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Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Sep 30 2008, 09:07 PM

In this day and age what with Video Editing, Music Production and design and rendering of 3D video constructs for various reasons, it doens't hurt to have a fast machine. I have been limping along with a 1 CPU Athlon 4000 for a while now. Finally I have cracked, and I am building a new beast of a machine

Here is the spec:

2 x 4 Core Xeon 2.33 Processor (yep, 8 cores, count 'em!)
Tyan Dual Intel 5100 MB
Nvidia Quadro FX570 Graphics Card (not the fastest but supposedly decent for video editing)
4Gb DDR 5300 RAM (Single stick I have 7 further slots ofr expansion)
2 x 320Gb Raid 0 System Disk (Total 640Gb)
2 x 750Gb Raid 0 Data Disk (Total 1.5TB)
Cheap LightScribe DVD burner
Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit (We'll see how well 64 bit works out ...)

I'm hoping this will be a touch faster than my old PC ...

First bits just arrived, should have it built by the weekend!

Posted by: jer Sep 30 2008, 09:12 PM

8 cores.....

Good lord.

Your room is gonna be like 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the house.

Congrats!!!!!

Keep a copy of XP handy.

Posted by: Canis Sep 30 2008, 09:12 PM

It's the beginning of Skynet....

Good luck with it ^^
May I ask how much it costs?

Posted by: jer Sep 30 2008, 09:13 PM

Let us know when it becomes "self aware".

Posted by: Fran Sep 30 2008, 09:15 PM

OMG Andrew are you planning on sending a rocket to mars!!

That's an impressive rig mate, you didn't mention the soundcard though, you might as well throw in a nice one to record guitar straight into the card without latency or USB interfaces.

Congrats on your new "monster"

Posted by: Kuba Szafran Sep 30 2008, 09:29 PM

OMG, I wish I had such a monster ;D!

Posted by: coffeeman Sep 30 2008, 09:30 PM

congratulations on your new monster Andrew!

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Sep 30 2008, 09:33 PM

I already have an EMU1212m PCI soundcard - I'll just shift it over form my old PC

@Canis - in total the parts cost me around $2300 - I had to rein it in at that point and made do with only 4Gb of Ram and no BD burner, also coming down from 3.0G to 2.33G on the processors saved me well over a grand ...

Posted by: jer Sep 30 2008, 09:35 PM

I LOVE my 1212m.

Nice choice!

Posted by: DeepRoots Sep 30 2008, 09:41 PM

Impressive

Im about to upgrade my computer too won't be as fast as yours- I'll only be on 4 cores (phh loser)

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Sep 30 2008, 09:43 PM

*Patronizing tone of voice *

There there, Jord, I'm sure it will be quite fast ...

Mine on the other hand will render GMC lessons so fast that it will go back in time and implode the Space Time continuum! Mwaaahaaahaaa!

Posted by: MickeM Sep 30 2008, 09:43 PM

I bid you luck Dr Frankenstein

Posted by: mattacuk Sep 30 2008, 09:51 PM

Its not the size of your Cores, its how you use them........


In my case 4 cores just for browsing websites

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Sep 30 2008, 09:55 PM

OMG Andrew , 8 cores !! Please make sure you don't make a nuclear disaster

That's a monster really , should work very well once you build it !

Posted by: jer Sep 30 2008, 10:00 PM

Will our slower computers be able to play your lessons still?

Posted by: Smells Sep 30 2008, 10:03 PM

*no green eyed smiley*

Sounds cool, I want one!!

I cannot convince my wife to allow any upgrade on PC at the mo, so will have to make do with the 2.3 mice o hertz dual applecores, shoebox case, and abacus basically a small advancment on the "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine"

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Sep 30 2008, 10:25 PM

Just a "touch" faster Andrew.

No don't give us those excuses with you old machine being to old etc, we all know that you are actually buying 8 core machine so you can make the tea directly on the case, without having to go to the kitchen. Admit!










Kidding aside, that is one heavy piece of machinery. I'm very interested to see how you gonna do the isolation and cooling.

Posted by: audiopaal Sep 30 2008, 10:31 PM

Holy moly, now that's a machine
Congratulations

Posted by: Toroso Sep 30 2008, 10:39 PM

Save a little money for some oven mitts!

Posted by: g-forcelover Sep 30 2008, 10:43 PM

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! vista sucks. no amout of software, recording software, or printer will work on vista!!!!!! get something else. but other than that, sweet!

