****your big rig specs******

[kishy]

Laptops...why not?

Panasonic (Toughbook) CF-25
Pentium MMX 166MHz
32MB integrated RAM
1GB Toshiba hard drive
Some sort of 3D accelerated graphics
Win98SE
Currently keyboardless because I'm an idiot.
Price I paid: free.

My laptop:
Dell Inspiron 630m
Pentium M 740, 1.7GHz
2GB DDR2-667
80GB 7200RPM Hitachi hard drive
Intel integrated graphics (915)
8x DVD-RW/CD-RW drive
14.1" WXGA matte LCD
9 cell battery, was getting +5hrs of life when new, now down to about 3
Price I paid: $280 in February 2008.

Mom's (first ever) computer:
Dell Inspiron 630m (not the same unit as above, I bought her another of the same)
Pentium M 740 1.7GHz
1GB DDR2-533
80GB WD Scorpio Blue 5400RPM hard drive
Intel integrated graphics (915)
DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive
14.1" WXGA matte LCD
6 cell battery runs between 1 and 2 hours
Price I paid: $120 in the past month.

Everex Tempo LX
286, I think 12MHz
Maybe 2MB of RAM
No hard drive presently, have a 500MB lined up for it though
Out of commission on account of screen backlight not working

I get the feeling I've left one out...

The Dell Latitude CSx I mentioned in a recent post still isn't "mine", the guy I was working on it for said he doesn't want it but I can't have it, and he doesn't want to come pick it up...kinda irritating.

[ricercar]

Hitachi Traveler

• Pentium 75 (OCs to 120MHz!)
• 640×480 pan & scan 800×600 and 1024×768
• 128MB RAM
• 768 MB HD
• 3 PCMCIA (wireless, 32GB flash storage]
• Win2K (nods to MSWindows)

and the best parts:

• Paperback book size
• No fans - perfectly quiet
• 2 battery bays - 5-7 hours continuous use

[datamonger128]

Ok.  So now we're posting our parent's specs?  I'd put the specs of my mom's laptop up here, but she's in Pennsylvania right now doing Army stuff.  All I can say is that it has 2GB RAM, a Pentium Dual-Core processor, and Windows Vista.  That's pretty much all I know about it.

[kishy]

Ok.  So now we're posting our parent's specs?  I'd put the specs of my mom's laptop up here, but she's in Pennsylvania right now doing Army stuff.  All I can say is that it has 2GB RAM, a Pentium Dual-Core processor, and Windows Vista.  That's pretty much all I know about it.

Well...since I'm 20 and living at home, and I bought it, and she doesn't even know how to turn it on yet...it might as well be mine for the time being.

[zwmalone]

My mom's got a [decent] desktop...

1.5GB DDR400 ECC
eVGA nForce 430 MoBo
Sempron 1,8ghz @ 2.4ghz
3x 320gb HDs
GeForce 6100 integrated 128mb
Windows Server 2k3 (essentially XP x64)

[Xede]

Made this system in december after using an old Dell XPS for 8 years.

i7 920 @ 4.0 ghz
G.Skill Trident 6 GB DDR3 2000 Mhz
Sapphire Radeon HD 5970
Asus Rampage II Extreme
COOLER MASTER Real Power Pro 1000 Watt
Intel X25-M MLC 80 GB SSD
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM

[firestorm]

Since I don't play games anymore, my home computers are pretty weak.

Main:
Intel P4 3.4Ghz
1GB DDR 400Mhz (This hurts me more than anything)
Asus something or other motherboard
ATI Radeon 9250 (This hurts too, but mostly because it's having trouble with 1920x1080 over DVI)
160GB HDD
250GB HDD
Sony DVD+/-RW Drive (Junk... won't read CDs anymore)
Thermaltake PSU

This was actually the first system I didn't build myself... picked it up from a fellow car nut for 2 years ago for $300, with Windows XP Pro.  It's fine for everything, except my photo editing.

I also have this for a "Slimserver" music server (Slimdevices/Logitech Squeezebox):
PII 733Mhz
512MB RAM
250GB HDD
Asus CUSL2 motherboard

Built that for $20, using scrap parts from the basement.  Needed a new proc though, then traded that motherboard and proc for the above.

