Out of the box high performance PC?

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no.. i think its more than slideshows .. i think like .... dna replication rendering stuff you know csi looking stuff ... :D
 
Hi all -

The images are relatively simple at this point, although they could become more complicated with time. We load a series of bitmaps of (in this case) stripes and then present them in rapid succession so the stripes appear to be moving - megapixels and photoshop are WAY beyond what we're doing (at this point at least).

The software requires windows, that's not up for debate. Also, I'm not going to overclock it at all - I don't think that's necessary and also, if something goes wrong with the computer I don't want to be the person that everyone asks to fix it - I have other stuff to do.

I've configured a PC over at Monarch, and I'll post it here shortly for comment if that's ok with you guys - I have a question first though....I've heard from some that Windows can't handle more than 4 GB RAM, but a lot of others recommend 2 GB. Does anyone here have experience with either of these configurations, or understand the theory well enough to explain why one or the other makes sense? Thanks.

Also, as I understand it, the computer pulls images off of the hard drive (which will require a high RPM) loadis them into RAM (want as much as possible), then caches them in the graphics card? Am I correct about that last step and if so, what is a quantative measure of a graphics card's cache?

Thanks!
 
Ok, here's what I am thinking currently....the money isn't mine but I don't want my boss to have a heart attack when I show him the quote, so I need to have good reasons for all of these components. I'm currenlty skeptical about the graphics card... I think I might forget about the SLI and get a single card - that seems to be what you all think I should do - should I stick with the same one, just downgrade to a single card? Or is there another card that would be better?


Monarch Furia Custom Desktop (PCI-E w/SLI)
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$75.00
$75.00
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Case: 100347 - No PS - Cooler Master CAV-T03UW Cavalier
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$61.78
$61.78
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Power Supply: 100337 - PS 400W - Enermax Liberty ELT400AWT ATX 2
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$74.98
$74.98
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Case Fan: None
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Motherboard: 110636 - Abit AN8-32X nForce4 Audio/GB-LAN/USB/IEE
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$189.99
$189.99
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Processor: 120243 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual-Core 1MB Per
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$630.00
$630.00
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Thermal Grease: None
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Heat Sink Fan: 130956 - Thermaltake A1770 AMD Opteron/64 Heatsink
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$12.65
$12.65
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Memory: 140394 - DDR (400) 3200 - 1 GB Corsair (CMSS1GB-40
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$102.77
$102.77
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2nd Memory: 140394 - DDR (400) 3200 - 1 GB Corsair (CMSS1GB-40
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$102.77
$102.77
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Hard Drive: 150175 - SATA - Western Digital Caviar SE16 400 GB
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$209.85

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CD-RW/DVD-RW: 160020 - CD-RW - Lite-On SOHR-5239V 52X32X52-CD-RW
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$29.00
$29.00
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Video Card: 190469-2 eVGA GeForce 7800 GTX w/ACS3 256MB DDR3/P
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$867.38
$867.38
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Operating System: 210111 - Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/Servi
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$165.72
$165.72

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Warranty: 800099 - Standard Tech Support, 6 Month Limited Wa

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DVD/CD-RW Software: 210613 - Ahead Nero 6.6 Suite DVD+-RW Software (OE
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$15.99
$15.99
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DVD-ROM Software: None

Total: 2,537.88
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Your just wrong about the cache into the card. Don't even worry about that it will handle them fine just get a 7sereies geforce.

Also, dont worry about RPM on the harddrives as much as CACHE!


System looks great, but get a much better powersupply! If you have two of those GTX's you want at LEAST 550watts with 32v@12v+ rail (if one line, 16 each of dual rail).
 
Alex81388 said:
Also, dont worry about RPM on the harddrives as much as CACHE!

This is bad advice. I've seen it floating around on the forums lately. A higher rpm drive is going to give your system the information it needs faster than a hard drive with boat loads of cache.

Ryan
 
just something that caught my eye....you have 2 seperate sticks of ram...you can probably get a 2 gb dual channel kit with heat spreaders already on the ram for less than that...
 
To be perfectly honest with you I think you are going a bit overboard, but if it's not your money I guess it really doesnt matter. I can guarantee you that video card is a total waste for slideshows, you could use a low end card and get the desired results. The processor is nice and you might as well stick with it if it's not your money, but if it is you could certainly downgrade it. As for ram, 2 gigs is nice but if your doing slideshows you can use 512 and not notice it.

I think you are overestimating the kind of PC you need to do this really. Doing a slideshow requires almost no calculations on the part of the cpu and video card compared to a video game.

I understand you are a neurologist or something along those lines, so I'll ask this. Will this computer be used for 3d modeling, or for slideshows only. If it is used for 3d modeling then you might as well go top end, if not then you are doing some major overkill with that pc (it boggles my mind, a 7800 gtx for slideshows).

When you say rapidly do you know how many frames per second, im thinking its probably not that many, like under 30.
 
Well, there's also the factor of what my professor told me to do, he said he wants the most RAM and best video card. So, it might not make sense, but it's his money and I'm not sure if I want to explain to him that it doesn't make sense.

Also, just because this computer is being used for slideshows now doesn't mean that we're not going to switch over to more complicated image presentation in the future. And the slideshows were really taxing the **** out of the old PC, but I think that one is really old.

I think the frames per second is something over 30, maybe 60 - but we'll use it for other things in the future too.

Snick, you say:
you have 2 seperate sticks of ram...you can probably get a 2 gb dual channel kit with heat spreaders already on the ram for less than that...

Could you explain that a bit more?

Thanks.
 
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