borandi's PC Exploits

ASUS P8Z68-V PRO Review: Our First Z68 Motherboard

2011-06-24T14:49:00.000+01:00

ASUS P8Z68-V PRO: Friend or Foe?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4330/asus-p8z68v-review

Yet another 6-series chipset is upon us from Intel. In terms of just consumer level desktop Cougar Point chipsets, this makes the seventh on offer—the Z68 is being marketed as the logical progression from both P67 and H67 for consumers. Z68 introduces a host of new features, including combined overclocking of the CPU and integrated Intel HD Graphics, SSD caching, and use of integrated GPU features such as Quick Sync while still maintaining full discrete GPU usage in true 3D applications. ASUS have kindly supplied us with their P8Z68-V PRO model, which should retail at $210, and is a small price premium as an update from the P8P67 PRO model we looked at previously.

P67 $190 Part 2: MSI, ASRock and ECS

2011-05-10T07:29:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4323/p67-190-part-2-msi-asrock-and-ecs

Our first look at $190 P67 boards started with ASUS and Gigabyte. Within hours of posting the review, I was commandeered by several other companies to look at their $190 motherboards. This is still one of the best selling P67 price points, even with Z68 around the corner. Here, we look at the MSI P67A-GD65, the ASRock P67 Extreme6 and the ECS P67H2-A2, and come up with some interesting results. Read on…

H67 – A Triumvirate of Tantalizing Technology

2011-03-28T01:59:00.001+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4241/h67-a-triumvirate-of-tantalizing-technology

Sandy Bridge is more than just P67. With the plethora of issues regarding the B2 stepping and Intel’s recall, there is still hope in the land of Sandy Bridge. Before Z68 is launched sometime later this year, we have laid our hands on some H67 boards. The H67 allows us to use the onboard graphics capabilities of the Sandy Bridge platform, at the expense of processor overclocking, as well as one of the two graphics based PCIe slots that P67 afforded. Today we are examining the Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H, the ECS H67H2-M and the ASRock H67M-GE/HT, all below the $150 mark, all micro-ATX.

The Battle of the P67 Boards - ASUS vs. Gigabyte at $190

2011-01-20T22:08:00.002Z

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4130/the-battle-of-the-p67-boards-asus-vs-gigabyte-at-190

In the world of motherboards and manufacturer competition, the idea is to beat your competitor. To develop the product, with more features, more fancy gadgets, and perform better than your competitor at every price point. Today, we pit arguably the two most popular motherboard vendors at a price point that will see a significant number of sales from consumers and enthusiasts alike – the ASUS P8P67 Pro and the Gigabyte P67A-UD4, which were both released during the Sandy Bridge week for $190. Forget all the marketing fluff; this is a showdown!

Welcome to Sandy Bridge, with the ASRock P67 Extreme4

2011-01-08T23:13:00.000Z

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4080/welcome-to-sandy-bridge-with-the-asrock-p67-extreme4

The launch of the Sandy Bridge platform today brings Intel’s newest socket, the new LGA-1155 platform, into the hands of the consumer. Pre-release information across the internet has heralded this new platform for its per-clock performance, and the reduction in complexity when it comes to overclocking. Through the ASRock P67 Extreme4 motherboard, let us examine some of the new features Sandy Bridge has to offer, and see whether this board is worth the $150 projected price point.

Zotac Announce two 880G AMD Mini-ITX Motherboards

2010-12-03T15:17:00.001Z

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4046/zotac-announce-two-880g-amd-miniitx-motherboards

The mini-ITX market is gathering pace, and seemingly every motherboard company wants a piece of the action. Some get it almost right, such as the Gigabyte H55N-USB which is the only motherboard this year we’ve given a highly recommended rating, whereas others can get it very, very wrong. Mini-ITX specialists Zotac have recently announced their next two AMD offerings.

A brief look at upcoming ASUS P67 Motherboards

2010-11-14T18:28:00.000Z

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4019/a-brief-look-at-upcoming-asus-p67-motherboards

With the launch of Sandy Bridge on the horizon, the larger motherboard manufacturers are putting the final touches to their products. ASUS, Gigabyte, EVGA, MSI, Foxconn, and others will all be vying for your hard earned cash by attempting to wow you with images of hardware, and words regarding supposed performance. So when ASUS started handing out images of their upcoming high-end P67 range, we had to dissect and pass on the information. Click through for the P8P67 Pro, P8P67 Deluxe and the P67 Maximum IV Extreme.

A Quick Glimpse of the Biostar TP67XE and TH67XE

2010-09-29T14:53:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3950/a-quick-glimpse-of-the-biostar-tp67xe-and-th67xe

With Intel’s new socket 1155 and Sandy Bridge archtecture nearly upon us, it was only a matter of time before motherboard vendors started to release promotional shots of their offerings. We saw a few pre-production boards at Computex, enough to wet the appetite, but nothing set in stone. Now however, some high-resolution images of final production boards have fallen into our lap in the the form of their TP67XE and TH67HE offerings.

ASUS Rampage III Formula to debut ‘soon’

2010-08-06T08:51:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3841/asus-rampage-iii-formula-to-debut-soon

ASUS’ Republic of Gamers range is soon to have a new member, in the shape of the ASUS Rampage III Formula. Using the X58 chipset, this board is designed for looks, uncompromised performance, overclocking, and the best possible online gaming experience with the new SupremeFX X-Fi 2 audio solution. However, based on our recent high-end X58 roundup, the X58 market is stagnating between the budget X58 and high end, where the minor features that few people end up using seem destined to create a huge markup price. ASUS hopes to alleviate such issues with the release of the Rampage III Formula, by finding a happy medium.

Logitech Releases a Smörgåsbord of Gaming Peripherals

2010-08-05T22:47:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3840/logitech-releases-a-smrgsbord-of-gaming-peripherals

A competitive gamer loves being at the cutting edge. Every piece of hardware needs to be meticulously set to his or her specifications and customisations – being hindered by substandard equipment is not an option. For a number of years, Logitech have played a role in this field, trying to give the gamer what they want – assuming money is no object, of course. Today they have announced a triumvirate of a new headset, new mouse and new keyboard to add to any prospective warrior’s arsenal, if your wallet stretches that far.

Corsair to release the H70

2010-08-04T22:05:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3837/corsair-to-release-the-h70

Water cooling is typically seen for an enthusiast, requiring pumps, reservoirs, tubing, know-how, and a cautious mind not to spill water all over your precious components. The benefits of water cooling are obvious to many – having your system run cooler, better stability at higher overclocks, and aesthetics. Lower down the order of the water cooling, manufacturers like CoolerMaster, Corsair and Coolit have over the years come to the market with all-in-one solutions, requiring little knowledge to reap water cooling benefits. These early models were readily slated in reviews, for being more expensive than high-end air cooling, yet performing worse. It wasn’t until the Corsair H50 and H50-1 models came along that these all-in-one water coolers were taken seriously, because here was a product that performed as good as a high end air cooler, in certain situations quieter, could easily fit in many cases, and only for a small premium. So now Corsair is due to release the next model in their line – the Corsair H70.

Gainward announces a 2GB GTX 460

2010-07-31T22:26:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3835/gainward-announces-a-2gb-gtx-460

If you’re on the lookout for a GTX460, you had two choices – the 768MB versions, or the 1GB variants. Fromour recent review, the 1GB versions, due to their increased memory bus width, outperformed the 768MB versions by quite a few percentage points. This is also reflected in the price of the 1GB 460 over the 768MB 460. So now Gainward are adding to the mix, with a 2GB GTX 460 model.

OCZ Unveils 4GB DDR3-2133 Modules

2010-07-13T18:16:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3815/ocz-unveil-4gb-ddr32133-modules

The amount and speed of the RAM in a system is always indicative of the user and the software. Small home users require nothing more than enough for the operating system, word processing, web browsing and email. CAD engineers, VM users, and video/ music/graphic editors may require density over speed, to cope with a potentially large workload, while overclocking fanatics like memory that goes fast. OCZ plans to cater to both overclocking and high memory users, with the announcement of high speed, 4GB memory modules.

Sapphire HD5670 Ultimate Announced

2010-06-24T14:43:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3785/sapphire-hd5670-ultimate-announced

Sapphire is bringing a constant stream of passively cooled 5xxx series GPUs to the market – if you recall, we reported on the Sapphire HD5550 Ultimate only a couple of months ago. This time, they have another iteration to introduce to the market – the HD5670. With HDMI, Dual-Link DVI and DisplayPort connections, the card will support three monitors in an ATI Eyefinity configuration with a suitable DisplayPort monitor or active display adapter. DirectX 11 and CrossFireX support comes as standard.

Computex 2010: Motherboards

2010-06-18T19:46:00.001+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3770/computex-2010-motherboards

Another year, another Computex. Every time it comes around, vendors attempt to tease and tantalise both journalists and Joe Public alike with concept models, previews, machines running really fast, and the ubiquitous booth attendants holding motherboards upside down. As part of our motherboard coverage here at AnandTech, rather than post separate news articles for each motherboard, we've had a look through what Computex 2010 had to offer, including current and to-be-released products, and got facts straight from the manufacturers where possible.

ASRock X58 Extreme3: An Enthusiast X58 Motherboard at a Budget Price?

2010-06-06T15:44:00.004+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3751/asrock-x58-extreme3an-enthusiast-x58-motherboard-at-a-budget-price

Today, we take a look at an X58 motherboard from ASRock, the Extreme3. The Extreme3 is the next iteration up from the ASRock X58 Extreme, with the notable additions being USB3 and SATA 6Gb/s functionality. The good news is that ASRock have managed to provide the extra features whilst retaining a sub $200 price point, making it a difficult board to ignore...

News Just In: Gigabyte Announces USB3 Mini-ITX H55 Motherboard

2010-06-06T15:43:00.003+01:00

In the race to get a USB3 capable mini-ITX motherboard to market, Gigabyte has today announced the first entry into the arena - the GA-H55N-USB3. Measuring a tiny 17cm x 17cm, this board is a stark contrast the the Gigabyte X58A-UD9 released last week.

News Just In: A Single Slot GTX 470 from Galaxy

2010-06-06T15:42:00.004+01:00

Power and heat output are often issues which stride the minds of graphics card enthusiasts. Sufficient cooling and a beefy power supply are often a prerequisite if one wishes to invest in NVIDIA’s latest Fermi offering. So what happens when we catch word of a single slot graphics card containing a Fermi GPU?

AMD Releases Processor Updates

2010-05-11T07:44:00.003+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3714/amd-release-processor-updates-

AMD today have launched five new processors, to replace current products, ranging from the budget Athlon II X2 260 to the Athlon II X4 610.

Hard Drives to reach 3TB in 2010?

2010-05-11T07:43:00.000+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3713/hard-drives-to-reach-3tb-in-2010

Sources close to Seagate roadmaps have leaked the potential of a 3TB SAS drive being released this year.

Intel announce super Westmere-EX for servers

2010-05-10T22:49:00.000+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3712/intel-announce-super-westmereex-for-servers

The newest product to be thrusted into Intel's server arsenal will be called Westmere-EX, and is set to directly compete with AMD's Mangy-Cours server chip which features 12 cores, and AMD's future Bulldozer architecture.

MSI has announced the HTPC oriented 740GM-P25

2010-05-10T22:47:00.001+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3708/msi-ananounce-htpc-740gm-p25

Announcing high end products and 'Halo' type hardware is relatively easy for manufacturers - slap some snazzy artwork next to a few pictures, wring a few industry related endorsements, put the major selling points in big letters, write a website page for it, and maybe run a competition to let a couple of people win one. For entry level boards, it's a different matter - make it work well, and price it right. This is exactly what MSI are trying to do on their new 740GM-P25.