We also have a Lenovo Ideapad of some sort.  Nothing special - Dual core Intel, 2GB of RAM, Vista *shudders*.  We bought it because it was the one notebook that had a keyboard that didn't completely suck.

[chase]

i7 920 Oc'd 4.0ghz stable
6gb 1600mhz ddr3
2 1 TB Samsung F3 Raid 0
Gtx 260 Core 216, soon to be x2
all in Antec p-180

White Macbook
2.16ghz
2gb ddr2 667mhz
120gb horrible 5400rpm harddrive
Worst Video Card to ever be released in a 1400 dollar laptop (gma 950)

[trievalot]

IBM T43
ftw

[microsoft windows]

My Gateway2000 is truly a big rig.

[kishy]

Big Rigs.

I have the game, in case anyone wants to experiment with how bad it is.

[InSanCen]

Well, InSanCen got his Quad today. X4 620. It overclocks rather well too ;-P 4GB of Corasir 1066 on a GA-M57SLI-S4 makes it fairly tasty for what is a relativly old rig. It's all housed in my beloved STC-T01 (hooooge case) and H20'd. Sad thing is the cores are already maxed out. *sigh* Running Linux of course (Win7 RC has now finished, and I am not shelling out what they are asking for it, so back to *nix only), Ubuntu, Gentoo and anything else that grabs my fancy (CentOS at the moment).

On a "not mine, but hell, I have to" note, i am speccing out a Client's new Renderfarm. 960 (Nine Hundred and Sixty), 12 core (Yes, twelve) processors. 4P config, sitting in 64U racks. I near shat myself when I got a curious email about them. AMD has some tasty new server technology about to drop for anyone interested in truly Big Rig's. I am wondering if in the near future (Comission from that build is going to be tasty), if I can justify getting myself a 2P config, just for ****s and giggles. As mentioned, my cores are maxed out (3D rendering), and I need more power. 24 cores with 20MB cache (12 per socket, 10 Usable) should tick those boxes rather emphatically. Not released yet, but sources have it the numbers are very favourable. These sources are always right too :-).

[ricercar]

> GA-M57SLI-S4

Tell me your experience with Gigabyte motherboards (or any other product). I've got a bad connotation for the company and I don't know where it came from.

[kishy]

I'll tell you my experience with Gigabyte motherboards (motherboard).

GA-586VX
Socket 7.

Excellent board, worked great until I sold it a couple months ago, still soldiering on somewhere in California now.

Though...likely not what you wanted.

[ch_123]

I've had a few Gigabyte motherboards and they served me well. Unlike some ASUS ones where the ethernet kept dying...

[HaaTa]

My GA-EP35-DS3P is probably the most stable board I've ever owned.

I've had good and very bad luck with various ASUS boards (intermittent problems like refusing to boot for a couple of weeks at a time, and I had zero cash and time...). I've also worked directly with ASUS company before, not fun.

[ricercar]

/me nods at the last few posts. Thanks.

My home theatre machine needs a new OS. Windows 7 RC has started to reboot every 2 hours. I wonder if I'll have time before the kids notice. It'll probably reboot in the middle of one of their DVDs tonight, and then I'll have screaming AND a bum machine...

[InSanCen]

> GA-M57SLI-S4

Tell me your experience with Gigabyte motherboards (or any other product). I've got a bad connotation for the company and I don't know where it came from.

If you buy the mid>high end boards, then generally good.

I also have a 965P-DS3 for S775. Very good, one of the best overclocking boards using that chipset.

Gigabyte used to be very Plain Jane. Dependable, but nothing to shout about. They have moved into the Enthusiast sector in recent years, and demands are a hell of a lot higher. We're willing to pay for it, but by god it had better be good.

As for other products, I used to own the I-Ram (DDR Dimm's as a Hard drive), and by god it was quick, but ultimately, nothing more than a toy. It got sold. Solid as a rock though, if you remembered it was only powered for 4ish hours if you cut all mains power. Then it forgot everything (Cue screams of "OMG! It lost my data!")

[InSanCen]

I love DFI's bios tweaking ability. A ***** to get right, but when you do, you can clock the **** out of your chip. I miss my Abit NF7-S rev2 for that. Had my XP-1700 to 2.8 on air (1.46 stock). Stable too, I ran a 48hr Prime blend just to annoy people.

