edge only, and scene 11 stays mostly full color or all edge only, or sometimes partial wireframe. (Just to see: I copied the whole scene 11 crowd again, smooth move BTW, and didn't see much difference in the orbiting performance after (which throughout all the above didn't skip a beat after the first in scene 11...acts like it has to learn what you want it to do/save then can keep up) though most or all went to wireframe most of the time when zoomed out (but not still when zoomed in). I also tried adding another component and didn't have a bit of beachball-hopscotch finding snaps.
Cool, huh?!? (Happy me!)
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Kenny, thanks: the case came with 2 120mm fans (one of them 3-speed) and the motherboard has a cpu fan, plus temp software...I think I'm covered. I will start watching the temps this summer as I don't use the AC until the office gets up to 85deg or so...not ideal for computing.
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There are some interesting PCI slot fans/blowers around. This ball bearing one combines both functions http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835114024.
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Just had an interesting thought and did a confirming "turn on shadows" test with the crowd test file:
SU6
Scene 8--3.5 sec
scene 9--8.5
scene 10--16
scene 11--31SU5
8--2.5 sec
9--6
10--11
11--22I've thought from the beginning that SU6 took longer to recover shadows after an orbit, thus making the seemingly faster orbit times more equal to SU5...? (I will admit, though, I do like seeing more of my model while orbiting...now that I have a machine that will comply :`)
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I'd love to hear some crowd test and shadows-on results from you guys with the GTX 8800, thanks!?!
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Tom, this might seem a little strange, but my SU v6 speeds in the crowd test seem to be as fast (if not ever-so-slightly faster) than you SU v5 speeds.
My machine specs:
Processor: Intel Q6600
Motherboard: DFI INF P35-T2RL "Blood Iron"
Memory: 4x 1GB OCZ Platinum DDR2-800
Video Card: ATi Radeon X1950GT 512MB
Monitor: Samsung 22" at 1680 x 1050 resolution
Hard Drive: WD 36GB Raptor (for OS) & WD 250GB Caviar (for data)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2Explain exactly how you run your test and I will emulate to make sure we do it exactly the same.
I'd also like to know what the SU performance is like on the 8800 GTX cards, so please let us know ppl.
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Julian...I just count the time from checking "shadows on" to seeing the shadows.
(just did a statistics check of the crowdtest file: 1.1mil edges, 770k faces, 38.9k components...doing this well on that much means I'm doing fine indeed :`)
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