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DM8761

Senior Member
Going to be my new gaming/alibre computer... opinions please

CPU-
AMD FX-8150 Processor, 8 core, 8MB L3 Cache, 8MB L2 Cache, 3.60GHz (4.20GHz Max Turbo), Socket AM3+, 125W, Liquid Cooler, Unlocked
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... u=A79-8151

MOBO-
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131736

GPU- (only one) lol
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102982

RAM-
CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820233237

HD- will have multiables, will use some RAID setup (havent decided)
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136767

CASE-
Thermaltake Chaser MK-I (VN300M1W2N) Black SECC ATX Full Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133191
 
RCH_Projects

RCH_Projects

Alibre Super User
DM8761 said:
Going to be my new gaming/alibre computer... opinions please

CPU-
AMD FX-8150 Processor, 8 core, 8MB L3 Cache, 8MB L2 Cache, 3.60GHz (4.20GHz Max Turbo), Socket AM3+, 125W, Liquid Cooler, Unlocked
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... u=A79-8151

GPU- (only one) lol
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102982

CASE-
Thermaltake Chaser MK-I (VN300M1W2N) Black SECC ATX Full Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133191
Click to expand...

IMHO, for what I have an opinion on;

First, a computer for gaming and one for CAD.

CPU - Fastest 2 core, maybe 4, for single CPU speed. Alibre only uses one core. Watch out for number games on cpu speed.
Save the game computer for pretty picture (Keyshot renders or whatever) stuff.

GPU - I don't think exceeding my video (GeForce 9300 GTX+) would make much difference with even heavy Alibre renders.
Save money and get a second, stock, video card and cheap monitor (if you have too, I can run two off of my GeForce). Run resource monitor on it (task manager).
The only time I get into trouble with Alibre is when resources (memory) gets cluttered or the CPU fan or others get dust covered.
This can come from IE hogging on a web site (a lot of Redeye quote part uploads), Alibre crunching exports (STL) and a mish-mash of intermediate applications.
When you choke it is too late. With Task manager running on the "back" monitor it doesn't happen. The extra monitor fills in as a great parking place for reference information while I work Alibre in the main window.

Case - I don't have internal drives. I put in (fairly cheap, very reliable) HD docking stations and rotate disk image backups.
Full Tower "Cooler Master" with an extra quality fan or two - 6 External 5.25" Drive Bays (actually bays in the case on the front - not detached). I call this "Cloud computing". :mrgreen:
I use an SSD in one station for "CAD" (Alibre, Keyshot, Excel) files with continuous backup with Autosave to a compressed hard drive partition.
Otherwise I use WD Caviar Black 640 GB drives. More (even this) is wasted space and backup (clone) time.
I can touch a drive to check heat or vibration which is gratifying. What happens in the case (heat or while cleaning) has minimal drive impact.
I can pull the drives for dust control in an instant.

For not a lot of money I think I have a solid dream configuration (for the money). Others may clarify or offer other beneficial insight, or better opinions.

If however; you mostly want gaming ... ... don't let the boss catch you (unless he / she plays).
 
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DM8761

Senior Member
well yes 2 computers would be nice..
i cant afford 2, im selling my old one (see signature) to buy the new one,
one of my friends has a super h**don for it and i wouldnt mine having a new one.

but.. i do quite a bit of freelance cad stuff, so i have to kill two birds with one stone.

and yeah im still lost on what to do for HD's what to do about the hard drives yet, the MOBO is sata 6gb/s, how does platter speed matter if its at 6gb/s anyway?

and i dont know if i trust SSD's yet. super mixed opinion on whether or not they are reliable, and ive never used them.. so...

i did think about using like 2 SSD's in a RAID0 then a HD disk as back up, oh and SSD's are expensive as hell..
 
bigseb

bigseb

Alibre Super User
At least Alibre uses directx... makes gaming and CAD on one machine so much easier.

what are you playing atm?
 
bigseb

bigseb

Alibre Super User
Skyrim :)
Flight sim :)
Crysis :)
Battlefield 3 :)
Alibre :)
Farming simulator :?

Had an awesome COH LAN over the weekend :D
 
bigseb

bigseb

Alibre Super User
Also, what is your current WEI? Must be pretty high...

Currently I score:
CPU: 7.5
RAM: 7.5
Graphics1: 6.9
Graphics2: 6.9
HDD: 5.9

My HDD is a WD 5200rpm. If (when) I upgrade I'll probably go for the WD raptor 10 000rpm. SSD's too pricey for their capacity.
 
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DM8761

Senior Member
ill check my score when i get home, was thinkging its over all was like 8 something, honestly cant remember though, basically my buddy is giving me a grand for my old computer, and its an excuse for me to build a new one :p

dude... farming simulator is the bomb haha, when ur a farm kid gone all towney, its nice sometimes just to grab a sixer and climb into my pretend combine and pick my pretend corn... certain zen quality about it, almost as fun as minecraft :roll:

i played COH for a bit, mostly just after the avengers movie came out... but i was super into WoW for like 5 years, other MMO's dont really measure up, played RIFT, D&D, EVA... but WoW is/was the ultimate MMO, nothing really compares.

and yeah i found these this morning,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822236245

was planning on 2 or 4 of those and running a RAID 0 between them, and a

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136533 as a back up for everything.

have never setup/used a RAID before, so its subject to change
 
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greenamex2

Member
I use raid 1 (aka mirrored) on my boot/program partition which consists of 2 120gb ssd's. Also have another partition for the page file and junk that consists of mirrored 500gb 7200rpm disks. All the data sits on a raid 5 protected solaris server via a gigabit network. The data backs up to a separate disk.

