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Author Topic: Your next upgrade?  (Read 107252 times)

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Offline Boomslang

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« Reply #125 on: February 13, 2003, 07:12:53 AM »
1024 Intel Xeon processors inside of eight new RackSaver BladeRack supercomputing clusters running Pixar's own RenderMan software. The RenderFarm features 2TBs (two terabytes) of memory and 60TBs (terabytes) of disk space. Each Intel Xeon processor at 2.80GHz

Offline opiesilver

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« Reply #126 on: February 13, 2003, 10:01:08 AM »
Single system image?   Shared memory?   No?  Try this one.

http://www.sgi.com/servers/altix/configs.html

Take a look at the SGI Altix 3700 Supercluster.  I've seen the test systems scaled to 2048 Itanium processors with 16384mb of RAM (not a typo!:eek:).  NASA Ames has one that is half this size already and talk is that they are considering spending another $70 mil to double it.

It makes all the difference in the world when all the processors can use all the available memory.
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Offline Morpheus

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« Reply #127 on: February 13, 2003, 04:36:06 PM »
OK come back to earth!!!!
Luck is better than skill anyday! The more skill I get, the luckier I get!

Offline Boomslang

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« Reply #128 on: February 14, 2003, 07:46:26 AM »
I'll take two please

Offline Morpheus

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« Reply #129 on: February 14, 2003, 10:56:06 AM »
great article

This article gives a really good idea of what is best to upgrade.  Jharsh take notes. :lol
Luck is better than skill anyday! The more skill I get, the luckier I get!

Offline Morpheus

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« Reply #130 on: February 21, 2003, 01:52:23 PM »
Nice case review of the new Thermaltake case.  If you've got the doubage!:8o:
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Offline jharsh

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« Reply #131 on: February 23, 2003, 06:22:27 PM »
looks like I made a good choice with buying a geforce4 ti4200 card. Its only slightly less powerfull than the 9700. The max I can play any game at is 1024X768 which most of the high end cards seem to be about even on.

I will look into a nforce2 board soon as I am selling a lot of my old computers and will have the money :D (perhaps now is the time to get a board with ide raid).

Offline opiesilver

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« Reply #132 on: February 23, 2003, 09:55:11 PM »
Finally a bit of common sense rears it head.
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Offline jharsh

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« Reply #133 on: February 24, 2003, 07:27:35 PM »
Whats everyones opion of the abit nf7 board?

http://www.hothardware.com/reviews/images/abit_nf7s/AbitMobo.htm

It looks good and I have had good luck with abit boards 3 times now.

Offline Boomslang

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« Reply #134 on: February 24, 2003, 07:44:22 PM »
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 Motherboard
Current Cost: $145
Months on list: 3
Price Change: -$8



 

For three months now, the NVIDIA nForce2 chipset has been the performance leader for AMD Athlon XP users, this month is no exception, so we've gone back to the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe. ASUS has always been one of the first to market with new motherboards, with high performance levels, and with a high standard for quality as well. The dual channel DDR feature of this motherboard increases the available memory bandwidth significantly over previous motherboards that lacked this feature, and to top it all off, this motherboard supports both 266 MHz and 333 MHz FSB Athlon XP processors.

Starting off with the NVIDIA nForce2 chipset, the A7N8X comes with an AGP 8X port, 3 DIMM sockets (for up to 3GB of DDR), and it also has support for DDR400 DIMM. To run in dual channel DDR mode, you must install two sticks of memory into the different colored DIMM sockets. The A7N8X has onboard LAN capability, Serial ATA RAID support, and on-board sound with 5.1 audio support. Additionally, it has a dual IEEE 1394 port for a pair of fire wire devices and for increased connectivity, there is a USB 2.0 controller that allows up to four external USB 2.0 devices to be attached. Flexibility is the key with this motherboard, and it can run RAID mode 0, or 1 with the Serial ATA interface.

Serial ATA drives are finally creeping slowly into the market place, so we're happy to finally be able to provide an update to the AMD Extreme system that takes full advantage of the Serial ATA capabilities of this fine motherboard. With the anticipated Barton revision of the AMD Athlon XP line coming soon, the A7N8X Deluxe will have an increased life span, as a few other online publications are anticipating full compatibility between Barton, and current model Socket-A motherboards (that support 333Mhz FSB).

http://sharkyextreme.com/guides/EGBG/article.php/10721_1577311__3

Offline opiesilver

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« Reply #135 on: February 24, 2003, 08:29:31 PM »
I always recommend an ASUS board just because they are the most stable board in production.  I don't know about you, but I'd rather have fast and stable than ultra fast and prone to crash.
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Offline Morpheus

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« Reply #136 on: February 24, 2003, 09:17:07 PM »
I am personally trying to decide between the Abit NF7S and the Asus A7N8X deluxe.  I haven't decided yet.  If I had the money in my pocket right now, I would probably go with the A7N8X for a couple of reasons.

1) It's ASUS they just make good boards, and they have a great track record, and the stability of the board can make or break you.

2) Dual LAN, might be fun to play with.

