Dual Opteron build finished. (Several images.)

Finally have my new workstation built, all software installed and running very well.

Here's the Tyan 2875anrf motherboard mounted on the case pan and Opterons still in their boxes:





1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR 400 PC-3200 REG ECC Corsair (TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT) memory mounted to board:



Opterons mounted on motherboard:



CPUs, memory and all cards mounted to motherboard and ready for the case:



Workstation built and ready for the operating system:



(Yes it could be prettier with newer round scsi and ide cables but I can't see spending the money on those since the old ones still work just fine.)

I used the 3 18.4gig Seagate Barracuda U2W scsi drives that were in my previous workstation. Also have an IBM Deskstar 120gig drive that I use for storage and video capture.

Front of workstation with Audigy2 Platinum breakout box and Ye-Data 7in1 floppy drive-card reader:



Used the same DVD drive and burner I had in my old system.

Rear of workstation with various ports:



Operating system on (WinXP) showing Windows Explorer and system drive configuration (Note the ramdisk which I use for all temp files):



Windows XP taskmanager. CPUs hardly notice the 36 processes running at the time this image was taken:



There is an obvious improvement when using various graphics apps including Photoshop, Nikon View and Nikon Capture. Images open much, much faster and all processing time is greatly reduced as would be expected.

Takes less than 2 seconds to open a 10mb .nef (raw) file in Capture and be ready to edit. The same goes for Photoshop where applying a filter takes but a second or two depending on the filter used.

I only have my old setup which was a dual Intel P3 500 system with 1.5 gigs of ram with which to compare the new one.

I can assure you all that I am one happy camper and am glad I chose the dual Opteron configuration over Intel for the new workstation.

If anyone has any questions I'll be happy to answer them if I can.

Best regards,

Tony B.

I see you went for the best...hey you still have two ram slots to fill.

Congrats on the new PC

Sky

Tony Boone said:

Finally have my new workstation built, all software installed and
running very well.

Here's the Tyan 2875anrf motherboard mounted on the case pan and
Opterons still in their boxes:





1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR 400 PC-3200 REG ECC Corsair
(TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT) memory mounted to board:



Opterons mounted on motherboard:



CPUs, memory and all cards mounted to motherboard and ready for the
case:



Workstation built and ready for the operating system:



(Yes it could be prettier with newer round scsi and ide cables but
I can't see spending the money on those since the old ones still
work just fine.)

I used the 3 18.4gig Seagate Barracuda U2W scsi drives that were in
my previous workstation. Also have an IBM Deskstar 120gig drive
that I use for storage and video capture.

Front of workstation with Audigy2 Platinum breakout box and Ye-Data
7in1 floppy drive-card reader:



Used the same DVD drive and burner I had in my old system.

Rear of workstation with various ports:



Operating system on (WinXP) showing Windows Explorer and system
drive configuration (Note the ramdisk which I use for all temp
files):



Windows XP taskmanager. CPUs hardly notice the 36 processes running
at the time this image was taken:



There is an obvious improvement when using various graphics apps
including Photoshop, Nikon View and Nikon Capture. Images open
much, much faster and all processing time is greatly reduced as
would be expected.

Takes less than 2 seconds to open a 10mb .nef (raw) file in Capture
and be ready to edit. The same goes for Photoshop where applying a
filter takes but a second or two depending on the filter used.

I only have my old setup which was a dual Intel P3 500 system with
1.5 gigs of ram with which to compare the new one.

I can assure you all that I am one happy camper and am glad I chose
the dual Opteron configuration over Intel for the new workstation.

If anyone has any questions I'll be happy to answer them if I can.

Best regards,

Tony B.

Click to expand...

Been pricing out parts for my new DCC system since we're starting to do a lot more video and 3d at work. Got it narrowed down to a dual board with the Opterons, but still trying to decide how beastly to go. What speed CPU's did you go with?

skydriver said:

Congrats on the new PC

Sky

Tony Boone said:

Finally have my new workstation built, all software installed and
running very well.