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Sep 30 2008, 11:30 PM

Heh, I am a little worried about the cooling guys - I have a couple of huge CPU coolers, but I am prepared to go to water cooling if I have to - thing is this PC needs to work in a hottish room as you will have seen from my studio blog, so I am half expectng overheating and stability issues ...

I'm going to try very hard to make Vista work - you don't know until you try! I can always fall back to XP if absolutely necessary though ....

Posted by: g-forcelover Sep 30 2008, 11:41 PM

all right, just I bought so much recording stuff, and it wouldn't work on Vista, and that mad me have to quit 2 colabs.

Posted by: skennington Sep 30 2008, 11:52 PM

Nice Andrew. I admire you for taking on the build up yourself. Just upgraded myself to an XPS 420 with Intel Core 2 Q6600, a 2.4GHz quad-core, 4g of ram. With the ATI Radeon HD 2400 graphics card, the 3d images are amazing.

I would keep that chasis as open as possible with all you got in there.

Posted by: Emir Hot Oct 1 2008, 12:04 AM

good luck with your machine. Sounds like a powerful beast that can serve you for a long time.

Posted by: THE BUZZARD Oct 1 2008, 12:17 AM

hi,andrew..sounds like an awesome pc your building, i,ve had vista home premium for over a year and had absolutely no problems with it !!! so good luck on the monster !!!!!

Posted by: Pedja Simovic Oct 1 2008, 12:37 AM

Andrew this machine will be amazing!

I am thinking of upgrading my computer or just buying a new one very soon.
Please let me know how yours will do with video and audio editing at the same time. A lot of people suggest avoiding Vista but don't take my word for it I never tried it

Posted by: fatb0t Oct 1 2008, 01:05 AM

I PROMISE you will hate Vista. I had the 64 bit Ultimate version I tried and I tried. It was unreliable, un supported, and a disaster. I highly suggest you steer away from it...

Posted by: bmh1109 Oct 1 2008, 01:26 AM

Ive been running vista...32bit and 64bit on different machines, and with their more recent updates like service pack 1 I have had 0 issues. Don't hate on vista to much, it definitely has some good things going for it. I personally have never had any issue with recording DAW's or driver support for ASIO or anything like that, and I've used quite a few different DAW's trying to figure out which i like best.

And may I ask why the 8 core machine Andrew? My quad and render out a very layered project song in under a minute. I also do video editing and have rendered a highly compressed 30min. long video that i made in about 35-40min. which is pretty good considering the format I was using. Just seems like a kinda overkill processor setup. I am however highly jealous of your dual Raid setup

Posted by: inertia Oct 1 2008, 02:18 AM

Hey Andrew, sounds like a great system. My only two concerns would be 1) vista compatibility with software you want to use 2) mainly 64 bit compatibility with software you want to use, 64 bit has not garnered the support that one would expect leaving many early adopters in a bind. My main suggestion would be determine which music software/video software/ and other apps/games you want to use in advance and check system requirements to ensure that they 64 bit patches or versions

Posted by: bamba23 Oct 1 2008, 11:03 AM

W0W
my comptuer maybe the worst here.
1 core,900 RAM veryy veryyy old graphic card
i hope that machine wont eat u

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 1 2008, 11:09 AM

I think our computers will set alight with the power of his lessons and destroy all our computer kit Means he gets the ultimate fast connection to the net and GMC as less traffic

The 64 bit version is the correct choice. In the next 4 years 32 bit will be phased out slowly. 64 bit is getting more support every day.

Posted by: Duncan Oct 1 2008, 11:23 AM

Massive overkill. But hey, if you have the money!

Posted by: Marcus Lavendell Oct 1 2008, 11:26 AM

Congrats on the new computer Andrew

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Oct 1 2008, 11:26 AM

Since you will be working in hot environment , I would suggest maybe looking into water cooling thing.Its both cool and very efficient

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 1 2008, 11:29 AM

There really isn't anything wrong with Vista. I'm skipping Vista out however and getting the released next year Windows 7 OS which should be a lot better.

As for cooling you have a huge PC and you really need cooling on a massive level. Water Cooling I'd definitely go with.

Posted by: Duncan Oct 1 2008, 11:31 AM

Water Cooling is a necessity. Also how big is the PSU?

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 1 2008, 02:02 PM

This is exactly why I am trying Vista for myself - 2 people, 2 opposite opinions! I'll just have to see how it works out for my personal usage ...

