Starting From Scratch With A New PC

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Thu May 19, 2011 6:40 am

Chris,

If you can change the sparkplugs in your car, you can build a good PC. The trick is to select the right parts relevant to your requirements. Putting it all together is not overly complicated and you do not need a degree in computer science.

There's a few decent boxes on ebay.co.uk at reasonable prices if you'd rather go down that path.

Craig

ChrisR · Post by **ChrisR** » Thu May 19, 2011 2:32 pm

you do not need a degree in computer science.

Perhaps thet's what's getting in the way. But I'm 30 years out of date in what makes up what we used to call microcomputers. I made one then using a superfast 6809, clock speed 4MHz!

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Thu May 19, 2011 7:31 pm

ChrisR wrote:I made one then using a superfast 6809, clock speed 4MHz!

Resting on your laurels

It's much easier to self-build a system now. Basically, it's not dissimilar to a LEGO® project.

http://www.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

Here's a picture of some boxes (saves, me from relisting the individual hardware components).

Craig

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Sat May 21, 2011 7:54 am

The ultimate "desktop" PC?!?! (grins)

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech ... ter-cooled

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Tue May 31, 2011 8:34 pm

For reference.

I ran a Zerene PMax focus stack directly from the Primary SSD (source files on SSD (OS and program files on same SSD)).

All Zerene Stacker options > Preferences > Alignment 'ON'.

Intel Core i7 2600K (Quad): 106 images 4752 x 3169px (16bit tif): Time = 6 minutes and 32 seconds.

Equates to approx. 1 minute less than the previous test where the source files were located on a secondary 'platter' 7200 rpm HDD.

It will be interesting to see if there is much difference repeating this exercise when the source files are located on a separate SSD. I don't expect there will be....

Craig

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 7:49 am

Craig Gerard wrote:For reference.

I ran a Zerene PMax focus stack directly from the Primary SSD (source files on SSD (OS and program files on same SSD)).

All Zerene Stacker options > Preferences > Alignment 'ON'.

Intel Core i7 2600K (Quad): 106 images 4752 x 3169px (16bit tif): Time = 6 minutes and 32 seconds.
Equates to approx. 1 minute less than the previous test where the source files were located on a secondary 'platter' 7200 rpm HDD.

It will be interesting to see if there is much difference repeating this exercise when the source files are located on a separate SSD. I don't expect there will be....

Craig

Interesting test and data.

I continue to wonder if an OCX Revo "internal RAID-0" SSD card would offer advantages? Some models claim up to 70,000 IOPS. Yet they seem to top out at 500 MB/s, not so different from the fastest ordinary SSDs.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-revodr ... s-ssd.html

I'm not 100.0% sure about their reliability or compatibility, though - Falcon Northwest seemed to have pulled them from their options list the last time I looked (over a month ago). At one point, they were offering up to 750 GB per card, for one or more Revo cards.

I assume Intel would like everyone to abandon PCI-e, SATA, and USB3 in favor of their new "Thunderbolt" I/O technology and port. As I understand it, only Apple sells Thunderbolt, and only for their newest Macbook Pro laptop. As of the moment, there isn't too much available to plug into the port but I'm sure that will soon change.
------------------

I may experiment with using my two SSDs in a RAID-0 configuration. I'm sure that would provide much more of an I/O boost than simply having a 2nd SSD for photography and user-installed software. Yet it might also complicate maintenance and repair.

Or, I may simply wait until the price of SSD come down even more and upgrade to two larger SSDs and use them in RAID-0. At the moment I am using about 80 GB of SSD space, total for both drives, not counting space reserved for currently active digital photos on the 2nd drive. If I switched to RAID-0 with my current drives, I would only have a max of 30 GB of space left for digital photos (the formatted capacity of my Intel 510s is 111 GB each.)

If cost had been no object, I would have simply bought two 240 GB SSDs and used them in RAID-0 for speed. I had already exceeded my original budget target for a new PC and couldn't bring myself to spend another $500! Also, I would like to generate some test data with my own workflow to see how much RAID 0 would help before committing. Somewhere along the way one will become much less I/O limited and we can go back to fussing over the CPU speed and overclocking!

I wonder what another 3-5 years will bring? Will GPUs take over, for example, allowing us to work at ultra-warp speed? I tend to think they won't since it is so hard to write efficient software for highly parallel architectures like a GPU, or even for a handful of Intel cores.

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:28 am

Perhaps this is the ultimate I/O (input-output) enhancing option for PCs?

Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/o ... 4_pcie_ssd

"1 million 4K write IOPS" sounds like a lot!

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 2:27 am

Phil,

If I were to build a home server for web-hosting then I'd look at incorporating an OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD.

Building this new PC has become a temporary addiction/obsession; but overall a very enjoyable exercise

I can't stop the upgrading process now that I have started up this path.

