please help with machine specs.

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bubble_boy

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which will be better a intel core 2duo x6800 or the top of the range xeon system?

it will be run on a 4x 15000 rpm raid0+1 config
4 gig ram (dependant on cpu choice)
also motherboard dependant on cpu choice.

this is not a gaming machine but will be used for high end compositing( 2k images) so that means the read write needs to be fast aswell as the cpu power need to be lots and lots of fast ram. i just cant figure out , what to go for , i thought you could get core 2 duo in dual cpu configuration, but after doing some research it seems it is only single processor compatible? when will the core 2 quadro be released? what is the top of the range xeon dual system? the fsb seems to be slower that the core 2 duo, will this be a problem? what ram do i go fro then and what motherboard?

please help
 
currently the core2duo will be cheaper than a zeon system, with better/faster memory options. The core2duo vs zeon CPU speeds i'm not quite sure how they compare, but the core2duo's are really fast and will probibly provide enuf processing power.
 
ok currently, the Xeons (Woodcrest core) are supported only by the Intel 5xxx chipset, so you will have to get FB-DIMMS (Expensive) but will have the option of running quad core (2x dual core) CPU's. In terms of FSB, the Xeons run 1333 instead of 1066 (Both quad pumped) but this advantage in terms of throughput is set off by the increased latency of the FB-DIMMs (AMB causes an increase in latency).

In respect of the above, I would recommend you get a powerful Core2Duo system, and then when needed upgrade to a "Clovertown" quad core CPU.

Another recommendation is to run the 4 raptors in RAID5 instead of RAID 0+1/10 as this provides equal performance, with more space avaliable (3 drives in RAID 5 vs. 2 drives in RAID 0+1/10). This will be a bit cause a bit of CPU overhead if you are going to run the drives from the MB RAID controller, but if you are blowing 20k+ on a system, you might as well get a decent RAID controller, to run your storage array.

If you are interested in a quote for any proposed system, feel free to PM me.
 
thank you guys ,

mic_y, thanks for the offer, this is for the company so i think theyll do it through their suppliers. but any advice is appreciated thanks.
 
mic_y said:
Another recommendation is to run the 4 raptors in RAID5 instead of RAID 0+1/10 as this provides equal performance, with more space avaliable (3 drives in RAID 5 vs. 2 drives in RAID 0+1/10). This will be a bit cause a bit of CPU overhead if you are going to run the drives from the MB RAID controller, but if you are blowing 20k+ on a system, you might as well get a decent RAID controller, to run your storage array.
Click to expand...

Raptors : 10,000 rpm SATA drives. He's talking 15,000 rpm drives so he's talking SCSI. And being 15K SCSI's he's looking at about R16K just for the four drives (guestimate for 74GB 15k SCSIs).

All things being equal, RAID 5 is slower than 0+1 / 10. If speed is the primary requirement, then 10 is the way to go, not 5.

Assuming an onboard SCSI controller, a ZCR card is recommended to offload any storage processing from the system CPU(s). Make sure the ZCR card you choose is supported by the mboard.

my 2c (0.0027 USD) ;)
 
uuum, how is RAID5 slower than RAID10? A 4 drive RAID array has 3 disks for striping, and one for redundancy, so it gets the same performance as 3 drives in a RAID0 config, but with the added redundancy. (And obviously CPU overhead if run through SW drivers)

A 4 drive RAID 10 config is only striping 2 drives, with 2 drives being redundant. Yes the CPU overhead will be lower, but once again, if run on a decent SCSI RAID card, this doesnt matter.
 
mic_y said:
uuum, how is RAID5 slower than RAID10?
Click to expand...
go google for performance comparisons. Here's some results:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/comp-c.html
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BRZ/is_2_23/ai_98709771 (this one's nice because it expands on why - in simple terms - RAID 5 performs slower.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/svradmin/1.9/en/stormgmt/strcnpts.html


mic_y said:
A 4 drive RAID array has 3 disks for striping, and one for redundancy, so it gets the same performance as 3 drives in a RAID0 config, but with the added redundancy. (And obviously CPU overhead if run through SW drivers)
Click to expand...
nope. You're describing RAID 3 (byte level striping with parity disc) or RAID 4 (block level striping with parity disc). RAID 5 distributes parity (which can only be generated once the striped data has been written and read back) equally across all the discs. RAID 3 and 4 (both outdated now) are faster than RAID 5.

mic_y said:
A 4 drive RAID 10 config is only striping 2 drives, with 2 drives being redundant. Yes the CPU overhead will be lower, but once again, if run on a decent SCSI RAID card, this doesnt matter.
Click to expand...
nope. You're describing RAID 0+1. RAID 10 is a collection of striped mirrors, not mirrored stripes - big difference, particularly when use 6 or more discs.
 
scotty777 said:
but have you seen the price of the xenon systems!!! go with the core 2 duo... i don't think it would be practical to run with xenon's...
Click to expand...

Yeah the Xenon's are pretty expensive but I'm not quite sure how they would hlep in a workstation? :confused:

Intel Xeon's might tho ;)
 
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