Here's the Tyan 2875anrf motherboard mounted on the case pan and
Opterons still in their boxes:





1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR 400 PC-3200 REG ECC Corsair
(TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT) memory mounted to board:



Opterons mounted on motherboard:



CPUs, memory and all cards mounted to motherboard and ready for the
case:



Workstation built and ready for the operating system:



(Yes it could be prettier with newer round scsi and ide cables but
I can't see spending the money on those since the old ones still
work just fine.)

I used the 3 18.4gig Seagate Barracuda U2W scsi drives that were in
my previous workstation. Also have an IBM Deskstar 120gig drive
that I use for storage and video capture.

Front of workstation with Audigy2 Platinum breakout box and Ye-Data
7in1 floppy drive-card reader:



Used the same DVD drive and burner I had in my old system.

Rear of workstation with various ports:



Operating system on (WinXP) showing Windows Explorer and system
drive configuration (Note the ramdisk which I use for all temp
files):



Windows XP taskmanager. CPUs hardly notice the 36 processes running
at the time this image was taken:



There is an obvious improvement when using various graphics apps
including Photoshop, Nikon View and Nikon Capture. Images open
much, much faster and all processing time is greatly reduced as
would be expected.

Takes less than 2 seconds to open a 10mb .nef (raw) file in Capture
and be ready to edit. The same goes for Photoshop where applying a
filter takes but a second or two depending on the filter used.

I only have my old setup which was a dual Intel P3 500 system with
1.5 gigs of ram with which to compare the new one.

I can assure you all that I am one happy camper and am glad I chose
the dual Opteron configuration over Intel for the new workstation.

If anyone has any questions I'll be happy to answer them if I can.

Best regards,

Tony B.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

JohnW@VDS said:

Been pricing out parts for my new DCC system since we're starting
to do a lot more video and 3d at work. Got it narrowed down to a
dual board with the Opterons, but still trying to decide how
beastly to go. What speed CPU's did you go with?

Click to expand...

These are the Opteron 240s John. I wasn't really prepared to upgrade when I did so I went with the less expensive smp Opterons. They were $191 a piece which isn't bad considering my previous dual P3 500s were about $325 - $350 when I bought those.

The 240s in a dual system are very fast. At least mine are.

These articles may help you decide which cpu to go with. Be sure you follow it to the end as there are some database tests with results that will surprise you. The articles are about a year old and there is certainly newer information out there but they compare the Opterons with the Xeons.

This page should be of real interest. Processor speed means nothing these days. Run any dual Opteron system configured correctly and I believe you'll have a system that you'll be very, very happy with.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1816&p=7

("Not only will the Opteron offer higher performance immediately, it will provide for longer hardware lifetimes courtesy of its ability to handle more load than the Xeon.")

Desktop Performance:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1818

Enterprise Performance:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1816

Intro to K8\Opteron Architechture:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1815

Tony B.

skydriver said:

I see you went for the best...hey you still have two ram slots to
fill.

Congrats on the new PC

Sky

Click to expand...

Got what I could afford. Not top of the line but it is a very fast system.

Thanks again,

Tony B.

So you upgraded to this new computer but you have very little storage space?

Your biggest hard drive is 115gb and it is full. What is with all the 16gb drives. That is pretty much a waste. For us 16gb will hold about two wedding shoots and then it would be full.

You need to increase your hard drive space.

Other than that, you made a good choice.

Zack

Tony Boone said:

Finally have my new workstation built, all software installed and
running very well.

Here's the Tyan 2875anrf motherboard mounted on the case pan and
Opterons still in their boxes:





1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR 400 PC-3200 REG ECC Corsair
(TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT) memory mounted to board:



Opterons mounted on motherboard:



CPUs, memory and all cards mounted to motherboard and ready for the
case:



Workstation built and ready for the operating system:



(Yes it could be prettier with newer round scsi and ide cables but
I can't see spending the money on those since the old ones still
work just fine.)

I used the 3 18.4gig Seagate Barracuda U2W scsi drives that were in
my previous workstation. Also have an IBM Deskstar 120gig drive
that I use for storage and video capture.