64 bit is the way to go for the future - I still might be a little ahead of the curve, but time will tell. And I still have the option of running a 32 bit OS if I really have issues.



I'm sick to deat of waiting for my PC to do stuff, so I went from the sublime to the ridiculous of course (its a character flaw I know ...).

I'm pleased to hear that a Quad core would have been great for the stuff I want to do, so now I have 2 x great Also, I do a lot of 3d rendering which is even more demanding than Video & Music - I currently render 10 second video clips (not even complex ones) overnight - takes about 12 hours. I should be able to get that down to a couple of hours which would be an improvement but still nowhere near instant!




650W - hopefully that will handle it, but if not, a PSU upgrade is cheap enough. I'll wait and see with the water, but I will start pricing options up! Any recommendations from anyone on that? I have never used WC before ...

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 1 2008, 02:23 PM

You have never used a toilet before You must have a bladder of steel lol

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 1 2008, 03:40 PM

Posted by: Vinod Saranga Oct 1 2008, 04:06 PM

Congratz on your new Machine Andrew.


I've also recently build a new PC.

2.4 intel Quad core

Intel G35 board

4Gb Ram

Lcd 17"

I also installed Vista 64 bit.Runs very fast.

But I prefer to work in XP. 

Posted by: kaznie_NL Oct 1 2008, 04:14 PM

Thats just not true, for me everything work(ed) just fine!!

Man, 8 cores.. I believe that's quit a lot

Posted by: Duncan Oct 1 2008, 04:50 PM

I've just bought this for just under £700:

AMD Phenom 9950 AM2+
4GB Ram
500GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1GB
Microsoft® Windows Vista Home 64-bit
650W Thermaltake Toughpower
3 Year Bronze Warranty

@ Andrew: I would serious suggest upgrading that PSU to maybe a 1000W. Otherwise you might find your system slightly unstable. I could be wrong, but if you're spending that much what is an extra £50 to upgrade the PSU?

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 1 2008, 05:03 PM

Yah, you might be right - I'll see how it goes! I based it on a music PC spec I found on the web and forgot to up it when I added a couple of drives. I have the PSU already though so I'll give it a go and get a better one if necessary - thanks for the advice!

Posted by: bmh1109 Oct 2 2008, 06:21 AM

check this out to workout what your power requirements should be close to... obviously not 100% accurate, but great for a ballpark figure....

http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

Posted by: Nemanja Filipovic Oct 2 2008, 07:04 AM

Wow,congrats man.Specifications look amazing.

Posted by: javari Oct 2 2008, 07:27 AM

Just buy a MacPro, 8 cores... standard.
And if you really want (can't imagine why), you can even run Windows on it

Mac OS has Core audio built in, which I think is better than audiosupport in Windows.

Posted by: Muris Varajic Oct 2 2008, 08:39 AM

Will you be able to play Max Payne on it?

Killer specs Andrew,have fun with the monster!

Posted by: Vinod Saranga Oct 2 2008, 08:46 AM

Does this old guy play games? 

Posted by: Muris Varajic Oct 2 2008, 08:49 AM

Who,Andrew or me?

Cause I do.

Posted by: Vinod Saranga Oct 2 2008, 08:57 AM

Andrew 

You are not that older 

Posted by: Muris Varajic Oct 2 2008, 09:00 AM

Says who?

Sorry for spamming your topic Andrew,we'll stop now.

Posted by: Vinod Saranga Oct 2 2008, 09:02 AM

Vinod < Muris < Andrew

This is the order of age. 

Posted by: mattacuk Oct 2 2008, 10:00 AM

Andrew is my hero. He plays guitar, writes Pearl scripts, and now he has an 8 core monster PC !! Just awsome

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 2 2008, 10:25 AM

Where did you buy the parts for this PC?

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 2 2008, 01:37 PM

You're as old as you feel! Last game I beat was Assasins Creed on the PS3



And Matt is my hero for broadly similar reasons - he just needs to keep his mind more on shark fishing than the boring kind ...



newegg.com



Great site thanks! It tells me I need 363 watts so I guess I am good

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 2 2008, 01:38 PM

They don't deliver to the UK

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 2 2008, 02:07 PM

its OK, I don't live in the UK anymore

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 2 2008, 02:18 PM

Things are so much cheaper in America. Your PC would cost double what you are paying here.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 2 2008, 02:29 PM

Yeah, its a big part of why I moved over here - everything is cheaper (although prices are rising at the moment) and taxes are lower.

