My new Photoshop Machine (mwuahahah...)

[Applefanboy]

DUDE!!! That is SICK! I want one. Seriously. I need one.

 

[manaheim]

There's probably a thump screw somewhere that adjusts fan-speed and if not there's a utility hiding (or downloadable) somewhere that will allow you to set min/max speeds for certain temperatures.

I'll have to look.

Yeah, xeon processors do NOT need water cooling! It's one of the main design principals behind xeon. You can run them in an open case with no airflow and nothing but a passive heat-sync. The problem with doing something like that in a closed case is that the drives, RAM, and display adaptors overheat. Your 8800's and drives could actually benefit from water cooling...

Another thing you can do is get a realtime temperature monitoring utility and start unplugging the fans one at a time. Run a game for 10min. Check to see if everything is still good and repeat till you only have the actually affective ones plugged in.

Here's my system with passive cooling (no CPU fans), two slow exhaust fans out the back at 1321 RPM, one out the front at 1301 RPM, and the PSU fan running at 1709 RPM (So 4 total all at VERY slow speeds. These fans do 480 RPM ~ 10,000 RMP):

Oh hey... that's good information.

So then most likely if I knock it down to 1 drive (instead of the 4) and take the second 8800 out, I'll probably be fine in my Antec P180 case. I probably will pickup cooler/fans for the procs because I don't mind a LITTLE additional noise... I just don't want a freaking wind turbine in my office.

Thanks, Bi... you rock!

Unfortunately, I think I'm stuck running Vista on the stupid thing because of my need to play games. I should try XP and see how that works out though... I would really PREFER XP.

BTW for those of you screaming in horror on my removing the second 8800... I'm running just fine on an 8800 GTS 320, which is a fair notch less powerful than a single 8800 GTX 768, so it will still be a big bump for me. Taking it out cuts down power, heat and complexity. All big wins in my book. Esp. since the 8800s have been way outclassed by the current boards out there... so in 6 months I'll buy a new vidcard and have more than I had with the dual 8800 sli anyway.

DUDE!!! That is SICK! I want one. Seriously. I need one.

I would think with a name like yours that you would be picking on it.

That machine is -- 12 fans!!!!!
darn you might be able to run crisis as full spec -- without lag!
should last you at least 2 years without upgrade
have fun!

Oh yes... to give you an idea, they ran Crysis full spec on it WHILE doing DVD encoding in the background and got 65 FPS sustained. This machine is an absolute monster.

 

[Bifurcator]

Oh hey... that's good information.

So then most likely if I knock it down to 1 drive (instead of the 4) and take the second 8800 out, I'll probably be fine in my Antec P180 case. I probably will pickup cooler/fans for the procs because I don't mind a LITTLE additional noise... I just don't want a freaking wind turbine in my office.

Thanks, Bi... you rock!

hehe... turbine. I hear ya... And yup I honestly believe that even with everything in there as it is you only need one fan on each side. I have all 4 drive bays loaded, dual graphic cards, 4GB ram too, and you see the temps. A few cores are actually lower than the Ambient air temp. With one card removed that would reduce system hear allot. Personally I would leave the drives in. A RAID0 or 5 array get's between 4 and 6 times speed increase. And with PS and the OS itself cacheing so much to the HDDs that boost actually affects system performance kind of allot.

I agree about the dual display card thing maybe not being needed. Once removed you'll notice a few games not being as perky but all your photo-tools won't miss it much at all. And what does it draw at full load? 145 Watts? Kind of allot - even though the typical average is probably half that.

Also watts used directly relates into heat emitted.

Unfortunately, I think I'm stuck running Vista on the stupid thing because of my need to play games. I should try XP and see how that works out though... I would really PREFER XP.

In spite of what everyone (including me ) says about Vista I think that unless you're spending allot of time in the OS itself that the only real difference is resource consumption. XP tends to be a little lighter.

BTW for those of you screaming in horror on my removing the second 8800... I'm running just fine on an 8800 GTS 320, which is a fair notch less powerful than a single 8800 GTX 768, so it will still be a big bump for me. Taking it out cuts down power, heat and complexity. All big wins in my book. Esp. since the 8800s have been way outclassed by the current boards out there... so in 6 months I'll buy a new vidcard and have more than I had with the dual 8800 sli anyway.

Really? I haven't checked in awhile... What's the speed daemon right now?

 

[photo28]

Wow! Thats awesome, like Overread said, you wont need an upgrade for quite a while.