Front of workstation with Audigy2 Platinum breakout box and Ye-Data
7in1 floppy drive-card reader:



Used the same DVD drive and burner I had in my old system.

Rear of workstation with various ports:



Operating system on (WinXP) showing Windows Explorer and system
drive configuration (Note the ramdisk which I use for all temp
files):



Windows XP taskmanager. CPUs hardly notice the 36 processes running
at the time this image was taken:



There is an obvious improvement when using various graphics apps
including Photoshop, Nikon View and Nikon Capture. Images open
much, much faster and all processing time is greatly reduced as
would be expected.

Takes less than 2 seconds to open a 10mb .nef (raw) file in Capture
and be ready to edit. The same goes for Photoshop where applying a
filter takes but a second or two depending on the filter used.

I only have my old setup which was a dual Intel P3 500 system with
1.5 gigs of ram with which to compare the new one.

I can assure you all that I am one happy camper and am glad I chose
the dual Opteron configuration over Intel for the new workstation.

If anyone has any questions I'll be happy to answer them if I can.

Best regards,

Tony B.

Click to expand...

--
'The only good picture is the one you just deleted!'
Doh!
--------------------------------------------------
http://www.robynartonline.com

Congrats on the nice looking system!

Makes me want one even worse now!

Does the RAMdisk driver ship w/ WinXP?

mike

Tony,

Thanks a ton for the info! That will definitely make it a bit easier to decide! I'm tossing around the 146's right now since I really wanted at least twin 2.0's, but nothing definite yet. Thanks again for the head's up, and I'll post the progress when the time comes!

Tony Boone said:

JohnW@VDS said:

Been pricing out parts for my new DCC system since we're starting
to do a lot more video and 3d at work. Got it narrowed down to a
dual board with the Opterons, but still trying to decide how
beastly to go. What speed CPU's did you go with?

Click to expand...

These are the Opteron 240s John. I wasn't really prepared to
upgrade when I did so I went with the less expensive smp Opterons.
They were $191 a piece which isn't bad considering my previous dual
P3 500s were about $325 - $350 when I bought those.

The 240s in a dual system are very fast. At least mine are.

These articles may help you decide which cpu to go with. Be sure
you follow it to the end as there are some database tests with
results that will surprise you. The articles are about a year old
and there is certainly newer information out there but they compare
the Opterons with the Xeons.

This page should be of real interest. Processor speed means nothing
these days. Run any dual Opteron system configured correctly and I
believe you'll have a system that you'll be very, very happy with.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1816&p=7
("Not only will the Opteron offer higher performance immediately,
it will provide for longer hardware lifetimes courtesy of its
ability to handle more load than the Xeon.")

Desktop Performance:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1818

Enterprise Performance:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1816

Intro to K8\Opteron Architechture:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1815

Tony B.

Click to expand...

BSPhoto said:

So you upgraded to this new computer but you have very little
storage space?
Your biggest hard drive is 115gb and it is full. What is with all
the 16gb drives. That is pretty much a waste. For us 16gb will hold
about two wedding shoots and then it would be full.

You need to increase your hard drive space.

Other than that, you made a good choice.

Zack

Click to expand...

Maybe you didn't see the DVD burner I have? I bought my 3 u2w scsi drives about 4 years ago when the large drives weren't as plentiful or as inexpensive as they are today.

I also set up my system a little different than most. The operating system goes on the first scsi drive, the program files on the second and the pagefile on the third. I also use the third drive for storage.

In addition to these I setup a Ramdisk that I use for all temp files as well as all internet temporary files, etc. which speeds up all tasks.

The larger drive is for video and storage only. Before my old motherboard died it was time to archive to DVD which is what I'm doing now.

When I go out on a shoot I have a 20 gig Super Digibin with me and burn those images to DVD upon my return. (I also have an Archos Jukebox Recorder 20gig mp3 player if needed) I don't take any chances of loosing them in the event of a system failure by keeping them on a hard drive for any length of time.

In any event I have plenty of space on my system and can do anything that could possibly be imagined.

I have an idea that you'd trade your system for mine if you had the chance.

