Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Science and Technology > Computers
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 09-09-2015, 06:15 PM
 
Location: Charlotte,NC, US, North America, Earth, Alpha Quadrant,Milky Way Galaxy
3,770 posts, read 7,529,581 times
Reputation: 2118

Advertisements

So I haven't built a full computer in probably 15 years (yikes). Life got busy and to be honest there wasn't any real cost savings like you could achieve in the 90s.

However I decided to embark on building a high performance rig. Oh my things have changed a lot, water cooled CPUs, over clocking, massive power supplies, a billion versions of SATA, and PCI-e. While I am familiar with the technologies I haven't touched it yet - so it was a bit overwhelming (and I am a computer guy lol).

So I am on a quest to build a high performance work of art. Spent a lot of time at TigerDirect in last couple weeks. Fortunately there's one in Atlanta (so it's not to far from me). Side note: having had a very frustrating experience out the gate - turned out the power supply I got (Ultra x4) was defective causing me to waster about a week debugging it (thinking I was hooking things up incorrectly). If possible I would always try to buy parts local or even just have the barebones put together. I couldn't imagine going through RMA hell via mail order.

Settled on the ASUS x99-a motherboard and Intel i7 extreme 5820K processor. Starting with 16GB DDR4 2400 mhz memory but may go up to 32GB if I can get a good deal.

I got the Radeon R9 8GB DDR5 graphics card. Monster memory although I heard its not fastest.

My *real* question is for the ultimately fastest hard drive tech out there - there's M.4, M.2, SSDs, SATA express, etc. I am still learning all this. I am really just used to SSDs but the guys at Tiger told me M.4 is mind blow as it basically hooks right into a lane on the CPU. Unfortunately my board doesn't have a native M.4 slot (I believe I could get an adapter for one of the PCIe slots) but I think I think I may just get the M.2 which has a slot right on the board.

What are your thoughts on the hard drive tech out there?

I am seeing that PC building is sort of like custom car building (i.e. "pimp my ride" type stuff). There's some art to it now which is nice from a hobbyist perspective.

What are you all building out there to get the ultimate performance and coolness
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 09-10-2015, 08:29 AM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
16,503 posts, read 19,575,896 times
Reputation: 13226
32GB at the point would be wasted money. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-10-2015, 09:10 AM
 
Location: Greater NYC, USA
2,761 posts, read 3,417,813 times
Reputation: 1737
It would be helpful if you explained why you need a monster perfomance rig?

Goodcpu and high ramspell out server, but why the monster video card that is probably only useful for extreme gaming?

for example, around 2008 I build myself a PC that can be used as a basic server. I ran Win Server on it with IIS, SQL Sever enterprise, there were server packages installed on it as well. It started out as a server learning machine, and I used it as a tax deduction at the end of the year.

Then the machine became software testing machine, I would install various software, to test it learn it.

Then I converted into an administration machine (Install win 7 with a new hard drive) and use it for B.S. on forums like this one, do my taxes, keep business records.

Back then 3d seemed like the way of the future, so tested out a 3d video card.
After installing a 3d video card I had to get 3d glasses. Then I played a doom like game for an hour in 3d. Then I spend 15 min on watching 3d porn. that was pretty much it with me and 3d.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-10-2015, 09:37 AM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
16,503 posts, read 19,575,896 times
Reputation: 13226
Gaming, Obviously.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-11-2015, 07:25 PM
 
Location: Charlotte,NC, US, North America, Earth, Alpha Quadrant,Milky Way Galaxy
3,770 posts, read 7,529,581 times
Reputation: 2118
Quote:
Originally Posted by DPolo View Post
It would be helpful if you explained why you need a monster perfomance rig?

Goodcpu and high ramspell out server, but why the monster video card that is probably only useful for extreme gaming?

for example, around 2008 I build myself a PC that can be used as a basic server. I ran Win Server on it with IIS, SQL Sever enterprise, there were server packages installed on it as well. It started out as a server learning machine, and I used it as a tax deduction at the end of the year.

Then the machine became software testing machine, I would install various software, to test it learn it.

