Brad wrote:

For the computer knowledgable and savvy people.

Looking to get a new system and the company will be paying for it ( or
most
of it) so im looking to put together an awesome system that could make me
the king of my block for awhile.....

....so overkill is encouraged.

My current computer cost about $1000 a few years back, so if the 'dream'
system runs up to say $6000, i would like to know about. ( i know one can
assemble a system for $20 K so im trying to keep within reason )

Im asking if some of you hardware informed people may give me your 2 cents
on what I could shop for. Even if the component needs to be specially
ordered from the manufacturer because stores rarely carry it ( perhaps
cause its expensive or not in much demand), I still would like to hear
about it. I have a very good understanding of most components but not as
in touch with the highest-end performance parts

Im thinking something such as:

- Dual ( or even 4 ??) CPU MB

Forget the 4 CPU unless you're running Linux--the only Windows versions that
support more than 2 are Advanced Server and above and you're not going to
get those within your $6K budget.

For duals the Opterons are a better deal than Xeons, but you're still
looking at 1500 or so bucks worth of CPUs if you go with the highest clock
speed. Running Windows you won't see a whole lot of difference between
Opteron and Xeon unless you want to try the 64-bit beta (free download from
Microsoft, 1-year time-bomb).

- fast cpu's to fill those multiple slots.
- 1 to 2 gigs ram
- the best gaming video card ( note that I want to support multiple
monitors..2 hopefully 3 and being able to video input cable tv at times)

Not going to get 3 with good performance on all of them until somebody ships
a motherboard with 2 PCI Express 16X slots--the only AGP boards that
support 3 or more monitors are from Matrox and their gaming performance is
marginal at best. Duals with AGP just pick whatever's hot right now. Note
that you can get dual DVI with nvidia boards for a good deal less than with
ATI boards.

- hard drive: running 4, 200gb drives in raid or something like that.. or
whatever gets the fastest speed

Within your budget 15K SCSI drives are probably out--a couple of WD Raptors,
one for boot and one for swap, plus 3 250s RAID-5ed for data would be a
good combo. Hook them all to an Intel or LSI Logic or 3Ware RAID
controller, not a Promise cheapie.

All ideas are welcome. thank you
Post thoughts here so others amy share in or email bwps (@) shaw.ca

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)