Latest additions include a Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard. I was using an earlier version of the diNovo because of the 'laptop' type key response, but the flashier 'Edge' version makes typing enjoyable and precise.
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards ... evices/192

The second OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD Max IOPS goes in later this week and a new graphics card.....it never ends

Couldn't resist the 'lines' on this Gainward Geforce card. Good Nvidia chipset and an outstanding Gainward customised cooler. The design had me at first glance

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1 ... ction.html

Now I'm looking at mousepads.....s'truth where does it end

Any recommendations or preferences/suggestions regarding mousepads and a cordless mouse, graphics tablet........(Wacom Intuos4)?

Rendering adjustments and filters in PS, focus stacking and all the important photography associated functions are extremely fast!

It has all been worth it

(even if I did have to sell some surplus glass and other bits'n'pieces to finance the build).

Craig

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:30 pm

I've had not time to study the various advice and options for my own needs. That has not changed and I am off to France for a few days on Friday. In the meantime, my son thinks this might meet my requirements, as stated in this topic:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/259562

I would install Windows 7.

Any comments welcome.

My son also, several weeks ago, suggested 3 PC bundles from another supplier. When I tried to study them via the link to their website it was not accessible. It seems that the company had given good service and value but had started letting down their customers very badly and may have ceased trading.

We have been happy with Ebuyer in these respects over the last year or two.

Harold

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 1:31 am

Harold,

Looks like a respectable box at a good price. Would need at least 1 additional hard drive and preferably an OEM version of Windows 7 Pro 64 bit (OEM should cost less when you buy a system as opposed to buying the 'retail' version separately). That particular version of Windows 7 has a number of advantages: including the ability to run virtual-pc XP mode and negotiate a considerable amount of RAM.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtua ... t/faq.aspx

I had a look at some of the other offerings from Ebuyer, they do not appear to list any detailed specifications with regard to components

.

I'd be inclined to go for a later release CPU. The Intel i7 2600K (Socket 1155) is one of those CPUs that Intel got really, really, right. The socket 1155 boards use Intel's P67A or Z68 chipset, those chipsets do not, as far as I know, support on-board video, so you would also need a dedicated PCI-Express graphics card.

Either way, it looks like you are on the right track

Craig

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:28 am

Craig,

Thanks. I was wondering about involving XP somehow in parallel. I won't be making any decisions for a few weeks.

Harold

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:05 am

Harold,

I don't have Virtual-PC installed (it's a free Microsoft download), so cannot advise regarding applicability. I am curious to know if it works with your transparency scanner, etc.

Craig

Craig Gerard · Post by **Craig Gerard** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:17 am

I've plugged in the Gainward Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti Phantom 2 graphics card (mentioned in an earlier post). It's very, very quiet, and substantially faster than my previous (now spare) graphics card.

The second OCZ SSD is installed. I will do a focus stack with the source files on the secondary SSD and compare the results with earlier test runs.

Here is a screenshot of the Windows performance rating after all the bits are plugged in. The CPU is running at standard clock speed.......

Craig

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:57 am

An interesting new symptom appeared this afternoon. The PC had been on for several hours and I was about to sit down and open new email message which I could see in my inbox. I took a sip from my cup of tea and when I looked again the screen was black. The PC had no power, although my USB hub and monitor did.

Fiddling with the power switch at the back of the tower seemed to sort it out. The strange thing is that, for many weeks, I have had to get the lower CD drive drawer to open by pressing the reset button then the eject button. (If I switch of the mains at the socket with both drawers fully open and then restart the PC, it will usually boot up). This time (several succssful attempts and no failures) I did not have to use the reset button to get the drawer to open (eject). Whether this was a one-off remains to be seen but I am going away tomorrow.

Harold

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:15 am

Harold Gough wrote:An interesting new symptom appeared this afternoon. The PC had been on for several hours and I was about to sit down and open new email message which I could see in my inbox. I took a sip from my cup of tea and when I looked again the screen was black. The PC had no power, although my USB hub and monitor did.

Fiddling with the power switch at the back of the tower seemed to sort it out. The strange thing is that, for many weeks, I have had to get the lower CD drive drawer to open by pressing the reset button then the eject button. (If I switch of the mains at the socket with both drawers fully open and then restart the PC, it will usually boot up). This time (several succssful attempts and no failures) I did not have to use the reset button to get the drawer to open (eject). Whether this was a one-off remains to be seen but I am going away tomorrow.

Harold

PC issues are most frustrating. I try to look at it philosophically and be thankful that this assembly of (literally) several billion sub-components works most of the time. Assuming that the parts are independent, the chances of all multi-zillion parts working at the same time can only be reasonably high if there is an *extremely* low error rate. But it's still frustrating to repair the things and keep them going.

I suspect that things like connector corrosion and such may be part of what makes it hard to keep an older PC. Capacitors start to fail, etc, etc. I can't begin to imagine what it's like to think about reliability inside one of the big chip assemblies.