Inno3D announce triple slot GTX 470 Hawk

2010-05-07T23:17:00.000+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3707/inno3d-announce-triple-slot-gtx-470-hawk-

The Fermi cards have now been out (and only just available) for the just over a month. Like the AMD 5xxx series, the first cards used reference PCBs and reference coolers - the only way you could distinguish between the different companies was by the branded sticker on the large chunky cooler. Given time, and knowledge of the system, custom coolers were just around the corner. This is what we see in the new Inno3D GTX 470 Hawk.

Galaxy GTX 470 GC - The world's first non-reference Fermi

2010-05-07T06:29:00.000+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3706/galaxy-gtx-470-gc-the-worlds-first-nonreference-fermi

Galaxy have pleasantly surprised us, and the folks at vr-zone. To the table, they bring their GTX 470 GC, a 100% non-reference design graphics card utilising an NVIDIA GeForce Fermi 470 GPU. Measuring 9 inches (compared to the reference 9.5 inches) and featuring a blue PCB, Galaxy have essentially mated a graphics card with a robot figurine.

Fastest memory race heats up - Corsair® announce blazing hot 2533Mhz DDR3

2010-05-07T05:51:00.000+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3705/fastest-memory-race-heats-up-corsair-announce-blazing-hot-2533mhz-ddr3-

The whole 'fastest memory' halo product race is a bit of a farce. In terms of DDR3, Corsair started the race back in 2007 with their first set of Dominator modules, running at 1600Mhz, 10-8-8-24. This has been followed and bested, mainly by Corsair, but with sneak appearances by Kingston, G.Skill and Patriot (see below). Now Corsair are marketing the next in their line of 'I've got a big cock' memory - 2533Mhz DDR3.

Supermicro to expand their GPU servers to include Fermi-level Tesla

2010-05-04T16:42:00.003+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3693/supermicro-to-expand-their-gpu-servers-to-include-fermilevel-tesla

Supermicro have launched today their second generation of GPU computing servers, using NVIDIA Tesla 20-series GPUs. This product line is an upgrade from their first generation servers, and features a 1U server with 2x M2050 Tesla cards; a 4U tower that supports four C2050 Tesla GPUs, three other PCI-E cards, and support for eight hot-swappable 3.5" SAS/SATA drives; and a 2U twin server that supports two hot-pluggable GPU nodes and onboard QDR InfiniBand for 40GB/sec connectivity.

Corsair add 32GB and 256GB models to their Nova SSD range

2010-05-04T13:41:00.002+01:00

http://anandtech.com/show/3692/corsair-add-32gb-and-256gb-models-to-their-nova-ssd-range

Corsair have announced today that they are expanding their Nova SSD range to include both the 32GB and 256GB models.

Biostar announce the TA890FXE and ‘BIOKING’

2010-05-04T06:39:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3691/biostar-announce-the-ta890fxe-and-bioking

Okay, I lied a little. Biostar announce their new tech as ‘BIO-unlocKING’, a feature on their latest 8xx series motherboard to unlock the quad core Thuban based processors (such as the Phenom II X4 960T) to their hexacore variants. Biostar cover themselves by noting that not all quad core Thubans will unlock. This feature will also help with unlockable dual core chips.

Big Bang-XPower: A new MSI motherboard announced

2010-05-04T06:37:00.001+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3688/bigbang-xpower-msi-motherboard

Popular motherboard manufacturer MSI has announced the next weapon in their motherboard arsenal - the MSI Big Bang-XPower. Like other second generation X58 motherboards, the XPower will feature SATA 6G and USB 3.0 teamed up with a slew of overclocking features in order to captivate the enthusiast market.

Sapphire announces the passive HD 5550 Ultimate

2010-05-04T06:36:00.000+01:00

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3683/sapphire-announces-the-passive-hd-5550-ultimate

Today, Sapphire have announced the latest in their lineup of ATI 5xxx series graphics cards - the passively cooled HD 5550, dubbed the 'Ultimate'.

Back in Black

2010-05-04T06:16:00.000+01:00

This blog is back! Though the outset will change.

I've been gain(ward)fully whisked into a world of motherboard reviews and news at http://anandtech.com. My job there is to dissect recent news from motherboard manufacturers (and sometimes CPU, RAM and GPU news) for the public, as well as reviewing motherboards.

This blog will mainly link back to all my anandtech.com stuff, and provide some musings. Keep your eyes peeled, dawg.

Yet another blog

2010-02-15T21:59:00.001Z

Left for dust. No really, seemingly I have better things to do with my time...

Let's just leave some BOINC stuff here. Click an adsense link if you reach this page.

boinc update

2009-08-14T01:27:00.000+01:00

So, a new project has come into the BOINC world:

Collatz

The Collatz project is designed to prove/disprove the Collatz conjecture through brute force techniques. The project will end when this is done.

Good thing about this project is that there are optimised apps for ATi GPUs and nVidia GPUs. The 64-bit CPU application is pretty good as well, the 32-bit one is a bit crap. But, it doesn't have the single precision requirement like MilkyWay, so I can use my two 4670 cards for it as well.

So I've put them into Dutchie, and Dutchie into the old P4 case I had. My ATi cards in HAL are now working on Collatz too, and when GPUGrid hits 1M, it'll transfer over too. My CPUs will still work on the goals mentioned in my last post. So far, time per WU looks like:

4850:
802.781 sec for 159.75 creds
780.875 sec for 149.11 creds

GTX280:
1359.91 sec for 155.14 creds
1442.56 sec for 157.38 creds
1434.11 sec for 158.53 creds

Q6600 @ 2.85Ghz, 32-bit:
32533.23 sec for 167.23 creds

So yeah, CPU is a bit crap at 2k creds per day per quad core on 32-bit. But 1M Collatz creds should take about 60 days on one 4850. Or 30 on two, 15 on four.

boinc update

2009-08-11T08:18:00.000+01:00

Ahh, more BOINC progress.

Just hit 13M credits total, nearly 10M in Milkyway, nearly 1M in GPUGrid and nearly 250K in SETI:

I'm hitting all my main targets here. I was wanting to pad out this graphic:

With results at each of the 10K, 25K, 50K, 100K, 250K, 500K, 750K, 1M, 2.5M, 5M and 10M milestones. Each milestone requires a certain amount of projects to reach that level, and SETI will be getting my my 250K one soon and MW will hit the 10M one soon. So that goal is done.

Well, what's left then? Gain more credits?

In respect to the fact that I'll be using a 16 thread machine at work in the near future, I've come up with the following plan:

a) Reach my main goals with respect to the second graphic. This means:
- Milkyway @ 10M
- GPUGrid @ 1M
- SETI @ 250K

b) Work on little projects where I am below 80% in terms of credit. For now I'll limit this to:
- Rosetta
- FreeHal
- Einstein
- Spinhenge
- ABC
- Ramsey
- SIMAP
- Malaria
- RCN
- SETI-Beta
And for each of them I'll get them up to 50K, and hopefully above that 80% line.

c) Now for some bigger goals - get as high as I can on each project to get 1st or 2nd in terms of 'who joined the same day I did'. This means the following projects and targets:
- CPDN @ 250K
- QMC @ 600K / 1.2M
- PrimeGrid @ 250K
- WCG @ 1.25M
- Cosmology @ 1M
- Rosetta @ 500K/1M/5M
For Rosetta and QMC, the numbers gets me into 3rd/2nd/1st but because there is such a gap it might be worth doing it in stages.

All this time, my GFX cards will be doing MilkyWay (get up to 20M or something) and GPUGrid/SETI/Aqua.

I do have a motherboard and chip here (i.e. Dutchie) not in a case or with graphics cards, so I'm deciding whether to build it up into a machine, or try and sell it on as my father is needing a new machine soon.

benchmark update

2009-08-09T09:59:00.000+01:00

This week I helped a friend pick out a new laptop. I picked out a few, but eventually she decided on the Acer Aspire 5536:

Specifications:

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 2.1 Ghz
GPU: Radeon Mobility HD 3200
RAM: 3GB
HDD: 250GB
Screen: 15.6"
Price: Around 350

All-in-all, a very nice price for what is a very nice laptop. I also got to benchmark it.

The QL-64 was a never before seen chip on hwbot, so a quick request to support got it added. Needless to say, this resulted in a swathe of gold for me... :)

CPU-Z: 2118.53 Mhz
PiFast: 73.26 sec @ 2100 Mhz
1M SuperPi: 45.96 sec @ 2100 Mhz
32M SuperPi: 40 min 44.08 sec @ 2100 Mhz
32M wPrime: 39.35 sec @ 2100 Mhz
1024M wPrime: 21 min 1.12 sec @ 2100 Mhz

I wasn't able to benchmark using PC05 - for some reason it wouldn't install. Also didn't bother with the GPU due to time, and that card is hotly contested with better CPUs.

However, I still have a mountain of graphics cards and processors to bench. Lets see how far I get.

designing a benchmark

2009-08-03T19:22:00.000+01:00

So, this new benchmark I'm making. Let's call it gpuCompute.

The idea is to have a benchmark that exploits the capabilities of GPGPU and have nothing to do with graphics. So mathematics.

I did some tests designing a program that goes through every number from 1 to N, and determines if N is prime. This means, in general:

for i = 1 to N {
  if isPrime(i) {
    //prime++;
  }
}

isprime(k) {
  for i = 2 to k {
    if k%i == 0 {return false;}
  }
  return true;
}

However, this can be shortened to go from 2 to sqrt(k), to make it go faster.

Well this benchmark checked 160 billion numbers in 3.3 seconds on my GTX280. If I stuck in an output (i.e. de-commented the prime++;) then it did 1 million in 0.2 seconds due to bad memory coalescence. When overclocking the GFX card, it only responded to an OC on the Core frequency. Hmm, not good.

Here's how it looked:

After conversing with the guys at BenchTec, they wanted a 2-3 minute benchmark. So utilising some functions I've done at work with 2D finite element simulation, I programmed some of that in.

In a nutshell, a 2D finite element simulation takes a grid of R*Z nodes, then computes each note in a new timestep as the average of the nodes around it of the previous timestep. So a grid of 1000x1000 has one million nodes - or one million threads for a cuda device. Then to increase the length of the simulation, add more time steps or increase the grid size.

This kernel function uses liberal amounts of texture memory, and 2*4*R*Z bytes of graphics memory. So I need something for the smaller CUDA cards to run, so I've limited the grid to take up at most 64MB of graphics memory and just increased the timesteps. Due to the liberal use of memory and reasonable levels of calculation per thread, this system responds very nicely to any sort of core or mem overclock. Niice :)

So all that's left to do is:

a) Change the program so multiple GPUs can be used.
b) Implement some sort of checksum to stop cheating.
c) Move it to OpenCL so ATi cards can use it too.

a haul in the mail

2009-08-03T18:45:00.000+01:00

Today I went to my college post box to receive an awesome haul:

Celeron 1.7Ghz (Costa Rica)
Celeron 1.7Ghz (Malay)
Celeron 1.8Ghz (Malay)
Celeron 2.2Ghz (Costa Rica)
Celeron D 2.66Ghz (Malay)
Pentium 4 1.6Ghz (Costa Rica)
Pentium 4 1.5Ghz (Costa Rica) x 2

All for around £1.50 each.