Best regards,

Tony
[email protected]

alphax86 said:

Congrats on the nice looking system!
Makes me want one even worse now!
Does the RAMdisk driver ship w/ WinXP?
mike

Click to expand...

Thanks Mike.

Here's a link for the ramdisk software:
http://www.superspeed.com/ramdisk.html

Tony B.
[email protected]

I wrote to you once before trying to find out info on your system. I am glad that you got it finished and wish I had something similar.

Now for the Nosey Questions:

How much time did it take to put it all together?

Excluding hard drives, Operating System and the time involved, what did it cost to buy all the components?
How difficult was the putting it all together.
Is there anything that you did that you would have done differently?
Who did you purchase your components from?

Thanks for any info you would be willing to share.

Jack

Jack Teague said:

I wrote to you once before trying to find out info on your system.
I am glad that you got it finished and wish I had something similar.

Click to expand...

Could not be happier with it Jack.

Jack Teague said:

Now for the Nosey Questions:

How much time did it take to put it all together?

Click to expand...

The actual build only took a couple of hours and that's because I was watching television in the background. (I've built many systems before this one. Mostly multi processor based.)

Jack Teague said:

Excluding hard drives, Operating System and the time involved, what
did it cost to buy all the components?

Click to expand...

Excluding shipping the here is the breakdown:

2 AMD Opteron 240 cpus $382.00 ($191 each)

1 Tyan 2875anrf dual Opteron motherboard $236.00

1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR 400 PC-3200 REG ECC Corsair (TwinX1024RE-3200LLPT) memory $315

1 Adaptec dual channel u2w pci scsi card $118

(My old motherboard had this same adapter onboard but a similar board would cost over $500. My old Tyan s1837uang was $525. I will never spend that much on a mother board again just to see it die.)

All other parts I already had.

Jack Teague said:

How difficult was the putting it all together.

Click to expand...

Not difficult at all but I've built many multi processor systems before so you'll need to take that into account. My first multi processor build was in 1997 for an artist who subsequently became a friend. He's still running his dual P3 system although he upgraded from P3 500s to P3 800s a couple of years ago.

If you've never done this before the problem area will come when you go to install the operating system. Not because it's difficult but because there are many things you need to do and decisions you'll have to make before installing the os.

For example there are the bios settings which are pretty straight forward. You'll also need to do a clean format of the system drive before you install the os. If you've never done this before then you'll need to research the process to do it correctly.

If you have more than one drive you'll need to decide their role in your system as well as configuring them in the bios and if running WinXP in the computer management area of the administrative tools.

I only use scsi drives. Serial ATA drives aren't there yet and can't carry the amount of data a scsi bus can.

Jack Teague said:

Is there anything that you did that you would have done differently?

Click to expand...

Well I would not have upgraded if my old motherboard hadn't died. However, I am extremely happy with the increased performance of the new build.

Don't know of anything I'd do different. Systems is running flawlessly.

Jack Teague said:

Who did you purchase your components from?

Click to expand...

Check out http://www.pricewatch.com for vendors that carry the parts you're looking for. Also check out the feedback that their previous customers have given them as far as customer service goes.

tigerdirect.com is one possible vendor I'd look at although I didn't buy my parts from them.

Jack Teague said:

Thanks for any info you would be willing to share.

Click to expand...

No proprietary secrets here as I don't build systems for a living but build them on the side if I have time and can make enough to cover my time and energy. Many things can go wrong when building including parts that may be defective but brand new and then you have to troubleshoot the problem and find out which part is causing the problem. That can be time consuming.

Hope this helps Jack.

Tony B.
[email protected]

It sounds a little daunting. I could Probably do it (as long as I don't get a defective part if that happened I probably would not know how to determine which part was bad. My cousin said that he would help me and he has built several systems. Are defective parts fairly common?

How much room do you have to expand with your system? Did you use your old tower and power supply? Is that tower a full sized or Midi? I probably would have to use my ATA drives for a while, if I decide to do it.

Jack

Jack Teague said:

It sounds a little daunting. I could Probably do it (as long as I
don't get a defective part if that happened I probably would not
know how to determine which part was bad. My cousin said that he
would help me and he has built several systems. Are defective
parts fairly common?

