What's Your Computer Build?

Usually 6 months behind? Not at all, it's a cyclical thing. ATI and nVidia have leapfrogged each other from time to time. Even AMD and Intel processors have.

Thanks for sharing your builds! I am sure there are more out there.

As of now, ATI is king. The 4800 series really took Nvidia by surprise, with excellent performance at a low price point. Nvidia will no doubt act soon. These wars are good for us

System Name: Workstation 1
Processor: Athlon X2 5600+
Mainboard: GA M57-SLI based mobo
RAM: 4Gb (8Gb shortly)
Graphics: X1950 Pro 256Mb
Sound/Speakers: Onboard/Acoustic Energy Aego M (best speakers I've ever used!)
Primary drive: 74Gb Raptor
Storage: 4x 1Tb WD green power drives.
Case: Antec Solo with a Earthwatts 500w PSU
Display: Dell 17" display and a HP LG2475 on order to replace CRT
OS: Win XP / Win Vista 64 dual boot

System was built for photo-editing rather than raw speed or gaming. Components was chosen for power consumption/price. The storage drives are in a SATA backplane to make them hot swappable and for additional cooling.

System Name: Workstation 2
Processor/Mainboard: Being replaced.
RAM: was 16Gb.
Gfx card: was onboard/PCI.
Sound/Speakers: Onboard/none.
Hard drives: 2 x SCSI 320 73Gb drives, 1 SCSI 320 36Gb drive (scratch)
Tape backup: Sony 20/40Gb DAT drive.
Controller: Adaptec 29320 to SCSI backplane.
Display: 2x 17in CRT.
Case: OEM, PSU blew taking mobo out.
OS: Windows 2003 server / Win XP pro dual boot

An old HP Opteron server that was used for various tasks. Looking into various options to repair/replace system. Most of the core server parts have been sold.

Both systems have Wacom Intuous 3 tablets attached.

Back up: Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ with 2Tb - Looking at the new ReadyNAS Pro series to upgrade.

2x Antec Veris MX-1 drive enclosures. Used to 'hot' swap back up drives. Curently I'm using 120Gb drives as 'tapes' for off-site storage.

Power: 2 x APC SmartUPS 1000 and 1x SmartUPS 400

Other bits and bobs but that's the two key systems both work on a full 1Gb/e LAN for sharing/speed.

Q9650 C2Q Custom Build - Mainly due to work requirements+Games
Windows 7 64-Bit/Vista 64-bit (testing)
8Gb DDR2 RAM
Dual ATI Radeon 4850s
2Tb Internal Storage 2Tb External Backup
Antec 900 Case

Video Production 2008 Mac Pro3,1
Dual 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors
16GB DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB
4Tb Internal Storage & 2Tb External (shared with MacBook Pro)
16x double-layer SuperDrive
Dual 24" Monitors (one on switch with MacBook Pro)

2010 MacBook Pro 15" - Photography & On location Video
2.66Ghz Intel i7
8Gb RAM (after market)
500GB 7200RPM Segate HDD (after market)

C2Q 2.3GHz Intel CPU
Hackintosh Testing System
2Gb RAM
1TB WD HD

iPad - Fun and recreation
16GB 3G/WiFi

Can you tell I work in the tech field lol...

I upgrade about every 3-6 months depending on how irritated I get at the speed of rendering

Edit: Updated - 09/04/2010

I built both my desktop and server. The desktop is a little dated and could use an update, but I would rather wait until I need it so that I can spend my money on glass.

Desktop -

Computer Name: Lightning
CPU: Intel E6600 overclocked to 3.2GHz
CPU Cooler: Zalman 9500
Motherboard: Asus P5B Deluxe
GPU: PNY 9800GTX and EVGA 7900GS
Memory: 2GB Ram (2 x 1GB Patriot)
Hard Drive: Seagate 400GB
Power Supply: Corsair HX620
OS: XP Pro
Case: Antec 900
Displays 1 and 2: 20" Acer AL2051W
Display 3: Epson Home Cinema 720
Speakers: Connected to my 6.1 surround through coaxial digital
I/O Devices: Regular old keyboard and mouse
Photo Related Software: Photoshop CS3

Server -

Computer Name: Jupiter
CPU: Intel E2140
CPU Cooler: Stock
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965GM-S2
GPU: Integrated
Memory: 2GB Ram (2 x 1GB GeIL)
Hard Drive: 5 - 500GB Western Digital in RAID-5 for 2TB of storage
Power Supply: Antec TP 650
OS: Ubuntu 8.04 Server
Case: XION Hydraulic
Has nothing connected to it except for power and LAN and it is sitting in a closet.

