Mmmmm Upgrades.......

[DTWCeramics]

New work PC built on Friday;

OCZ Agility 4 SSD 128GB x2 in RAID0
i7 2500k
16GB 1600Mhz DDR3
GT610 GPU
3TB storage 7200RPM

nomnom!!

[BillyGoat]

Nice one - bet you are well happy with that!!!!

I'm in the right place at the the right time today, so just picked up a few 'clearout' items during an office move....

mini-itx motherboard and 8GB DDR3 ram
i3 processor
1350W thermaltake toughpower psu
hd camera

biggest item is a new computer case....it's stupid. Might just nail a plank of wood on top and call it a desk!! http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... g&pup_c=gs

Hunting day isn't over yet though....

mmmm

[root]

i just got given a hp netbook with a broken hinge....... works alright and still beter than my old lappy

[DTWCeramics]

Nice one - bet you are well happy with that!!!!

I'm in the right place at the the right time today, so just picked up a few 'clearout' items during an office move....

mini-itx motherboard and 8GB DDR3 ram
i3 processor
1350W thermaltake toughpower psu
hd camera

biggest item is a new computer case....it's stupid. Might just nail a plank of wood on top and call it a desk!! http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... g&pup_c=gs

Hunting day isn't over yet though....

mmmm

I'd love the mobo & CPU if you're offering :D (If you don't need it, wouldn't mind offering you a few pennies )

Level 10 cases are stupid, they worked together with BMW to design them apparently!!

[Megaross]

Wouldn't put the SSD's in Raid 0, you won't see an significant performance gains and it's just asking for trouble, heard SSD's aren't particularly reliable in Raid 0, something to do with controllers.
My last work machine was the worst laptop in the world, although I was allowed a couple of old unused machines for overnight tiff processing.

Got my dual E5 xeon machine at home though, not long ago I was debating a small rendering cluster to go along with it but now I'm debating a downgrade.
Don't have the time for CAD these days that I once did, and I could really do with a new car.

Nice case BG, that is pornography.

[warmadmax]

i'd actually be tempted to drop them out of RAID as well, it'll cut the headline benchmark scores, but it should result in a more usable machine.

problem with SSD's in RAID is that the TRIM command isn't supported by most (very nearly all) RAID controllers,
so the SSD is never told it can do a cleanup which can drop the performance over time quite drastically.

what i would do,
if the motherboard supports it is use intel RST or if not, some other SSD>HDD caching software for the 3TB drive on one of the SSD's,
leaving the windows install on the other SSD.

that way you get a quick windows install, plus anything used regularly on the HDD is cached, dropping the wait times through the floor.

one other thing, have a look at junction points, i used two programs "Link magic" and "Steam mover",
these can physically move data off an SSD to your HDD while leaving a folder/link in the file system so no need to reinstall anything.
Used this a fair bit when i was running a 60gb SSD as my C: drive and wanted to move games in and out for better access.

my 1TB drive i was moving stuff onto failed (was 5 years+ old)
haven't got time to faf about now days so i'm using the intel RST feature to speed up my 2TB drive and live with the occasional slow down or slow loading map.

[DTWCeramics]

appreciated Matt, will note it down :P

We'll see how long the drives last for!! These are replacements from a par of RMA'd Octane drives that we used in a couple of new machines, both the drives failed within a week of eachother, cost us around £400 in install costs from an external company who manage our internal systems

Steam mover, assuming that's for moving steam games from drive to drive? If so, I'll be installing that at home tonight lol.

[BillyGoat]

Mmmm, got another new toy......I'm actually thinking it's a great bit of tech!!!!

New laptop, i7 with all the trimmings, but it has WiDi!!!!!!

It's bloody amazing. I'm not one for wireless display stuff usually, but this is great!!! Box connects to amp/TV via HDMI and has a powersupply.

Laptop wirelessly connects to the box and provides a wireless display - playing a 50mbps stream, flawless quality to the TV. Mega. Spent a fair bit of the evening watching stuff.....great!!!

BG

[BillyGoat]

I'm torn.....I REALLY want to move my stuff to the new case, but I'm not sure I've got the space in my new office. My current one is quite nice too.....if not a bit old.

I also want to install that new PSU, but don't think there is enough room in my current case....Arrghhh.

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[warmadmax]

appreciated Matt, will note it down :P

We'll see how long the drives last for!! These are replacements from a par of RMA'd Octane drives that we used in a couple of new machines, both the drives failed within a week of eachother, cost us around £400 in install costs from an external company who manage our internal systems

Steam mover, assuming that's for moving steam games from drive to drive? If so, I'll be installing that at home tonight lol.

ouch on those costs!

you can use steam mover for steam games but it works with any folder! (though i'd steer clear of windows folder )
e.g. i've moved battlefield 3 (not a steam game) plus the user directory (windows 7 user profiles + my documents etc) to the HDD storage.

means you don't have to worry about installing to hard drive, just move after the install is complete to free up space.



WiDi, i remember reading about graphics cards with that, had 6 aerials sticking out the back and looked ridiculous

in a laptop though, sounds spot on, just what you'd need for a projector, would be great in meetings and home cinema if it can run 1080p

why have you got a commodore cutout in a crysis case? (pretty though!)

i'd say leave it be and build your next rig into the new case, only thing you'd be missing is usb3 front panel which you can easily slot on an expansion slot round back.

[BillyGoat]

No antennas on the laptop - all internal. This is next to the TV, so you can't even see it... http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1006003 ... v-ada.html

It does 1080p too, with the audio.....laptop resolution is 1920x1080 on a 17" screen - it's mega!!!

The case is a vinyl wrap commodore case :) It's even got commodore feet too!!! lol

Board has USB 3, but it's a header.....goes to this, but I've not bothered (no USB stuff yet - any HDDs would be eSATA if external).

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Won't be building a new one for a while now.....this is an Ivy Bridge i7, not much in the way of upgrades needed yet!

BG

[DTWCeramics]

mmmm ivy bridge...

Birthday is in March and as I've just said to WMM on the phone, my work PC is faster than my home one!!

sorting that out ASAP.

[BillyGoat]

Love this to bits....does what I need it to do!

It even mimics my own brain power......activity is about a match as well (mine rarely goes higher than this though.....)

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[warmadmax]

6 core + hyper threads
core i7 extreme ??

sure my sandy is only quad + HT and standard ivy was going to be quad as well

my birthday is in march as well but i didn't wait to upgrade
just wish i had the time to game on it
bloody DIY getting in way of gaming

anyhow, how's this for a taskmgr graph?

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our main SQL server box at work, no hyperthreading (2 x quad core Xeon 3ghz), 20 GB of ram with 8GB online spare
SQL just eat's memory, currently has a 16gb DB mostly in ram.

[BillyGoat]

Looks like a busy box!!

I went to see a company the other week, who had set up a TEST box for some demonstrations. Was showing 16 cores, 256GB RAM, Server 2008R2 Enterprise and had more discs than you can shake a stick at on a fiber channel controller. LAN was 10GB fiber to the client machines.....I said jokingly "bit under powered, init?" and they SERIOUSLY said "Yes, this is just the dev box....we'll get the proper hardware later".



Hmmm, just looked - was told it was an ivy bridge, but it's not.....it's Sandy

http://ark.intel.com/products/63696 it's a Socket 2011 i7 Extreame....fookin massive chip though! It's got no vga on board....just cache and grunt.

Should have lived in ignorant bliss.