Click to expand...

It happens but not often. Just something to keep in mind.

Jack Teague said:

How much room do you have to expand with your system?

Click to expand...

I can add several drives if that's what you mean but I don't know of any thing else I need to add at the moment. Not much I can't do with what I have.

Jack Teague said:

Did you use your old tower and power supply? Is that tower a full sized > or Midi?

Click to expand...

I used my old tower case but had to buy a new power supply due to the difference in form factor of the motherboard. This mobo is an ATX12v which has an additional 4 pin molex connector and uses a standard hard drive power connector on the board in addition to the 20 pin atx connector.

This particular power supply is an Antec 550watt True Power. Should be ample for all of the hardware inside the case.

Jack Teague said:

I probably would have to use my ATA drives for a while, if I
decide to do it.

Click to expand...

As long as you're not running high volume web servers I would think that serial ata drives will serve your purposes.

Tony

Since I do not have time to do the build myself, I ordered simnilar system from MOnarch computers. They can do a heavily customized build - and they will check for any mistakes (like ordering SATA drives with SCSI controller...).

I bought few machines from them over years. This one is a dualie opteron with Parhelia for display and raptors for storage.

Kleks

Thanks for the post, Tony. I'm interested in an upgrade and the dual CPU angle intrigues me.

I'd love to build a similar system but am a bit gunshy from an experience two years ago where, after trying to build a system from scratch and it would not work. After sending components back and forth from the company's I bought from, I ended up shipping everything back and buying a configured system online.

You wouldn't have a step by step on how you put all the components together? Or a site that gives fairly detailed instructions?

I've got moderate experience swapping components but not building an entire system from scratch.

Aside from the dual Opteron, I'd like a SATA RAID setup. Trying to build this sort of system is a little daunting considering my past experience.

• Tom

kleks said:

Since I do not have time to do the build myself, I ordered simnilar
system from MOnarch computers. They can do a heavily customized
build - and they will check for any mistakes (like ordering SATA
drives with SCSI controller...).

I bought few machines from them over years. This one is a dualie
opteron with Parhelia for display and raptors for storage.

Kleks

Click to expand...

In case you didn't know a scsi controller is for scsi drives. You won't need a scsi controller unless you're running scsi drives. Serial ATA drives have their own onboard controller that is embedded on currently manufactured motherboards including the Tyan 2875anrf that I'm using although I have those resources disable as I'm running scsi drives only.

I ordered my parts from Monarch Computers myself because of their customer feedback and the fact that they are in Tucker, Georgia just outside of Atlanta near Stone Mountain, Georgia where I grew up. If I have any trouble I know where they're located and I frequent Atlanta at least once a month.

I didn't say where I purchased the parts as I had some trouble with Monarch delivering them when they said they would. Monarch finally sent them to me after I told them to cancel my order. The parts arrived about two weeks after I ordered them. They misrepresented the parts they had in stock and lied to me at least twice about when I would recieve my parts. And on top of all of that they charged my credit card the day after I ordered the parts. If I were cynical I'd say they were using my money to collect interest while holding the parts back.

Anyway I did finally get the parts and they all work as I expect them to. Not sure I'll do business with Monarch again though.

Monarch Computers had good feedback from their previous customers which is why I ordered from them to begin with. After I got angry with the way they were treating me they came around and were helpful explaining that my situation was not the norm for customer orders. Joe F. requested that I contact him personally for any future orders and assured me that I would recieve the service they're known for regarding any future orders.

That said I would feel confident in relying on Monarch's service department in setting up your system for you and its' being properly configured for use upon its' delivery to you.

Without a doubt you're going to love the dual Opterons. Especially with the Raptor drives.

Image and video editing is a dream and a pleasure for me now and not the chore it was with my dual P3 500s and 1.5 gig of memory. I use to think I had it good with dual P3 500s. But I see now I was waisting a lot of time as compared to the dual Opterons. Of course an improvement in performance between the two systems is a given. I wouldn't expect anything else.

