Post Your Rig

Started by Hikyuuri, July 19, 2010, 01:04:58 PM

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Tìtstewan

Quote from: bommel on July 27, 2013, 04:24:14 PM
AFAIK Autodesk Student is completely free, have a look here.
Oo, well it's waaayy better. :D
Irayo!

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Taronyu Leleioae

Quote from: Tìtstewan on July 27, 2013, 02:13:11 PM
If you are a student, you could buy Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 for $300-$400 as student licence.
For such programms, a good graphics card is a vantage.
If any of you have graphics cards questions for Adobe and Autodesk (particularly 3DSMAX), please ask.  I (battled) was the senior IT Manager for an 8 campus education company.  And I had to manage centralized licensing for both, as well as dealing with nightmares to have minimum level hardware to smoothly handle the massive rendering.  We even did an in-house rendering farm using 20 or so high end desktops together.

But, as a guideline, the MINIMUM you should run with, is a video card (preferably nVidia) that is at least a GT430 which has 1GB ram on it.  However, again, I say MINIMUM.  Because this card only has 96 CUDA.  (CUDA is essentially number of cores/processes in can handle.  And this isn't nearly enough for any real handling of Autodesk.  Meaning start to render, and then walk away and go to lunch for the rest of the day.  A GT430 will get the program to run...  Barely.  And I only suggest the GT430 if you happen to have one kicking around...)

What I would suggest, as a real minimum that actually works, is to look at something like an EVGA (or PNY) GTX 650 as your minimum.  GTX 660 or better if you can.  Same applies if you are a hard core gamer.  And if you can afford to play, look at one of the new Quadro cards.  They are rather amazing for graphics rendering and design.  The Quadro series is specifically what Autodesk recommends and always has. $$$

These days, you really need (regardless of what the box says as a minimum...)

2GB GDDR5 ram
1000 CUDA
Seriously good fans on them.  Your card will cook when the rendering goes on for hours.  Trust me on this...

Also seriously suggest taking a can of compressed air and blowing out the fans on the card at least every 6 months if you do this kind of work.  The number 1 failure on graphics cards here is self destruct caused by heat...

Autodesk actually has a a very minimum (meaning completely tested and supported) graphics cards list.  You'll notice the MIN is a 1GB GDDR5 card.  But almost all of them are the nVidea Quadro series cards.  With one GTX 690 listed.  (Yes, there are some AMD/Radeon cards too! Needs at least an ATI FireGL...)


Just offering this for those who might be interested.  And anything that fully supports Autodesk, will support Adobe.  As rendering stresses a video card much more than general graphics/web design.

Tìtstewan

I think, a GTX 770 / 760 is also good, isn't it? :-\

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Taronyu Leleioae

#123
Quote from: Tìtstewan on July 29, 2013, 08:18:46 AM
I think, a GTX 770 / 760 is also good, isn't it? :-\
Absolutely fine imo.

Autodesk has notoriously always listed only the commercial grade cards rather than really good desktop models.  In part due to the way nVidea Quadro cards do processing.  The thing to remember, is that each level # series card isn't always better than the previous level.  You have to compare models.  Thus a desktop 730 isn't necessarily better than a 640.  It might run a tad faster with a higher clock speed.  But you may end up with less ram and less CUDA.

FYI, a computer running 3DSMAX must have a minimum of 8GB DDR3 ram.  We tried it on lesser computers (DDR2 era).  Adobe survived ok.  But Autodesk hung, crashed, and burned with the slower ram speed.  Especially if you tried to open any other program at the same time.  Personally, I'd recommend a minimum of 16GB if your computer mobo can handle it.  Even though Autodesk claims it'll run on 4GB.  FYI... it didn't!

Absolute minimum specs that we experimentally decided upon for Windows based systems...

x64 Windows 7
Min first generation i5.  Pref 2.8Ghz or faster.
8GB DDR3.  (Seriously try for more.  12 or 16GB.  You will thank yourself later...)
Above discussed graphic card specs.
Good case fans, and decent power supply.  Don't cheap out.  You'll just burn up your computer...  Realistically 650W+.  This doesn't use more power when idle.  It just can supply it as spike demand calls for it.  IE... stress test...

Clarke

4x3.4GHz i5, 8GB DDR3, 2GB GTX660 graphics card.

And although I've never tried to run Autodesk, I don't actually use most of it most of the time.  :P (ATM, I'm using 20% CPU, and only 2.67GB of RAM, and that's with Firefox eating memory like nobody's business.)

Tsu'tey

IBM Personal Computer 5160 XT from 1986 with 256KB RAM, 10MB HDD and 4,75 Mhz Processor, Only 5,25 Disk oparating System MS-DOS Version 1.0 and 3.0


Ich bleibe in Erinnerung. Ich habe mit Toruk Makto gekämpft. Und wir waren Brüder. Und er war mein letzter Schatten.

