Finally... I have a final list of specs and part sources for my next personal workstation build.
here's a part list:
From V3, I am resuing:
-Supermicro EATX case
-Seasonic 600W PSU (may upgrade eventually, as 600W is kinda on the edge for what I'm doing)
-2x AMD Opteron 285, 2.6Ghz dual core
-16gb Kingston ECC DDR400
-4x 73gb 10K WD raptors, w/ 3ware 9500s-4lp+BBU, RAID 0
-Mitsumi Floppy/card reader combo, firmware upgraded for SDHC (may swap to a dedicated reader w/usb port if the floppy proves useless)
-Hauppauge HVR-1600 (currently in a repurposed V2, will be pulled for the build)
From stuff I had sitting:
-Liteon DVD-RW, SATA. yes, brethin, this is the drive you traded me ages ago... it's being pulled from a HP D530
-LG PATA DVD-RW: Found the other day at a goodwill for $4, I may use it elesewhere.
- Regarding opticals, the future goal will be a DVD burner and a BD drive of some sort, both SATA, and at least one having lightscribe (since I have a buttload of lightscribe DVD+R's, got 60 for $9)
-2x 120mm Arctic F12 CO PWM 2BB fans: I ended up buying 3 after I messed up and broke one
-2x Stock AMD 940 coolers with 5k PWM fans added- combo of some spare coolers and the original fans from V2's 604 HP coolers. Very short wires, hopefully they'll reach .
Sourced from other members:
-Tyan S2895 Thunder K8WE w/SCSI and universal (flex) SLI bridge: gg1978 happens to both have one, is willing to sell it, and lives not far off a travel route I take almost every weekend. I'll hopefully be picking it up this coming friday...
-2x Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT(s?), SLI'd- Bought of brethin after negotiating a decent price... I was going to get 9600's but given the relative difficulty of sourcing 9600's at a comparable price (Would have been about 30% more expensive on ebay, and only if I sniped my ass off). I've in the meantime redone the thermal compound/pads and cleaned the dust bunnies out of the heatsink on both cards.
The reason I'm not sure if it's a GT or GTS is the chip's model no. shows as a GTS chip but Brethin told me they were GT. The cards have generic Nvidia branding, so no indication there. Based off google image searching, I actually think the cards are indeed GTS given image searching:
GTS: http://videocards.productwiki.com/nv...orce-8600-gts/ (mine looks like this one)
GT: http://videocards.productwiki.com/nv...force-8600-gt/ (mine doesn't look like that)
It also has nothing but poly caps... so no recap required.
And FYI, I didn't go for an 8800 GTS or two becuase of power draw, cooling, and reliability issues ( I already have one 8800 GTS 640mb in the junk bin, failed reflow, also takes 2 slots). These cards only use one slot, so combined with my case's mesh bracket fillers (lots of airflow cutouts), the fact there is only one slot between the cards shouldn't be an issue.
OS wise, I'm going to run 7 x64... I've read of people getting it to work no problems... The SLI may be the only hiccup, as I've never set it up before... to those that have, is it fully HW, or is there a separate driver/SW setting to make it run? Is it part of the GPU driver, chipset driver, or a driver all it's own?
I've attached a PSU calc. report of the build... I think my 600W will cut it... I think.
Comments or questions? (Any "you shouldn't build workstations, buy a celeron instead" posts will be deleted, please be constructive).
here's a part list:
From V3, I am resuing:
-Supermicro EATX case
-Seasonic 600W PSU (may upgrade eventually, as 600W is kinda on the edge for what I'm doing)
-2x AMD Opteron 285, 2.6Ghz dual core
-16gb Kingston ECC DDR400
-4x 73gb 10K WD raptors, w/ 3ware 9500s-4lp+BBU, RAID 0
-Mitsumi Floppy/card reader combo, firmware upgraded for SDHC (may swap to a dedicated reader w/usb port if the floppy proves useless)
-Hauppauge HVR-1600 (currently in a repurposed V2, will be pulled for the build)
From stuff I had sitting:
-Liteon DVD-RW, SATA. yes, brethin, this is the drive you traded me ages ago... it's being pulled from a HP D530
-LG PATA DVD-RW: Found the other day at a goodwill for $4, I may use it elesewhere.
- Regarding opticals, the future goal will be a DVD burner and a BD drive of some sort, both SATA, and at least one having lightscribe (since I have a buttload of lightscribe DVD+R's, got 60 for $9)
-2x 120mm Arctic F12 CO PWM 2BB fans: I ended up buying 3 after I messed up and broke one
-2x Stock AMD 940 coolers with 5k PWM fans added- combo of some spare coolers and the original fans from V2's 604 HP coolers. Very short wires, hopefully they'll reach .
Sourced from other members:
-Tyan S2895 Thunder K8WE w/SCSI and universal (flex) SLI bridge: gg1978 happens to both have one, is willing to sell it, and lives not far off a travel route I take almost every weekend. I'll hopefully be picking it up this coming friday...
-2x Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT(s?), SLI'd- Bought of brethin after negotiating a decent price... I was going to get 9600's but given the relative difficulty of sourcing 9600's at a comparable price (Would have been about 30% more expensive on ebay, and only if I sniped my ass off). I've in the meantime redone the thermal compound/pads and cleaned the dust bunnies out of the heatsink on both cards.
The reason I'm not sure if it's a GT or GTS is the chip's model no. shows as a GTS chip but Brethin told me they were GT. The cards have generic Nvidia branding, so no indication there. Based off google image searching, I actually think the cards are indeed GTS given image searching:
GTS: http://videocards.productwiki.com/nv...orce-8600-gts/ (mine looks like this one)
GT: http://videocards.productwiki.com/nv...force-8600-gt/ (mine doesn't look like that)
It also has nothing but poly caps... so no recap required.
And FYI, I didn't go for an 8800 GTS or two becuase of power draw, cooling, and reliability issues ( I already have one 8800 GTS 640mb in the junk bin, failed reflow, also takes 2 slots). These cards only use one slot, so combined with my case's mesh bracket fillers (lots of airflow cutouts), the fact there is only one slot between the cards shouldn't be an issue.
OS wise, I'm going to run 7 x64... I've read of people getting it to work no problems... The SLI may be the only hiccup, as I've never set it up before... to those that have, is it fully HW, or is there a separate driver/SW setting to make it run? Is it part of the GPU driver, chipset driver, or a driver all it's own?
I've attached a PSU calc. report of the build... I think my 600W will cut it... I think.
Comments or questions? (Any "you shouldn't build workstations, buy a celeron instead" posts will be deleted, please be constructive).
Attached Files
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It'll be blazing fast though!
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