 

[Mike30D]

Nice machine, REAL nice machine. Some of these machines are now running upwards of $15,000.00 CPU (Computer Power User) Magazine and Maximum PC show a lot of this type of stuff. Most, if not all of these machines are built for those gamer types. The one I read about had basically a refrigeration system in it and before it booted up, it cools off the CPU to 0 degrees Fahrenheit

 

[Bifurcator]

Wow! Mine cost about $3k fully stuffed with a few DIY additions on my part. It's a media workstation though and not really a gamer box. That's funny about the mini-fridge! It's be way cool if it could keep my beer cold too!

 

[F1addict]

someday I'll build a computer like that. If I ever have the money

But for now I just need to finish upgrading the HP I bought from a friend for $100. So far I've put about $160 into it and it runs twice as fast as before. Now I just need to spend another ~$250 and it should be about where I want it for now.
But it will never come close to that beast. God I wish I had the money to get something like that

 

[manaheim]

Bi... the 280 GTX is the mac daddy now. Granted, I have 8800 Ultras in this thing... they still sell for about $500 each... so nothing to sneeze at.

Nice machine, REAL nice machine. Some of these machines are now running upwards of $15,000.00 CPU (Computer Power User) Magazine and Maximum PC show a lot of this type of stuff. Most, if not all of these machines are built for those gamer types. The one I read about had basically a refrigeration system in it and before it booted up, it cools off the CPU to 0 degrees Fahrenheit

Yeah this box specs out at about $18,500. Fricken insane.

It's especially insane because I'm annoyed at it. Stupid water cooled nonsense.

Anyone wanna buy 2 8800 Ultras? $350 a piece! (you'll need to buy a new fan, though... I don't have the original!)

 

[Garbz]

Hm, you know, that's an interesting idea. Question is how does Server 2003 handle games? If at all? This is a gaming rig, after all.

Need to install the drivers, then go into the control panel and manually enable audio and video hardware acceleration, and then install directx. That is a bit of an extra hassle but not uncommon on any windows system really.

Modern games don't seem to have a problem at all. It's the older games that break first. I had couldn't run the original half-life (not source, that ran fine), but then that game is rather dated and has it's issues on XP too.
The only game that it didn't like was the Prince of Persia installer which claimed it was not compatible with windows 2003. But using the Microsoft Application Verifier you can simply set it to lie about which system you're running and the game ran just fine once installed.

A few other nitpicks, like needing to uninstall the IE security protection, disabling the shutdown event tracker in group policy, nothing a tech savy gamer can't figure out in 30 seconds on google, but something that is still expected when doing this kind of thing.

Once it's setup it's basically windows with a sleeker kernel, no crap (although you can enable themes if you wish), and all around what I think an OS should be, and that is out of my damn way.

 

[DanPonjican]

Well you know your machine is BAD when it has to be shipped on a pallet!!!

 

[JerryPH]

The people who saw me run Windows 2003 Server laughed. Well who's laughing now.

Let me tell you what I tried, my friend... I have the 64-bit versions of win2003 (obviously have to in my line of work), and I did not try with PS but with something a little heavier, rendering 6 hours of video... the 64-bit version was about 3 minutes faster in the end, than rendering that exact same job on a properly optimized WinXP PRO using 32-bit OS and software.

Though you may be able to access more ram, in the end, the operating system of a server is not optimized to run local applications at maximum speed, but to respond to client and network requests. WinXP *is* better at running local applications better, and is limited to a maximum of 10 inbound connections (it sucks at responding to network and client requests).

I have to wonder about the differences on photoshop on a server OS. I have not tried, so sincerely cannot tell you with any level of certainty, but my real life experiences with other apps tell me in the end, its so close as to not have a real impact in the end.

If course I always leave the disclaimer open that I did not try it myself... so do not know 100%. :mrgreen:

 

[CWA_JGEISINGER]

just one thing to say

Too Bad It's Not A Mac Pro

 

[Bifurcator]

Well he can always download Hackintosh and install it if he wants to be a Mac guy.

I wanna see more pictures of his machine.

 

[fug.li]

I can't see the pictures...

P.S.: No way any windows machine could be cooler than a mac.

 

[Bifurcator]

I dunno... I own top of the line Dell workstations and also have a MacPro with 8 cores.

I think they both run about the same temperature. :lmao:


here's the image: http://www.wickedtiki.com/images/tpf/st1.jpg