Taronyu Leleioae

Quote from: Tsu'tey on July 30, 2013, 08:33:47 AM
IBM Personal Computer 5160 XT from 1986 with 256KB RAM, 10MB HDD and 4,75 Mhz Processor, Only 5,25 Disk oparating System MS-DOS Version 1.0 and 3.0
Heh.  In college, I had the similar machine from AT&T 6300.  Solid computer for what it was.  Although my hard drive was a full length (meaning full chassis length) ISA card with a hard drive on the card.  Not the stand alone packaged drives we have now.

First computer we had in grade school was older than this.  Good 'ole Tandy/RadioShack TRS-80.  (Also called a TRASH 80).  Floppy drives had yet to exist for consumer computers.  These came with the classic tape cassette deck for storage and program loading.  Eywa help you if the cassette tape broke or wrapped around the rubber rollers...   :-[

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

I used to sell TRS-80 model 1,2 and 3, as well as the color computer. They were amazing computers for their day. I still have a CoCo (with the requisite cassette deck) from 1987, that I purchased for WLAX TV. They sent it back to me many years later.

Ma Clarke, I missed you very much at AvatarMeet this year! You would have enjoyed it.

I never listed my computer here, built in December, 2012

Processor: i7 3930 with 6 cores.
Motherboard: Asus X79 Sabertooth (There had to be a big cat somewhere!)
RAM: 32 GB DDR3 1800 MHz
Graphics: GTX560ti (This is the one area where I opted for less than state-of-the-art)
Primary HDD: Western Digital Veliciraptor 1 TB
Secondary HDD: 2 Hitachi 750 GB mirrored under ZFS (secondhand from drives retired at work).
Power supply: Corsair 750W (runs very cool in this system)
CPU cooling: Corsair H100 liquid cooling. This has a double-width radiator on it.
Case: Corsair Carborundum series.
OS: Currently Fedora 19. Was built with Fedora 18 beta, and needed features in the Beta to work.
Filesystems: Mostly EXT4, but ZFS on the mirrored drives. I pan to make the machine mostly ZFS,
    eventually.
Use: General purpose, plus distributed scientific computing. Perhaps some gaming.

I named this computer 'Toruk'! If I can find the time, I'd like to paint the case in Toruk colors.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Taronyu Leleioae

ma 'EA,

That's a respectable good workstation there.  Great ASUS mobo.  I had to trick Server 2008 R2 to run on one of those...  Velociraptors are solid (I've used those), I wouldn't normally recommend the Hitachi's but they are secondhand and, if they pass, that's the best kind..., solid psu.  I was never into water cooling.  Knew too many that leaked.  But if you are a hard gamer, I can understand the heat dissipation need.  And a GTX560Ti is a very good general card.  I know I wouldn't push it...

As to old computers..., TRS-80's were interesting.  We also had, at the house, the Zenith Z89 workstations with the big solid (not floppy) storage drives.  That had, I think 64KB ram when they upgraded it creating a custom Z90 model.

Sìkat

My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2; first (IBM-compatible) PC was a Tandy 1000 HX that I used from 1987-1993.  I miss those machines, and will probably pick up replacements on eBay at some point.

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä: I didn't get a chance to tell you this during the meetup, but my high school was still using a TRS-80 Model III (with floppy drives) for library management when I graduated in 1996.  They're solid machines :)

Current rigs are:
neytiri: Apple MacBook Pro (MacBookPro9,1), 8gb RAM, quad-core Intel i7, both an Intel HD Graphics 4000 and NVidia GeForce GT 650m, running OS X 10.8.4
ikran: Gateway NV59, 8gb RAM, dual-core Intel i5 M430, Intel HD Graphics (model unknown), running Windows 7 Ultimate
toruk: Gateway LT4004u netbook, 1gb RAM, Intel Atom, unknown graphics, running Windows 8 Pro (soon to be replaced with Debian Linux)
tsutey: Apple Mac mini (Macmini4,1), 8gb RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo, NVidia GeForce 320m, running OS X 10.8.4

I also have six 512mb (omatikaya,moat,eytukan,ninat,sylwanin,peyral) and four 256mb Raspberry Pis (jakesully,norm,grace,palulukan).  Three are being used to handle DNS, DHCP(v6), IPv6 tunneling and an SSH gateway; one of the others is hooked up to a pair of BetaBrite LED signs.  As for the other six, I still have to find uses for 'em ;)

Tìtstewan

You have named all of your rigs like the Avatar characters?  :D :D Tsantxan! :)

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Sìkat

Yes, and they all resolve in DNS, too ;)  (Try it: nslookup (hostname).home.scottcomstock.net)

Swoka Ikran

Quote from: Sìkat on July 31, 2013, 09:20:55 AM
ikran: Gateway NV59, 8gb RAM, dual-core Intel i5 M430, Intel HD Graphics (model unknown), running Windows 7 Ultimate
toruk: Gateway LT4004u netbook, 1gb RAM, Intel Atom, unknown graphics, running Windows 8 Pro (soon to be replaced with Debian Linux)
How long have you had the NV59 and has the HDD been replaced? I ask because I've seen a fair amount of NVxx units for bad HDDs. Some came with Toshiba HDDs, which are notorious for being junk.

