Skybuck's Dream PC for 2006 Full Report, Posting 1

*** Skybuck's Dream PC for 2006 *** FULL REPORT *** Posting 1 ***

Hello,

I plan on writing a full report on Skybuck's Dream PC for 2006.

However it will be to big to put into one posting and it will require some time as well.

So I am just gonna post as I go along and finally I'll gather everything or so and put it on a website or maybe not, we'll see.

The first question on my mind is:

What did I buy and how much did it cost me ?

*** BEGIN OF SECTION 1 *** The component list ***:

( All prices in euro's, tax included )

LCD Monitor: Hewlett Packard L2335 (native resolution: 1920x1200, response time: 16 ms, wide screen) Price: 1029

Case: Chieftec, Bravo series, BH-01B-B-SL miditower (silver/black/stylish/modern) (6 harddisk bays, 3 cd rom bays, 1 disk drive bay) Price: 75

Power supply: Seasonic S12-600 (600 watt, power efficient, low noise) Price: 129

Motherboard: Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe (passive cooling, low noise, 64 bit ready, good connectivity) Price: 191

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Manchester 3800+ (Boxed) (dual core, power efficient, suited for running games at 1900x1200 resolution) Price: 305

Memory module1: Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR SDRAM, 1 GB, PC3200, 400 MHz (Double Side, Double Data Rate, Supported by motherboard) Price: 105

Memory module2: Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR SDRAM, 1 GB, PC3200, 400 MHz (Double Side, Double Data Rate, Supported by motherboard) Price: 105

Memory module3: Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR SDRAM, 1 GB, PC3200, 400 MHz (Double Side, Double Data Rate, Supported by motherboard) Price: 105

Memory module4: Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR SDRAM, 1 GB, PC3200, 400 MHz (Double Side, Double Data Rate, Supported by motherboard) Price: 105

Graphics card1: XFX NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX Extreme (512 MB GDDR3) (Occupies two slots (dual slot), Standard version (non overclocked, for longer life ;)) 2DVI/VI, PCI Express x16, Very powerfull ) Price: 585

Graphics card2: XFX NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX Extreme (512 MB GDDR3) (Occupies two slots (dual slot), Standard version (non overclocked, for longer life ;)) 2DVI/VI, PCI Express x16, Very powerfull ) Price: 589

Sound card: Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 (comes with nice breakout box and headphone connection, remote control etc) Price: 284

(Note: The soundblaster needs floppy drive power connector)

Network card: not needed, the motherboard has two very fast gigabit network chips on board ;) Price: -

Internal Harddisk1: Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500 GB, 7.200 rpm, 16 MB, SATA II (HDS725050KLA360) Price: 348

Internal Harddisk2: Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500 GB, 7.200 rpm, 16 MB, SATA II (HDS725050KLA360) Price: 348

Internal Harddisk3: Third sata harddisk possible (Free space in miditower available, third sata connector on motherboard available, power supply sata power connector available, extra sata cable available came with motherboard) Price: -

Internal Harddisk4: Fourth sata harddisk possible (Free space in miditower available, fourth sata connector on motherboard available, power supply sata power connector available, extra sata cable available came with motherboard) Price: -

Internal Harddisk5: Fiveth harddisk will probably need to be an IDE drive (Free space in miditower available, Free ide connector available on ide cable came with motherboard, Not sure if power cable/connector available) Price: -

Internal Harddisk6: Sixth harddisk will probably need to be an IDE drive (Free space in miditower available, Free ide connector available on ide cable came with motherboard, Not sure if power cable/connector available ) Price: -

External Harddisk7: Seventh harddisk possible via external sata connector. Price: -

Optional Harddisk8 ???: Fiveth sata connector available on motherboard not sure what it's for... it's far away will be hard to connect it seems. Price: -

Disk drive: Mitsumi Floppy Disk Drive + 7-in-1 Cardreader (Black) Price: 25

CD/DVD burner: BenQ DW-1655 16x (Dual Layer, R/W, Black, IDE) Price: 69

Keyboard: Logitech UltraX, silver. Price: 28

Mouse: Logitech® Click! Optical Mouse Price indication: 25 (Already had this mouse of old computer and kept it, so I didn't really pay for this ;), old computer uses a different mouse now)