Then I converted into an administration machine (Install win 7 with a new hard drive) and use it for B.S. on forums like this one, do my taxes, keep business records.

Back then 3d seemed like the way of the future, so tested out a 3d video card.
After installing a 3d video card I had to get 3d glasses. Then I played a doom like game for an hour in 3d. Then I spend 15 min on watching 3d porn. that was pretty much it with me and 3d.
Okay that was funny.

The short answer is "why not"? Sort of like asking why get a Porsche because a Versa will get better gas mileage. Sometimes you just want to go fast

The longer answer is I do a lot of intense VM work, in addition to graphics editing, developer, etc. I have several laptops that have 16GB in them now and my Lenovo W520 has 32GB. I have a high concurrency pattern in terms of my usage. Simulations, VMs, etc. etc, so it is justified to some degree - but frankly I just wanted to build something to see if I could trick it out.

The video card does has a purpose in that as I mentioned running several VMs at once (from 4-6 Win7/2008/2012 guest Oses), I was tapping out integrated graphics memory and in some instances the 2GB dedicated on my Lenovo Y50 quite a bit. My desktop rig I didn't want that issue - no lag, no hiccups, etc. Nvidia is by far faster than the Radeon card but in this instance more physical memory for the GPU was the bigger benefit.

So now I'm on to storage and see what's what there - really compelling stuff with the mSATA and the PCIe based storage tech - although right now it's a bit of a blur to me. Since my board has onboard M.2/PCIe slot I've got a Samsung M.2 512GB on the way - real world reads/writes are like 2GB/s.

I guess, overall since I am re-entering this space after being away from it for some time, just wondering what other enthusiasts are building out there
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-11-2015, 07:27 PM
 
Location: Charlotte,NC, US, North America, Earth, Alpha Quadrant,Milky Way Galaxy
3,770 posts, read 7,529,581 times
Reputation: 2118
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrine View Post
32GB at the point would be wasted money. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Lol, it's a matter of perspective. I think > 32GB isn't really cost effective (yet). Plenty of use cases for rigs with 32GB.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-12-2015, 06:45 PM
 
Location: Greater NYC, USA
2,761 posts, read 3,417,813 times
Reputation: 1737
I don't know much about graphics, in web development 32 is great for IIS (Web server) . You can defently run a descent website on a server with 32 ram.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-13-2015, 07:11 AM
 
658 posts, read 1,141,200 times
Reputation: 465
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrine View Post
Gaming, Obviously.

Not with Radeon....
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-14-2015, 07:46 AM
 
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
16,503 posts, read 19,575,896 times
Reputation: 13226
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miker2069 View Post
Lol, it's a matter of perspective. I think > 32GB isn't really cost effective (yet). Plenty of use cases for rigs with 32GB.
Disagree. It's science, man, there is no perspective in this stuff. There are very very few cases where ANY workstation needs or would even utilize more the 16GB.

Re: your TigerDirect comment, I had no idea TD had an actual brick and mortar store. No kidding?
I've bought a lot from TD over the years. Access to a store should not determine what you buy. You buy on the internet. Check out Pricewatch Awesome comparison shopping tool.
Pricewatch - the internet's first price comparison website. Established 1995

It will save you $$$$.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-14-2015, 08:24 AM
 
Location: Wandering.
3,549 posts, read 6,646,557 times
Reputation: 2704
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrine View Post
Re: your TigerDirect comment, I had no idea TD had an actual brick and mortar store. No kidding?
I've bought a lot from TD over the years. Access to a store should not determine what you buy. You buy on the internet. Check out Pricewatch Awesome comparison shopping tool.
Pricewatch - the internet's first price comparison website. Established 1995

It will save you $$$$.
To add to this, if you are going to drive all the way from Charlotte, be willing to drive 20 more minutes to Fry's or Micro Center (at least shop all 3 before making that drive).

I've been by that Tiger Direct store a bunch of times, but with a Micro Center just a bit further down the road I've never stopped.


I realize you may have already purchased, but MC usually has unbeatable CPU prices. Sadly they are in store only prices. I actually planned my last build around a drive through ATL just to pick up my CPU there.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Science and Technology > Computers

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:42 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top