Can't argue with trashing Win8 for Linux. Not to mention those specs aren't good of any Windows newer than XP.

Quote from: Sìkat on July 31, 2013, 09:20:55 AM
Three are being used to handle DNS, DHCP(v6), IPv6 tunneling and an SSH gateway
While not a bad use for them, since you needed 3, why didn't you just use an old PC? Power consumption?

Quote from: Sìkat on July 31, 2013, 09:20:55 AM
one of the others is hooked up to a pair of BetaBrite LED signs.
What type of interface and what software? I have a commercial BetaBrite sign that's been sitting in storage for 6 years. Got it for free at a store that was going out of business when I was 15. It has a serial programming cable...if Pi can work with that, I might finally be able to find a use for it.

Quote from: Sìkat on July 31, 2013, 11:33:22 AM
Yes, and they all resolve in DNS, too ;)
When I first read it, I thought you had public IPs on every PC...then I looked them up. They all resolve, but give internal IP addresses.
2010 was the year of the Na'vi.Vivar 'ivong Na'vi!


 
Avatray | NWOTD Sigbars | Sacred's Sigbar Tool | My collection of Avatar merchandise

bommel

Quote from: Swoka Ikran on July 31, 2013, 01:44:52 PM
When I first read it, I thought you had public IPs on every PC...then I looked them up. They all resolve, but give internal IP addresses.
I guess that would be kinda expensive. At least when I keep in mind what they charge you over here for a single static public IP - if you can even order one from your provider, because most don't offer them to non-business customers.

Swoka Ikran

Quote from: bommel on July 31, 2013, 01:51:01 PM
Quote from: Swoka Ikran on July 31, 2013, 01:44:52 PM
When I first read it, I thought you had public IPs on every PC...then I looked them up. They all resolve, but give internal IP addresses.
I guess that would be kinda expensive. At least when I keep in mind what they charge you over here for a single static public IP - if you can even order one from your provider, because most don't offer them to non-business customers.
That was what I was thinking...hence why I went and looked them up.

Where I am it's the same.
2010 was the year of the Na'vi.Vivar 'ivong Na'vi!


 
Avatray | NWOTD Sigbars | Sacred's Sigbar Tool | My collection of Avatar merchandise

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Quote from: Sìkat on July 31, 2013, 09:20:55 AM
My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer 2; first (IBM-compatible) PC was a Tandy 1000 HX that I used from 1987-1993.  I miss those machines, and will probably pick up replacements on eBay at some point.

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä: I didn't get a chance to tell you this during the meetup, but my high school was still using a TRS-80 Model III (with floppy drives) for library management when I graduated in 1996.  They're solid machines :)

Current rigs are:
neytiri: Apple MacBook Pro (MacBookPro9,1), 8gb RAM, quad-core Intel i7, both an Intel HD Graphics 4000 and NVidia GeForce GT 650m, running OS X 10.8.4
ikran: Gateway NV59, 8gb RAM, dual-core Intel i5 M430, Intel HD Graphics (model unknown), running Windows 7 Ultimate
toruk: Gateway LT4004u netbook, 1gb RAM, Intel Atom, unknown graphics, running Windows 8 Pro (soon to be replaced with Debian Linux)
tsutey: Apple Mac mini (Macmini4,1), 8gb RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo, NVidia GeForce 320m, running OS X 10.8.4

I also have six 512mb (omatikaya,moat,eytukan,ninat,sylwanin,peyral) and four 256mb Raspberry Pis (jakesully,norm,grace,palulukan).  Three are being used to handle DNS, DHCP(v6), IPv6 tunneling and an SSH gateway; one of the others is hooked up to a pair of BetaBrite LED signs.  As for the other six, I still have to find uses for 'em ;)