I may post some tweaks that anyone can use to really squeeze every last bit of performance from just about any machine they own. There are simple registry tweaks that can be modified and should be modified to ensure the systems registry knows and takes advantage of the systems' hardware.

One such tweak is to set the registry so it knows the exact amount L2 cache on each processor. On the Opteron cpu it's 1mb. The Windows XP registry doesn't automatically recognize or set these parameters and must be set manually.

When I have time I'll post some of the more notable system tweaks that will benefit anyone with a windows machine.

I'd like to hear your opinions on your new system(s) when you get it.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]

Tom Walat said:

Thanks for the post, Tony. I'm interested in an upgrade and the
dual CPU angle intrigues me.
I'd love to build a similar system but am a bit gunshy from an
experience two years ago where, after trying to build a system from
scratch and it would not work. After sending components back and
forth from the company's I bought from, I ended up shipping
everything back and buying a configured system online.
You wouldn't have a step by step on how you put all the components
together? Or a site that gives fairly detailed instructions?
I've got moderate experience swapping components but not building
an entire system from scratch.
Aside from the dual Opteron, I'd like a SATA RAID setup. Trying to
build this sort of system is a little daunting considering my past
experience.

• Tom

Click to expand...

I can understand your reluctance to want to get mired in another such experience.

I only purchased one prebuilt computer and that was a Packard Bell Pentium 60 system back in '93 or '94. I took it apart both hardware and software wise and learned everything I could about computers. Had a lot of time on my hands which most people don't have of which I took advantage in learning everything I could about computers and their configuration.

I determined that I would not be dependent upon anyone or any company when it came to computers, both hardware or software. That's the way I am generally speaking. I'f I can do it myself I prefer to.

As I said in another post the process of putting the cpu, memory and cards on the motherboard is pretty straightforward. It's the pre-operating system configuration that is tricky if you've never done that before but it's not that difficult to learn. Plenty of websites dedicated to building your own computer system.

Determine what you are going to use the computer for and purchase your parts based on that use. Then configure it accordingly.

Do you live anywhere on the Gulf Coast by chance? If so I'll help you build one for a nominal fee and guarantee my work.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]

Tony Boone said:

Tom Walat said:

Thanks for the post, Tony. I'm interested in an upgrade and the
dual CPU angle intrigues me.
I'd love to build a similar system but am a bit gunshy from an
experience two years ago where, after trying to build a system from
scratch and it would not work. After sending components back and
forth from the company's I bought from, I ended up shipping
everything back and buying a configured system online.
You wouldn't have a step by step on how you put all the components
together? Or a site that gives fairly detailed instructions?
I've got moderate experience swapping components but not building
an entire system from scratch.
Aside from the dual Opteron, I'd like a SATA RAID setup. Trying to
build this sort of system is a little daunting considering my past
experience.

• Tom

Click to expand...

I can understand your reluctance to want to get mired in another
such experience.

I only purchased one prebuilt computer and that was a Packard Bell
Pentium 60 system back in '93 or '94. I took it apart both hardware
and software wise and learned everything I could about computers.
Had a lot of time on my hands which most people don't have of which
I took advantage in learning everything I could about computers and
their configuration.

I determined that I would not be dependent upon anyone or any
company when it came to computers, both hardware or software.
That's the way I am generally speaking. I'f I can do it myself I
prefer to.

As I said in another post the process of putting the cpu, memory
and cards on the motherboard is pretty straightforward. It's the
pre-operating system configuration that is tricky if you've never
done that before but it's not that difficult to learn. Plenty of
websites dedicated to building your own computer system.

Determine what you are going to use the computer for and purchase
your parts based on that use. Then configure it accordingly.

Do you live anywhere on the Gulf Coast by chance? If so I'll help
you build one for a nominal fee and guarantee my work.

Best regards,

Tony B.
[email protected]

Click to expand...

--
Peter Cartier

Build one from scratch, what would the list of componets be? used for Photography only no video. I am looking into getting the componets to build one. I would wnat it to be able to handle at least 2gig ram.
any help would be great, threading uncharted waters
Peter