Some pure socket 478 benching ahead at some point.

benchmark update

2009-08-01T15:38:00.000+01:00

I took a bit of a detour this past couple of weeks. I'm doing a big round up of all the latest Catalyst driver releases for ATI cards on all the 3D benchmarks. There are some significantly surprising results! I'm less than halfway through as the testing is quite rigourous, and the results will be put up in the members section of BenchTecUK forums. Not a member? Join the team at HWbot, put up 3 scoring results (which isn't that hard) and start posting on the forum.

I've actually been quite generous to myself recently, and picked up some more equipment:

ATi 2400 Pro
nVidia 7800GS
5 Socket A processors, from Duron 700 to Athlon 1400
Socket A motherboard and cooler w/VGA port (1.5V and 3.3V)
Various Socket 478 processors from ebay

I took apart my old P4 mobo from its case so I could mess around with it. I took the cooler off, and the P4 proc came off with it! Looks like they'd used 3g of thermal material to seat the proc, and it'd set. I had to douse the area with TIM to help dissolve the thermal material, then use two screwdrivers to seperate the proc from the cooler. But I reseated it the way I wanted, hopefully I can push that beyond 3.6Ghz now.

I bought the Socket A procs and gfx cards from the BenchTec forums. I didn't have a socket A motherboard, but the procs were cheap, so I picked up a mobo/proc/cooler combo off ebay for under 20 notes. Got the mobo combo in the mail yesterday, only to find they'd used EVEN MORE thermal material on the proc... it hadn't even set properly. So I cleaned that up, and I'll test it soon after my Catalyst round up.

As far is BOINC is concerned, I'm atm only running 2 ATI cards on Milkyway - it'll be four when I've finished the Catalyst roundup. Aqua isn't giving out as much work, or credit, as before - but I got enough WUs to push me over 1m this week. GPUGrid climbed over 750k and is onto 1m fairly soon. SETI is being very awkward, and is having trouble getting to 250k. I may swap my nVidia card on GPUGrid over to Seti when GPUGrid reaches 1m - maybe get SETI to 1m. We'll see what happens.

At the minute, Dutchie is laying without power supply or graphics cards. I'll sort that soon.

On a bright note, I'm being commissioned to design a couple of websites. No doubt you can guess where that cash is going.

Also as a side project, as I've been learning CUDA and dabbling in OpenMP, I've been thinking of writing a benchmark program. The guys at BenchTec are being supportive - it probably wont be used at hwbot, but might use it in some form of competition at BenchTec. I'll post it here too :)

Take care, I'm back to benching.

belated update

2009-07-18T15:14:00.000+01:00

So - not much happening. Until later today.

I'll finally get around to benching that 4850X2. Since then, I picked up the Gainward GS GLH 4870X2 (retails at £420) for £200 on the BenchTec website as well, so I'll be benching that too (and in CF). I expect some global points here, so wish me luck.

In terms of moving computers around, I finally organised the machine I'm selling to a mate - yes, I'm selling HarukaKanata in the CM 335 Elite. As such, my PC situation is being completely moved around (also so I can get my i7 out for benching).

JC now has a 550W PSU and the GTX280 in it. It's now my purely CUDA machine (BOINC and work).

HAL is now up and running - as a 2x 4850 in CF crunching machine AND my network storage:

E6400 @ 2.4Ghz
4GB DDR2
MSI Platinum PowerUp
700W PSU
2x4850 in CF with Akasa Nero Vortexx VGA Coolers
Antec 300

A few points about HAL - with two GFX cards in there always at full pelt, with the extra coolers, the temps are sort of in reasonable levels. The card on top never goes above 60C, however the card at the bottom hits 90C. While better than the 110 I was getting before, I'd like that 90 to be 80. Though I have noticed that if I overclock the cards, they actually use less shader cores on BOINC, and are cooler, but still crunch faster. Weird that. So the top card runs at 800/750 (mem speed doesn't matter for BOINC, so it's underclocked), the bottom at 730/750. Given that 3D speed is meant to be 625/1000, I reckon that's quite good.

In terms of Dutchie, well at the minute it has not got a PSU, and is going in my Verre v770. It'll get a couple of graphics cards (if at some point my 4670s become useful...) and a PSU as and when.

HELLFIRE is going into the Thermaltake Armour. It's big, roomy, and I've been spending money on things like the 4870X2 rather than on a case. I've changed the fan on the CPU cooler to an AC-Ryan 80CFM one rather than the Delta - I think it was going too fast for optimal air contact.

So today, my benching will hopefully consist of:

4850X2
4870X2
4850X2 in CF (i.e. a 4850X2 and something else)
4870X2 in CF (again, a 4870X2 and something else)
4850 in CF if I get around to it...

Maybe sort out my overclock on HELLFIRE, too.

In terms of BOINC update, well the ATI cards are doing wonders at MilkyWay. I'm now 6.3 million credits there, 9mill total on BOINC, top 1000 in world, top 50 in UK. I dabbled a bit with a project called Aqua@Home, which were giving very good credits per CPU time. But now their credit system is being moved around, so I'm doing a bit more on SETI to get it up to 250K, and Aqua to 1M. Would like GPUGrid on 1M too, with MilkyWay on 10M.

mk-36 laptop benching

2009-07-02T01:01:00.000+01:00

I was lucky enough to get hold of a friends laptop these past couple of days, to replace a hard drive. Needless to say, benchmarks were forthcoming!

The system is best described as:

Acer Aspire 5051
AMD Turion 64 MK-36 - 2Ghz stock
1GB RAM
Radeon Mobility 1100

For both the CPU and GPU, there were less than 20 results for each benchmark, so I was guaranteed some points.

(Actually, as I'm writing this, I forgot to do some stock benchmarks for the CPU. Damn - that's for tomorrow then.)

Overclocking the CPU involved some SetFSB - managed 2213Mhz stable, and 2100Mhz for benching.

So, 2D results:

CPU-Z: 2213Mhz
PiFast: 57.97s @ 2100Mhz
SuperPi 1m: 41.11s @ 2100Mhz
SuperPi 32m: 35m 39.88s @ 2100Mhz
wPrime 32m: 1m 19.06s @ 2175Mhz
wPrime 1024m: 43m 50.33s @ 2100Mhz
PC Mark05: nothing, couldn't get it to work

Overclocking the GPU was a hard task. Hard enough that all I tried didn't work. So these are all stock scores, on an overclocked (2100Mhz) CPU:

Aquamark 3: 14207
3D Mark 01: 6008
3D Mark 03: 1523
3D Mark 05: 685
3D Mark 06: 186

So that's a nice haul of a bronze cup and 3 medals.

In other news, I ordered a 4850X2 today. So that means I can post some scores in the 4850X2 category, and the 4850X2 in CF (I'll team it with a 4850) categories. Also, the added bonus of crunching = win.

I've noticed I didn't put my 2x 4850 in CF scores up on the bot. And I can't find copies of them anywhere. So I'll do them again. It's a damn shame the UK is SOOO HOT AND HUMID at the minute. The results might be mediocre... at best.

boinc update

2009-06-29T06:47:00.000+01:00

Another week, another not much happening on the benchmarking front.

BOINC on the other hand, is going in leaps and bounds. Now at 3.88 million on Milkyway, I passed the 5 mill total mark, and The Clangers (the team I crunch for) passed 20 million.

As I was having a problem with my 4850s overheating in Dutchie, I've decided to purchase some VGA coolers:

At 11.47 a pop at SCAN, they seem OK to blow the air out the back, rather than just circulate it around.

It's also pay day next week. So along with the VGA coolers, I want a PSU for JC to put the GTX280 in, a PSU to put into my X2-4400 that I'm selling, another case for the X2-4400, and a 4850X2 to put into HELLFIRE to replace the GTX280. Then we'll see what's what on the BOINC front.

In other news, I was playing around with CUDA this evening, and got some things compiled. Though my basic idea of vector = vector * (vector+vector) at 512 threads didn't really see any improvement on speed. I have some things I need to CUDA up, so I'll have a bash at that soon.

boinc update

2009-06-19T15:33:00.001+01:00

Well, over a week later and lets see what is what.

Over the past few days, averaged around 140k points per day (PPD). MilkyWay are now issuing some work units that are slightly less points per second than before, but at least it's all work!

Gone from 1.59 million to 2.83 million since the last post. At the minute I have one 4850 card in HK, and the other in Dutchie. Having them both in Dutchie was putting making temps of 110ºC!!!

Looking at the cards in terms of cores and core speed, I posted the following over on the MW forums:

Cards that can process MW at the minute:

3850 - 668Mhz, 320cores, GDDR3 @ 828Mhz
3870 - 775Mhz, 320cores, GDDR3/4 @ 900/1125Mhz
3850X2 - 668Mhz, 640cores, GDDR3 @ 828Mhz
3870X2 - 775Mhz, 640cores, GDDR3/4 @ 900/1125Mhz

4770 - 750Mhz, 640cores, GDDR5 @ 800 Mhz
4830 - 575Mhz, 640cores, GDDR3/4 @ 900 Mhz
4850 - 625Mhz, 800cores, GDDR3/4 @ 993 Mhz
4870 - 750Mhz, 800cores, GDDR5 @ 900Mhz
4890 - 850-1000Mhz, 800cores, GDDR5 @ 975Mhz
4850X2 - 625Mhz, 1600cores, GDDR3 @ 993Mhz
4870X2 - 750Mhz, 1600cores, GDDR5 @ 900Mhz

So in terms of RAC, using the 3850 as a normalised value of 1:

3850 - 1
3870 - 1.16
3850X2 - 2
3870X2 - 2.32

4770 - 2.25
4830 - 1.72
4850 - 2.34
4870 - 2.81
4890 - 3.18 to 3.74
4850X2 - 4.68
4870X2 - 5.62

Formula = (cores / 320) * (1+((Mhz - 668)/668)

So a 4870X2 will get you roughly 5.62 times more RAC than a 3850.

Now, my intention at the beginning of the week was to get some 3850X2 cards, for 100GBP each, so crunch and also bench for some points (because not many have been benched...!).

I was going with the following:
HELLFIRE (i7 920) - 2x 3850X2
HAL (E6400) - 2x 4850
Dutchie (X2-5050e) - 2x 4670
HK (X2-4400) - GTX 280
JC (3000+) - 3850X2

But then the following occured to me given the numbers above. 3x 3850X2 cards at 100GBP each give the equivalent of 6x PPD. However, for the same price, 2x 4850X2 cards give 9.36x PPD. So I made a spreadsheet comparing price of the cards, and MilkyWay output:

Read it here.

So the way to go is 4850s or 4850X2s. Which in a sense is good - 4850s will get me some nice Global points at HWbot - though 3850s would have gotten me hardware points.

Also this week, a friend needs a new computer, so I'm going to sell HK, my X2-4400, to them. This will mean Dutchie will more than likely become my PC for network storage, and HAL will become a BOINC machine. It will also fund the above purchases :) :)

Thus the situation will end up:

HELLFIRE (i7 920) - 2x 4850X2
Dutchie (X2-5050e) - 2x 4670
HALBERD (E6400) - 2x 4850
JC (3000+) - GTX 280

It just means I also need to purchase a PSU for JC, and a case for HAL.

boinc work

2009-06-10T01:14:00.000+01:00

So, the BOINC project MilkyWay has work churning at an alarming rate :) Through a third party, the MW project can use ATI graphics cards with double precision accuracy to work on their science.

For the past couple of months, the users have been limited to 13 million credits a day - this meant for my two 4850s, they got around 15k a day because they were out of work for so long (and also there's an issue with cores to GPU ratio, as you could only get 6*cores worth of work units backlogged to crunch).