Ma Sìkat,
   Very interesting on the model 3 as late as 1996. When I started at WXXI in 1988, they were still running an S100 bus computer in the engineering department (with hard sectored floppies, yuck!) I later picked up the mate to this machine and ran it for a while before picking up a 'shoebox' computer (a small Z80 machine with a single 5 1/4 inch floppy that Kodak surplused a bunch of. Most people modified these to add a bunch of additional capabilities). After that, it has always been PC's. I had a surplus Mac I puttered around with a bit before deciding it wasn't powerful enough for my needs.
   I am assuming that 'Neytiri' was the computer you were using at the meetup, that had the 'Targaryen' logo on the cover. 'Avatar' and 'Game of Thrones' together :)
    I like the idea of doing things like IPv6 management/tunneling using Rasberry Pi's. I will have to look into a scheme that does this.
   The 750 GB hard drives in my computer were part of a lot of four we changed out in a video editor simply because they had high hours on them (and we needed more storage!). It was a good call to replace them, as one of the drives failed within 10 minutes of 'stress testing' it. The two I am using passed, and I am holding the fourth as a spare. I have good luck with hard drives in general, and Hitachi drives specifically.
   The velociraptor drives are pricey, but the performance boost from these drives is noticeable. I prefer mechanical drives over SSDs in general purpose applications, as they do not have a 'write life limitation'. SSD's are great for boot/OS drives, but I chose not to do this in my machine...at least not yet.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Sìkat

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on July 31, 2013, 02:50:10 PM
   Very interesting on the model 3 as late as 1996. When I started at WXXI in 1988, they were still running an S100 bus computer in the engineering department (with hard sectored floppies, yuck!) I later picked up the mate to this machine and ran it for a while before picking up a 'shoebox' computer (a small Z80 machine with a single 5 1/4 inch floppy that Kodak surplused a bunch of. Most people modified these to add a bunch of additional capabilities). After that, it has always been PC's. I had a surplus Mac I puttered around with a bit before deciding it wasn't powerful enough for my needs.
   I am assuming that 'Neytiri' was the computer you were using at the meetup, that had the 'Targaryen' logo on the cover. 'Avatar' and 'Game of Thrones' together :)
neytiri was in fact the computer I was using at the meetup, but it was actually Javik's computer that had the Targaryen logo :)  At present, my MBP is sans logo except for the glowing Apple logo.

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on July 31, 2013, 02:50:10 PM
I like the idea of doing things like IPv6 management/tunneling using Rasberry Pi's. I will have to look into a scheme that does this.
It's pretty straightforward.  If you like, once you're ready to pull the trigger I can send you my configuration files.  I've been using Hurricane Electric because they provide DNS delegation & are dead-bang reliable.

Quote from: Swoka Ikran
How long have you had the NV59 and has the HDD been replaced? I ask because I've seen a fair amount of NVxx units for bad HDDs. Some came with Toshiba HDDs, which are notorious for being junk.

Can't argue with trashing Win8 for Linux. Not to mention those specs aren't good of any Windows newer than XP.
I've had the NV59 for a little over a year.  No problems with the HD yet.

Quote from: Swoka Ikran
While not a bad use for them, since you needed 3, why didn't you just use an old PC? Power consumption?
Primarily because I have no room on my desk for a full-sized PC.  Additionally, I run DHCP (IPv4) in a failover configuration and have distccd running on all four operating RasPis so I can do native software builds.  I hate wrangling cross-compilers ;)

Quote from: Swoka Ikran
What type of interface and what software? I have a commercial BetaBrite sign that's been sitting in storage for 6 years. Got it for free at a store that was going out of business when I was 15. It has a serial programming cable...if Pi can work with that, I might finally be able to find a use for it.

I have both a BetaBrite Classic (RS232) and a BetaBrite Prism (USB).  I threw together a quick-n-dirty RESTful web service in PHP for basic communications, and it definitely works if you get a RS232-USB converter.  The communications protocol used by the BetaBrite (and, in fact, most if not all signs made by that manufacturer) is readily available online.  I'm still working on getting libusb bindings going for PHP so I can drive the other sign as well.

Quote from: Swoka Ikran
When I first read it, I thought you had public IPs on every PC...then I looked them up. They all resolve, but give internal IP addresses.

I've noticed that with a lot of resolvers you have to explicitly request that AAAA (IPv6) records be returned.  The machines all have internal IP addresses, but they also have (non-internal) IPv6 addresses in 2001:470:1f07:2f0/64.  I'm running Shorewall6 on the tunnel endpoint, so they're not directly exposed.

Tsu'tey


Ich bleibe in Erinnerung. Ich habe mit Toruk Makto gekämpft. Und wir waren Brüder. Und er war mein letzter Schatten.

Tìtstewan

I would use this code to scale your large image a bit smaller. ;)
[img width=1000 height=750]http://www.imgbox.de/users/Kiematikwagen/kurzzeitbilder/IMG_1046.JPG[/img]
-->

Edit:
Nice! :D

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Tsanten Eywa 'eveng

#139
This is the specs for the computer i bought last year.

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Intel Core i7 3770 @ 3.4GHz
12GB DDR3 RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
3GB VRAM
1TB internal HDD
1TB external HDD

Here is my desktop computer. ASUS Desktop PC CG8350.