UPDATED BENCHMARK (ITS FASTER I PROMISE)

[Syclone1]

I have most of the prices here, its in Canadian $ though. I buy alot from a local retailer www.memoryexpress.com I get excelent service from these guys and alot of the guys behind the counter are modders/enthusists/overclockers...

Any way:

Opteron 270 S40 Italy CPU about $550 (x2 $1100)
Tyan Thunder K8WE SLI mobo $619
WD HD 250gig 18mb cache $99.95 (x2 $199.90)
1gb kingston ecc reg ram $159.95 (x4 $639.80)
Enermax Liberty 620w PSU $184.95
Thermaltake Eureka case $189.95 (cheepest EATX case I could find but freaking huge)
evga 7300 gs $84.95 (just a slave going for cheep )


got a couple extra 120mm fans and a killer new home theater case that Im glad my Co paid for :P you can see one here from silverstone, it has a 7" touch screen LCD in it and supports higher resolutions than my 19" LCD's.

-dave

[gadzooks]

Is this file still avaliable to download? I would like to do a benchmark on my machine. Thanks Gadzooks

[visualride]

Very nice render times Syclone1, and Jason Jacobs. I'm ordering a similar setup next week, but with 2 dual core 275's instead of the 270's. What did you see as the advantage for the 270's over to 275's? In this case, is bigger not better (cpu number)? Is price the only issue? My company is having a good year, and I'm able to talk them into alot at the moment .

[Syclone1]

well if your company is paying for it then take it as far as you can and get the fastest stuff they will put up with

-dave

[visualride]

Oky doke Syclone. I'll be posting some fast results (fingers crossed) hopefully by next week.

[Syclone1]

Oky doke Syclone. I'll be posting some fast results (fingers crossed) hopefully by next week.

Just dont get too greedy, it can come around and bite you in the a$$.

-dave

[leotchest]

I recently bought an MSI K8N Master 2FAR (couldnt find one in Canada so I picked one up in UK), with 2GB of cheap ram + two Opteron 265's. Straight out the box with no overclocking and no modification of the scene, with Max 8 & Vray 1.47.03 - I got a time of 3min 45sec. CPU's are showing in the vray stamp as 1793Mhz. This is with a fresh install of Windows XP (not the 64 version).
If you really want to overclock though, I read (in CustomPC magazine) that DFI are the boards that you should choose. Incidentally, theres a really good article in the July edition which compares two identical spec pc's (same Mhz, same amount of Ram, same size HD, etc etc) - except one is with expensive components and the other is with cheap components (both have the same cpu). Both machines perform pretty similar until you start overclocking. The high end components, not surprisingly, are able to massively boost the pc's performance (40%) but the low end pc cant really handle the overclocking. However, as the high-end version is double the cost, personally I think i'd just buy two of the cheapo models and not bother with the overclocking.
The K8N comes with a little utility with which I then inceased the FSB from 200 to 220. It then rendered the scene in 3m 25sec. About 1 or 2 degrees increase in cpu temperatures.
Aaaaaaahhhhhh. I'm done. I can get back to my life now...

[Syclone1]

as a general rule, my working computers are never overclocked as I usually cant afford the down time if something craps out.

-dave

[Adam H. Stewart]

Brand names and stability

I didn't know where else to put this post - I didn't want to start a new Workstation thread - maybe by putting it here I will get the info I need from tweakers and render monkies. I am ( I suppose like everybody else ) in the market for a new dual, dual core machine. I am going with AMD most likely, but am debating which brand. I have been looking at

Boxxtech - I already have one at work - stable, solid, expensive
Xi computers - based on one other post here which recommended them
Dell - I know they build good systems but still Intel only
Bell - Local LA brand recommended by a fellow 3D artist.

For the specs I am looking at there might be at most a $1,000 difference between the various brands.
It seems like alot of people who have posted here have built their own machines - how important is brand name to stability ? What brand is you workstation ?

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this most confusing subject.

[Da_elf]

well i went with boxx when i wanted a solid work station

[bluescreen2]

link to the test file is broken. anyone got a non-broken link? thx

[biglolly]

Is the benchmark no longer online? The link on page one is bad...

[ShaunDon]

Oooh, yes, can someone repost the file? I was gonna test out our new dual Op275s!

[lukx]

Okey! Who's gonna be first to test this scene on the new Inter Core 2 (Conroe) ? Can't wait to see results.

[Adam H. Stewart]

Looking for test file

Looking for test file - I have a new Dual Core AMD Opteron 280 to test - work computer -I will probably have a new intel rig at home by the middle of August - that will indeed be fun