I took a pay cut in absolute financial terms but more than made up for it because of those 2 facts, so in quality of life terms I got a decent pay rise

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 2 2008, 02:32 PM

I could cry lol. I'm moving to Japan which is better for prices on some things and worse on others. Maybe I should think about this

Posted by: Vinod Saranga Oct 2 2008, 03:03 PM

I was kidding Andrew.Hope it didn't hurt you.


Again congratz for your Monster 

Posted by: Koopid Oct 2 2008, 03:13 PM

There is no overkill on computers, whatever you put in it you will learn to use

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 2 2008, 04:09 PM

Of course not

Posted by: ChrisVdS Oct 2 2008, 05:15 PM

lol

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 2 2008, 07:50 PM

Annoyingly, I got the wrong power supply (ATX instead of EPS) ... so I can't build it tonight

However, I took the opportunity to upgrade to a 1000W PSU, so there should be no possibility of power problems now!

Posted by: Duncan Oct 2 2008, 08:35 PM

Good stuff. Can't wait to hear about it when it is built. Are you just using it for music stuff and multi tasking? Or are you a PC gamer as well?



Obviously with time all the components will be used as things progress. But at the moment there's nothing (that I'm aware of) that even uses 8 cores. Games that are only just coming out are starting to use more than one core.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 2 2008, 10:33 PM

1KW of power, oh boy... somebody is gonna get a big bill

Posted by: Power_Arctica Oct 3 2008, 01:02 AM

Wow!! Great machine man!! I could play Crysis with the highest details!!!

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 3 2008, 02:24 AM

I do have reasons for going 8 core ....

Reaper (my DAW) multiprocesses about the best of all the DAWs, so I will be able to run a gazillion plugins with zero latency - I have serious problems at the moment and didn't want to take any half measures, as I spend a lot of time mixing and recording music, and I record and play totally in the box so need a lot of CPU for that.

I also do a lot of 3D rendering which is extremely CPU intensive - I don't know for sure but I hope my 3d apps will use all 8 cores to advantage. I also do a lot of video editing and currently can barely preview my vids in real time on my current pc.

Plus, in 3 years, instead of being completely outmoded, it will merely be slightly slow.

Oh, and because I can

Posted by: enforcer Oct 3 2008, 04:58 PM

dont forget to implement asimov's rules on flash bios in case your monster decides to enslave humanity...

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 3 2008, 07:30 PM

Ah yes, of course!

They are ...

1. A computer shall not harm a human or through inaction allow a human to come to harm
2. A computer shall obey orders given to it by a human unless such orders conflict with the 1st law
3. A computer shall protect its own existence where such protection does not conflict with the 1st or 2nd laws

Problem is, all computers are gits, and mine regularly harms me by messing stuff up, and practically always disobeys me .... only law it doesn't break is law 3 ...

Posted by: mattacuk Oct 3 2008, 07:54 PM

For those of you who have never seen an 8 core computer, here it is .........

Posted by: jer Oct 3 2008, 08:00 PM

Time to go watch I-Robot.

Posted by: Duncan Oct 3 2008, 08:05 PM

And here's what it is like in a case with a 1000w PSU:

Posted by: Duncan Oct 3 2008, 11:37 PM

I just needed to post this somewhere.

http://medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/screenshot_204579.jpg

Posted by: Canis Oct 4 2008, 12:42 AM

And with the right amount of RAM and Harddrive capacity, you'll get this:

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 4 2008, 03:24 AM

* sweating *

Do I really want to hook up the new PSU when it arrives ???

Posted by: kahall Oct 4 2008, 04:41 AM

Having not read all the comments...
there is absolutely no problem with Vista Ultimate here on 2 cores and 4 gigs of ram. I mean no more than on XP so you will be fine.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 4 2008, 08:04 PM

Andrew have you thought maybe to get a new Nuendo 4? have you tried any Steinberg DAW software?

Posted by: Canis Oct 4 2008, 09:20 PM

The question should be: "Do I dare to play god?"

Posted by: DeepRoots Oct 4 2008, 09:31 PM

Just ordered mine! It won't match the strength of yours but you'll definitely feel a disturbance in the force.....

