Ideal Workstation Configuration

[bully712]

Hi Guys,

I posted this question in the Viz Forum and wasn't getting any luck on responses, so I thought that maybe you guys can help me out. I just upgraded to 1.5gb from 512mb of RAM on my personal computer, and I’m trying to get the most out of it. I did a few test renderings and it's only using around 400mb. Is there a setting somewhere which allows me to specify how much memory is used by VIZ?

 

Thanks,

Marc

[Elliot]

Marc,

 

If there is one I am not aware of it.....

 

Thanks

Elliot

[bully712]

Hmmm... I thought It would be easier then I thought. I'm just wondering if I wasted my money buying an extra gig of RAM if it's not being used. Let me know if you happen to come across anything on the matter.

 

Thanks,

Marc

[bigcahunak]

bully

Gently put.. you did... but if in the future you'll have a VIZ scene with more texture, or just bigger or multi tasking, then you'll see windows using more memory.

[Elliot]

Itzik,

 

I am re-doing the entire workstation...... The Tyan motherboard looks better made than the MSI. This time I got a big extended ATX cabinet with silencers. The big fans with low RPM's.

 

Hope it works

Elliot

[William Alexander]

Elliot,

 

""For those close to my age group, it was similar to like in the old days putting a Heathkit together.... In reality more simple than putting together a shortwave ham radio transceiver of the early 70's. In those days you had to wire and solder every component on top of a single layer pcb and point to point wiring between sub-assemblies.""

 

 

Brings back early teen memories of my Dad passed out between two HeathKit Tv sets. Guess the pre-testing got the best of him that night. Grew up with this stuff, mobile telephones/microwave/bellboy pagers (MaBell), and my grandfathers collection of WWII to early 50's radios and early TV equipment-lots of tubes.

 

Miss the smell of Rosin!

WDA

[Elliot]

William,

 

Sorry to hear about your Dad. I missed that time when our country was more naive. I remember comming back from school to work - assemble my first transmitter. A morse code (CW) only mode. At 17 years of age a retired Air Force gave me a 150 feet of tower. I put that thing up with a large array on top.... I could transmit and talk with people around the globe. That's before internet....

 

 

The radios and the aviation was replaced by the computers....!

 

See you

Elliot

[vizwhiz]

hi There Elliot

 

please let me know what configuration you are ending up with

we have the go-ahead to put together another graphics station

 

here at work and are "presently" (today or tomorrow) making the order

 

so if you are happy with is working for you please let me know

i am trying to get at least a dual 3.06 ghz machine put together

 

someone specced out a 2.4 system which i think is way to slow

(if i am going to have to use it for the next two or 3 years at least)

 

Thanks

 

Randy

----

"Life is like a Computer. To get Things up and running Take a Boot and give a Hard drive to your Floppy."

 

(i said That) among other Things

[Elliot]

Randy,

 

I started trying to do an economical unit. I think we detoured a little bit away from the initial goal. At this very minute I am sitting on the floor at 12:30pm EST redoing the whole thing.

 

I started on an MSI motherboard. The configuration used, CPU's, the SSCI Raid 0 is very fast, but too noisy for me. Yesterday I got the Tyan Thunder K8WS S2885 motherboard. The entire issue with the MSI motherboard is crazy. MSI designed a board for Opterons (similar to Xeons but on the AMD side). However, the board for these Opterons was built with Xeon mounting hardware around a 940 AMD base. It is a bizarre thing. If you put a Xeon fan it violates the AMD warranty because Xeon fans have a different CFM ratio per RPM. They blow less air. To make things even worst, one CPU has a plastic mounting tray for the fan and the other chip didn't have that tray. They supplied two different fans with two different copper heat sinks. This was to alleviate the distance problem between the AGP port and the second CPU. They have a poor layout.... MSI should talk with this crew on this forum, talking about board architecture and poor traffic layouts... Hi Hi The board is too cramped.

 

In an attempt to solve the already poor design, the MSI engineers then took these un-simetrical Xeon fans and cranked them from around 3,000 RPM's to more or less 6,500 RPM's. The darn thing sounds like a jet fighter on the take off position, at full power even with afterburners on. I could hear the noise on the other side of the house. The noise is like a blender running at full power.... continuos full power. Electronically it is a good board..... very fast..... but too noisy for me. Even with all this high RPM's the CPU's operate at the high end of the normal spectrum. I understand they are rate for 80 degrees Centigrade, but their performance starts to seriously degrade around 60 C.

 

There is many sites on the web dedicated to the noise issue. There is some diehard MSI lovers that are determined to use the board. They have come out with all kind of creative means to install pipe coolers. They buy these pipe cooolers and take them to machine shops to be modified. The Tyan board is twice as expensive as the MSI. This has forced another group of people to find even more radical solutions to the heat problem. They are using the water cooled system on this small and cramped board. Too much modification for me...!!! Downtime....!!! $$$$ The coolers manufacturers don't want to spend any engineering time in comming out with solutions since they know there is a new wave of board on the horizon.

