Ongoing "The Uncompromised" HTPC simple yet powerful (1 Viewer)

[limpwhizkid]

Hey limpwhizkid, I effectively upgraded my workstation... now it is a True workstation, with this I make all the contents I enjoy on the HTPC superfast H264 encoding and power to do everything
I decided to step up from the E5504 "basic" Xeons, it is a dual E5520 full-featured 16-logicalcores DIY beast weighing something like 35 kg

the topic name isnt right... "simple" ? yet powerfull ?

i think 99,9% wont view this as simple.. ;-)

but what are the specs from hd's ... did you use any SSD drives ? (i my view it makes far more difference then any cpu upgrade.. )

i have 4 of them in raid0 on a rocketraid 3520 .. and AVERAGE it does 1.4 gb a second!!
that would put your cpu setup to the real test if you dont have them already.. (what are the specs ? )

here a screenshot from a virtual machine i have running on it..

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

Don't have money at this time to get some serious SSDs to put in RAID0, for now I get on with 2 Velociraptors (WD1500HLFS) which perform as one SSD (250 MB/s) and I need to upgrade the WD GP drives to get more speed for next to nothing money
And I still don't trust SSDs resistance to heavy OS abuse

 

[limpwhizkid]

Don't have money at this time to get some serious SSDs to put in RAID0, for now I get on with 2 Velociraptors (WD1500HLFS) which perform as one SSD (250 MB/s) and I need to upgrade the WD GP drives to get more speed for next to nothing money
And I still don't trust SSDs resistance to heavy OS abuse

then sell those 2 velociraptors.. and get 1 SSD , the access time makes the computer very nice...

i put 1 also in a reasonable laptop .. and its really fun now, using it.. instead of it ratteling like making coffee when you click an icon

the most good SSD support the trim function (some need a biosflash however) also supported by Windows 7

if you put them in raid 0 , trim is not available anymore (atleast i havent found 1 raid controller supporting trim function)..

but i have mine for 5 months now.. and not a problem (but i do have backups

anyway nice workstation you build!, i had the same idea for a while.. but i went for the SSD's and also ran out of money so didnt get the dual xeon setup.. hahaha..

if we only could melt our systems together.. that would be a monster

 

[MegaPVR_Rack]

Some little updates
Swapped the Asus P5Q for a recycled Gigabyte X48-DQ6 high-end mobo, which was the one I had on the workstation before passing to Xeons now no need for the Marvell add-on controller, the 8 onboard SATA ports are enough. Swapped storage too: for the HDTV drive, a new WD10EARS, for HDV a WD5000AADS in place of the old WD6400AACS and for the RAID volume, I used the first 1TB EACS drives I had on the workstation, because they vibrate less than the new EADS. Updated internal cabling cleaning out everything and passing under the mobo when possible, now I'll have to test some fan slowdown to get more acoustical comfort

And I exchanged the Radeon HD4350 for a brand new HD5450 with native DTS-HD bitstreaming and I'm testing Win7x86.
On with some EVR video sync tests on MPEG-2 material, the Eragon BD is known to require very high contrast ratio TVs or projectors. H264 tests to follow (maybe T-4)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/dunk5.1dts/HDTV/WNT_6170E.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/dunk5.1dts/HDTV/WNT_6177E.jpg
See, with Seven I can force 23.976p playback