Posted by: Hisham Al-Sanea Oct 4 2008, 09:38 PM

congrats Andrew on 8 core's !! fantastic

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 5 2008, 02:31 PM

Thanks for the suggestion Ivan -

I've used it in the past and it works very well, but I don't enjoy paying for the new version every 18 months - its VERY expensive!

I have found Reaper to be comparable in a lot of areas, better in some, and much much cheaper! Also new features are added all the time, so for now I am very happy with Reaper as it does everything I need.

Because of its price I think a lot of people regard Reaper as a toy, but in fact its every bit as serious a DAW as Cubase!

Posted by: Jakub Luptovec Oct 6 2008, 03:33 PM

8 cores are overrated Even vista cant use the horsepower properly Maybeeee OSX - Snow leopard with its Grand Central will make some use of it..

But as far, as I red (I may be wrong;) ), in some cases, dual and quadcores perform even faster at some times:P So all of us, others dont have to envy so much:P (its more of excuse for myself, for having just a normal, mortal PC )

Other than that its sweeet Especially the single stick 4GB ram:P I want that too for VST's:(((

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 6 2008, 04:49 PM

OK mate, that is a good reasoning indeed. Also with your mix of hardware software and experience Reaper will do the job just great, you have a point.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 6 2008, 08:57 PM

Not bashing Cubase at all though - I did like it a lot when I was using it!

Posted by: Disturbed21 Oct 8 2008, 02:20 AM

8 Cores...all that other stuff... Andrew are you planning to take over the world?!?!!?!
...
(Acts Serious)
Nice monster Andrew. Hope you enjoy it !

Posted by: IDontWantMyUsername Oct 8 2008, 03:07 AM

Your family must be starving with all the stuff you buy for yourself - at first the JEM and now this! What is the next? A wall of Triple Rectifiers?!

Just kidding Congratulations on the new PC (You should have chosen mac! )

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Oct 8 2008, 03:31 AM

wou Andrew! This is a REAL MONSTER! I'm sure that your new PC is going to prepair dinner and lunch for you... Congrats!

Posted by: Lian Gerbino Oct 8 2008, 03:36 AM

dont forget coffee bro

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 8 2008, 08:42 PM

Its gonna run hot enough for coffee, for sure!

UPDATE: The monster lives. When I powered it on the lights dimmed and I heard ethereal voices chanting ... as I installed windows, shafts of light fell from the sun onto my new PC ... i'm scared to really use it though, what if it opens up a wormhole in spacetime and something comes out ... hey, what''s th

Error 13b6 : Network Connection Lost, user terminated.

Posted by: Duncan Oct 8 2008, 08:46 PM

That genuinely made me chuckle.

Posted by: IDontWantMyUsername Oct 8 2008, 10:39 PM

What a coincidence! I had Metallica's book "This Monster Lives" on the side of my Mac just when I read that. Maybe there really is something to it..?

Posted by: Duncan Oct 13 2008, 12:47 PM

I've just had to upgrade the PSU in my new PC to 1000W to accommodate 2xNVIDIA GTX 280's.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 13 2008, 02:05 PM

I'm up and running and my new machine is sweet!

I'll post a new thread detailing my thoughts on Vista and 32 vs 64 bit since there were a fair number of opinions!

Posted by: jer Oct 13 2008, 02:09 PM

I just treated myself to a new Quad Core 64-bit system yesterday. The previous machine was having too many oddball errors going on so I pulled the trigger on it.

Added a GeForce 9600 GT to it.

Put my E-MU 1212m in it.

All seems to be well so far.

Andrew's PC would call him....... "MINI ME"

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 13 2008, 06:46 PM

Andrew, how is the new machine going? Have you solved the cooling question?

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Oct 13 2008, 07:05 PM

Great news Andrew ! Looking forward to more detailed thread..I should be doing an upgrade myself some time soon too!

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 14 2008, 01:01 PM

@Ivan - its running a little hot for my taste although not actually failing. I am still mulling things over - maybe I need to add some water cooling but I need to save up for that.

Overall CPU temperature is reported as 37, but the core temperatures vary a lot and get up into the 80s occasionally when the machine is working hard, which is a little too got for my liking! Also, one set of cores runs a lot hotter than the other.

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 14 2008, 01:03 PM

That does sound like it needs cooling for certain.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 15 2008, 10:36 PM

Are you using some cooler fans in there now mate? How many?

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 15 2008, 10:40 PM

Yeah, I have 2 CPU fans - they are the ones that came with the CPUs - I had some larger quieter ones but I got the wrong socket type!