EDIT

here is the board I am thinking about getting for the possible rendering rig.

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc307/InSanCenPP/KGPE.jpg

4P boards are yet to appear, but I will see what the final bill looks like before I decide.

[InSanCen]

Wait until you hit the new Intel architecture, FSB is gone, QPI is in. It's similar-ish to what AMD did when they pulled the Memory controller onto the CPU. Going from Socket A (462) to K8 (939) was a whole new learning curve for me.

If you want anything other than a casual overclock, it gets quite involved, and your system needs to be up to scratch.

[ricercar]

I run a NVIDIA engineering sample equivalent to the Intel A8N SLI-deluxe; even use my AMD A8N SLI-deluxe CDROM for driver installs.

Ah, the fond memories. Around when AMD and Intel started discussing CPUs with integrated memory controllers, the nForce team was really pissed off at AMD. At the time it appeared AMD wanted integrated memory controller for the performance, while Intel was so worried about nForce they wanted to do away with the Northbridge entirely to preserve their dominance. NVIDIA was THE ENEMY. We didn't yet have an Intel FSB license, even though nForce nortbridges could be strapped for it from the nForce2 era. Huang wasn't willing to pay Intel $11-15 per motherboard, which was the extortionate price Intel demanded even though others paid under $4 (read: others = chipset companies not threatening Intel market share).

Then Intel Pentium 4 architecture pretty much peaked out at 4GHz; they ran into some sort of performance ceiling. Blah blah race conditions, aberrant behavior blah blah. Intel needed a patent from the NVIDIA portfolio to go forward. Period. No alternative. Suddenly we were the best buddies, and cross-licensed technology. NVIDIA finally got the Intel FSB, and Intel got patents that offered a stay of execution on their x86 architecture.

And lo, forthwith the number of cores and power consumption becameth THE SPEC for Intel CPUs, whilst raw clock speed henceforth was discussed no more.

[InSanCen]

For the vast majority of people, there's no need. But, as a saying goes, "Why does a dog lick it's Bollocks? Because it can!"

PC's these days a incredibly fast. I struggle to think of more than a few people who actually *need* a quad, hence the popularity of Netbooks.

[Half-Saint]

I don't have a proper "big rig" anymore. Nowadays I mostly use a Toshiba Satellite Pro A200 laptop as a desktop replacement :-)

My primary PC used to be an Athlon XP-M 2400+ built around ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo.

Cheers

[williamjoseph]

GA-MA790FXT-UD5P is my gigabyte motherboard.  It was easy to setup, everything attached well, and i love the direct power buttons that are onboard. the only issue i had was i had to contact my RAMs maker to get custom northbridge voltage settings, i never new that running 4 sticks would be so different from runing only 2.  i kept crashing untill i got those settings

[ch_123]

Pfft.

You call these big rigs?

This is a big rig -




Key specs -

2 x SGI Altix 350 with -
2 x 1.4GHz Itanium 2 per node
12GB DDR-333 ECC per node

Master node has -
2 x 73GB U320 drives
Gigabit Ethernet
CentOS 4.7 (to be replaced with Debian at some point)

Nodes are linked with NUMAlink 3 cables.

Getting it running was one hell of an experience.

[ricercar]

My primary PC used to be an Athlon XP-M 2400+ built around ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo.

Super fine board, the most stable I've ever used. Working at NVIDIA, I wrote the nForce 2 reference Design Guide that ASUS followed for the A7N8x series. Working at VMware, I built 14 servers based on A7N8X boards (-E, -E Deluxe, -VM, -VM400), the most stable x86 machines I've ever used. They had it all: Soundstorm 5.1 audio, GeForce video, dual gigabit Ethernet, dual-channel RAM with 2 GB ceiling, dual IDE ATA-6, plus 3 or 6 PCI slots to expand with. Since 2003 I've been running A7N8X motherboards, and never had to call ASUS tech support for warranty service. (But when I bought an ASUS video card, I found out how horrible ASUS support is in the US.)

Eight years down the road, and I still have an A7N8X-VM/400 hosting a media server, and an A7N8X-E Deluxe hosting a file and virtual machine server.

