The FASTEST workstation possible

[Shane_Verstegen]

Having finally gained the financial backing to build a moderately high-end design station, I am weighing a few factors I'd like to open up for discussion.

I am not working with any particular budget number on this one but I'd like to say this machine will be a 3-tier system whereas an SGI system would be a four. I make that analogy to drive home this point- cost is not of ultimate concern here but each component will have cost in mind.

• Most critically I am considering the advantages of dual processor architecture over single- A dual p3 (266mhz bus) OR a single p4 (400mhz bus).
  
• I'll be using the industry standards in all areas of design- 2d bitmap: photoshop; 2d vector: illustrator, corel draw; 3d : 3dSMax, Maya; And of course InterDev, MX, and Livemotion.
  
• I'll definately be going ultra 160- though I'm not sure about RAID at this point- I don't what the performance increases would be with this kind of application.
  
• Another important variable to take into account is the dual displays I'll be running, most likely trinitron 17" CRT's, though a couple 15" lcds' wouldn't be out of the question. I havent found a dual-headed video card I absolutely love at this point, so I'm considering a ti-2000 and a secondary PCI adapter, but once again I'm not sure about the performance differences.
  
• I'd like to overclock the bus if I go the p3 route, I'm looking at data on the tolerances of pc2100, pc3200, etc.
  
• I'm also looking at data on overclocking a ti-500 and saving some coin.
  
• I'm looking for comments, reccomendations, dreams, and general discussion of the building of a true design station with this thread.
  

Have at it! -

[snuifkip.com]

hi,
have a Ti 667/1 gig ram + external screen hooked up/30 gig hd/dvd-cd/
works superfine for me using tools like Photoshop-Illustrator-Flash-Director-Premiere//all the palletes are on the ti-screen, the canvas-workarea's are on the main screen
Fast, great internal screen, 2 usb-ports (3 or 4 would have been better but hey it's a laptop)/ 1 firewire / T3 ethernet / internal 56.6 modem /IR (never useing it though)/video out /really good videocard-stuff inside / battery last 3.2 hours (although aple says it should work 5 hours) + it's the most sexy computer out there .. one minus; getting hot after a few hours / the fan sounds like a jet-engine

s.

-----------------------------------

& now i see that you are not talking about a "tiBook" but something completely different ... //

[Edited by snuifkip.com on 04-17-2002 at 03:52 AM]

[Shane_Verstegen]

tiBook -ehh?


Maybe if Apple could find a way to build the mouthwatering boxes they put out while giving you a bit more for your money. Nice box-

Interesting about your monitor division- have you (or anyone replying) experienced significant performance gains by dividing screen purposes?

[snuifkip.com]

tiBook, Titanium Powerbook ... short called TIBOOK //

hey Shane, Verstegen is a typical Belgian name, where are you from ?


s.

[Eyenovation]

Originally posted by Shane_Verstegen
tiBook -ehh?

Interesting about your monitor division- have you (or anyone replying) experienced significant performance gains by dividing screen purposes?

I have been using dual 17" monitors for over a year. I would NEVER go back to doing it any other way. Its really amazing what you can do with the two.

For instance. You can Photoshop open in one window, Illustrator open in another - You can just drag a vector image across the screens into photoshop, and wammo - rasterized. Vise versa.


Have an image in IE you want to steal? (borrow).. have it open in one window, click and hold - DRAG to photoshop. Its that simple. Drag & Drop works GOOD with 2 displays.

Take a look at my site under the 'resources' to REALLY get a feel for it.

[Quila]

Xi Computer (http://www.xicomputer.com/) is the most bang for the buck I've been able to find. This is a fast system that gets great reviews from CAD and 3D testers.

-Dual Athlon MP 2000, 1 GB DDR RAM
-nVidia Quadro 4 900XGL (fastest workstation class 3D graphics, dual head/digital out, for your 3dSMax & Maya)
-Dual 17" 1280x1024 LCD monitors
-18 GB 15,000rpm & 73 GB 10,000 Ultra 160 drives
-DVD-RW drive (writes CDs too)
-network, good sound, speakers, etc.

All for around $6,500. You can't get close to that performance from Dell at that price.


If you want more storage and want to save money, check out the Promise IDE RAID controllers. The top of the line does six IDE drives on indepenent channels with at least RAID 0, 1 and 5. RAID 5 isn't much faster than one normal hard drive, but you get the redundancy.


(edited due to rereading of post)
[Edited by Quila on 06-05-2002 at 05:34 AM]