Now before when they had work all the time, each was getting about 60k a day (they were both in dual core machines). As of two hours ago, and because of a slight shift in their science over the weekend, the project is sending out work quicker than people can crunch it. So my ATi cards haven't stopped.

The change in science over the weekend caused some ATi cards to stop, meaning more work for the rest of us. As a result, I was getting 50k a day from my cards. Now hopefully I'll get 120k from the two cards, maybe even more:

Thanks to the ATi card development, MilkyWay is my top project, with 1.53 million credits as of 6pm today (it's 7 hours later, and now up to 1.59mil, which extrapolates to 205k/day).

At the minute I have several main aims in BOINC.

1) To increase the following graphic, by getting as many projects as required to certain credit levels - 50k (9); 100k (8); 250k (5); 500k (2); 750k (2); etc

2) To get into the top 80% of as many projects as possible
3) To beat my highest world position of 3185, which means getting 3.5million credits

As a result, my main projects are:

MilkyWay (for ATi cards)
GPUGrid (for nVidia cards)
SETI@Home (can use nVidia)
World Community Grid
PrimeGrid
ClimatePrediction
Rosetta

computex + XFX

2009-06-03T11:59:00.000+01:00

Well, Computex is on. Computex is a tech show where manufacturers and stuff can show off their latest hardwares. There's always talk of new top end stuff, like the Core i7 975 to replace the 965, 1TB SSDs in 3.5 inch form factor, touch screen stuff and the like.

One thing that caught my eye was XFX, now moving into the PSU market. Now, I'm a secret fan of XFX - I love their styling, and their pricing. Green and black does it for me - 'nuff said.

The PSU on show was an 850W model:

Rated 850W at 50ºC with 88% efficiency. Looks like a myriad of connectors - hopefully enough 6+2 pins for the latest graphics cards.

If XFX can price this below the Corsair 850W model by at least a tenner, I think I now know where my next PSUs are coming from!

cheap as chips

2009-06-01T16:20:00.000+01:00

The 1GB Sapphire HD 4850 X2, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 1986MHz GDDR3, GPU 625MHz, 1600 Cores, 4x DVI-I/ HDTV:

That's two 4850 GPUs on one card.

Now given I paid £120 for one 4850 a couple months back, how much do you reckon this is? £240? £260?

For today only (1/6/09), it's the low low low low low price of...

£140.

That's an awesome price.

Get it at SCAN.

I wish I had some money. This would be an awesome purchase.

interesting case

2009-05-26T14:10:00.001+01:00

The xClio 1000:

All the fans change from red to green to blue and mix em up. Massive case, only £180...

benchmark'd

2009-05-25T08:07:00.000+01:00

So, I'm getting into the groove with this benchmarking thing. I have an optimised set up for 2D and 3D benchmarks, and over the week have benched the following:

CPUs:

Core i7 920 D0

GPUs: (w/ Core i7 920 D0 @ 4.1Ghz)

X550 256mb
X800 XL
X1900 XT
4670
2x4670 in CF
4850
2x4850 in CF
GTX 280

And thus the following results were garnered:

2D Stock:

2D Overclocked:

2D Combined:

3D Overall:

3D OC vs. OC, Stock vs. Stock:

In all graphs, the higher score is better :)

Calculation of 2D scores:
a) Take the highest time for test X out of my hardware
b) Divide each CPU time by highest time = score
c) Add all scores together for all tests

Calculation of 3D scores:
a) Take the best score for test X out of my hardware
b) Divide each test score by highest score, make a %
c) Add all % for all tests, max 500 points.

Interesting observations:

- The Core i7 blasts an overclocked Core 2 Duo E6400 out of the water.
- One 4670 isn't that good at gaming, however 2x4670 at stock beats a 4850 at stock.
- The GTX 280 is better at older benchmarks. However, 2x4850 at stock beats the GTX280 overclocked for a cheaper price.

benchmark update

2009-05-24T12:03:00.000+01:00

Just a small update, given I haven't written anything. HELLFIRE is still set up as a test rig; I'm currently chugging through all my previous graphics cards. Most are setting personal bests :) Also got some modified graphics to post.

And it looks like:

2x 4670 in CF > 1x 4850
2x 4850 in CF > 1x GTX280

Also, how come I get some monster memory overclocks?? =P More details soon.

corsair products

2009-05-21T01:06:00.000+01:00

Now to talk about Corsair - a well known manufacturer of PSUs, RAM, TEC Coolers and other stuff.

First of all, my initial impression of Corsair was tainted when I was searching for some decent DDR2 RAM back in January - a fair few of Corsair products had negative reviews purely based on 1066 Mhz RAM not performing as it should. People mentioned that it was just 800Mhz rebranded at slower timings and higher voltage.

Now, with the SCAN event in Bolton last Saturday, the couple of BenchTec guys were saying Corsair this, Corsair that. Also, a guy from Corsair was at the event.

The big rave from BenchTec was two fold - PSUs, and DDR3 RAM. The PSU being heralded was the HX 1000W:

It's a modular piece of kit, that is regarded as one of the best PSUs money can buy. 1000W at 50 degrees C, 80A on a single rail, 6 6+2-pin PCI-E connectors, 5-year warranty, the lot. So it looks nice, and performs well. There is one downside - the price. £190 per unit is a large pill to swallow when you're on a budget. In essence, that could be a whole system right there, if not most of one.

So if I was to get one, I'd go for the next one down - the TX 850W model.

Still 80%+ efficient, 4 6+2-pin PCI-E connectors, 5 year warranty, 850W @ 50 deg.C. However, it isn't modular - BUT only £115. At least in my opinion, that's more like it.

Now onto the subject of RAM. I did a little research for this, and basically I can sum it up in a phrase - Corsair make the ultimate RAM for benchmarking. Their flagship product is the DDR3 Dominator GT:

Rated at 2000Mhz and 7-8-7-18 1T timings, these blow everything else out of the water. Take my current G.Skill - 1333Mhz and 8-8-8-24 timings; that is a HUGE difference. The guy from Corsair said that for every 100 kits they aim to make of this GT stuff, only one kit actually passes (the rest get rated at lower speed). So it's crafted, hand tested, and looks good. Now comes the downside - again, price. A 3GB kit seems to be almost non-existent in the UK, but retails for $300 USD. The 6GB kit is around $540/£300. Again, a tough pill to swallow.

For good performance with a tighter budget, there are the 1866Mhz 9-9-9-24 Corsair Dominator kits for £125.

A friend pointed out that an increase of 1-1-1 in timings requires approx 150Mhz on the clock to get similar performance (I haven't done the math, but it seems fair). So if we raise the bar on each kit to 10-10-10, what would the speed be?

(£300) 6GB Corsair Dom GT: 2000 7-8-7 -> 2400 10-10-10
(£206) 6GB Corsair Dom: 1866 9-9-9 -> 2016 10-10-10
(£42) 6GB G.Skill 1333 8-8-8 -> 1633 10-10-10

That's a serious price to pay for quality RAM...

the last post

2009-05-18T14:07:00.000+01:00

Is an entry to a competition run by Thecus :) Post their press release on your blog, and 5 lucky people win one. Cheap advertising to Thecus, potentially free loot for 5 lucky people. =P

Thecus® Unveils the N0204 miniNAS Device

2009-05-18T13:52:00.001+01:00

Thecus® Unveils the N0204 miniNAS Device
"The tiny RAID-enabled portable network storage device with big ideas"

Thecus N0204 NAS03/30/2009 – Big things are happening in the world of NAS devices. Today, Thecus® is proud to introduce the N0204 miniNAS device – the world’s smallest fully-featured NAS device.

Measuring a tiny 132 x 88 x 63 mm exterior, one could easily mistake the N0204 as a regular external hard drive. But look closer and you will see a very capable two-bay NAS device that fits right in the palm of your hand. The N0204 houses two 2.5” SATA hard disks, providing up to 1TB of storage. You can manage this storage with your choice of RAID 0, 1, and JBOD, making the N0204 the most robust pocketable storage device in existence. And because its drive bays are hot-swappable and feature auto-rebuild, you can change a hard disk without powering down the unit. The N0204 even comes with Thecus®’ Nsync for remote replication as well as the Thecus® Backup Utility for total data security. With huge storage, RAID functionality, and advanced data safeguards packed into a tiny device, the N0204 miniNAS is in a class all its own.

Tiny but mighty, the N0204 comes with many of the features and functionality possessed by its much larger cousins. For starters, the N0204 can function as a complete media hub with its built-in iTunes server, photo web server, and media server. With the built-in media server, you can enjoy your videos, pictures, and music with the N0204 by using any DLNA compliant media players. Plug in a USB web cam, and the N0204 turns into the world’s tiniest home surveillance server, allowing you to preview, capture and schedule image snapshots up to 640 x 480. Add to that support for both Windows and MAC OS operating systems and a whole new user friendly Windows Utility to easily set up and link the N0204 with your PC, and you’ve got some serious storage that you can whip out of your pocket and plug into virtually any network.

The N0204 miniNAS is a marvel of engineering. With advanced energy-saving capabilities, the N0204 only uses between 25~30% of the power compared to traditional two-bay NAS devices. You can even schedule power on/off for better power management. The N0204 also features whisper-quiet cooling, which means low temperatures and even lower noise during daily operation. A convenient USB 2.0 port in the front and the one-touch copy allow you to copy the contents of a USB storage device to the N0204 with a single button press. You can also copy data from the N0204 to any USB disk for data exchange. The N0204 supports USB printers, external hard disks, USB web cam, and even works with USB WLAN adaptors, allowing you to give this tiny NAS device wireless capability.

A complete NAS device in a form factor smaller than a paperback book, the N0204 miniNAS proves that great things do indeed come in tiny packages.

"When we tell people what the N0204 miniNAS can do, the most common reaction is disbelief followed by awe,” notes Thecus General Manager Florence Shih. "We've essentially created a fully-functional NAS device in a package that you can take anywhere. With the N0204, you can enjoy the power and convenience of NAS storage anywhere life takes you."

For more information on the N0204, check out:
http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=12&pid=137&set_language=english

day out at SCAN with BenchTec UK

2009-05-18T09:41:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, BenchTec UK, Hexus and SCAN teamed up in the SCAN shop in Bolton to do a day of overclocking. I traveled 4 hours each way - it was fantastic. Free stuff and getting info on OCing was great.

Also, I should not be allowed the camera. I always get goofy grins on camera:

Though it was a thoroughly good day. A shame that the room was too warm to get some awesome results, but everyone there had fun :)

Link to the other photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=255461&id=758195262

I have some videos too I'll put up soon :)

the i7 build

2009-05-18T09:30:00.000+01:00

Got to work on HELLFIRE thursday night.

Setup: EX58-UD3R, i7 920 D0, 3x1GB GSkill DDR3-1333, Akasa Nero

The Akasa Nero comes with a piddly 12cm Akasa fan:

So I strapped my 200CFM Delta fan on it:

Went to 3.7Ghz/185BLCK without any issues - just upping BCLK. RAM was set on auto SPD timings, but ran at 1480Mhz.

For 190BCLK I put the RAM down a ratio, also lowered the voltages on the core.

Had to up some voltages for 195BCLK, but w32 under 7 seconds:

All the time I was thinking temperatures. Using Real Temp 3.0, they were hitting 74-ish.

Going to 200BCLK, and the motherboard kept rebooting, no matter what settings I put it to. Until I put a few setting on Auto on the motherboard, then it booted first time. Went back to the mobo with those settings, put them in, and it failed to boot. WTF?

