Computers, Money & Opinions...

[The_Caveman]

I have been meaning to ask this question for a while, and hopefully I could get an educated response… And I am not asking who is better AMD vs Intel vs ATi vs NVIDIA

Lets just say money is no object, and you had to get yourself the ULTIMATE gaming pc.

My question is this, since money is no object, and you could buy any pc from and of the top custom manufactures, you could choose an AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-62 Processor or the Intel Pentium D Processor Extreme Edition 965, with either of the top cards…

If I choose a Dual Intel Xeon™ Processors 3.8GHz or Dual AMD Opteron™ 285 2.6GHz, and add two NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB DDR3 cards, say with 8Gb of ram and the 2 WD Raptor in Raid 0, would it not be better than the first two systems?

The reason I am asking this, is the guy that designed Oblivion, did he not have an very good system, as the game is such a monster on demanding performance???

Please explain to me the pros and cons?
:?:

 

[shinigamiX]

OK, if the HD and the RAM were the same, the first two systems would be better for gaming. Quadros are for tasks such as 3D designing, etc., rather than gaming, and it shows. I don't know much about Xeons, but the Graphics Cards alone should make enough of a difference. In a standard desktop today, 8GB is really quite impractical, the best to go with is probably 2, anything more you may actually see something of a performance loss.

The latter two systems would be found in workstations. You can use them for stuff like animating, blabla.

 

[The_Caveman]

Graphics Cards of the workstations? What would you recomend as an ultamate PC?

 

[shinigamiX]

The Absolute ULTIMATE GAMING PC in todays terms would be something like this:
Opteron 185
2 X1900XTX in CF
2GB of DDRII-667 RAM
2xWestern Digital Raptor 10k RPM 150GB in RAID 1
4xSeagate 7200.10 7200RPM 750GB HD in JBOD

In a few months the following changes could probably be made:
Exchange Opteron 185 for Core 2 Extreme X6800
2GB of DDR2-667 RAM for 2 or 4 GB of DDR2-800 RAM.
2 X1900XTX for 2 7950 GX2 after Quad-SLI drivers are made available.

Later Still, the GFX could be exchanged for something DX10-capable.

This is just my opinion,but hey, if I had unlimited money this is the PC I'd buy.

 

[jaguarskx]

If you can wait until late July or early August, you can get a Conroe E6700 CPU. There is already one instance where it has been overclocked to 4.0GHz on air.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Retail-Stepping-Conroe-hits-4GHz-air-cooling-ftopict188251.html

The CPU is assumed to be a retail version. It is not known yet if such a high overclock will be the norm for the E6700, or a rare instance.

Pair it up with DDR2 800 RAM.

A Conroe E6700 at stock speed can already defeat the FX-62 is most benchmarks.

 

[voxel]

The reason I am asking this, is the guy that designed Oblivion, did he not have an very good system, as the game is such a monster on demanding performance???

Being an ex-game developer myself I can attest there is NO NEED for the fastest workstation. In the end, great tools(!!!) and a reasonable PC will do. In fact, I'd rather have great tools than a wickedly fast PC.

Dual Xeon? No way - turbine engines. Too loud. Too noisy. And not that fast.

Dual Opteron. Done it. It's costly and no SLI/CrossFire. If your game is multithreaded get two 285s.

Screw workstation video cards - overrated and slow. However you need them for high-end 3D apps due to overlay, etc. support (but there are "tricks" to get consumer cards to emulate most of these features).

 

[sailer]

Lets just say money is no object, and you had to get yourself the ULTIMATE gaming pc.


Please explain to me the pros and cons? :

Money no object? Simple, I'd call Falcon Northwest and have them put together a machine with an FX-62, 2 gig of the best ram available, water cooling, a cool paint job on the case, etc. I probably have to think hard on whether I'd have two 7950's in SLI, giving up having HDR and AA at the same time, but lots of speed, or two X1900 XTX cards so I could do both, but at a slightly lower speed. Of course, a big wide screen monitor to show it all.

Even then, with money no object, I'd have to realize that within 6 months, the rig would be obsolete in terms of being the best. But if you're in the money is no object class of richness, you could just buy a new machine or tweak the present one to the newest, fastest, etc.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

If you can wait 3-4 months then wait. Conroe is coming out.