My pc takes as long to boot up as it takes me to go for a wee when I get called at some god awful time in the morning, can survive a disk failure and keep running happily.

Having a slightly faster pc is nice, having your data protected is a heck of a lot more attractive when you have just lost it all!

For info whenever I look at a server performance problem, nowadays about half the time it is disk and not cpu/memory/network that is the root cause. And half the time it is the physical drives that are the bottleneck.
 
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DM8761

Senior Member
my plan is to use two (or more) 10k rpm hard disks 6gb/s, as my RAID 0, then using a 3rd HD (larger than the others combined) as a back up, just have windows 7 manage doing an automatic back up of the files like once a week or so, check for changes and back up everything in "My Doucments" or something, pictures, songs, financial spread sheets, customer part files, ect... just everything i want backed up, just make sure i keep in the "My Documents" folder

im hoping by using this system i'll have the increase in perfomrance using the RAID 0, and still have back up of all the important stuff, im not worried about blowing a HD and having to reinstall everything... BUT in my 15+ years of playing with computers, using/upgrading/building, dozens of computers.. i have never once ruined a HD. ---knock on wood---

ive ruined/hurt more computers by downloading virus's or trying to "clean up" my registery


i understand that the raid0 is a gamer/ enthusist thing, but this will be my "work" station, and my gaming computer,i did change the processor to the ivy bridge, and changed the mobo to the sabertooth z77, set up

** i welcome more input **
 
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greenamex2

Member
I earnt tens of thousands in overtime during the 80's and early 90's before RAID 1/10/5/6 became mainstream. I typically see a couple of hard drive failures a day on my enterprise storage arrays.

All I can guarantee is you will lose a drive at the most inconvenient time possible....usually after having done a ton of work and then finding out your backups haven't been working for a couple of weeks!

On the subject of SSD's, they are fantastic but DO NOT write your page file there, it will more than halve the life of them. Have a separate drive to keep that on, which can also double as a backup/junk drive if you don't have an alternative destination.
 
Hop

Hop

Senior Member
DM8761 said:
does anyone have any input on running Alibre in a RAID 0?
Click to expand...

Ha! I always have an opinion, reasoned or not.

It is my understanding that RAID 0 does buy you a speed increase for accessing the "virtual" hard drive built from two HDDs in a RAID 0 configuration. Whether this so-called speed increase is relevant to Alibre Design is another matter. I suspect it is not, especially with a high-performance 10,000 RPM drive on a SATA 6GB/s interface.

It has been my experience that any delay in loading or saving a model is not the fault of the hard disk drive or its controller, but in how fast the CPU running AD organizes all the data for display on your monitor or storage on your hard disk drive. However, I'm sure you would see some improvement with an SSD drive.

I have an SSD on my latest build, completed earlier this year, but I haven't used it much. I made the mistake of letting Windows designate it as my C: drive. Now I must figure out how to correct for that before the SSD fills up with Windows "stuff" that does not need to be stored in valuable SSD sectors.

The worst thing about RAID 0 is the two-fold increase in failure probability. All the data of one drive is now randomly distributed across two drives. If one drive fails, the data on both drives is lost. Be sure to backup the RAID 0 pair of drives frequently (like, daily) so when one of them does fail, you can replace it and restore to both drives from the latest backup. Or, much simpler, avoid RAID 0 entirely and invest in a faster HD. But, still backup often (like, daily) because all HDDs eventually fail. Read this article by Leo Notenboom, ex-Microsoftie, for his valuable opinion:
http://ask-leo.com/what_is_raid_and_why_is_raid_0_such_a_bad_bad_idea.html

Hop
 
RCH_Projects

RCH_Projects

Alibre Super User
Let me make this suggestion.

Use HD docks on front of your tower.

Build up your gaming system how you like it.

Eject the game drives.

Slip in an SSD (or good hard drive dedicated to CAD or work related files) and a modest O/S hard drive to install and configure a CAD machine (with a compressed partition for some continous backup of the whole CAD drive).
A secondary benefit over raid is (with Autosave) I have versioning (up to last 10). That is what really saves my (tail).

If you don't go that way, consider a user profile for games and one for CAD.

Enjoy :)

The sata 6gb/s is nice but theoretical. The only significant improvement in Application operation I see is SSD file storage.
A slower boot up or application startup is a fleeting experience. If it is painful something else is wrong.
I might logoff to clear up resources or every few days to switch profiles and check (family) email, but I'm stable for days on end without a reboot (dang windows updates bip me first).

(Hop, SSD for my CAD related files is probably more significant than a faster CPU for the money spent - it was - WOW).
 
swertel

swertel

Alibre Super User
I won't live without an SSD now.

I went with OCZ Vertex 3 as my boot disk. Data disk is 7500 RPM Western Digital 500Gb.
Boot times are near instant. Applications launch quick.

I moved my Windows profile to the data disk, so all of "My Documents" are stored there as well as temp directories, etc. The 120Gb SSD's are reasonably affordable and that is plenty of space for all of the applications I run. If I kept data on that drive though, I'd be full several times over.
 
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DM8761

Senior Member
i like the idea of the second HD's for games/cad, new plan

WD Velociraptor 600GB for os/cad

then a Crucial M4 SSD 128GB for games

then ill find a cheap big HD for backup, archiving,
or an external, the case does have a hot swap HDD thingy on top
 
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