[InSanCen]

I loved the A7N8X deluxe. Had some very high clocks out of it. I think most NF2 based boards were good (Abit's NF7-S, DFI's NF2 Ultra B).). Via's KT 600 chipset sucked balls in comparison though. They were cheap, the chips were cheap (and unlocked), and times were good.

My NF7-S has done sterling service, and after me was in a production photoshop box, and now lives at my Mother-in-Law's living out it's days in a websurfing machine.

[InSanCen]

Well, that bloody jinxed it!

One NF7-S sitting here, dead as a dodo. Currently looking to replace it, and scouring the Classifieds on the many forums I frequent, as they are too cheapskate to spring for a new mobo and ram, despite me offering to donate a nice shiny fast Dualcore.

The chip (Barton 2500 which has been ran at 3200 speeds from day 1), is fine.

[ricercar]

My NF7-S was not long lived. Sorry to hear you jinxed yours.

[InSanCen]

Pfft.

You call these big rigs?

This is a big rig -




Key specs -

2 x SGI Altix 350 with -
2 x 1.4GHz Itanium 2 per node
12GB DDR-333 ECC per node

Master node has -
2 x 73GB U320 drives
Gigabit Ethernet
CentOS 4.7 (to be replaced with Debian at some point)

Nodes are linked with NUMAlink 3 cables.

Getting it running was one hell of an experience.

Nice iron. It's been a while since I played with Itanium. I got on the Opteron train quick smart when they hit. Only played with a few when Clients had a problem with hardware.

I will, if allowed to when the NDA lifts, post some pics and specs of the monster renderfarm that is very very likely to go ahead in the near future.

This is the first time in a looooong time I have got excited about a server buildout, despite the work ahead of me. I love working with this client, and the sight of that many 64U racks is just a hardware wet dream.

@ricercar

I'm not too annoyed. It's an old system, and being the rev1 board, it had known issues. I'm surprised it lived this long given the abuse it has had over the years (My overclocking, heavy Photoshop use). Massive dust buildup was what killed it, the NB cooked.

[microsoft windows]

Pfft.

You call these big rigs?

This is a big rig -




Key specs -

2 x SGI Altix 350 with -
2 x 1.4GHz Itanium 2 per node
12GB DDR-333 ECC per node

Master node has -
2 x 73GB U320 drives
Gigabit Ethernet
CentOS 4.7 (to be replaced with Debian at some point)

Nodes are linked with NUMAlink 3 cables.

Getting it running was one hell of an experience.

I've got you beat.

[kriminal]

oooohhh lian li case.... eeewww @ cable mangement

[ch_123]

I've got you beat.

I bet if I dropped one of those racks on your Gateway it would probably disintegrate.

[InSanCen]

Size isn't everything MSWindows. Your gateway is bigger than the 4U boxes I am going to be building, but a single one of the 48 cores would slay anything you own. Putting a Pentium MMX in a Mountain Mods case does not make it faster. Rackmount is what the big boys play with.

[ch_123]

Obvious statement is obvious.

[microsoft windows]

Size isn't everything MSWindows. Your gateway is bigger than the 4U boxes I am going to be building, but a single one of the 48 cores would slay anything you own. Putting a Pentium MMX in a Mountain Mods case does not make it faster. Rackmount is what the big boys play with.

The Pentium in the Gateway2000 actually isn't an MMX. But on Windows 95, the computer runs perfectly well. The Internet isn't lightning fast, but what can you expect out of a 14-year-old computer from a skip in the supermarket parking lot?

Rackmount computers aren't as much fun and are much more common. I had an old Pentium III rackmount server a while ago. It was almost the size as that old Gateway2000 though.

I bet if I dropped one of those racks on your Gateway it would probably disintegrate.

No it wouldn't. It's got a nice sturdy steel frame underneath that plastic front panel and sheet-metal cover. I've sat on that thing and it hasn't budged.

Oh yeah?  Yours may be taller but mine is wider.

Show Image

94% of women prefer that.

The Gateway2000's about as wide as that case. It's just that the height-width ratio is different since it's a full tower.

What interests me about your computer there is its wheels though.

[ch_123]

The Pentium in the Gateway2000 actually isn't an MMX. But on Windows 95, the computer runs perfectly well. The Internet isn't lightning fast, but what can you expect out of a 14-year-old computer from a skip in the supermarket parking lot?