Recently upgraded some of the main bits in mine--CPU, motherboard, RAM--to bring the system up to speed. All the rest are holdovers from the previous frankenstein build (bits and pieces acquired over a 2-year span or so).

CPU: Intel Q6600 @ 2.4GHz (still trying to get stable on stock, so no overclocking yet)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Ninja Plus Rev. B
Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Deluxe
GPU: ECS 8800GT with Accelero S1 cooler (fanless--completely silent!)
Memory: 4GB (2 x 2GB) G.Skill DDR2-1000/PC2-8000
Hard Drives: Western Digital 320GB (OS), Seagate 750GB (photos), Seagate 1TB (media and backups), and lots of backup drives in external enclosures
Power Supply: Corsair TX-750W
OS: Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Case: Antec P182 with various Scythe fans and a fan controller
Display: Planar PX2611W 26", Dell 2001FP 20"
Speakers: Swan PC speakers
I/O Devices: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (best keyboard ever), Logitech MX618 mouse, Wacom Intuos2 tablet, Func Industries Archetype 1030 mousepad (best mousepad ever)
Photo Related Software: Lightroom 2, Photoshop CS2, Design Collection including InDesign 2 (supposed to be great for designing albums, if I could ever be bothered to learn it)
Display Calibrator: Spyder2Pro (need to get one that does wide gamut for the Planar though)

Before this I was on an AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ dual core, and the Q6600 smokes it in Lightroom. With the same catalog and hard drive it was taking 7-8 seconds to generate 1:1 previews when zooming in, and now it only takes about 2 seconds. Importing and exporting are lightning fast as well. For my use, 4 slower cores was the right choice over 2 faster cores of the E8400 at the same-ish price.

Yohan Pamudji wrote in post #6432044
Before this I was on an AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ dual core, and the Q6600 smokes it in Lightroom. With the same catalog and hard drive it was taking 7-8 seconds to generate 1:1 previews when zooming in, and now it only takes about 2 seconds. Importing and exporting are lightning fast as well. For my use, 4 slower cores was the right choice over 2 faster cores of the E8400 at the same-ish price.

Good to know, thanks. I have the X2 4800+ and I was wondering if the quad cores would be much faster. I'll get the quad 9xxx some time, or an 8 core if they come out any time soon, which should absolutely smoke my current system.

I have to process 25,000 photos this summer.

This is fun!


Computer Name: Piece of crap
CPU: pentiumD 805 (yea i know... i got it when it first came out thinking it could work in my old mobo... didnt so i ended up getting a new system!)
CPU Cooler: Vigor Gaming Thermo-Electric cooler 92mm fan (keeps my card under 40 degrees load with my cpu overclocked at 3.6 each )
Motherboard: XFX 650i ultra atx socket 775
GPU: MSI 8600 gts OC'ed edition... oc'd some more
Memory: 2 gigs g.skill ram 1gb dual channel
Hard Drive: western digital 320, wd 74.5 raptor, wd 200 gig
Power Supply: corsair 520, modular
OS: Vista ultimate x86
Case: beaten down something... i forget what it is
Display: a 13 inch flat panel given to me by my dad lol... im so poor!
Speakers: creative 2.1 system
I/O Devices: rosewill Wired Keyboard, Logitech G5 mouse
Photo Related Software: adobe master collection... the one that came with my canon xsi, and corel suite

tim wrote in post #6432080
Good to know, thanks. I have the X2 4800+ and I was wondering if the quad cores would be much faster. I'll get the quad 9xxx some time, or an 8 core if they come out any time soon, which should absolutely smoke my current system.

I have to process 25,000 photos this summer.