Speakerset: Creative GigaWorks S750 Price: 369

Extra case fan1: Papst 3412/N2GLLE 92x92x25 millimeter (To blow cool air over internal harddisk 1, 3 and 5) (Very loud/noisy/windy on motherboard connector but Quiet on low voltage (5 volt) additional power supply connector) Price: 19

Extra case fan2: Papst 3412/N2GLLE 92x92x25 millimeter ( To blow cool air over internal harddisk 2, 4 and 6 ) (Very loud/noisy/windy on motherboard connector but Quiet on low voltage (5 volt) additional power supply connector) Price: 19

Extra case fan3 (optional): Papst 3412/N2GLLE 92x92x25 millimeter (??? To blow or suck air from cpu region ??? not really necessary, untested) Price: 19

Extra case fan4 (optional): Papst 3412/N2GLLE 92x92x25 millimeter (??? To blow or suck air from graphics card region ??? not really necessary, untested) Price: 19

Extra rare case fan (required/smart me thinks): Scythe SFLEX 1200 RPM

120x120x25 millimeter (pretty quiet I think but not 100% sure difficult to pin point noise, all in all quiet system.) Price: 19

(The extra rare case fan seems a smart idea to me, it sucks away hot air from cpu/memory/motherboard region and takes over the roll of the power supply fan so that the power supply fan can spindle slowly for even quiet operation.)

Additional screw set to mount extra case fan 1,2,3 and 4: Price: 5

Additional equipment:

Gigabit network cable (patch through cable suited for direct connection from pc to pc): Sharkoon RJ45 CAT .6 Gray 10 meters Price: 15

Gigabit network card (for old computer): 3COM 3C2000T GBit PCI Price: 49

10x 1.44 MB Floppy disks: Fujji Black Price: 4

*** Absolute basic system price ***:

LCD Monitor: 1029 Case: 75 Power supply: 129 Motherboard: 191 Processor: 305 Memory1: 105 Graphics card1: 585 Harddisk1: 348 Floppy Disk drive + 7-in-1 cardreader: 25 CD/DVD burner: 69 Keyboard: 28 Mouse: 25 Speakerset: 369

Absolute basic system total: 3283

*** Extra desired basic system price ***:

Memory2: 105 Memory3: 105 Memory4: 105 Harddisk2: 348 Sound card: 284 Extra case fan1: 19 Extra case fan2: 19 Extra rare case fan: 19 Screw set: 2

Extra desired basic system price: 1006

*** Extreme extra system price (I ordered two graphics card just in case one supplier couldn't deliver so I got both cards hehe ;) pretty awesome though) ***:

Graphics card2: 589 (two dual slot graphics card fit perfectly on motherboard, lot's of space between them... even room for a small pci card between them)

*** Costs ***:

Absolute basic system: 3283 Extra desired system: 3283 + 1006 = 4289 Extreme system system: 3283 + 1006 + 589 = 4878

*** Unnecessary costs ***:

Extra case fan3: 19 (handy for backup or cleaning one and replacing with new etc) Extra case fan4: 19 (handy for backup or cleaning one and replacing with new etc) Extra screw set: 3

*** Transport costs ***:

Graphics card from Pixmania(No billing information on delivery ?!?): 22.61

Graphics card from Alternate (No billing information on delivery except from transport company ?!): 14.50

Case, Screws, Floppy Disk Drive, Extra case fans, Network card, Network Cable from Alternate (Ok billing information): 14.50

CD/DVD drive from Alternate (iComputers had wrong color and removed it from order): 14.50

Keyboard from perfect systems (I was hoping for the older model but got newer model still good though, Decent billing information): 13

Speakerset from Perfect Systems: 15

Memory, Processor, Soundblaster, Harddisk, Motherboard, Power supply from iComputers (Very professional billing information ! My complements !): 14

Monitor from OBCS (No additional billing information on delivery, only transport company billing information, no billing information in e-mail have to travel to website to get it): 98

Total transport costs: 206.11

*** Total price ***

Absolute basic system: 3283 Extra desired system: 3283 + 1006 = 4289 Extreme system system: 3283 + 1006 + 589 = 4878 Transported system: 3283 + 1006 + 589 + 207 = 5085 (give or take a few pennies/bucks ;))

*** END OF SECTION 1 ***

Bye, Skybuck.

