Buyer's Guide: High End System - May 2004
by Wesley Fink on May 26, 2004 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Memory
Recommendation: 1GB Kit (2 X 512MB) OCZ PC3500 EL ECC Registered (or OCZ 3200EL ECC)Price: $339 shipped ($295 shipped)
Socket 940 for A64FX and Opteron requires ECC Registered memory, and the best that we have used is OCZ PC3500 EL ECC Registered. A lot of Registered memory has slow timings, but the OCZ manages 2-2-3 timings at DDR433 while still providing the best compatibility with Socket 940 motherboards. The OCZ 3200 EL ECC Registered uses the same chips and is easier to find, so it is also a good choice. The OCZ 3500 Registered and 3200 Registered are very fast, but they have also worked in situations where other Registered memory from better-known manufacturers were a problem. Keep in mind that ECC Registered memory can only be used on boards that support buffered memory like the Opteron and other server boards. The coming Socket 939 and Intel's Socket 875 do support ECC memory, but they require the unbuffered variety and do not support the Registered or buffered variety. The ECC 3500EL will also handle most any overclocking that can be achieved with the adjustable ratios and no PCI/AGP lock of the Asus SK8V. The 3500EL Registered has reached DDR466 in benchmark testing.
Alternative: 1GB Kit (2 X 512MB) Corsair XMS4000PRO
Price: $305 shipped
Corsair XMS4000PRO, rated at DDR500, is the only memory we have tested that puts on a light show that will match the DFI 875B LAN Party. That alone, however, would not be enough to recommend XMS4000PRO. Corsair is probably the best known manufacturer of enthusiast memory and the LEDs on the PRO series actually provide information about how the memory is performing. You can read more about Corsair PRO series in our review.
The motherboards selected as alternates are very capable of DDR500 performance, and Corsair will certainly provide that, reaching DDR540 in our tests. Perhaps more important, Corsair XMS PRO is one of the high speed memories based on 2nd generation Hynix chips, which is capable of very good 2-3-3 performance at DDR400. This gives the best of both worlds - high speed capabilities for overclocking and decent stock performance at DDR400. If the light show is a turn-off, there are several other second-generation high-speed choices from Mushkin, OCZ and Corsair and you can check those out in any recent memory review at AnandTech.
Another excellent alternative in unbuffered memory is OCZ 3700EB, which takes a different approach to memory timings as you can see in our review. OCZ 3700EB was also a very good match to the single-channel Socket 754 boards for Athlon 64 in particular, and you should definitely consider OCZ 3700EB for a Socket 754 Athlon 64 system purchase.
If you cannot find the lowest prices on the products that we've recommended on this page, it's because we don't list some of them in our RealTime pricing engine. Until we do, we suggest that you do an independent search online at the various vendors' web sites. Just pick and choose where you want to buy your products by looking for a vendor located under the "Vendor" heading.
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MadAd - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
I just wish you guys would do a 'dream' system, money NO object - us geeks like to dream, even if we cant afford fibre raided flash drives and $2000 sound setups ..... it only has to be like once every 3 months or so, just for drooling rights - awww go on :)Ma10n3 - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
This comment thread seems to be pretty dead now, but I thought I'd just tack this on...Maybe there should be a high-end gaming system and a high-end everything-but-gaming system.
A lot of newer game engines are SMP capable though, so the two may become one in the near future.
qquizz - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
GLARING ERROR ALLOWED TO STAND:As noted days ago in this forum, I can't believe Anandtech has allowed this error not to be changed yet in this sentence in the storage section of the article:
"Those concerned about data security more than ultimate speed can configure the drives as RAID 0, or mirroring."
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
I wish I could just edit one of the posts above... Anyway, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense that the Iwill doesn't support DDR400 though because the memory controller is on the processor die. ???But, if the manufacturer doesn't claim it supports it, than it seems reasonable to go with a manufacturer that does. After all, when you're spending this much money on a system, compatibility becomes very important!
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
Uh, scratch the Iwill board. It only supports up to DDR333!Looks like the TYAN Thunder K8W is about the only choice.
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
Roostercrows, another motherboard that supports all the features listed above is the Iwill DK8X.Can't seem to find any others...
Ma10n3 - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
#52, If you are considering a dual-opteron setup, than I should also let you know that the only mobo I could find that uses the NUMA (microsoft.com has quite a bit of info on NUMA) configuration and has AGP8X, PCI-X, and legacy PCI is the TYAN Thunder K8W. If anyone knows of any others that have all these features, please post the info.roostercrows - Saturday, May 29, 2004 - link
#50, Yes, I did read all the posts including #39and I didn't mean to imply that you used the term best "bang for the buck". sorry if I gave that impression.
I'm building a new computer and have the dual raptor hard drives and one maxtor 200 GB, power supply from PC power & cooling, video card X800, monitor (not my white wall #51 but that was funny), case is a coolermaster stacker, I'm trying to decide which processor and mobo to use and this was the first I had heard of possibly using a dual opteron and it sounds interesting as cadcam use is part of my goal but I need to learn a lot more. Thanks for your opinion since the WinXP64 is what I'm building the system for.
Neekotin - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
yo guys, it just hit me. this is a high-end sys... why not get a white wall and good projector, imagine your monitor as the entire wall. ;)Ma10n3 - Friday, May 28, 2004 - link
#49, Did you take a look at the article listed in post #39?Oh, and I at least never claimed a dual-processor system gives you more "bang for the buck." I do believe it gives you quite a bit more mileage out of the hardware you purchase considering the direction Windows is heading (referring to Windows XP 64-bit edition, of course). Also, the benefit of doubling the memory bandwidth as well once WinXP64 is released (because of NUMA support) should increase performance in all applications, 32 or 64 bit. The legacy PCI bus is a severe bottleneck to all connected peripherals largely due to the fact that they all have to share the same bandwidth. Most of the newer dual-processor boards offer alternatives to just a single legacy PCI bus because of the chipsets they use and features of the AMD Opteron cpus.
Considering all of the above, I don't believe an Intel dual-processor system contains enough worthwhile features to justify the purchase.
Again, as far as the hard numbers, please refer to the URL listed in post #39.