How many machines do you need for web browsing anyway?

Rackmount computers aren't as much fun

They are and they aren't. If you can get something powerful, or something that can handle a load of hard drives then they are very useful. I'd never use one as a personal machine though. Ssh access an' all... all the things you can't do with Windows 95.

[microsoft windows]

That gateway2000 actually has a total 6 floppy/hard disk slots inside it. I bet if I filled them all up with my hard disks I could get a whomping 57.3GB of disk space.

[ch_123]

Unless your Gateway can support multiple, hot-swappable SCSI drives, I think you're probably thinking of something different to what I am...

[kode]

Biggest thing we run at the computer club at the moment. We've made room for an alphaserver (GS160) that sort of matches that Sun E20K, though, which will be wider but lower, and also two cabinets and not one giant lump of metal.

But rackmounted stuff is more fun than old desktop junk. Decidedly so.

[ch_123]

The Itanium system I posted pics of a few pages back was pressed into service with the computer society I'm involved with in college. It hides under a desk, and our ethernet switch actually drowns out the noise it makes.

Nice Sun machine, would like one of these though -

[kode]

Yeah, and when you consider that the company that donated the E20K replaced it with a 2U blade server...

[ch_123]

We have a Sun E450, which when donated to us by Sun, would have been worth  ~€40,000 and was the single quickest computer in the entire college for quite some time. We have to share a server room with one of the departments, and they want rid of it because it puts out so much power and heat.

[kode]

We're working on taking one of those out of service at the moment. That one I pictured apparently cost $500k new, basic config, and we've maxed it out. Other than that we also run a couple of SF4800 as well as a lot of other stuff. We're trying to slim the operations some now, though. As it is, we have far more cpu power than we can possibly ever make use of really.

But yeah, it's all very good at consuming power and producing heat. Even though we have our own datacenter, there are some limits to what we can run (3*50A, but the cooling is the real limit, really). Not to mention rackable space. We have realistic room for about 20 racks, and we're kind of pushing that limit too. But it's fun playing around with stuff like this, not everyone ever gets a chance to play with high end enterprise hardware like we do.

[ch_123]

Having an Alpha rack would be pretty awesome. We have an unofficial policy of trying to keep obscure, non-Wintel stuff around for educational purposes, thus why we kept the Itanium racks and let members take home IBM Netburst Xeon racks that were probably more useful. Do you run VMS on it?

[kode]

Well, technically we're letting a second computer society have some space in our hall, but there's some talk being done on them being assimilated by us. But yeah, they run VMS on their alphas.

[InSanCen]

There's a part of me wishes you two could see what I am doing in the next few weeks. it involves 250x 4P in 4U, housed in 64U racks (limited floorspace, 20ft ceilings). Not too many people appreciate enterprise level hardware. Shame I don't get to get my hands dirty other than this one Client. But when I do, it's epic hardware porn (I started building for this client many years ago when he was running a single rack). I'm still trying to justify getting myself a single 4U of the same config at this level.

[microsoft windows]

The Itanium system I posted pics of a few pages back was pressed into service with the computer society I'm involved with in college. It hides under a desk, and our ethernet switch actually drowns out the noise it makes.

Nice Sun machine, would like one of these though -

Show Image

Mmm...a dumpster. Prime spot for finding computers.

[bhtooefr]

ThinkPad T60p 15"
Core Duo T2500 2.0 GHz
2.5 GiB RAM
ATI Mobility FireGL V5250 (think Mobility Radeon X700)
DVD+/-RW DL
Bluetooth
IDTech IAQX10N 2048x1536 IPS LCD
Windows 7 Professional

Alternately...

Sun Blade 2500 Silver
2x 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi
8 GiB RAM
XVR-100 graphics (rebadged Radeon 7000 Mac Edition)
73 GiB 10k RPM Ultra320 SCA SCSI drive
DVD-ROM/CD-RW
iOne Scorpius M10 and IBM ScrollPoint Optical
IBM T221-DG5. 3840x2400... except the graphics card tops out at 1920x1200.
OpenSolaris build 133 (I shut it down due to power consumption a few days ago, and didn't update it to 134. Right now, there's a thin client in its place. )

[ch_123]

Mmm...a dumpster. Prime spot for finding computers.

Wrong again.