SSD Drives

[PAH]

27" Dell U2711 A04 WQHD Widescreen LCD. 2560x1440, HDMI, 2xDVI-D, Display Port, 5 xUSB, 8in1 reader

I'd consider the Hazro HZ27 range over the Dell.

Much cheaper, same panel, but the Hazro doesn't have the anti-glare coating that Dell has.

Check out reviews, but I've read it's akin to putting a layer of tracing paper over the display. So bad some have tried removing it.

The Hazro also comes in a non-glass version if you want to minimise reflections.

Admittedly if price is no obstacle (in which case the 30" Dell is even better ) then the Dells are usually better built and supported. Can also extend the warranty beyond 3 years if buying direct from Dell.

[doodab]

Hyperthreading is poor mans multi core.

Larger cache is mostly gimmick (for desktop apps).

Yep. Double the threads but only ~30% better performance overall.

So resist getting a 2600k, get a 2500k, and put the money saved towards a new Ivy Bridge cpu next year (which are compatible with current LGA-1155 Sandy Bridge mobos ) if you find the 2500k falling short.

The only use I could justify splurging on a 2600k was if using heavily threaded apps such as Handbrake.

Enabling Hyperthreading can screw up a SQL server installation (but not if you're still running SQL Server 2000 as they fixed the bug there and then recreated it for later versions).

I'm rather concerned I'm agreeing with ATW. I must wash my hands.

I agree it's a cheap alternative to more physical cores, but surely that's a good thing. The 6 core Xeons are around £800 and need a more expensive motherboard, so 20-30% extra capacity (if you can take advantage of it) for £70 seems like quite good value to me.

[AtW]

I agree it's a cheap alternative to more physical cores, but surely that's a good thing.

20-30% depends on work load, it can run actually slower than having it disabled (meaning say -10%).

[eek]

I agree it's a cheap alternative to more physical cores, but surely that's a good thing. The 6 core Xeons are around £800 and need a more expensive motherboard, so 20-30% extra capacity (if you can take advantage of it) for £70 seems like quite good value to me.

But its not 20-30% extra capacity if you use them. It looks like it is, it pretends to be but when you really need that power there is a chance your system will slow to a crawl before offering a lovely blue screen of death.

Now granted this is only the case if your running SQL Server but if your are that £70 is a waste of money and a potential risk unless your configure the bios correctly.

[doodab]

But its not 20-30% extra capacity if you use them. It looks like it is, it pretends to be but when you really need that power there is a chance your system will slow to a crawl before offering a lovely blue screen of death.

Now granted this is only the case if your running SQL Server but if your are that £70 is a waste of money and a potential risk unless your configure the bios correctly.

I'm not running SQL server. Neither are lots of other folk, and for them it's £70 well spent. I doubt many people running SQL server in production are doing it on a desktop CPU anyhow.

20-30% depends on work load, it can run actually slower than having it disabled (meaning say -10%).

Yes I know, that's why I said if you can take advantage of it i.e. if you have a work load such as video editing & encoding, or in my case software synthesizers that can max out a core 2 quad quite easily and some mathematical stuff that might also take advantage.

[Durbs]

I prefer to roll my own. Currently looking at:

Fractal Design R3 case in black or titanium

Just built a new i7 rig using the R3 in shiny silver, cracking case, clean and understated. The machine is a joy to use, rapid at everything.

For anyone building, the Overclockers forum at: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/ is a good source of info and doesn't seem to have the high bellend ratio of this forum.

[eek]

Yes I know, that's why I said if you can take advantage of it i.e. if you have a work load such as video editing & encoding, or in my case software synthesizers that can max out a core 2 quad quite easily and some mathematical stuff that might also take advantage.

But you see that is when you can't took advantage of it. Hyperthreading works fine if you want millions of threads not doing very much. If you want to max out the CPUs you'll end up worse off as you'll lose the CPU overhead required to manage hyperthreading.

The reason I mentioned SQL server is that it is a worse case scenario which many companies don't know (Microsoft's documentation on the issue is hidden away in a white paper on Biztalk best practice) but the basic premise is that hyperthreading is a marketing toy. It only works if you don't stress the CPU.

For anyone building, the Overclockers forum at: Overclockers UK Forums - Powered by vBulletin is a good source of info and doesn't seem to have the high bellend ratio of this forum.

The problem with overclockers is that the bellend ratio is maintained by the shop themselves. The forum is fine and the shop itself is fine until something goes wrong. Then it all goes very rapidly pear shaped. Granted this may have improved over the years but there is no way I would ever buy anything from them again.

[doodab]

But you see that is when you can't took advantage of it. Hyperthreading works fine if you want millions of threads not doing very much. If you want to max out the CPUs you'll end up worse off as you'll lose the CPU overhead required to manage hyperthreading.

Actually hyperthreading works very well when you have an optimal number of threads maxing out the cores, as the overhead for context switching is greatly reduced so it reduces the impact of cache misses and allows better utilisation of the actual compute resources.

Of course not every workload benefits, in much the same way as not every workload will benefit from more physical cores, but on the workloads I'm talking about it isn't just a "marketing gimmick", it provides a useful speedup for relatively low cost compared to a 6 core or dual processor system. Arguably these are a best case scenario with an easy to parallelise workload and code written to take advantage of the architecture but it goes to show that if you can take advantage of it it's money well spent.

The reason I mentioned SQL server is that it is a worse case scenario which many companies don't know (Microsoft's documentation on the issue is hidden away in a white paper on Biztalk best practice) but the basic premise is that hyperthreading is a marketing toy. It only works if you don't stress the CPU.

The SQL server issue seems to be due to the the way SQL server configures itself based on number of logical cores, from what I gather you can tune this.

If you can't take advantage of it then don't buy one, it would be a waste of your cash, but arguing that nobody in the whole world anywhere ever should bother with it because SQL server doesn't work well with it is a bit silly.

[DaveB]

Never mind SSD.

Get yourselves one of these babies.....


120 petabyte drive array

A data repository almost 10 times bigger than any made before is being built by researchers at IBM's Almaden, California, research lab. The 120 petabyte "drive"—that's 120 million gigabytes—is made up of 200,000 conventional hard disk drives working together. The giant data container is expected to store around one trillion files and should provide the space needed to allow more powerful simulations of complex systems, like those used to model weather and climate.

[Churchill]

Never mind SSD.

Get yourselves one of these babies.....


120 petabyte drive array

Should be useful for the German Census...