Originally posted by sammorris:

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This is $4000 worth of stuff. We've explained the pros and cons of hardware RAID already. Unless someone actually needs hardware RAID in their main PC, they're better off building a RAID file server instead.
The vapor compression cooler is a good example of spending $1000 for the sake of spending $1000. You don't need it. It's merely showing off. A $75 cooler will be ample.
Don't get two pairs of cheaper memory, when you have 6 sticks of that together they will get very hot.
Also, Seagate 7200.11 drives? I don't think so.
A $10,000 PC with some serious flaws, all in a very midrange case, asking for heat issues. If there's a sorry build, it's this one.

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Originally posted by KillerBug:

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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This is $4000 worth of stuff. We've explained the pros and cons of hardware RAID already. Unless someone actually needs hardware RAID in their main PC, they're better off building a RAID file server instead.
The vapor compression cooler is a good example of spending $1000 for the sake of spending $1000. You don't need it. It's merely showing off. A $75 cooler will be ample.
Don't get two pairs of cheaper memory, when you have 6 sticks of that together they will get very hot.
Also, Seagate 7200.11 drives? I don't think so.
A $10,000 PC with some serious flaws, all in a very midrange case, asking for heat issues. If there's a sorry build, it's this one.

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-His budget is $15,000 (or more)...My design didn't come close to that. If he had set a limit of $4,000 then I would have shot for that number.
-The cooler I listed allows for extreme overclocks that could never be reached with air or water cooling. A $75 cooler would not do the same. He wants the best performance he can get for $15,000. Going with dual Xeon 3.2GHZ chips is not an option because there are no good dual-socket 1366 boards available with enough PCIe slots. Because of this, the best chip that can be bought is the 3.33GHZ i7. To go faster than this, you need to overclock. To go faster than an overclock, you need to reclock. Reclocking an i7 can only be achieved at very low temperatures.
-The main difference between the memory is that the first set is taller and more expensive, and the second set is shorter with wider fins. I don't see any problems with using the shorter ones, especialy since there will be no heat from the CPU right next to them.
-I chose that particular case because is is supposed to fit on top of the phase change cooler nicely. Normaly I do not recomend Li-On cases because they are too expensive, nor do I recomend mid-towers because they do not have enough room. Considering the case plus the cooler designed for it cost $1220, I wouldn't call it mid-range.
-I don't know what your problem with the seagate 7200.11 drives is, but he could swap them for the WD 1.5TB for the same price, this would reduce performance, but it would also reduce noise. No reason to use 1TB drives anymore.
-Other than the video cards and hard drives, there should not be any heat issues. The video cards might need upgraded coolers (the first 4870x2's had lack-luster cooling). The 1.5TB drives could also use a 4-drive cooler (or 4 1-drive coolers).
-The raid card will be handling a 4-drive raid-5 array (the 1.5TB's), but it will also be handling a 4-drive raid-0 array (the SSD's). A raid-server would not give performance anywhere near where a good hardware raid card would provide (even software raid would be faster than a raid server!) The question was not "please design me a crummy system that will connect to a storage server".

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Originally posted by KillerBug:

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IF you realy want a system that is the fastest possible, without buying a mainboard manufacturer to force them to make a realy nice dual-1366 board...here it goes (BTW...This build has 4870x2 video cards, as they are currently the fastest ATI cards out...if you are ordering tomarow, then the 5870 is not an option):

$370 x2 - XFX HD-487A-CDF9 Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB Video cards
$190 - Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with Windows 7 Upgrade Coupon
$360 - 3ware 9690SA-8I-SGL SAS/SATA PCI Express x8 Hardware RAID Controller Card
$15 - 3ware CBL-SFF8087-05M 0.5m SFF-8087 Serial ATA cable
$1000 - Intel Core i7-975 Extreme Edition CPU
$280 - GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 Motherboard
$240 - CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W Power Supply
$180 - LG Black 6X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 6X BD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner with LightScribe Support
$15 - Alpha and Omega UHDC-BK UHDC HARD DRIVE COOLER
$9 - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
$190 x2 - CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 TR3X6G1600C7D G (I think the non-dominator stuff would work just as well, but at this price, might as well spend the extra $60)
$200 - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series 70SB088600007 PCI Express Interface Sound Card



$120 x4 - Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA Hard Drive (faster, but makes more noise & heat)
-or-
$120 x4 - Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EADS 1.5TB 5400RPM 32MB Cache SATA Hard Drive (Slower, but quiter)


$190 x4 - Fujitsu MBA3300 MBA3147RC 147GB 15000 RPM 16MB Cache SAS Hard Drive (faster sustained reads & writes than SSD, also cheaper and available now)
& $15 x4 - Alpha and Omega UHDC-BK UHDC HARD DRIVE COOLER
& $33 - 3ware CBL-SAS8087OCF-06M 0.6m SFF-8087 SAS/SATA breakout cable, forward, 4x SFF8482 with power
-or-
$230 x4 - Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2C1 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal SSD (faster peak read speeds, slower write speeds, less heat & noise, not currently available)
& $7 x4 - BYTECC Bracket-25350 Dual 2.5" HDD/SSD Bracket for 3.5" Drive Bay
& $15 - 3ware CBL-SFF8087-05M 0.5m SFF-8087 Serial ATA cable


$1060 - Cooler Express 2009 Super Single Evaporator CPU Cooling Unit with 1366 Adapter (this allows for extreme overclocks and increased stability while overclocked)
& $160 - LIAN LI PC-A17B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
& $9 x3 - Scythe SY1225SL12M 120mm "Slipstream" Case Fan
-or-
$75 - Thermalright Ultra120 eXtreme-1366 RT Premium Heatpipe Cooler (some overclocking is possible, but not as much, and not as stable)
& Any Case with at least 9 external 5.25" bays. Lian Li case includes the equivelany of 3 "Alpha and Omega UHDC-BK UHDC HARD DRIVE COOLER" units, and you may need to add these if the choosen case does not have this.
& fans to fit the case you find

(All prices are US dollars, gotten from newegg, except the thermalright cooler from sammoris's link & the Cooler Express unit, found on frozencpu.com)

Equiped with the phase change cooler and the 15,000RPM drives, the total price (USD, before shipping) is $6189, or about $7500 AUD.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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That's all fair enough but back up the info on the Seagates. At least one of them is VERY likely to fail.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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That's like saying I buy the faulty products off people because I know they have warranty. It's stupid to buy something you know is dodgy just so you can test a redundancy system. For RAID's usefulness, you shouldn't HAVE to use it.
The WD green drives have lots of bad press on newegg. I don't look at newegg reviews for hard disks to be honest, I just take the honest opinions of people I know who use them. I myself have six WD Green drives, and my close mates have another 7 or 8, not one of them has ever gone wrong. The seagates are another story.

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Originally posted by sammorris:

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They should be arriving within 1-2 months as Black Edition 32MB cache drives, in both 1.5TB and 2TB versions. I believe the 2TB would actually put WD ahead of Seagate assuming Seagate don't pull their finger out and produce one.

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