Do you use Lightroom? I didn't use Lightroom v1 with this quad so can't comment on v1, but v2 at least makes good use of all 4 cores. So if you use Lightroom 2 I'm confident quad will be better than dual at any pricepoint. I went with the Q6600 over one of the newer Q9xxx models mainly because of BIOS compatibility concerns, i.e., I wasn't sure if the motherboard would ship with a BIOS that would be able to boot with one of the newer quads, and don't have a cheap Socket 775 CPU lying around to upgrade BIOS with if not. Plus I figured I'd try the Q6600 and if it wasn't fast enough I'd just sell it after using it to upgrade the BIOS and get a Q9550, but I'm satisfied with the Q6600 so I saved a few bucks. My thinking is that with Nehalem so close it's not really worth it to sink too much money into an LG 775 system that won't be upgradeable. Might as well get the best bang for the buck quad I could, and save some money for the inevitable Nehalem upgrade.

I use Bridge, and yeah i'm waiting for Nehalem, but I don't think 8 core will be out in time for me.

I have two desktop PC's, one is for Photoshop and games, other is a low power silent PC for browsing and keeping POTN status visible, that is also the PC which I take with me on the road if needed.

Computer A (main workhorse and game PC)
CPU: Intel Quad 9450 @ 3Ghz
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage
GPU: BFG Geforce 9800GX2 1GB
Memory: 8 GB Ram (Mushkin PC1066 low latency)
Hard Drives: internally 2 Samsung F1's, 1.5TB, externally insane amount (12 bare IDE/SATA disks of 80-300GB plugged to USB IDE board when needed, 4 Coolermaster X-Craft enclosures with 250-750GB SATA disks, 2 500GB Lacie's, 5 250GB Lacies, two Antec MX-1 enclosures (very good!) with 750GB Samsung F1 SATA disks)
DVD-RW: Samsung Writemaster (SATA)
Power Supply: Corsair HX620W (modular)
Fans: all Noctua (4x12")
Fan controller: Zalman ZM-MFC2 (total watt consumption display too)
OS: Vista Home Premium 64 bit
Case: Antec P180
Display: Eizo S2410W 24"
Speakers: none
Phones: Sennheiser HD650 or HD600
I/O Devices: Logitech Wireless Keyboard (slim), Logitech MX518 mouse


Computer B (silent low power PC)
CPU: Intel Core 2 E6600
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12
Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT SILENT
Memory: 4 GB Ram (Corsair PC800 low latency)
Hard Drives: Couple of internal, 600GB
DVD-RW: none
Power Supply: Corsair HX520W (modular)
Fans: Noctua (2x12" @ 800rpm)
OS: Vista Home Premium 32 bit
Case: Antec Sonata
Display: 2 x Eizo L768 19"
Speakers: none
I/O Devices: Logitech Wireless Keyboard (slim), Logitech MX518 mouse

And lots of other stuff, calibrator, Wacom etc.

Mobo : ASUS P5Q Pro
Processor : Intel E8400 3,0Ghz Core2Duo
RAM : 4GB G.Skill DDR2 800
Graphics : eVGA 9800GT 512MB
Drives : 4.15TB spanned across 10 drives, no RAID.
2x 19" Widescreen LG LCD Monitors.

System: Custom build
Processor: AMD Athlon64 3000+ 1.8GHz Venice
Mainboard: ASUS A8N-SLi Deluxe
RAM: 4Gb DDR 400mHz dual channel
Graphics: 256mb GeForce 7300GS
Sound/Speakers: Onboard/Harman Kardon
OS: Win XP / Vista 64 dual boot
Primary drive: 120Gb WD IDE for WinXP Pro, 500Gb SG SATA for Vista64
Storage: 200Gb WD IDE, 1Tb WD SATA.

As you can see, i have the lowest end CPU for AMD socket 939. For those who just upgraded to quadcore and have a Athlon64 dualcore CPU (for socket 939) to spare, I'll be happy to buy it from you . PM me.

cfcRebel wrote in post #6436858
As you can see, i have the lowest end CPU for AMD socket 939. For those who just upgraded to quadcore and have a Athlon64 dualcore CPU (for socket 939) to spare, I'll be happy to buy it from you . PM me.

I upgraded from single core 3200+ to dual core 4800 and it made a MASSIVE difference, it more than doubled the speed. For you it'd do even more. Probably best to keep an eye on ebay.

If you checked newegg.com you can get some amazing deals! Im sure some of their high end dual core processors are in the low $100's