Core i7 - Photo Editing + SAS

[dd_nvidia]

Hey first post, i know but i need help asap

I used to and still am quite geeky and into computer hardware but not as much as i used to be haha!

No I'm not old, I just turned 18 on Saturday rofl!


I have a Canon 5DmkII - and at 21MP, dumping a whole lotta RAW files is starting to kick my current PC's backside.

Basically - I want Board, CPU, Ram for under £600.

Current PC: - Built nearly 2 years ago - At the time it was pretty sweet.

PSU: 750W (Cant remember brand if im honest)
MOB: Asus P5B-E
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz 4MB L2 Cache 1066FSB
RAM: 4GB DDR2-800 CL5.0 (Cant remember the timings)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 (320bit Bus)


The Board isnt very good, I get 3Ghz out of the CPU, but any more and it really doesnt like it.


Propossed Build:

PSU: 750W (same one)
MOB: ASUS P6T WS PRO
CPU: Intel Core i7 920
RAM: 6GB DDR3-1333 CL7.0
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 (320bit Bus) (same one)


Now I need suggestions for a CPU Cooler and RAM please if possible


My uncle owns a computer shop so we can get the stuff at trade prices, but really, there isnt much in it and i can bet there is some places selling them cheaper than our suppliers sell them to us!

Hard Drive Config is as follows:

- 2 x 70GB 10,000RPM SAS Drives - OS - Striped - Main
- 1 x 250GB 7,2000RPM (E)SATA Drive - OS - Single External - Backup
- 2 x 1TB 7,200RPM SATA Drives - Photos - Striped - Main
- 1 x 1TB 7,2000RPM (E)SATA Drive - Photos - Single External - Backup
- 2 x 500GB 7,200RPM SATA Drives - Data - Mirror - Main & Backup

Does anyone know if the board supports 3 hardware raids? And Does XP Pro 32Bit support SAS Drives?

Yes, that is 8 Hard Drives. Slightly overkill...maybe but i need INSTANT access and rendering of files, tens of thousands of them. Each file being over 40MB as RAW or 120MB + as a 16bit TIFF - you see the need for the space, and the need for quick access - and of course the need for a fast pc!


Thanks, any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Proximon]

You would do much better with Vista 64 bit. Otherwise half of your RAM will be useless.

I don't think you can do 3 separate RAIDs on that board.

Cooler:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=967448

RAM:
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1986931/art/g-skill/tri-channel-3-x-2-gb-ddr3.html

 

[dd_nvidia]

Yeah I'm not sure if i could do a SAS raid and a SATA raid seperately, they are on the same controller...worse comes to the worst i've got a few spare cards kicking about that'll do the trick


That ram was CL9 1333Mhz but still that price!

I found OCZ stuff at 1333Mhz, CL7-7-7-20 and only £119 from Ebuyer.co.uk

I could not find that board anywhere haha, only the insane one with the nForce 200 chipset, so got that from my supplier (vip-computers) and got the processor from E-buyer coz it was a wee bit cheaper, plus free delivery.

I'll let you know how i get on with the raids.



As for the ram being useless, meh, I'd much rather rock XP 32Bit than use vista.

Once they give me back my XP icons and XP windows logo - i'll be happy haha! I use the classic theme, and it looks silly with all the rest of the vista shinyness.

XP64Bit maybe, in anycase, I'm not maxing out on the ram most of the time so its all good.

 

[Proximon]

"I found OCZ stuff at 1333Mhz, CL7-7-7-20 and only £119 from Ebuyer.co.uk"
OK as long as the voltage isn't maxxed out at 1.65V

Xp 32bit will only use between 2.8GB and 3.4GB of RAM. It's unable to access 6GB.

So, you can save more by getting a 3X1GB kit.

 

[dd_nvidia]

I know xp can only access around the 3Gb mark.

Its nota major concern, i'd rather have the extra 3GB there for when my hand is forced haha!

Why cant the voltage be maxed out at 1.65? i know most are 1.6 .. 0.05 volts of a difference surely not major

My DDR2-800 CL4 OCZ stuff was overvolted to 2.1V (From 1.8) and it was just fine.

or is the problem down to the board rather than the ram its self?

 

[Proximon]

Well, the CPU/board, yes. The max allowed voltage is 1.65.

 

[Roffey123]

Its the way i7 has been created - it gets rather sniffy if you start putting more than 1.65v through your RAM. That being said, most 3/6GB kits run at 1.5-1.65v anyway so I doubt it would be much of a concern. And for the love of god, if you're not going to go for 64-bit then don't bother wasting your money on a 6GB kit. Go with XP 64-bit if you have to, but not going with Vista because you don't like the icons is a bit stupid to say the least. I would really go for Vista 64-bit - it is (braces for flames) that much better than XP 64.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Its the way i7 has been created - it gets rather sniffy if you start putting more than 1.65v through your RAM. That being said, most 3/6GB kits run at 1.5-1.65v anyway so I doubt it would be much of a concern. And for the love of god, if you're not going to go for 64-bit then don't bother wasting your money on a 6GB kit. Go with XP 64-bit if you have to, but not going with Vista because you don't like the icons is a bit stupid to say the least. I would really go for Vista 64-bit - it is (braces for flames) that much better than XP 64.

