Perfect Alibre Machine

[jkleinhans]

Perfect Alibre Machine

This thing all started off with one of my users complaining of poor performance with Alibre Design. Upon invesigation and observing the users' machine under loads using perfmon, I noticed a massive processor spike when rendering a 3d image into a 2d image. No doubt this process is processor intensive, but I also observed very little HD and pagefile activity.

The user's original PC was a Dell 1.5Ghz P4 with 512MB RAM, utilizing on-board video. I researched Alibre's minimum requirements, as well as the amount of objects within one of the users' assemblies (100+). The forums here have been an excellent reference in determining the ideal machine to build, so I applied what I've learned in constructing this monster machine.

Here are some pics of the machine...

I'll pop off a few more pictures in a bit, but here are the specs:

Dual Opteron 246 Processors
2 GB Corsair XMS Registered ECC DDR400 RAM
RAID0 Array of 2 WD SATA 10,000RPM RAPTORS
ATI x850xt PCIx16 256 MB Dual DVI Video Card
Lian Li Classic Case
CD & DVD burners
Gigabit Ethernet
Integrated Firewire

For the heck of it I benchmarked it in 3dMark03, it nearly scored 12000 3dmarks!

Just thought you folks might want to know what puts Alibre in its place...

Jon

 

[bobster]

I see an ASUS motherboard box but I can't read the model number, which MB are you using?

 

[jkleinhans]

This machine uses the Asus K8N-DL motherboard. To be honest I picked that board because it is fast (built on the right chipset), offers a 1000mhz FSB, and is upgradable to Dual Core Processors in the future.

Like any Asus component, their customer support isn't lacking, its non-existant so be prepared to deal with issues if you go that route. Lucky for us, I ordered a backup SATA RAID controller, and we got it up and running. I spent an entire evening dealing with their on-board controller which had bad drivers or something...Windows wouldn't install.

Anyway, with all that aside the thing runs awesome and my user seems pretty happy with the setup. The machine can be assembled from the parts shown for $2700-$3500 which includes MS Win XP Pro.

At the point where Alibre's development is right now and without dual-core support, this box offers future upgradability and at the same time will run Alibre to its full potential. Biggest benefit though has to be the ability to not have 100% processor spikes for 3 min straight. If heavy-duty rendering is involved you'll get a 50% spike and be able to work on whatever you want while waiting on Alibre...surf the net, send email etc...

This makes users more productive and less frustrated

Jon