For 205BCLK, upped Vcore to 1.2875V:

Managed to get the timings for RAM down to 7-6-7-15 at 1230Mhz, but not done any benchmarks with it.

Using the EasyTune, put it up to 210BClk, got a cpuz:
LINK

But running any wPrime caused it to hang. Choosing 210 in the BIOS and it failed to start. I don't really want it getting hotter; I mean 75ºC is a bit toasty for me. Might clock back to 3.7 for day to day work.

Kept track of wPrime scores and settings:

EDIT: Since I wrote this, I went on the BenchTec/SCAN performance day in Bolton - got some good tips and I'll be redoing the overclock.

i7 enabled, the birth of HELLFIRE

2009-05-13T14:43:00.000+01:00

Yes, I've monitoring prices fervently, as well as my bank balance, to see what I could upgrade to.

This week, the CM Storm Scout reduced in price again, to £81.99. This, coupled with a £99.99 1.5TB hard-drive, would have been ideal as an upgrade path.

Though today brought about something different. Something epic.

Since the last update, I read a review over at Tom's Hardware regarding the CoolIt ALC. Overall, they concluded that a big air cooler was far better than the small ALC water cooler, and less of a fiddle to sort out. Then I saw this review, comparing all the major socket-1366 air coolers available at the minute. Two coolers stood out - a Thermaltake eXtreme for the enthusiast, and the Akasa Nero for the mainstream. At £60+ for the former, and £30 for the latter, the review showed that there was barely 5ºC between the two at full load (I should mention that the Noctua enthusiast cooler came 2nd in its category). At the end of the day, if a £30 Akasa performs similar to a £75 CoolIt, I'll take the Akasa and pocket the difference.

Also since the last update, my beloved XFX board I was after went up in price to £200. That was a bit of a bummer. So the task was to find a cheaper motherboard with a 3xPCI-E interface. Luckily, Overclockers had the Asus P6T motherboard, also 3xPCI-E, on sale at £165. I was thinking that is a result! Normally the cheapest board is the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R - a 2xPCI-E board with a unique 3+1 RAM setup (standard for LGA-1366 is 3+3) - at £170. Then, whilst searching on Overclockers, I came across their B-Grade section. B-Grade usually means 'ships with limited warranty, or scruffy box, or no cables, or no manuals, or all of the above'. But lo-and-behold, was the Gigabyte EX58-UD3R for £115. This was a bargain not to be missed.

jabski at BenchTec UK gave a review of the EX58-UD3R using a Noctua CPU cooler with a Core i7 920 D0; showing how he achieved 221BCLKx21 = 4.6Ghz. In reality, a 4Ghz stable system for day-to-day showed more likely - that's still a 50% overclock.

Also at Overclockers, they've added some G.Skill RAM in their lineup. Some 3x1GB DDR3-1333 joy came at the low price of £29. The 3x2GB set was £43, but I conjectured that I may want some DDR3-1866Mhz at a later date (£95), so save some money for then. Plus I use XP, so 2.5GB would be wasted.

If you hadn't guessed by now, this means I went ahead and bought a Core i7 setup :)

CPU: Core i7 920 (2.66Ghz), D0 Stepping (£241.99)
Mobo: Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (£114.99)
RAM: 3x1GB G.Skill DDR3-1333 (£28.99)
CPU Cooler: Akasa Nero (£30.99)

Plus shipping, this came to £423; about £122 less than my previous estimates of minimum requirements. Bargain. As long as the motherboard works first time :) Actually, I ordered this stuff, and it was dispatched 30 minutes later. How cool is that?

The question also arises on what to call my new beast. At first I thought of 'Scyther' - an edgy name which conjures up pictures of ninja, or Pokémon, depending on how your brain works. My brother thought of Sarge, given that at some point I'll want the CM Storm Scout case which is black and a bit militaristic. However in retrospect, Scyther does make me think of the green pokemon; and Sarge just as a word has never felt right with me. I thought of 'The Colonel', or 'Apache', however images of fried chicken and red indians followed suit. Given that the Scout uses red fans, and I want a militaristic and edgy name, I settled on HELLFIRE. The name itself is quite epic when you write it in all caps, and is the name of at least one type of missile. Like HAL, I'll abbrev. to HF for short (which yes, does look like 'Have Fun' - which I will do building it).

Several downsides to ordering this stuff in this order - I'm now one case short to put HAL, as HF will go in the Verre V770 til I get the CM Scout. I'm also a PSU short, so HAL wont be running. For BOINC, I'll probably put the 2x4850 in Dutchie in HF, and the GTX280 into Dutchie.

Though it does make it easier when I look at the next upgrades I want (in no particular order):

3x2GB OCZ DDR3-1866Mhz RAM (£95)
CM Storm Scout (£82)
CM Elite 335 (£30)
1.5TB HDD for HK (£100)
22"-24" montor (£120-200)
64GB SSD (£150)
2x4830 for BOINC/HAL (£150)

So, welcome to HELLFIRE :)

annoyed

2009-05-07T22:44:00.000+01:00

For some reason, I can't stop looking at potential upgrade paths, or hardware to benchmark.

I've 3 processors I've identified as easy benchmarking points. However two are £60, one is £160. One I could use to replace my 5050e, however I'd need to sell my 5050e then to recoup some money.

The CM Storm Scout case is now only £90, but still not officially released yet.

I'm holding off on the CoolIt ALC until I get an i7.

An i7 starting cost is 220+175+45+75+30 = £545 for all the important components.

I can't upgrade my HAL mobo to a Foxconn BlackOps, which costs £155, because I'd have to buy some Dual kit DDR3 RAM, another £80. Don't know what I'd do with the MSI mobo or DDR2-1066 RAM.

I could upgrade the mobo in Dutchie to a K9A2 for £110 which would give me quad PCI-e slots for crunching, and a 4850 is only £90 delivered now. However the BOINC work situation at MilkyWay is still flaky. I could sell or keep the ALiveXFire-eSata2 though.

24" monitor is around £200, with 20,000:1 contrast ratio and HDMI connectivity.

A 1.5TB HDD now is only £100. However the 64GB Samsung SSD is £150.

I'm thinking of giving myself a budget of £200-£250 for the rest of the quarter.

What would you get?

benchmarks in graphical form

2009-05-06T18:14:00.000+01:00

Having played around with Excel (because I don't have Origin), I now have some graphs to show you the results of my various benchmarking.

First of all, the 2D Benchmarks:

The graph for this can be found over at http://borandi.googlepages.com/benchmarking:

BLUE = Singlethreaded Apps: PiFast, 1m SuperPi, 32m SuperPi
RED = Multithreaded Apps: wPrime 32m, wPrime 1024m
* = Not all benchmarks complete

I've decided to leave PCMark05 out of this, as it depends too much on the processor and hard drive used.

The slowest time is set as the max time, and all the scores are scaled to it. So if chip A takes 120 seconds, and chip B takes 30 seconds, chip B is rated 30/120 = 0.25

So for these benchmarks, LOWER IS BETTER.

The 3D Benchmarks:

The graph for this can be found over at http://borandi.googlepages.com/benchmarking2:

* = not all benchmarks completed yet

In these benchmarks, every score is normalised to the best score. So if GPU A gets 12000 points on a benchmark, and GPU B gets 6000 points, GPU B gets 12000/6000 = 0.5 points.

In these benchmarks, HIGHER IS BETTER.

i7 or not i7

2009-05-06T01:11:00.000+01:00

I'm wondering what to do now. Put simply I have the following upgrade paths:

Common to both options:

GFX: 2xXFX 4830
PSU: 600W
HDD: *WD Raptor
Case: CM Storm Scout/CM Elite 335

Option 1: Core i7

CPU: Core i7 (2.66Ghz) D0 Stepping
Mobo: XFX MB (3 PCI-E x16)
RAM: 3GB DDR3 1600Mhz
CPU Cooler: CoolIt ALC

Option 2: Core2Quad

CPU: Quad core, very rare on HWBot (so I'm not saying yet)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L
RAM: *4GB DDR2 1066Mhz
CPU Cooler: Asus Extreme

* indicates already own

Basically, when I upgrade, I have to decide what to do with HAL. If I'm to use it as a crunching machine, I need a couple of 4830s or something in there, hence the XFX graphics cards. Ideally I want to stick it into a CoolerMaster Elite 335 Case, like Dutchie, with a 600W PSU. I decided on 4830s over 4850s because the 4830s are £76 each, the 4850s are £93 - £17 difference per card.

The CoolIt is really a main option for the Core i7 build, and would ultimately require a CM Storm Scout case. Until that point, the Verre V770 that HAL is in at the minute is simple enough if I went ahead with the Core2Quad. At some point I'm going to have to figure out what to do with that V770 case.

Costs are as follows:

Common: £347
Option 1: £495
Option 2: £284

Though given what's said, if I went Option 2, I could wait a while for the CM Scout, removing £105. On both I could wait for the GFX cards, and thus also the power supply for HAL, which is £246. So to initially build and start would require:

Option 1 start: £630 (CPU, Mobo, RAM, Cases, CPU Cooler)
Option 1 final: £212 (GFX, PSU)
Option 1 total: £842

Option 2 start: £314 (CPU, Mobo, CPU Cooler, 335 Case)
Option 2 final: £317 (Scout Case, GFX, PSU)
Option 2 total: £631

Thus Option 2 requires a lower starting amount.

However, we are talking Core2Quad vs. Core i7 here, what about the performance difference? Well, the Core i7 does beat the C2Q out of the water in every benchmark by about 25%, but the option 1 package is 33% more than option 2.

What I have here is do I pick a decent build from current tech, or take the leap into the back end of new tech? This will decide my direction ultimately for the build after, as I'll always be using the best of the current, but never with the benefits of the new (with regard to CPUs anyway).

Then there's another chip I want to test as well for HWBot, but that's a lot cheaper AM2 :) !

benchmark update

2009-05-04T22:55:00.000+01:00

Apart from drinking the past few days, I'm finally getting around to putting the PSUs in the right PCs. Finished playing around with Dutchie, I just have to put it all it it's case now. I'm also playing around with the PCs at stock speeds, and getting some benchmarks for comparison.

Also managed to get admin access on my works Q6600, so was able to do a full suite of benchmarks for it:

CPU: Q6600 (2.4Ghz) @ 3.019Ghz
RAM: 2GB of something
Mobo: Foxconn something

CPU-Z: 3019.2Mhz
PiFast: 31.13s @ 3006Mhz
SuperPi 1m: 17.81s @ 3006Mhz
SuperPi 32m: 17m 39.920s @ 3006Mhz
wPrime 32m: 14.83s @ 3019Mhz
wPrime 1024m: 7m 45.63s @ 3019Mhz

Obviously none of them are placed - the Q6600 is a popular ship and I'm dealing with some crappy company that built this work machine. Pah.

benchmark update

2009-05-01T15:19:00.000+01:00

Now I have some Dutchie results :) Now the X2-5050e chip is 2.6Ghz on stock, however the motherboard I bought for it is useless for overclocking the CPU. It's awesome for tweaking the RAM timings, just naff for the CPU. For a start, I'm limited to 1.25 volts on Vcore. Also, with the RAM, I couldn't select DDR2-1066; only DDR2-800. As a result, I was only able to push the FSB from 200x13 (2600NMhz) to 225x13 (2925Mhz) a 12.5% overclock. Anything much above that and it'd refuse to boot properly. I'm not entirely sure why. It was having trouble at 225, until I boosted the RAM voltage from 1.8 to 2.05. This RAM is rated to 2.1V, but it didn't have the option. So is Dutchie RAM limited??