Don't worry, I've got your back on this one. I'll take the flaming with you. I was also thinking that 6GB of RAM and XP was silly. I personally use 64-bit and don't have any stability or performance issues at all. The only BSOD I've ever seen was caused by pushing an overclock a little too far. Icons and logo?! Really? Step into the current generation and pick up 64-bit Vista.

 

[dd_nvidia]

Hardly stupid to have XP 32 bit and 6GB of ram, doesnt it use the extra it cant directly "see" or "address" as the priority Pagefile storage rather than the hard drive?


Also I got XP to install on the SAS Raid 0 array

So its now 1 x 140GB 31,000RPM Drive - and it is LIGHTNING FAST!

Average read speed was 190MB/s give or take.

Clocked it to 3.97Ghz on stock cooling and im a bawhair away from 9 seconds on super pi 1M

4.008GHz lasts for a few seconds then BSOD's - which annoys me because i know i'll get 9 seconds on super pi with it!!!


And yes, vistas icons on the classic theme do bother me THAT much

I'm getting Server 2003 X64 - long as it can run Lightroom, Firefox, Media Player, its all it needs =)

 

[Roffey123]

Er, no.

The theoritical limit for a 32Bit system is 4GB, of which 3.5 is usable. That extra 2GB is going to be sitting there twiddling its thumbs.

Hardly stupid to have XP 32 bit and 6GB of ram, doesnt it use the extra it cant directly "see" or "address" as the priority Pagefile storage rather than the hard drive?


Also I got XP to install on the SAS Raid 0 array

So its now 1 x 140GB 31,000RPM Drive - and it is LIGHTNING FAST!

Average read speed was 190MB/s give or take.

Clocked it to 3.97Ghz on stock cooling and im a bawhair away from 9 seconds on super pi 1M

4.008GHz lasts for a few seconds then BSOD's - which annoys me because i know i'll get 9 seconds on super pi with it!!!


And yes, vistas icons on the classic theme do bother me THAT much

I'm getting Server 2003 X64 - long as it can run Lightroom, Firefox, Media Player, its all it needs =)

 

[dd_nvidia]

well i can only use 3GB out of the 6, not 4. My Video card has 640MB too.

And your sure it isnt used as page file? I could have swore it was.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

well i can only use 3GB out of the 6, not 4. My Video card has 640MB too.

And your sure it isnt used as page file? I could have swore it was.

Nope, you remembered incorrectly. You might as well take out 2GB because it's completely useless on a 32-bit OS. The system has absolutely no way to reference more than 4GB of RAM.

 

[dd_nvidia]

well if i take a bit out, then it wont be tripple channel, even if it cant take advantage of the storage RIGHT NOW, it can take advantage of the speed.

I intended from the start to get a 64bit OS, it was a matter of choosing which.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

No problem. As long as you're aware of the limitations. I just always bring up the 32-bit RAM limitation because I've seen my fair share of people posting here with their new i7 builds and 6GB of RAM wondering why they can only use half of their expensive DDR3 RAM.

 

[dd_nvidia]

Yeah the 3Gb to start with will be fine. Lightroom rarely uses over 2-2.5GB and i tend to keep everything else pretty skinny when im editing anyway so it'll be fine.

and even if the page file is on the SAS drives, the access time will be pretty short haha.

 

[Proximon]

This is going to be one of those posts I hate, because it should be stickied somewhere like the memory FAQ but it's not. I've had to repeat myself too much, but I don't feel it's my place to have a sticky added somewhere. There should be others more qualified here for this.

Here we go:

The limits of 32-bit Windows are NOT hard to understand. Just follow along with me for a minute, and you'll pick it up.
XP and Vista 32-bit can only ADDRESS 4GB of memory. This means that they have 4GB worth of ADDRESSES to use.
Think of a town with 8000 houses. Now imagine your postman can only count to 4000. The postman has a boss who says that 3600-4000 is off-limits.
So now, the postman can only deliver mail to 3600 places.
The postman is now going to decide which places get addresses and which places won't... but first the boss speaks up again and tells him that some of the addresses have already been handed out, in the industrial district, where there are no houses.
If this town is heavily industrialized, that might be a pretty big chunk.
Now, with modern Vista 32-bit, the postman has learned a trick... his boss told him how many houses there are, even though he's not allowed to count that high. So, when you ask him how many houses there are, he tells you "4000" and neglects to tell you he can't use them all, because he's embarrassed. You have to keep asking and digging around to find out what the real number of usable houses is.

When you put 4GB of RAM into your computer, that is not all the memory addresses you need. An address is just a way to deliver mail, a way to communicate. Other "places" in your computer need to be able to communicate as well. Your video card might be the biggest hog of those addresses, but there are other less obvious demands for addresses as well.

The pagefile, A.K.A. virtual memory, is not really memory at all. It's like a counter where the postman sets the mail for a bit because he doesn't have enough hands. If it were really memory, it would further use up the small amount of available addresses.

 

[dd_nvidia]

I am not stupid, I know how memory addressing works.

I just thought i read a while back that (i think vista) could use memory not directly addressable as page file - now that might have been (And obviously is) mis-information.

I do work in a computer shop. And I have used them since i was a kid. I don't need lectured, although it might help others.

However, I agree with the need for a sticky thread.