 

Another problem with the MSI board, it is not a eATX board but it is a very large ATX one. It is very difficult to determine space requirements. Initially I bought an ATX inexpensive cabinet. The whole thing felt like having my entire family inside and MG Midget.

 

Today I went to the specialize computer wholesaler in town and asked them to show to me the most quiet cabinet they have.The inquiry resulted in a Lian-Li cabinet. This extended ATX (eATX) cabinet is big, made out of aluminum, very light, with excellent craftmanship, with noise insulation, wheels, removable and washable air filters, low RPM fans, rail mounting kits for 6 Hard Disks, four CD and two floppies. It is a goergeous cabinet..... It is big.

 

At work we do air compressor packages that have control panels under NEMA 12 regulations. The industry has gone to control panel miniaturization during the last 10 years. After following the trend and fabricating these small foot print panels we realized nobody could work on them. These panels have three phase 460 in them. We decided to go back with big panels... ignore the marketing hype.... the result is that the clients love them. Same with this big cabinet, it is big, my wife already told me it looks like a burial coffin. It is beauty to work on it...

 

I am now installing the Tyan board. This motherboard, just on surface evaluation (It has not been powered), it looks much better than the MSI. There is pro's and con's among the two motherboards. Some people think Tyan is faster because the way they control the memory (one memory chanel per CPU). Some people think MSI is better because they use a more reliable chipset to control the AGP although they only have one memory channel for both CPU's. It doesn't really matter, since the MSI sound situation is not tolerable. Today MSI told me that they have no solutions to the problem, just to wait for a new board comming out soon. At any rate the difference between board is like 10 or 15 percent of seconds.

 

The way I see this thing is that all the big guys are going to come out with new boards utilizing a new chipset developed by Nvidia. This chipset will allow the Opterons to operate with two PCI Express channels. I understand that one of these channels is going to operate even faster than the present PCI express format. Possibly a new kind of memory. Some people are talking about a DDR3. I talked with MSI and Tyan and both say off the record, the new boards are being tested right now. The national distributors are expecting something to happen between now and first quarter of 2005.

 

If you can live just a little bit longer with your system I would recommend you wait. There is also the war between AMD and Intel. AMD has finally done some battle damage to the market share of the Xeon business segment. Intel is furious and they are trying their best to stop the erosion. If they don't come out with the new chipset for the Opterons, probably the Xeons will be faster by the end of this year. Supermicro, a fine motherboard maker and loyal to Intel is being rumored that they too are joining the bandwagon of AMD and Opterons with a new server - workstation motherboard.... This is just a rumor. It is really not important, their board are good but horribly over valued.

 

Presently, if budget is not an issue, if you don't mind being a hostage to the Xeon integrators, I would go with Intel. They are border line faster, they don't need as much cooling - meaning less noise and there is far better chipset and platform support for them. There is only three or four motherboards for Opterons versus an ample variety of Xeon boards.

 

However, the gap is closing and I have the feeling that is going to be an unprecedented bitter war for market share. I would not be enticed to purchase either chip because the 64 bit architecture.... by the time Microsoft people come out with the new OS there will be newer chips and chipsets requiring new bases. AMD claims thay are staying with their 940 base.

 

I know my response is rather long. I hope my findings could help some people making the decision on these new machines. I am not a computer technical person, just like an appliance operator with a basic knowledge. I have been a victim to the marketing hype by the magazine reviews and was totally intimidated and confused about making any decision. I am still confused, but I think now I understand a little bit better the issues with AMD / Intel. I guess my agony over this thing is typical of most small companies having to watch our little budgets.

 

I hope the system I have put together is comparable to those made by the big guys. At the end it may finish at 10 to 15 percent less money but probably at a better quality index.

 

See you

Elliot

[Elliot]

Hello

 

We are finished with the assembly of the workstation. After the intial frustration with the MSI motherboard. We decided to re-think our strategy and changed the components to another case and another motherboard. Our intention was to bring down the noise to an acceptable level. We moved all the components from the MSI motherboard to the Tyan board. We surpassed our expectation in both noise and performance.

 

The Tyan is a better built board, the Opteron perform better on this board and the ventilation - cooling is superior. As a result of better air flow characteristics the Opteron operating temperature went from 46 and 47 degress C to around 34 Degrees C.

 

We also changed the initial Raid SSCI controller card from an LSI to an Adpatec 2200S. The Adaptec is three times as expensive as the LSI 120320-R but the card is incredibly better. The LSI tech support happens to be with 5 miles away from our location, they were friendly and corteous but their instructions didn't make too much sense to us. This new card needed to be flashed and is still didn't work correctly. We spent an awfull amount of downtime trying to figure out this card. I don't recommend it unless you are a true computer technical person and even then I have my reservations.