Nevertheless, I did some benchmarks. These are all at various speeds, as stability was a distinct issue.

CPU: X2-5050e (2.6Ghz) @ ~2.925Ghz
RAM: 2GB DDR2-1066Mhz (@ 833Mhz) 5-4-4-12 1T
HDD: WD Raptor
Mobo: AsRock ALiveXFire-eSata2
GFX: 2x4850 in CF

CPU-Z: 2947.2Mhz
PiFast: 45.08s @ 2936Mhz
SuperPi 1m: 31.03s @ 2937Mhz
SuperPi 32m: 28m 29.610s @ 2859Mhz
wPrime 32m: 29.24s @ 2962Mhz
wPrime 1024m: 15m 35.620s @ 2946Mhz
PCMark 05: 6180 @ 2859Mhz

I want to do wPrime 1024m and CPU-Z again, given I did run the wPrime 32m at 2962Mhz. I'll graph it all up and add some on later :) However, given the rarety of this processor on HWBot, 6 gold cups and 1 silver cup :)

slight problem

2009-04-30T17:44:00.000+01:00

After benching yesterday and looking again at it today, it seems my power supply situation is a bit wank.

I have 3 power supplies being used atm:

550W: 1 6-pin, 4 molex
700W: 0 6-pin, 4 molex on one rail, 4 SATA on another rail
800W: 2 6-pin, 2 8-pin, lots of molex and SATA

The plan was:

HAL: 800W w/GTX280
Dutchie: 700W w/2x4850
HK: 550W w/4670 and HDDs

But during benching, because the 700W hasn't got many connectors and the 4850s require a 6-pin each, running them both off one 22A rail was a bit futile.

As a such I'm going to have to have this set up:

HAL: 550W (should be OK with the 280)
Dutchie: 800W (due to the connectors and rails)
HK: 700W (enough molex/SATA to keep it happy)

Annoying thing is that I had HAL and HK all done up nice cable wise. Now I have to take them apart :( Might leave it til the weekend - I'm annoyingly tired right now.

dutchie is all go go go

2009-04-29T21:32:00.000+01:00

As I write, Dutchie is up and running, and installing Windows XP. Installation was fairly straight forward - CPU fit nicely, cleaned the CPU and cooler with some Akasa citrus CPU cleaner, added some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. The AS5 didn't want to spread evenly, so I did the best I could. What amazed me is that the Zalman CPU Cooler didn't fully go over the CPU - I was expecting it to.

It's currently got a stick of HALs PC8500 in there, and running off my WD Raptor. Why? Well before I set it up for BOINC, we have benchmarks to do! To start, all the 2D benchmarks. Then I'll have a look at some 3D ones with the 4850s in crossfire, if it'll play ball. Watch this space :)

switcheroo

2009-04-29T11:37:00.001+01:00

Spent a good 6/7 hours last night rearranging my PCs for the arrival/building of Dutchie - just general maintenance, cable tidying and seeing if I can get any more performance out of HAL.

So now HK is in the ThermalTake Armour, with 6 HDDs and a HD4670, and plugged into the 32 inch TV via HDMI. This was the plan for HK, so all I ever need to upgrade on that side would be replacing the HDDs with larger ones as and when the need arises.

HAL on the bench with powerful fans beside it didn't want to overclock any more. I did however manage to get the RAM timings down from 5-5-6-18 to 5-4-4-6... which seems a little wierd. The mobo wont let me reduce the first timing from 5 to 4, oddly enough. I also used this 'out of case' time to try and bench the 2x4850 in Crossfire setup, but for some reason it wouldn't see the CF setup. Boo.

I also had issues with the GTX280 in it - the MSI Platinum PowerUp motherboard had a big plastic housing just behind the first PCI-E slot, which was blocking the GFX card from going in completely. I took a pair of pliers to it and trimmed it down 4-5mm or so, giving enough room to put it in properly.

So now HAL is in HKs old case, a Verre V770 (this isn't mine, just generic picture):

I'm really wanting this Core i7 stuff, so I've offered HAL up for sale to a few people who I know need new PCs.

more upgrades on the horizon

2009-04-28T12:09:00.000+01:00

I was thinking of getting an E8600 system, with a Foxconn Blackops motherboard, for benchmarking. In retrospect, and contrary to this blog, I rarely upgrade my main system. HAL was built in the winter of 2006.

Thus, I've decided that a Core i7 system is what I should be aiming for. Thus the quest is on to find some decent prices.

Luckily today is a fun day for looking for prices, and this is what I've come up with:

CPU: Corei7 920 E0 (£200, friend runs an eBay shop)
Mobo: XFX X58 (£175 Dabs.com)
RAM: OCZ 3GB (3X1GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 (£45 ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: CoolIT Domino A.L.C (£75 eBuyer)

Total: £495

Also I'd want that CoolerMaster Storm Scout at some point, another £105.

Total: £600

I may need another PSU. Though I could use HALs.

That, and I'm looking at some SLC Solid-State hard drives. There's a nice 64GB one from Crucial at Overclockers for £143.

Yeah, I need some money.

benchmark update

2009-04-26T21:48:00.000+01:00

With this new RAM and 52.1% overclock, it was time to redo all the 2D tests for HWbot.

HALBERD:

CPU: E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 3.24Ghz
GFX: GTX280 (605/1107) @ 740/1300
RAM: 4GB DDR2 OCZ Gold (1066Mhz) @ 810Mhz 5-5-6-15
HDD: WD Raptor 150GB
Mobo: MSI Platinum PowerUp!
Drivers: Forceware 182.50

CPUz: 3247Mhz
PiFast: 30.03s
SuperPi 1m: 17.829s
SuperPi 32m: 16m 18.125s
wPrime 32m: 25.468s
wPrime 1024m: 13m 43.25s
PCMark 05(w/GTX280 @ 740/1300): 9160

When it comes time to bench the 2x4850 setup, I will probably redo the PCMark05. Even though the E6400 is a popular chip, I managed to get into the HWBot points for the PCMark05 score.

I've also joined the BenchTecUK forums (the team I joined on HWBot), and they have a few legal tweaks I can use to get these benchmarks higher. When it comes round to producing graphs, I'll put the updated scores on them :)

xfx gtx280

2009-04-26T16:01:00.000+01:00

In this post I'll be showing you the XFX GTX280 graphics card, and my annoying installation of it =P Here it is, bundled with HALBERD in the Thermaltake Armour:

The box is big, though not as large as my Asus HD4850 boxes. Inside, the card is well protected, with its antistatic bag, and tons of foam padding:

This is a great display by XFX - knowing that Joe Postman may just have to violently brake, with your new graphics card in the back of the van. The graphic work on the card is a big display of green and black and has that 'I'm a powerful graphics card' feel.

The fan on the card is a novel design to me. I've never seen a fan like this before - but given the size of the card, some serious cooling would need to be in order:

From the following picture, we see the GTX280 requires 1x6pin and 1x8pin power supply:

The back of the graphics card is also incased with this green and black metallic monster casing, however we see some ventilation fins and a red PCB showing through:

The SLI connectors are protected by a rubber seal, which easily comes off allowing you to fit 4 in Quad-SLI if you have the appropriate motherboard and power supplies:

Just to demonstrate the sheer size of this card, here it is alongside a regular consumer graphics card, the HD4670. The GTX280 is 10.5 inches (26.64 cm) long, and I'm sure weighs the best part of 2lbs (0.8kg).

Installation into my case arose some problems. One, this card is huge, and takes over a little section of my SATA ports, thus I had to take out two SATA cables. Second, my case uses a novel screwless system for sticking the cards in:

This purple/green combination is great for single slot cards, and the 4850s, because the 4850s have a little notch between slot1 and slot2. However, the GTX280 has essentially a solid bit of metal, and I had to remove the screwless design to even fit it in:

As you can see, this card is longer than the standard ATX motherboard! Thus be forwarned if you have a small case. This card is heavy and bulky, but looks awesome:

You may think, especially with the 4670 size comparison, why a card should need such a powerful heatsink and cooler? Well now we come to the overclocking.

The standard speed of this card was 605Mhz core, 1107 Mhz memory, 1300Mhz on the shaders. Without too much hassle, I was able to push this using RivaTuner to 740Mhz/1300Mhz/1596Mhz, and now runs at 70°C on full pelt.

So how about the benchmarks?

The system used for this bench was essentially the now souped up HALBERD:

CPU: E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 3.24Ghz
GFX: GTX280 (605/1107) @ 740/1300
RAM: 4GB DDR2 OCZ Gold (1066Mhz) @ 810Mhz 5-5-6-15
HDD: WD Raptor 150GB
Mobo: MSI Platinum PowerUp!
Drivers: Forceware 182.50

Aquamark 3d: 170979
3D Mark 01: 56390
3D Mark 03: 57485
3D Mark 05: 19729
3D Mark 06: 14593

What are benchmarks without a comparison? Well, most people at HWbot use an E8600 (3.33Ghz) chip to do their benchmarks, which I'd love to have. And the GTX280 is a relatively popular card. Thus I don't really feature highly on the tables. Yet, I'll compare my other graphics card setups to this, make some pretty graphs.

Overall though, it looks nice and feels solid, and overclocks well. However, for £340, and the fact that a pair of HD4850s in Crossfire would/should work better, you can't really justify the cost.

overclocking is fun

2009-04-26T01:59:00.000+01:00

As part of Dutchie (the X2-5050e crunching machine) being built, I bought some DDR2-1066 RAM to put into HAL (the E6400), and then put the DDR2-800 in HAL into Dutchie. As a result, I was able to overclock HAL. A LOT.

Before, my overclock was from 2.13Ghz to 2.4Ghz - a modest 12.7% overclock. The FSB would not rise about 300Mhz, no matter what I did. It kept restarting, and I wasn't sure why. I assumed it was the limit of the E6400 chip.

However, when putting in this new RAM, I had another go at overclocking. First 2.5Ghz, then 2.6Ghz, then 2.7Ghz straight off the bat! No rise in voltage required. Then 2.8Ghz, 2.9Ghz, 3.0Ghz too. I thought this was too good to be true! At 3.1Ghz, I had to detune the RAM from 4:5 to 1:1, and at 3.2Ghz I upped the voltage of the CPU a little.

Now I'm running at 405FSB, *8 multiplier = 3.24Ghz, with a small voltage change, making a 52.1% overclock! RAM is on a 1:1 divider at 5-5-6-15 timings - the RAM is rated 2.1V 5-6-6-18 @ 1066Mhz, but the MSI motherboard wont let me set it to 18, thus it won't boot properly if I stick it on a 4:5 divider (making the RAM 405(FSB)*2(DDR2)*1.25(multiplier) = 1012.5Mhz). But 1:1 Divider, making it 810Mhz, is OK at the minute.

It means I've learnt a lesson - RAM does matter quite a lot when it comes to overclocking. Also, it helps to have a decent motherboard. HAL's isn't the best.

I was also able to keep track of wPrime 32m and 1024m times as I overclocked the E6400:

A fairly linear progression over my overclock.

It also means I'm going to reclock all my PCI-E graphics cards. There was a couple of I hadn't posted yet - I'll probably post them all at once in uber Excel graphs.

future purchases update

2009-04-24T14:56:00.000+01:00

Given my recent splurge, my list from last week goes out the window. Specifically the RAM and the CPU/mobo sections. And my decision to get a different case, well that too.

