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Workstation Suggestions

TheMailMan78

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A friend of mine just asked me to build him a solid workstation to replace his aging G5. He mostly does 3D animation and 2D Illustrations in Photoshop and Painter. I was looking at the P6T6 WS Revolution and I noticed on the specs it lists SLI and Crossfire X. The only board that I knew of that could do both was the one in the Blackbird. Could someone school me on this?

Also if this isnt a good board I am open to suggestions. FYI price is a concern but I have a rather high budget.

Link
 
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It has 6 PCI-e x16 slots, 3 are for SLI and the other 3 are for CrossFire.
If you are gonna build a workstation, you may want to look into the workstation cards,
rather than a tri-sli or crossfire set-up. But i'm sure someone may disagree.
 

h3llb3nd4

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that is a nice board, but I suppose that any x58 mobo can handle 3D animation and 2D Illustrations in Photoshop and Painter.
 
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I want that board so much!

Make sure to read the manual if you plan on utilizing the SAS ports in RAID along with the ICH10R in RAID. The SAS RAID isn't bootable when ICH10R is in RAID mode, if I understood it correctly.
 

TheMailMan78

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I want that board so much!

Make sure to read the manual if you plan on utilizing the SAS ports in RAID along with the ICH10R in RAID. The SAS RAID isn't bootable when ICH10R is in RAID mode, if I understood it correctly.

:laugh: It is a sexy board for gaming but this is for work sadly.
 

h3llb3nd4

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[if you are a OC freak]@ night sneak in & oc the hell outta that board
[if you are a gaming freak]@ night sneak in with your headphones and play warhead on ultra
[if you are a porn addict]@ night switch on your crappy amd rig and watch it at home
 
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Dual lan,dual raid , sas controller,2-esata Thats a Workstation :toast:
 

h3llb3nd4

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Video Card(s) NONE!! Beat that!!
Storage 500GB SAMSUNG SATAII, 250GB SAMSUNG SATAII and o'l crappy 4gb maxtor
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Audio Device(s) REALTEK ONBOARD
Power Supply GIGABYTE 460W
Software Win 7 x86 build 7022
Benchmark Scores Super Pi 1m 17.000 :(
PLUS a GTX 295 :D
 
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:laugh: It is a sexy board for gaming but this is for work sadly.

Errr... I know?! I hate waiting on my hard drives when I want to get stuff done :D

Though I was thinking more along the lines of if your friend needed storage the ICH10R is there, along with the SAS ports for a couple (or more via expanders) high speed SAS drives. That was my plan until I read through the manual.
 
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The Nehalem-EP Apples are already out. There are worth thinking about. $2999.

For a cheaper solution, build a "PC version" using Nehalem-EP. Today, you could just install ONE CPU to save on money, but it would have a double-the-rendering power option by just plugging in the second CPU at any point in the future.

You can build such a system for not much more than a regular i7 system. So, IMO, it is the *only* workstation I would build...

Crossfire and SLI is complete nonsense for your friend. If he REALLY wants a gamer, then he can GTX295 or 4870x2 it. For a renderer, the pimp is the dual CPUs not dual GPUs. :pimp:

If you friend really CANT wait a month until the PC N-EP boards are out... then I guess the P6T6 WS Revolution is an excellent second choice.
 

TheMailMan78

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The Nehalem-EP Apples are already out. There are worth thinking about. $2999.

For a cheaper solution, build a "PC version" using Nehalem-EP. Today, you could just install ONE CPU to save on money, but it would have a double-the-rendering power option by just plugging in the second CPU at any point in the future.

You can build such a system for not much more than a regular i7 system. So, IMO, it is the *only* workstation I would build...

Crossfire and SLI is complete nonsense for your friend. If he REALLY wants a gamer, then he can GTX295 or 4870x2 it. For a renderer, the pimp is the dual CPUs not dual GPUs. :pimp:

If you friend really CANT wait a month until the PC N-EP boards are out... then I guess the P6T6 WS Revolution is an excellent second choice.

Thats the thing. He wants to get away from Apple. Why does Apple have N-EP board out before joe consumer can buy them?
 

DrPepper

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Thats the thing. He wants to get away from Apple. Why does Apple have N-EP board out before joe consumer can buy them?

Steve Jobs must be good at sucking off the CEO of that company. I'd say listen to lemonsoda he knows what the right path is. Personally I agree with him dual cpu's are the way to go.
 

Tau

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Get something with Dual CPU support, if budget is a concern a pair of 775/771 Quads would work perfectly... Or if budget permits a pair of I7s would be nice as well. 8GB of ram (go for 4Gb sticks if the mobo takes em) that way he can up it to 16 when his projects get big enough (or are they already?) Depending on his needs pick a videocard that will fit... a GTX 260 would probobly be enough for what most people do... if he needs more drop a Quatro in it.... Or just outsource to a rendering farm....

The biggest issue will be HDD speed, i would suggest 2x500Gb mirroed for the OS, then 4 500GB drives in Striping for a scratch disc (he/she will love you long time for this) and then 2x 1TB drives in mirroring for storage.

Thats basically how my main workstation is setup (working with 8+GB photoshop/CAD files is run >.<) and it flys. i would expect to put out ~$3-5K for an AWSOME work station.
 
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Thats the thing. He wants to get away from Apple. Why does Apple have N-EP board out before joe consumer can buy them?

Over the years they've had a number of products a week or so before everyone else. I assume they payoff whomever to have an exclusive release.

Get something with Dual CPU support, if budget is a concern a pair of 775/771 Quads would work perfectly... Or if budget permits a pair of I7s would be nice as well.

After seeing some i7 vs C2Q 3DS Max and other benches, I'd personally wait for the 5500's instead of going with the 5400's. Though you're right, they are pretty cheap right now. Though if his friend is coming from a dual-core G5, even a single i7 (along with everything that comes with that, faster storage, etc) will be magnitudes faster.

Speaking of dual 5500's... Supermicro has updated their site this morning:



HOT!
 

h3llb3nd4

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I want that with nvidia cards!!!
 
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...I was looking at the P6T6 WS Revolution

If you take a look at the new EVEREST 5.x you will see benchmark stats for the i7. CPU Photoworxx is probably the most relevant benchmark for your friend. The Asus P6T i7 looks tasty. (Dial back those numbers though... the scores shown are OC Extreme 965).

Download, unzip and double click the compressed HTML file. My machine is #3 :pimp:
 

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