My friends and I will be competing in a 3dmark06 contest in August and well we are pretty undecided on which Processor we should go with. This is the system specs that we have right now- Currently Own Graphics: Crossfire X1900XTX's Mo/Bo: This is completely dependant on Proccessor but the choice for AMD would be the new 32x DFI Mo/Bo reviewed on this site. For The Intel we would use a 975X Chipset DFI and or Gigabyte based Mo/Bo. <Don't Have a Mo/Bo yet> PSU: Antec Neo HE 550W Windows Hard Drive: Gigabyte I-Ram (No signifcant increase in fps or anything just damn cool!) System Hard Drives: 2x 36.7 Gig Raptors RAM: Kinda Undecided as this depeneds on the Proccessor as well. For AMD we will probably use Corsair 3200/5000 series ram and or OCZ? Intel we will use PDP and or Crucial DDR2 667 PC5300 <Don't Have a RAM yet> No Sound card will be used due to 3DMark06 has no sound. If they do eventually put sound to the Benchmarking Program I Believe Sound Cards may make a jump in the market. People will see that Onboard sound really does eat up some of the system. The Processors that we are Undecided on are the Following- Intel~ Intel Dual Core Pentium D 930/940/950 AMD AMD X2 4400+/4600+/4800+ We are building this computer strictly for the competition and will not be used for gaming (a whole lot ). This Machine will be used entirely for benchmarking and Overclocking. It will be overclocked so the Proccessor, Ram, and Video will be expierencing some heat. OverClockability will be a determining factor. No Worries I have Water Cooling to back it up + Water Fountain Chiller (Kinda Large But Really Chills that water). ~This is a project that some Friends and I all Agreed on and we are splitting costs and are having some sponsership help if we can get them onboard.~ So My basic Question to you guys is Which Processor would be the best for overall Benchmarking and 3DMark06. I know most of you will jump the ball and just say AMD but after 2 weeks of reviewing and searching i have almost come up with a stalemate but INTEL in front by a small margin. Post any links to reviews or just state your 2 cents! Tis a shame that I cant just do both? Would be nice if someone opposed me with the opposite proccessor and mobo+ram. Regards, The Team
At the moment, FX60 is on top but shouldn't you should really leave that decision until August? (by which time CF X1900s may not be the top of the pile too)
Indeed Mr. Tad, The x1900 Might not be on top. We work at a Computer place in the US and we can return items at our will as long as we have all the packaging. Plus the Gm is one of the person's helping with the project. We are really testing some different cards right now, but havnt heard any news of a new card of great significance.
If you want to build a system exclusively for 3DMark06 (silly imo, but whatever floats your boat) surely the best way to see what would be the "fastest" is to search the ORB. The top 6 are all AMD, only 2 of which are crossfire. August is a long way away. By that time both Conroe and AM2 should be popping up. I would presume that Conroe would beat the pants off anything around at the moment (and probably anything on AM2 as well)
FX60 would be top choice AMD wise (currently at anyrate) paired with an RDX3200 (if you intend to run crossfire). Intel wise, 955XE presler would be a decent choice, they seem to overclock pretty well. Not really up on Intel boards however so cant offer much advice there. However the top Intel user on the 06 orb is using an Asus Asus P5WD2-E. Should allow you to run crossfire without an issue, however SLI doesnt seem to be happening on Intel chipsets at the moment. Chances are conroe/mermom/yonah will be out in the wild by then, Conroe/mermom will probably be the CPU's to have based on current results, but time will tell Ram wise, if you're benching 939 A64 grab yourself a 1gb set of "old skool" BH5 if you can find it - some Mushkin L2 would be ideal. If you can't find any then a gig kit of Mushkin Redline would be ideal. Basically you want high HTT, low latency. DDR2 wise, again look for some high end kits with low latencies. As above, not really up on DDR2 so cant make any reccomendations. GFX wise you might well be limited by your choice of platform - ie if you run Intel, you'll have to use Crossfire (unless hacks are found to get SLI working). The only slight issue with crossfire is that you're limited by the mastercards, which tend to clock a bit worse than the non master. However you've got voltage controls via windows so you're not going to need to vmod. See whats fastest at the time. FWIW the green camp is a little ahead 06 wise, with ATI being AWSOME in 05 at the moment. If your able to "test" hardware (since you mentioned you work in a hardware store) would you be able to test cards for overclockability, keeping the best and binning the worst? This is probably your best bet to getting decent overclockers. PSU wise, no chance. Go get a decent unit. You'll be hard pushed to run a properly overclocked rig on that unit. If you do bench on it, your risking your hardware plus you're missing out on your max overclock. 850w PCP&C would see you, if you can afford the 1k unit do so. If you cant afford that, grab a 520w OCZ powerstream (make sure you get the SLI version)(single beefy 12v rail is better than the dual 12v's on the 600w, get the 600w for peace of mind however if you want) It's not going to be bullet proof, but if you can afford a PCP&C its your best bet. Have a few questions to ask now Firstly, how "big" is the competition? Secondly, cooling/vmods whatcha got It's a tad pointless building a bench rig for august now, bide your time and look for hardware mid July time. Finally, just for a little "whats the best rig to build" Jason (aka MickeyMouse) is building up a new benching rig at the moment. 7900GTX SLI, 2 DC 285 Opterons, 4gb ECC reg. Pretty beasty rig and it's set to obliterate almost all the scores on the ORB... Should be a monster once its all tuned/properly cooled... 3.4ghz+ per core over 4 cores...
Mr. Tad & Highlander you advice has been oh so much apperciated, and we are reviewing the processor situation. This has been a real eye opener, I never new about ORB. Great thing to know about now THNX . Anywho we are currentlty reevaluating the situation and see that it is a little illogical to even begin testing and building a machine when so many new things will be coming out. What we were trying to avoid is the ultra new stuff that hasnt gotten the bugs worked out of it. More than likely we will postpone the build until about June/July. Want to get something that has new bios versions out, several just incase. 1KW PSu is on its way thnx for the heads up on that. James (one of the guys on the team) was commenting on that psu but we didnt listen . We can return stuff "RTV" as long as it hasnt been OC'd so that is our real dead end. So Psu is on its way back as of right now, X1900XTX's have not been OC'd but will remain in our inventory till something amazing comes out . Regards The Team