 

The Adaptec tech support people were just simply outstanding. We talked with somebody called Dave (I didn't get his last name) who worked in the Peace Corp and used to be a teacher. He was 2 years older than me and had lots of patience to deal with a tired and frustrated old guy. Not only he guided us through the procedures but every explanation he made to us was a joyfull learning experience. At the end we had the whole thing working plus we learned quite a lot about configuring their card and about raids system. He certainly guided us through the right path. This was a lasting experience, worthwhile the entire ordeal of making your own computer. On an older computer we have an Adaptec SSCI card, 2100S, that has worked perfectly for 5 years. The 2100S is a 160 Ultra SSCI card instead of a 320 Ultra SSCI card. The only reason I bought the LSI is because the Adaptec was not in stock when I ordered the card. That was a mistake and should have trusted my instincts.

 

The entire system was also placed inside a very expensive case by LianLi. This case is rather large but very light weight since its made out of aluminum. The end result between the Tyan board and LianLi case has brought down the environmental noise to practicaly nothing. You can still hear the system but it is no more than a normal computer. The noise on the MSI board was similar to a blender at full speed while crushing ice. The Tyan motherboard sounds like a quiet house refrigerator on the background.

 

We bought two 19" Sony monitors which we liked a lot when we saw them at the store. However, I think we are going to return them. They are good for Photoshop work but not for 3D wire models. I find them too bright and for some reason I get too tired after looking at them for a while. Their letters (fonts) are not very clear. I still like my Viewsonic and my inexpensive Mitsubishi Diamond monitor. This Mitsubishi monitor on the 17" version is $150.00, on the 19" it is $260.00 and on 22" it is $560.00. The two Sony's where $700.00 each after the rebate. They make me tired and they are slower.... They exhibit moire effect when you have 3D model with a lot of lines on a wireframe mode They will go back.

 

We have not finished testing or loading the software. The system is very fast and quiet. We spent more money than planned. Perhaps we only came out withing 10 - 15% of a ready made box. On the other hand we are getting a box that on paper it is supposed to be better than a ready made computer. We will see.....! The final list of components came out as follows:

 

Tyan Motherboard K8WS (S2885)

Dual Opteron 250

Quiet Fans by Thermaltake for Opterons (They are certainly quiet)

4- 1Gb sticks of Corsair DDR memory (It is supposed to be a fast memory)

PNY 1100 Quadro (read explanation bellow)

700 watts Power Supply (quiet)

Creative Audigy 2z Platinum Sound Card

Two Seagates 15,000 73gb Cheetas SSCI (Quiet and Fast) on Raid 0

Adaptec 2200S SSCI Raid Card (Don't settle for anything else)

Two Western Raptors 74gb at 10,000 RPM on a SATA Raid

16x DVD, CDRW

52x CDRW

1 Floppy with integrated 4 different card readers for camera chip

LianLi Big eATX case

 

Originally we purchased a PNY 3000 card. However, the Tyan motherboard doesn't support PCI Express. It was not a very good idea. It was nice but after talking with our friendly salesman we returned it and got a PNY 1100. I really didn't notice the difference between the 3000 and the 1100.

 

The reason for this last minute video card change is the following: After talking with all the motherboard manufacturers about noise and cooling. I learned that all of the big guys are going be releasing their new motherboards for the Opterons. These new motherboards will be using the new Nvidia chipset. This new chipset is supposed to make full use of the PNY 4400 card and additionally it will be supporting another PCI Express bus. The salesman at the wholesaler store where I purchased the motherboard confirmed to me that he was aware of this new wave of motherboards. For technical reason beyond my comprehension, this new technology - chipset it is supposed to push the Opteron to a higher performance benchmark. It is part of the AMD vs Intel war. I decided to hold close to the ground with the present K8WS motherboard with AGP 8X only and wait. If the new chipset - motherboard is backward compatible with the 940 pin Opteron base, then we will change the CPU's too a new board with PCI Express slots and get the PNY 4400 card which is supposed to be a 526mb video card.

 

End result so far is positive, it ended up being less money for the box than buying it from a store. I think the individual component we acquired are better than what the ready made boxes have. One good example is the Adaptec card.

 

It was a project between my 6.5 year old son and me. The result of seeing him so exited about turning on the switch was enough reward for me. He really though we were going to get a lot of smoke. I remember putting Heathkits together and getting sparks from the power supply. I once touched with my elbow the 3,200 plate voltage. Since it was RF voltage at low amps, I didn't get electrocuted, but I got burned very badly.

 

As a matter of fact we are planing the next machine.... a small inexpensive box for my son..... That's what he wants for a present.....! He likes airplanes, photography, electronics and he just looks like me.....! It is far beyond computers, it is about a 53 years old father and a 6.5 years old son....!

 

Elliot