Reply to
Skybuck Flying
Loading thread data ...

I'm stil lwaiting on your so called testing you know the ones where you claim your HD will do 500 MB a second...

Reply to
Craig Sutton

I tested it.

The problem is the CPU is bottlenecking the harddisk.

At least that's my observation.

It's the random number generator... it's a pretty simple random number generator.

Still the X2 3800+ seems to only be able to generate 90 MB/sec for random numbers.

And when I test with data only randomized once it still achieves near 500 MB/sec.

I am as baffled as you or anybody else.

The specs for the harddisks are in the 300+ MB/sec range though.

So what I am seeing is not to strange or far off.

Check the specs of the harddisk... I can't remember the exact numbers but it was something like that...

In the hundreds of megabytes/sec.

Bye, Skybuck.

Reply to
Skybuck Flying

Nope

Wrong

Random number generator? umm HELLOOOOOOOOOOO I said use HDTACH

random ramblings from a twit

huh what??

I suggest you ask your dealer

Nope

You won't get near 500MB/sec

it

Nope fantasyland

Why don't you tell us all what software you actually use for benchmarking so we can all have a good laugh at your expense.

Reply to
Craig Sutton

Ok, I downloaded, installed and run HDTach I was a bit worried if it would overwrite anything but it only does read tests.

The cores are running in power saving mode... though it seems this piece of software forces the cores to run between 1800 MHz and 2000 MHz.

Here are the results of HDTach:

Quickbench 8 MB

Random Access: 12.9 ms Burst Speed: 124.5 MB/sec Average Read: 51.1 MB/sec CPU Utilization: 7.0% + - 2.0%

Longbench 16 MB

Random Access: 12.8 ms Burst Speed: 127.7 MB/sec CPU Utilizati MB = 1.000.000 bytes which is wrong ! but ok.

I only test drive D:

Drive C: is the same kind of drive though.. but not gonna risk it.

I hope this statisfies your curiosity.

I however I am still not convinced that this is the maximum performance of the drive.

The HDTach benchmark itself could be the limiting factor.

And that's all I have to say about it. Believe what you want.

Bye, Skybuck.

Reply to
Skybuck Flying

[ ...snip...]

This has nothing to do with electronics design, troll idiot.

Reply to
Fred Bloggs

You can expect 50 to 70 MB/s *sustained* for the newer 7200 rpm IDE or SATA drives (non-RAID). Actually, 50 MB/s is circa 2002 technology - borderline dark ages. A Samsung 250GB 7200 rpm SATA drive I just bought is just shy of 70 MB/s sustained on the outer tracks. Last years model was 60 MB/s. Both HDTach and an internally developed hacking tool gave the same results. Doubtful that HDTach is the limiting factor. The incredible speeds you are seeing in the specs are burst speeds which have little to do with reality if you're reading/writing large data sets. You might like my $4.00 computer speakers/amplifier that advertise they are capable of 300W.

BTW, you're missing a cooler for your CPU. The OEM fan is noisy as hell and the heatsink is made of aluminum. You need a 1 kilo slug of copper or another heat pipe to cool that CPU. Don't forget the tube of Arctic Silver. I like using a chilled-water cooled heatsink, but the damn refrigeration unit makes too much noise. Note to self, move refer unit outside.

The mobo only has one RS232 serial port. That puts a limitation on how you interface to the outside world. Alas, the demise of RS232!

I hope your fans have LEDs. Can't have a cool box without lights.

Once you get this beast, don't look at the offerings next year or you will kick yourself for buying that outdated POS today.

--
Mark
Reply to
qrk

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