Woodcrest, the new xeon, is also coming out soon on june 26th. So, if you can wait a little bit longer you'll get the greatest and the latest.

Do NOT get quadro graphics cards for gaming. Quadro is for programs like inventor, mechanical, Maya type programs. For gaming get either the geforce or radeon series of cards.

Don't get 8GB of RAM because you'll run into technical issues. Get 2GB of RAM for gaming. That is PLENTY!

I have been meaning to ask this question for a while, and hopefully I could get an educated response… And I am not asking who is better AMD vs Intel vs ATi vs NVIDIA

Lets just say money is no object, and you had to get yourself the ULTIMATE gaming pc.

My question is this, since money is no object, and you could buy any pc from and of the top custom manufactures, you could choose an AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-62 Processor or the Intel Pentium D Processor Extreme Edition 965, with either of the top cards…

If I choose a Dual Intel Xeon™ Processors 3.8GHz or Dual AMD Opteron™ 285 2.6GHz, and add two NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB DDR3 cards, say with 8Gb of ram and the 2 WD Raptor in Raid 0, would it not be better than the first two systems?

The reason I am asking this, is the guy that designed Oblivion, did he not have an very good system, as the game is such a monster on demanding performance???

Please explain to me the pros and cons?
:?:

 

[sailer]

The reason I am asking this, is the guy that designed Oblivion, did he not have an very good system, as the game is such a monster on demanding performance???

Being an ex-game developer myself I can attest there is NO NEED for the fastest workstation. In the end, great tools(!!!) and a reasonable PC will do. In fact, I'd rather have great tools than a wickedly fast PC.

Dual Xeon? No way - turbine engines. Too loud. Too noisy. And not that fast.

Dual Opteron. Done it. It's costly and no SLI/CrossFire. If your game is multithreaded get two 285s.

Screw workstation video cards - overrated and slow. However you need them for high-end 3D apps due to overlay, etc. support (but there are "tricks" to get consumer cards to emulate most of these features).

Keep in mind that he asked about an ultimate gaming machine, not an ultimate workstation.

 

[shinigamiX]

If you want to buy a computer rather than put it together yourself, the best choice would be VoodooPC.

 

[The_Caveman]

Thanks for all the reply’s.

I just wanted to know what would be the ultimate pc today. We al know technology changes fast, but would it not be nice to know that today at 5pm, you have the ultimate pc…(if we could afford it)

Dreams…..

One more question? Could somebody please teach me how to post a link and it beiing displayed as click here and not www.degegfer.345 203982034720934...

Thanks...

 

[angry_ducky]

Quadro and FireGL graphics cards are workstation cards that are specifically designed for OpenGL. They'll pwn any regular card in OpenGL, but they will be beaten in Direct3D apps.

If you want to buy a high-end PC, rather than build one, look at Falcon Northwest, Overdrive PC, Hypersonic PC, and Voodoo PC.

 

[Heyyou27]

If you really want to make the "best gaming computer" you'll want dual Geforce 7950GX2s.

 

[shinigamiX]

(url=www.njdynamics.com)here(/url)
Replace the () with [] and you're good to go.
There aren't drivers supporting two 7950s in SLI yet. Sucks, huh? :?

 

[MU_Engineer]

No, here's the Ultimate Gaming PC:

Athlon FX-62
2x 1GB DDR2-1066 (or -1200 if you can get it. Use the high possible rated speeds at loose timings to crank down timings at DDR2-800 speeds.)
NF 590-based board with SLi
Gigabyte RAM drive with 4 1GB DDR RAM modules (get the cheap stuff as even DDR 266 is WAAAAAY faster than the SATA interface can handle.)
150GB WD Raptor
2x GeForce 7950GX2
Windows 2000 Professional

Ultimate Workstation (for an only somewhat obscene price)

2x Opteron 285
3Ware or Areca PCI-X 133 U320 SCSI RAID controller with 1GB ECC RAM onboard
Several 15k SCSI HDDs in RAID 5
2x2 GB DDR 400 ECC RAM per bank (8GB total)
Some video card, it need just drive 2 DVI monitors
Proper 64-bit OS (read: AMD64 version of Linux, I like Gentoo)