I've also started to think about my next crunching system. Ideally, it'll be roughly the same for cheaper, or slightly better for the same money (as stuff gets cheaper), but still do the same job. That, and if I can find hardware to benchmark at hwbot.org, even better. Hence, when looking today, I found the stuff I want:

2nd Crunching PC
CPU: AMD 64 X2-4850e (2.5Ghz) (£48)
Mobo: AsRock ALiveXFire-eSata2 (£50)
RAM: 2GB DDR2-800 (£20)
GFX: Depends on the current market prices in £ per credit/day at BOINC.
PSU: 800W (for two dual GPU cards) or 600W (got two single GPUs) (£45)
Case: CM Elite 355 (£35)
HDD: 80GB is more than enough (£0, I have some)
CPU Cooler: Zalman Flower (£20)

That makes £218, without any GFX cards (another £220 for 2x4850).

Actually, this puts my future upgrades in a good order:

1) CoolerMaster Storm 'Scout' (£103)
Initially, this will be HALBERDs home, before I upgrade HAL. HK will move to the ThermalTake Armour.
2) 1.5TB HDD for Storage (£117)
Put it in HK, because I'm running out.
3/4) Look into HAL upgrades. I'm eyeing some E8600 chip with the Foxconn BlackOps motherboard, but that's £400 even without RAM or a PowerSupply. Then another £75 for the CoolIt ALC water thing, which I may buy as no.3 or even no.2.
5) The next crunching machine (min £450)

Fun fun fun times. Now where's my moolah.

case change

2009-04-23T14:44:00.000+01:00

For a while, I've wanted the Antec 1200 case - it's big, brash, lots of space, looks neat, and is considered one of the best cases of all time for air cooling. It looks like this:

I love the blue (and UV-purple style here) and the styling. Again, the case is massive. You can see the comparison with the Thermaltake Armour (my current HALBERD case, soon to be my HarukaKanata case) here.

However, in retrospect, I'm not getting a gaming case for the size. Mainly the cooling. I saw this case being advertised at overclockers this week:

The CoolerMaster Storm 'Scout'

This case is designed for portability and ruggedness, with plenty of fans. It's marketed as a mid-tower case (the Antec 1200 is a 'full'-tower case), and has that handle on the top so you can chug it around to LANs easier.

That being said, I haven't been to a LAN yet in Oxford. But this case is £40 cheaper than the Antec. Pair that with the CoolIt ALC I posted on previously, it's either £175 for the Antec and a cooler, or £175 for the CM Scout and the CoolIt. And because it'd have the CoolIt, the air cooling isn't that important (though the Scout still has good cooling).

So I've changed my mind. I want this Scout case :)

boinc update

2009-04-23T00:41:00.000+01:00

I just hit 2 million total BOINC cobblestones today :)

That's just under 1 million this month alone :)

the splurge

2009-04-22T11:35:00.000+01:00

All bets are off. Or more precisely, my 6-8 month plan I wrote a couple of posts ago is out the window. Why? Well I've had a very lucky week.

It started with acquiring a GTX 280. For free. Thanks to the nVidia CUDA initiative, my facebook status, a friend with a supervisor at Ox Uni with CUDA funding and a few emails, I've been given one to learn CUDA for my own research. It's a beast in size, and I'll be BOINCing on it in the downtime as I learn. I'll post pictures of the installation and size soon.
Twice this week already I've wandered up to cross at traffic lights, that usually take ages to let me cross, they've just turned as I walk up.
I remembered I had ~£100 in my Paypal account from selling some Xbox360 stuff a couple of months back. Also my finances for the quarter are looking exceptional.
Overclockers are having a sale.
Some other good things I'm not going to go into here ;)

A culmination of this led me to rethink my PC strategy. For one, I don't necessarily need my brothers computer, JC, running with a 4850 in it. Thus I can return it to an original state without a PSU and use the PSU in it for a new crunching machine.

As for the Overclockers sale, my crunching motherboard I want has dropped £5 in price. Some half-decent 4GB DDR2-1066Mhz RAM is £12 reduced. They're doing a half decent case for £30 (the Antec 300 planned is £50). A Zalman cooler is £17.50. That and the processor I want to use (the X2-5050e) is at eBuyer, which accepts PayPal.

So today I ordered from Overclockers:

Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 (Socket AM2)

OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU)

Zalman CNPS7000C-ALCU CPU Cooler

Akasa AK-TC TIM Clean CPU & Heatsink Cleaner

And from eBuyer:

AMD Athlon X2 5050e Socket AM2 45W Energy Efficient	149212
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Silver Thermal Compound	126410

I needed some more AS5/cleaner. My old stuff from my last build is a few years old now, so has probably separated. Better safe than sorry.

This also allows me to turn HarukaKanata into its purpose - as network storage, albeit not in the intended case.

The new machine will be thus:

CPU: AMD X2-5050e (2.6Ghz), rated at 45W
GFX: 2x HD 4850
Mobo: Asrock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 (AM2)
PSU: The 700W one I currently have in HK
RAM: 2GB DDR2-800Mhz
Case: Coolermaster Elite 335
HDD: I have some spare 80GB around
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS7000C-ALCU

(The RAM is the stuff I have in HALBERD - HAL will get the 4GB from this order.)

This PC will be called 'Dutchie'. The reasoning behind this name is that the processor is a 5050e, which in this modern dating age, 'Going Dutch' means splitting your bill with your date 50/50. (I always pay the bill, because I'm like that)

coolit domino alc

2009-04-21T09:22:00.000+01:00

I was surfing Hexus.net, and they have a new competition up - for a CoolIt Domino A.L.C. This is an all in one water cooling unit for your PC:

Simply bolt on, place the radiator in the 120mm fan slot near your CPU, and it's done. Water cooling solution that you don't have to mess with. It's available in AM2/775/1366 forms.

I read a review at LegitReviews to see if this was 'all that', and they believe so. At an expected lifetime of 7 years (thanks to a ceramic pump) and a warranty of two, this beast need not be refilled in its life.

As with all electronics, the UK pays a premium on this sort of thing. The target was the $100 market. In the UK, this means £75 from eBuyre (remember when it was a 2:1 exchange rate so it should have been £50?). Now if you think about it, most high end builds use a form of Zalman cooler or its nearest rivals. These come in at £40-£50, so this is a 50% jump for what is water cooling, and potentially another 200-300Mhz on your overclock.

I think it sounds neat, though I guess I'll wait until I upgrade HALBERD before getting one.

benchmark update

2009-04-19T01:41:00.000+01:00

So this time, the Radeon X800XL takes a spin in HALBERD. Stock, the X800XL runs at 400/490 - my card was old, so only a 405/522 overclock was possible using ATiTool. I was hoping for more.

The system:

CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 2.448 Ghz
GFX: ATi Radeon X800XL (400/490) @ 405/522
WD Raptor, 2GB Ram @ 5-5-5-13 382.5*2

Results:

83286 on Aquamark (22nd)
26976 on 3D Mark 01 (49th)
12845 on 3D Mark 03 (30th)
5956 on 3D Mark 05 (35th)
2064 on 3D Mark 06 (24th)

Next is my old X1900XT - one of the hottest cards ever made (the fan never went full til 100 degrees C). I replaced it mainly as it was conking out at stock speeds :S I'll remove some dust, and see what that does.

order of new purchases

2009-04-15T14:40:00.001+01:00

After outlining my ideal gaming/storage/crunching systems, I figured out my next course of action of what to buy in order. It goes a little something like this:

1) £130 Antec 1200 case. I've been after one a while, and apart from get another graphics card, there's not a lot else I can do otherwise. With this, I can put HALBERD (my E6400) in it, then put HarukaKanata(HK) into the Thermaltake Armour that HALBERD was in. Then I can rearrage HK into a purely storage system with a 4670 and all the Hard Drives - The 4850s can be split between HAL and JC until MilkyWay gets solid work, then I can put both into HAL. It has 4 SATA ports and IDE ports for 4 drives. Stick the 550W Hiper PSU currently in JC in there and away we go! This also leaves the case HK was in for a potential crunching system.

2) £45 4GB DDR2 RAM. The PC8500 stuff is quite cheap now, and I'll stick this in HALBERD. This leaves me with 2GB DDR2, which I may be able to put towards a new machine I may be building for my father, or a crunching machine.

3) £120 X2-5050e/ASRock motherboard/Zalman cooler. This will be my first crunching system. I already have the case (old HK case) and RAM. I have plenty of HDDs lying around, and a 700W PSU to put in it. Both 4850s will end up in this one for crunching.

4) £120/£260 New GFX Card - 4850 or 4850X2 If it's an X2, I can stick it into crunch and use a 4850 in HAL for gaming. This is all a question of what money I've got, how much they cost, and when I want to splurge.

5) £120 Another HDD for HK Given that I've already filled 1.5TB, another wont go amiss.

6) At this point, it might be 8-12 months from where I am now, so the CPU climate would have changed completely. At this point, it'd probably be best to re-evaluate possible upgrades to HAL.

the effect of dust removal

2009-04-15T10:42:00.000+01:00

So I was playing around with my 'unknown P4 network storage' PC last night. Turned out I called it NETBOX, and hasn't been turned on since Nov 08-ish. Go figure.

NETBOX is a P4 Northwood (3.0Ghz), and on idle it was running about 80ºC. A tad too hot. So I turned the machine off, removed the power cable, and took some cotton buds/Q-tips to the stock Intel cooler. They removed more dust bunnies than you can shake a stick at. I even blasted it a while with my Delta fan, which pushes air at ~200 cubic feet per minute, to get rid of the dust.

After dust removal, the CPU was a nice and happy 58ºC idle. Fantastic.

Some basic and quick overclocking resulted in stable at 3.52Ghz, somewhat stable at 3.6Ghz (enough for PiFast and SuperPi 1M), and a bit picky at 3.7Ghz. The RAM is 0.5GB of the generic DDR, unwilling to be pushed over 400MHz or above 250FSB. Most of the benchies I'll do at 3.52Ghz then.

The Graphics card in it is indeed a Radeon 9800, though with its tendency to overheat (even with the delta fan on it), I doubt it'll get through the tests :S

pcs of interest

2009-04-14T14:17:00.000+01:00

Over the past weeks, I've been trying to figure out what my ideal PCs are. Broadly speaking, they fall into the following categories:

Gaming
Network Storage
Crunching

So it's always a question of what hardware to get for each, and you know, how much of my stipend I have left.

Here's what I'm looking at (with two choices - the normal then expensive):

Gaming - Purpose of the gaming rig is to get the most from games, not a lot else.
CPU: E8400 (a 3Ghz C2D) or i7 920 (2.6Ghz Nehalem)
GFX: 2x 4850 or 2x GTX285
Motherboard: Foxconn Black Ops (3xPCI-E) or Gigabyte EX58
PSU: 850W or 1000W
RAM: 3GB DDR3
HDD: WD Raptor or SSD
Case: Antec 1200
CPU Cooler: Asus Silent Knight II or Zalman Flower thing

I saw a review of 3 vs 6GB, no difference really except in multitasking, hence the 3GB.

What about the price of this thing?
Well, the lower price option is 140+240+160+60+55+150+150+50 = £1005
The higher price option is 250+620+160+120+55+250+150+50 = £1655

Technically I have the Raptor, 4850s, and an 850W PSU already, taking £450 off the lower price option. Though I do have a dual PCI-E board already, if I went for the Foxconn BlackOps, I could get another 4850. So I either take 160 off and keep my board (also take off 55 for the RAM, add 32 for another 2GB of my current stuff), or add 120 on for another GFX card. That makes £183 off or £120 on, making £372 or £675, depending on how you look at it.

Network Storage - purpose is to have lots of storage, maybe a good multi-threaded processor for decoding/encoding video. A good graphics card would work too. Technically I have most of this build already.

