8 processor system

[radii]

I believe that Boxx will stay in Business, because they have managed to forge an image and level of brand recognition, that is comparable to Apple's. Boxx's religious supporters seem to believe, that these machines are actually faster and more reliable. The support might be top notch however, I have not had the opprtunity to find out, thank god...

While I'm at it, I have to say that the included ( I picked the card while ordering ) 500 $ ATI FireGL card in my Boxx is worthless. A finely tuned system ? I don't think so.

No matter which driver version is installed, there is no way of getting decent performance out of it. Some apps only work while no others are running etc.

Have you ever tried installing Linux on a Fire GL system ? You will be a Linux expert (with a lot of very useless command prompt knowledge) by the time it is finally up and running.

Anyhow, I had to find out for myself that Nvidia just is better.

[Devin Johnston]

Part of their pitch to me was to try and tell me that if I had any problems with compatibility between hardware and software they could write drivers for me. I have to admit that I do own 5 render boxes that were purchased about 2 years ago. I've never had any problems but looking back on it I could have gotten the same thing from XI for far cheaper.

[Sawyer]

If you compair boxx to dell wow what a difference! I was unfamiliar with Xi until this post (I am looking into them the price does seem good) but I have a Boxx and I have a person I talk if I have a problem not an automated bunch of garbage that dell gives me.

 

Me " I have a problem with my hardrive"

 

Dell "With what?"

 

m"Its part of a computer"

 

d"Did we sell that to you? If we did you need to fill out these 2000 questions so we know exactly what we sold to you."

 

m "I don't know the answer to question 1254"

 

d "Just open your case and take out the harddrive (you may have to disconnect it) then scatch off the black square and you will know if you are a winner"

 

m "I don't care if I won anything I just want my computer to work"

 

d "Oh computers! this is the printer/lottery section let me transfer you."

 

With Boxx I get to talk to someone real who answers questions. That has been really time saving. And when I priced boxx v dell they were pretty close but again thats not Xi and that was a while ago.

[Devin Johnston]

Are you getting 40% more money's worth of value out of that Boxx, because that's what you’re paying.

[Sawyer]

Again when I priced boxx v dell they were almost the same. And on some days boxx was cheaper depending on dells sale.

[Devin Johnston]

I was talking about Boxx Vs. XI.

[manta]

Wow, is it really $4,000 for Windows Enterprise ?

[Devin Johnston]

Yea 4 grand is way to much money in my opinion, that just makes the whole system even more ridiculous.

[DavidR]

We're going to go with AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ dual core chips because the have a 2 Ghz bus speed as opposed to the Opteron with the 1 Ghz bus speed. They also use the DDR2 ram which operates at 1Ghz instead of the Opteron ram that runs at 400Mhz. QUOTE]

Your problem isn't bus speed or ram frequency: it's FPU for rendering. 5 dual-Opteron blades will cost much less than 10 X2 nodes (dual socket not available) because you have to buy all that ram, HD, case, PSU, etc, for 1 little dual-core CPU. Not a good deal. Judging from the type of hardware you've been talking about, I think your boss is VERRRY free with his money -lucky you.

[manta]

Yea 4 grand is way to much money in my opinion, that just makes the whole system even more ridiculous.

 

So what OS are you going to use, isn't XP pro limited "network wise"

[mtutaj]

I believe XP is limited to 10 Concurrent connections.

 

Mike

[manta]

And just to mix it up even more, check out these benchmarks for the new intel's

 

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=11

[Devin Johnston]

I wonder how much more the intel's cost?

[AJLynn]

AMD will drop their prices soon but it will still be competitive. Intel will retake the high end - there will be a Xeon that does dual-dual and beats the best dual-dual Opteron. AMD will counter with a dual-dual chipset for Athlon FX but it probably won't be enough.

 

AMD will remain competitive in the midrange but, pretty much across the board, Intel will have the edge until AMD updates their architecture.

 

Oh, and that 2.4GHz Intel chip will cost a bit over $300. It's not the Xeon version for dual-dual use but it competes with the FX62, which I believe is currently priced at about $1000.

[DavidR]

I wonder how much more the intel's cost?

The 5100 (Woodcrest) beats AMD for a DP wkstation/render node, but AMD will maintain the lead in 4-way+ systems (in case you're still thinking of that 8-proc system).