3) The digital out is digital coax vs optical.  Since I want to wire this to my receiver, I would prefer coax vs optical since I will need 15 to 20 ft of cable.  There really is no difference in sound quality between the two.

Unfortunately there is about a $20 difference, and I probably won't have the money for another month or two.
Luck is better than skill anyday! The more skill I get, the luckier I get!

Offline jharsh

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« Reply #137 on: February 24, 2003, 10:12:31 PM »
well the NF7S gives you more room around the cpu so you can cool your processor but abit chose to put the ram to close the the agp slot so you WILL have problems adding ram without removing the videocard first.

I think I would go with the "Asus A7N8X deluxe" It looks to be a better board if you have a small cpu cooler.

[Edited on 2-25-2003 by jharsh]

Offline Morpheus

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« Reply #138 on: February 25, 2003, 09:13:25 AM »
That's a good point!

I haven't decided on a cooler yet.
Luck is better than skill anyday! The more skill I get, the luckier I get!

Offline Boomslang

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« Reply #139 on: February 26, 2003, 08:54:13 PM »
ATI to Launch R350 and RV350 Within Next 30 Days!
Posted 2/26/03 at 8:04 pm by Anton

During the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium ATI Technologies’ Vice President of Engineering, Dr. Dave Rolston, who is based just near the headquarters of the arch-rival NVIDIA Corporation in Santa Clara, California, confirmed that the company intends to launch its high-end R350 and mainstream RV350 graphics processors within the next 30 days.

No in-depth details were issued about the newcomers, though, it was said that the R350 chip is based on the RADEON 9700 architecture, but will deliver more power and speed and will be made using 0.13 micron technology. The RV350 part is also DirectX 9.0 compatible, as we revealed quite some time ago, made using advanced 0.13 micron technology and also offers significant performance boost over the previous generation mainstream architecture.

ATI’s VP of Engineering especially pointed out that the company had no problems with transition to 0.13 micron at TSMC and now the company is ready to manufacture the actual chips using this fabrication process. Dr. Dave Rolson said they are happy with the yields and it looks like the 0.13 micron technology is just what the doctor ordered for not very expensive, but powerful devices.

Talking about the company’s strategy, Mr. Rolson said that ATI Technologies makes a lot of efforts in order to push its products into rapidly expanding consumer electronics market. The company already has a number of design wins for set-top-boxes, PDAs and TV-sets, so, it seems that after some time you may find “Powered by ATI” brand on your mobile phone or STB.

See also: Are You Ready For More From ATI Technologies?

Offline jharsh

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« Reply #140 on: February 27, 2003, 07:38:36 PM »
Sounds good. Now prices will drop on the 9700 pro! Perhaps in time for the lanparty.

Speaking of ati's branching out it would be great for them to produce a chipset based off the 9000 line for pdas. Then I could play unreal tournament or carmageddon2 anywhere I go :D.

Offline Boomslang

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« Reply #141 on: February 28, 2003, 07:22:15 AM »
Everything changes in 2004 no pci no agp no ddr.  check out the video at the bottom of the page  

http://www.intel.com/technology/pciexpress/

Offline ZWarrior

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« Reply #142 on: February 28, 2003, 01:29:26 PM »
Then we have to wait for the devices that support the interface, and I guarantee they won't be cheap!
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« Reply #143 on: February 28, 2003, 01:49:20 PM »
I read about the PCI-X interface several weeks ago.  On the surface it looks cool and I think that it will be very useful.  I do not think that the devices will be quick to market and it will be a long time before they become a standard rather than the newest toy.

Offline yoda_mon

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« Reply #144 on: February 28, 2003, 01:50:20 PM »
Sorry that last one was me, forgot to sign in.
"Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly."
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Offline opiesilver

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« Reply #145 on: February 28, 2003, 05:03:36 PM »
Oh geez, how do I say this?

SGI has been using PCI-X for almost a year.  The standard was agreed upon almost two years ago.  It provides a very high speed bus for any PCI card put in it.  Unfortunately you can probably count on two hands the products that are already on the market that support it.
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Offline Morpheus

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« Reply #146 on: February 28, 2003, 08:29:16 PM »
which basically means most of us will go through at least 1 or 2 upgrades before we start using it.
Luck is better than skill anyday! The more skill I get, the luckier I get!

Offline ZWarrior

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« Reply #147 on: March 01, 2003, 08:54:39 AM »
Pretty much the track record for ANY new standards.

  Take PCI for example.  The sockets were on the boards, LOOOOONG before we saw cards that used them.  And then there were 2 standards.  I remember having to be careful what type of card we bought, edge or level based.

  AGP?  Had sockets out there for a long time as well.  Finally video card manufacturers started producing AGP cards, but they were very expensive.
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Offline opiesilver

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« Reply #148 on: March 03, 2003, 02:41:16 PM »
Here is my latest up grade....

Antec TrueBlue 480 Watt PSU

I ordered it today and should have it in a couple of days.
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Offline opiesilver

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« Reply #149 on: March 03, 2003, 02:45:33 PM »
UMMMMM.....Gold plated connectors.......
Mediocre people are always at their best.