Have an ASUS P6T looks like it is built specifically for the i7-900 series, and it seems to this layperson that the specifications in this family of CPUs don't vary enough to create compatibility issues with current top end graphic and audio cards so I'm hoping that this choice can be made before learning what brain is currently soldered to my motherboard. The other goodies he gave me are:
1 TB SATA hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533&Tpk=wd1001fals&IsVirtualParent=1
and
750 GB SATA hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145166
Ultimately I'm hoping to dual boot in linux and windows 7 (I don't want to touch windows 8 with a 10 foot stick). Linux is the ideal OS for the computations I hope to run. Some of my scientific computation colleagues say that with a quad core the machine should be strong enough to pull basic calculations in less than a week typically, which should be enough room for me to start stretching my wings before sending more complex computations off to a cluster run by the NSF which I just found out I have free access to as a fellow.
I'm currently looking at the Nvidia GeForce GTX690 (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-690-benchmark,3193.html). I do want to do a bit of gaming, and a fair bit of image processing, and this seems like it would exceed my requirements without necessitating the use of multiple GPUs (that is, except for the two GPUs they squished into the 690 itself!).
In terms of sound card I'm not sure which direction to go. I'm currently using an external sound card/interface that talks to the PC via USB and it's adequate, but I persistently have latency issues that make it prohibitively difficult to record most of my faster stuff. It seems like with external interfaces a latency of about 1 millisecond is about standard, and unfortunately this is much too much for my purposes. An on board card seems to be capable of offering less latency, but it's not clear to me what is the best way to manage this issue in terms of hardware.
Any suggestions on choice of sound and video cards? I also need to decide on a power supply and monitor. I have enough monitors lying around that I could hook up three if necessary (necessary might be a strong word here), but it would be nice to have one 30" display that can take advantage of the GTX690's juice. Suggestions are also welcome on those fronts.
In terms of dual booting in linux and windows 7, what issues might this cause on a system level? My buddy dual booted his monster machine with XP and windows 7 and had all kinds of stability issues because of it and I would very much like to avoid that, especially because during computations, all four cores will be chugging along at capacity for possibly multiple weeks straight and it really needs to be stable as a rock to support that kind of consistent load.
Finally, that video card uses an axial cooling fan, which it seems has a reputation for dumping all of it's heat directly into the tower rather than out of it. I've got a pretty robust fan on the CPU, but for such heavy computations and/or high graphics load gaming heat will be a definite issue. Any suggestions on effective case design and component arrangement to minimize this issue? If I go with the GTX690 I don't want to mess with multiple video cards and crossfire, so at least there will only be three massive heat sources to consider (CPU, GPU, and PSU I believe unless I'm missing something).
Thank you
1 TB SATA hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533&Tpk=wd1001fals&IsVirtualParent=1
and
750 GB SATA hard drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145166
Ultimately I'm hoping to dual boot in linux and windows 7 (I don't want to touch windows 8 with a 10 foot stick). Linux is the ideal OS for the computations I hope to run. Some of my scientific computation colleagues say that with a quad core the machine should be strong enough to pull basic calculations in less than a week typically, which should be enough room for me to start stretching my wings before sending more complex computations off to a cluster run by the NSF which I just found out I have free access to as a fellow.
I'm currently looking at the Nvidia GeForce GTX690 (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-690-benchmark,3193.html). I do want to do a bit of gaming, and a fair bit of image processing, and this seems like it would exceed my requirements without necessitating the use of multiple GPUs (that is, except for the two GPUs they squished into the 690 itself!).
In terms of sound card I'm not sure which direction to go. I'm currently using an external sound card/interface that talks to the PC via USB and it's adequate, but I persistently have latency issues that make it prohibitively difficult to record most of my faster stuff. It seems like with external interfaces a latency of about 1 millisecond is about standard, and unfortunately this is much too much for my purposes. An on board card seems to be capable of offering less latency, but it's not clear to me what is the best way to manage this issue in terms of hardware.
Any suggestions on choice of sound and video cards? I also need to decide on a power supply and monitor. I have enough monitors lying around that I could hook up three if necessary (necessary might be a strong word here), but it would be nice to have one 30" display that can take advantage of the GTX690's juice. Suggestions are also welcome on those fronts.
In terms of dual booting in linux and windows 7, what issues might this cause on a system level? My buddy dual booted his monster machine with XP and windows 7 and had all kinds of stability issues because of it and I would very much like to avoid that, especially because during computations, all four cores will be chugging along at capacity for possibly multiple weeks straight and it really needs to be stable as a rock to support that kind of consistent load.
Finally, that video card uses an axial cooling fan, which it seems has a reputation for dumping all of it's heat directly into the tower rather than out of it. I've got a pretty robust fan on the CPU, but for such heavy computations and/or high graphics load gaming heat will be a definite issue. Any suggestions on effective case design and component arrangement to minimize this issue? If I go with the GTX690 I don't want to mess with multiple video cards and crossfire, so at least there will only be three massive heat sources to consider (CPU, GPU, and PSU I believe unless I'm missing something).
Thank you
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