Thread: need a solid work machine - X2?

Hi want to get 2 machines in that are gonna carry a small busines through a few projects - use flash, premiere pro, after effects to create animations and need stabillty and speeeeed.

was thinking of this sort of set up:

Thermaltake Silent Purepower 560W
4x512 TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM
Sapphire Radeon X550 256MB DDR
Antec Performance One P180 Miditower
startup = 1xSamsung SpinPoint P120S 200GB SATA2
files = RAID 2xSamsung SpinPoint P120S 200GB SATA2
Sony Floppy Drive, 3,5" 1,44MB Black
Asus A8N-SLI Premium, nForce4 SLI,Socket
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket
Thermalright XP-90 cooler
PC with no operating system
NEC DVD recorder ND-3550 IDE Black OEM

1 will get 2 old 19" CRTs and the other 2x DELL 2005FPW

I just would question the RAM and graphics card. but I dont want any unnecessary stuff.

This set up will be about 1200 euros without VAT. Can an opteron or xeon system be recommended over this (and cost not much more). As i could lessen the spec on one and raise it on the other.

any thoughs much apreciated!

Why no operating system?

Originally Posted by Marc Peters

Why no operating system?

overrated

If you are gonna be doing alot of compositing and animation then the motherboard is a great choice. They are SLI ready which gives you dual gfx card capability - a must for any serious compositor or animator.

As for Ram buy as much as you can afford. These MOBO's will take up to 4Gb of ram.

We have plenty of spare XP pro discs so no operating system needed.

Thanks Irishmark - greetings from guinnessland . was thinking of the premium MOBO rather than the delux as it has the heat pipe rather than the northbridge fan.

dual gfx card capability - a must for any serious compositor or animator.

Hadn't considered SLI always thought it was a gaming gimmick, so are there any links to info on this? or is it from experience? I thought that the programs listed use the Processor and RAM and not the GFX. after effects open GL being the exception - but I always turned this off as I lost lots of effects layers.

Also I see from your sig you went for a raid array for start-up - does this speed up your applications? looking at RAID for the first time as we will be backing up to a server so not so worried bout failures.

on the RAM - was thinking of maybe 2x1GB sticks to do a medium overclock on the processor. 4x512 and def. 4x1GB make this more unlikely.

now thinking of putting a matrox parhelia in the one with the 2005FPWs and getting a 2nd hand broadcast monitor

The SLI on these boards was designed mainly for gaming but a friend of a friend built a workstation using this board as an advanced 3D workstation and it worked fopr him a treat. I dont have first hand experience but I know it will do the job. Google sli for more info.

Yes Raid dramatically increases performance as it doubles seektimes on the HDD's Just make sure you get some firewire backup drives. The risk with raid is thatif one drive on an array fails you loose all the data unless you get a super dooper raidsystem at raid 10 (i think) which gives the best of both worlds.

That amount of ram should be fine but you'll probably findyourself wanting to upgrade soon after. Also if you can afford Dual core cpu's go for them as well.

Where abouts in our green isle are you?

Yes Raid dramatically increases performance as it doubles seektimes on the HDD's

Well, if it does that, I ain't buyin' no RAID subsystem... Now, if it halved seektimes, I might think about it...

cheers guys,

Am going dual core on both PCs but I dont think I will need SLI for 2D needs. will consider a smaller RAID for startup to go with the larger file RAID - back up will be nightly to a server.
will go 2x1024Mb RAM to leave room for more.

howe bout this - get a matrox RT.X100 Xtreme Pro card and a cheapish TV and dual DVI graphics card and I will have 2 widescreens LCDs and a preview monitor for all those nasty colours and cut offs. I reckon this set up would perform better than just a matrox parhelia without the hardware acceleration. any thoughts?

Oh and Irishmark i'm in sunny tropical Dublin where the tanned legs go on for miles and the guinness is free to anyone still standing.

Originally Posted by Ian in Northampton

Well, if it does that, I ain't buyin' no RAID subsystem... Now, if it halved seektimes, I might think about it...

oh come now - u know what i mean it doubles the speed!!!!

Yeah, but - I have this insane urge to rip the p*ss...