CPU: Dual/Quad/Octo core
GFX: Something with HDMI - HD 4670?
Motherboard: Single PCI-E is fine
PSU: 550W
RAM: 4GB DDR2
HDD: 6TB+. Preferably RAIDed
Case: Something that could hold lots of HDDs. A Themaltake Armour for instance.
CPU Cooler: Zalman Flower.

Well, HarukaKanata is an X2-4400 with Zalman cooler and Asus A8N-E. I have a 550W PSU, a ThermalTake Armour and a HD 4670. Technically I'd just need to move it into the case HALBERD is in, get some more RAM and some HDDs.

Thus £25 for the RAM (or just add in the RAM from HALBERD if that gets upgraded), and £120 per 1.5TB HDD. I already have one, and can add more at will. So this option is cheap :)

Crunching - The purpose of this is just to BOINC away. I've been looking at some Quad-PCI-E boards, but given how much power GFX cards use, and the price of power supplies, it's probably best to stick to Dual-PCI-E boards. Again, let's consider a low and high spec machine.

CPU: Dual Core (AMD or Intel), or Quad Core+, preferably Intel, all preferably low power.
GFX: 2x4850/2x4870, or 2x4870X2/2xGTX295
Motherboard: Dual PCI-E board
PSU: 650W or 850W (w/Dual Core) or 950W with Quad
RAM: 2GB DDR2
HDD: 80GB
Case: Good ventilation. Antec 300?
CPU Cooler: Zalman Flower

So the main difference in the two builds would be the processor and graphics cards, along with the Power Supply (which are more expensive than you think).

So Processor Mobo combinations:
X2-5050e (2.6Ghz) 45W AM2 £53 + Asrock ALiveXFire £43 = £96
Intel Q6600 (2.4Ghz) 95W s775 £152 + A few mobos ~£100 = £252

GFX cards and PSUs also go hand in hand - a 4850 uses around 175-200W each, the X2 or GTX295 can use 300W each. So 4850s need 650W to be safe, the others should like 850W.

So lower cost option = 53+240/300(2x4850/2x4870)+43+55+25+25+50+50 = £541/£601
Higher cost option = 152+660/830(2x4870X2/2xGTX295)+100+80+25+25+50+50 = £1142/£1312

The lower cost build minus the GFX cards is 53+43+55+25+25+50+50 = £301, which is quite reasonable imo.

boinc update

2009-04-14T01:14:00.000+01:00

I made 42,347 today, now at 1.6m:

Still chugging away at MilkyWay. Also trying to get up to 80% on all my projects - currently WCG is getting some credits. Also QMC is - trying to boost that up to 100K.

For the benchmarking, I moved the 4850 ATi card that was chugging on MW into JC, my brothers AMD 3000+ PC. Maybe there the overall power usage will be lower, but as it's only single core, it'll only pull 6 work units at a time, meaning it could be out of work more. Fingers crossed the longer work unit part of MilkyWay will be up soon!

benchmark update

2009-04-14T00:57:00.000+01:00

Spent this evening benchmarking my brothers old ATi X550 256mb in my E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 2.408Ghz. I was able to boost the FSB on the E6400 by 5 after the 3D Mark 05 test, but it made no difference to the previous tests.

The X550 overclocked quite well on air - from 450/277 to 480/342, using ATi Tool auto-tune settings.

The system:

CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 2.448 Ghz
GFX: ATi X550 256mb (450/277) @ 480/432
WD Raptor, 2GB Ram @ 5-5-5-13 382.5*2

Results:

35108 on Aquamark (6th)
16470 on 3D Mark 01 (17th)
4527 on 3D Mark 03 (8th)
2330 on 3D Mark 05 (7th)
641 on 3D Mark 06 (5th )

Tomorrow, I intend to work on the X800XL I have. Initial findings show it doesn't overclock well.

Check out my HWBot.org profile.

benchmark update

2009-04-13T18:47:00.000+01:00

I had some time on a couple of computers in the lab - the a Pentium 4 3.4Ghz Prescott (which I thought sold millions, but looks like not that version), and a Cedar Mill core - aka Pentium 4 631, which did sell loads.

The Cedar Mill core did nothing spectacular:

78.06 s on PiFast
46.72 s on 1M SuperPi

There's a good reason for this. The Cedar Mill chips were awesome overclockers - one person even got it up to 8Ghz! So I wont get anything for those submissions.

The 3.4Ghz Prescott netted me these results:

38.82 s on 1M SuperPi - 6th best on hwbot.org for this chip
65.06 s on PiFast - Numero Uno on hwbot.org for this chip

There is a reason I only did SuperPi and PiFast - on these machines, I don't have admin rights, so CPU-Z doesn't function properly. This means I can't submit a CPU-Z and wPrime doesn't work (cos it uses CPU-Z), or do any graphical benchmarks. I tried SuperPi 32m on the Prescott, but it kept failing. Didn't have time to run it on the Cedar Mill, but it probably wouldn't get anywhere in the tables!

boinc

2009-04-13T17:24:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed that HALBERD is Crossfire compatible, but I've stuck only one 4850 in it, and the other 4850 into HarukaKanata. This makes sense in two circumstances - both are being used for games, or I'm using BOINC.

What is BOINC? It's a program which allows you to help scientists around the world with computational problems.

The project I'm helping with at the minute is MilkyWay@Home, as it uses ATI clients as well as CPU clients. However, work is distributed to a max of 6 'work units' per CPU core in each machine. Each work unit takes 30 seconds on a 4850 (compared to 15 minutes on the Q6600), and it's sporadic to get work, so by seperating out the GFX cards I can do more work.

They are working on a sub-project so the ATI cards can do longer work units (up to 8 hours each), and when that happens I'll consolidate both 4850s into HarukaKanata.

So, what is MilkyWay@Home? Well the project is developing an accurate 3D model of the Milky Way. They are focusing on strips of the sky, currently working on the Sagittarius cluster. Given the whole MilkyWay is a large place, there'll be lots of work to do!

From the website:

The goal of Milkyway@Home is to use the BOINC platform to harness volunteered computing resources in creating a highly accurate three dimensional model of the Milky Way galaxy using data gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. This project enables research in both astroinformatics and computer science.
In computer science, the project is investigating different optimization methods which are resilient to the fault-prone, heterogeneous and asynchronous nature of Internet computing; such as evolutionary and genetic algorithms, as well as asynchronous newton methods. While in astroinformatics, Milkyway@Home is generating highly accurate three dimensional models of the Sagittarius stream, which provides knowledge about how the Milky Way galaxy was formed and how tidal tails are created when galaxies merge.

How does a BOINC project get help from people like me? Because depending on how much work we do, we get credits for it. Credits are awarded on a system such that (from what I found), a Pentium III 800Mhz system will get 100 credits a day. I used to run a BOINC group called BOINC@Hull (from when I was in Hull university) for two years, and in that time and given that I had 11 computers, I made 800,000 credits (so 8000 days worth on a P3 8Ghz).

However, since then we now have dual and quad core computers (or 6x with the Dunnington core) that run at 2-3Ghz and compute 50-100 GFLOPs. Or take an ATI 4850, with 800 stream processors, that can run 800-1000 GFlops. So with that output, in the past month, I've already made 700k quite easily. In fact, a 4850 at full tilt all day can earn around 80k credits.

However, given the work situation at MilkyWay, currently that's around 20k. That is set to change with the new MilkyWay side project thing.

I currently 'crunch' for a team called The Clangers - a nice bunch of people. If you want to crunch, come join us and meet us on the forums! As a team, we have 14 million credits:

Our current push is on MilkyWay, however there have been other pushes before on Rosetta (protein folding) and SIMAP (protein matrix calculation).

Personally my score on MilkyWay is skyrocketing thanks to these 4850s:

This graph shows the last 60 days. Got my first card about 20 days in, and the second card around 20 days after. Time dictates I should get another?? =P I could stick it in JC. (The recent tail off is because of me benchmarking :) )

the benchmarking

2009-04-13T17:21:00.001+01:00

I'm currently benchmarking all my systems and submitting results to hwbot.org - look at my profile.

I have the following graphics cards to play with:

2 x 4850
2 x 4670 (one almost new, one never used, trying to sell, £50 each)
1 x 1900XT
1 x 800XL
1 x 550SE

Radeon 9800
Whatever is in Dell 1
Some Rage thing I found on my shelf. Looks old.

The programs I use to benchmark:

PiFast
SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS (1m and 32m tests)
wPrime95 (32m and 1024m tests)
CPU-Z
3D Mark 01
3D Mark 03
3D Mark 05
3D Mark 06
PC Mark 05
Aquamark

So in order to get best out of each GFX card, I need to put into my best CPU system at it's best overclocked speed. So all the PCI-E cards will go into HALBERD, and I've yet to see which of the AGP systems (Dell 1 and P4 old crock) is the best.

the pcs

2009-04-13T16:59:00.001+01:00

Currently, within my dominion, I have the following 'rigs' running:

HALBERD
CPU: Intel E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 2.4Ghz
GFX: Asus HD 4850 (650/1000) @ 730/1110
RAM: OCZ Platinum, 2GB
Mobo: MSI Platinum PowerUp! Edition (Crossfire capable)
PSU: Hi-Power 800W
Case: ThermalTake Armour
Main HDD: Western Digital Raptor (10k RPM) 150GB
Storage HDD: Samsung 1.5TB, another 1TB dotted over 4 HDDs
CPU Cooler: Zalman 9500

HARUKAKANATA
CPU: AMD s939 X2-4400 (2.2Ghz) @ 2.53Ghz
GFX: Asus HD 4850 (650/1000) @ 680/1050
RAM: Generic 2GB with heat spreaders
Mobo: Asus A8N-E
PSU: Arctic Power 700W
Case: I forget
Main HDD: Generic 200GB
CPU Cooler: Zalman 9500

JC (my brothers machine, was broke)
CPU: AMD Athlon 3000+ (1.8Ghz) @ 2.16Ghz
GFX: Asus ATi Radeon X550 256MB
Mobo: Asus A8N-E
PSU: My old Hiper 550W
Case: X-Something
Main HDD: Generic 200GB
CPU Cooler: AMD Standard

Pictures will be up later.

I also have the following:

Undecipherable Dell: Dell 1
CPU: P4 2.8Ghz w/HT
- That's about all I've got so far. It wasn't working when my father dropped it off with me, now it does. Need to fiddle with it.

The old storage unit: P4 3Ghz crock
CPU: P4 3Ghz (maybe HT?)
GFX: Radeon 9800 Pro (because I read the sticker)
- I had this one running for a few months, just as somewhere to hold half my hard drives and still have access. I took it offline two weeks ago when I got HarukaKanata up and running. I still want to fiddle and benchmark this. The gfx card is iffy - when I first got it, I accidentally broke a capacitor trying to put a molex cable in it. The Grand-father fixed it so it works, but it really hates temperature.

Laptop 1
CPU: AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ (1.8Ghz), runs at 100ºC
GFX: Radeon IGP 320M

Laptop 2
CPU: Pentium M 715 @ 1.5Ghz
GFX: Radeon 9000 Mobile

The Work Computer (i.e. the one I use at work and can't fiddle with)
CPU: Q6600 (2.4Ghz) @ 3 Ghz
GFX: 7300SE

welcome to borandi's pc exploits

2009-04-13T16:52:00.000+01:00

Let's face it. PhD student, almost zero money, likes fiddling with computers and spending the stipend on hardware. So here's an almost blow by blow of what I'm looking at and doing.