best system possible

This depends on what the system will be used for

DIY systems

GAMEING:

opteron 148 (939) good OC proc (single core)
asus sli or dfi ( dfi sli-dr expert: for optimal system tweakabilty note not a noob mobo)
2gig ddr 500 or 550 for OC'in ( corsair, OCZ, mushkin, G-skill )
7800 gt in sli will play anything nearly if not at max res ( eye candy )
2x 74 gb wd raptors
X-fi sound card
Nec lcd 8ms monitor
( if you go with a xtreme Oc able mobo consider going with a liquid cooling sys. make damn sure you have a big enough case for it)

muti-media:
opteron 165/170/175/180 Dual core proc
2gig ddr 400 corsair
asus a8n-e or Msi k8 neo4 platium
4x 250GB sata II HDD ( seagate, WD, Hititchi )
6800 gs pcie card
x-fi sound card
NEC lcd 8ms monitor

Manufacture built system

Falcon northwest ( the best to buy a built sys from, and very good support)
Alienware ( rock solid systems)

For what you could pay a company to make for you, you could do yourself much better with a DIY sys, only difference is the support of the company with the product you have bought from them

other good mobo's are eprox, gigabyte and abit. All prices will very
just to note the listed above are all good products, doesn't mean you won't get a dud part some where in a DIY sys and really based on my opinion..do the research bro ask the question here. alot of good knownable people here mostly to include the (long time posters that have been playin with PC's since the 8088 proc was out and DOS was loaded with a 5.25 floppy drive not to mention bill gates was still a college nerd just not rich yet!!!)
They mite sound like grumpy old men it just means that the hemroids are flareing up on them ( some are ladies )! either way they will help lead you to a good choice for you dwell on!

good luck

Addressing just the monitor portion...

Dell has a new 30" computer LCD monitor out, capable of 2560x1600 resolution, for about $2200 USD..

I imagine it will be the Alpha monitor for quite a while!

(Although for $501 on sale, the Dell 2001FP is quite excellent, and if you prefer a widescreen, the 2405FP at 24" and about $900 on sale is also nice)

If you're spending that much money, RAID 5 would be a much better option than RAID 0. RAID 5 gives you speed and redundancy... but if one of the drives fails in a RAID 0, your data is toast.

Consider checking out this as a base spec.

http://users.on.net/~darkpeace/har [...] on270.html
For best stability feature set get Single Rank* x4 DIMMs

* Not to be confused with bank, or sides of a DIMM. Thus can attempt use of 1T CMD rate, as each Opteron supports up to 4 ranks of memory at 1T.

* x4 (vs x8) and populate "all DIMM slots" for correct ChipKill (tm) operation. You'll still get stock Registered / ECC operation if you don't, but you can get a 'enhanced ECC' by using x4 ECC Reg DIMMs and populating every slot on the board from the word go. x4 means each chip on the module is only 4 bits wide, instead of 8 bits wide externally, but their are more chips on the module. This is a documented requirement for ChipKill (tm) functionality and often not included in 'off the shelf' Opteron systems sadly.... The Kingston KVR400S4R3A/1G meets this requirement, not much else on the marketplace does.

PDF: http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KVR400S4R3A_1G.pdf

Seriosuly worth getting familar with the above ^ if spending $4,000 or more on a PC (be it workstation, server, or somewhere in between). Nothing comes close for Autodesk 3D Max, etc to the above system in the same price range. (as of the date I built it anyway, but don't get a Radeon X800XL if you're expecting to do heavy 3D work on it. Get a ATI FireGL or Quadro video card instead, or use the SLI feature).

The Tyan K8WE is a good Opteron workstation / server hybrid board in the AU$5,000 price range. (AU and Can dollars are roughly equal). The SCSI is optional but SATA is fine these days. Tyan Thunder K8WE supports RAID-5 on SATA after BIOS update 1.02.

Windows XP and XP x64 Edition both support two CPU SOCKETS (with no limit on cores per socket, 'legally' anyway). Although in reality a MS patch would likely be required to enable 'above 4 core' support in XP/XP x64.

I have been lazy and not updated the website ( http://users.on.net/~darkpeace ) for awhile, the link to the above is currently broken from the site.... fix this weekend maybe ...

Just get the fastest Dual-Core Opterons you can, 2.4 GHz, so Opteron 280 is currently the highest there (Run 2 x Dual Cores, for 4 x 2.4 GHz cores), and if Media Encoding get the WME9 x64 update from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/w [...] fault.aspx

Unless you only want 2 cores / 1 socket at 2.6 or 2.8 GHz, but then you might be looking more at Intel Pentium D EE (2 cores, each HyperThreaded, excellent for Video) in addition to the AMD Athlon 64 X2 and AMD Athlon 64 FX-60.

Really depends what you are after, fast 'core isolated' thread performance, or 'powerful' dual core, or quad core.... You could afford an Opteron 800 series (running 4 x dual core CPUs, for 8 cores... or 16 cores over 2+ boards). in the $10k price range surely.


OR....


Are you just trying to build (yet another) gaming PC ?, if so you'll get massively diminishing returns past about $3,000.... as very few (if any at all ?) games are designed for 4+ core systems.

Otherwise, if you are truthfully in need of a Quad-core AMD Opteron / Intel Xeon for whatever reason, feel free to MSN or é-mail me (see: http://users.on.net/~darkpeace ; for my contact details); I can share benchmarks, NUMA config tips, etc with you.

meh, looks like Ian just fixed it

Still say, get a real mainboard:

Thunder K8QW (S4881) (4/8-way / Opteron 800 series)
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8qw.html

or

Thunder K8WE (S2895) (2/4-way / Opteron 200 series)
http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html

(and ECC Registered memory for them).... you'll still get over 8,000 MB/sec in the SANDRA memory benchmarks because of ccNUMA.... likely over 16,000 MB/sec on the K8QW but it prob can't do SLI 7800's because it would be too tight a fit.

Why do I feel like this is just another 'gaming rig' thread ?

Yep, Also the older Tyan K8WE required a 6-pin connector for additional power, the newer one uses the more standard 8-pin EPS12V connector.

Tip: If you do find yourself with the older one (rare these days), then you'll need a 'more funky' PSU. Do not try to plug a 6-pin PCIe power connector into the older revisions CPU power. It would most likely fry the mainboard very quickly. From memory the PSU was an early AMD design and had a "G" in the name of spec.... Like GTX or something (can't recall as I have the 8-pin EPS12V rev).... but it would be documented at: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processor [...] 23,00.html ; just in case you need it.