Starting From Scratch With A New PC

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ChrisLilley
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Location: Nice, France (I'm British)

Post by ChrisLilley »

DQE wrote: If one were to avoid impulsively throwing in too many "extras" like blu-ray DVD burners, and if one were to (probably wisely) stick with a single video card instead of the dual-video-cards I splurged on, a maxed-out Intel i7-2600K-based, air-cooled tower as I described would run about $3000 or so.
...
Perhaps one should think of the price range of such a system as being between a minimum of $2500 and a maximum of $4000.
I have been struggling with running Zerene and Nikon Capture NX2 on my existing (workstation-class, but that was five years ago) Dell M90 laptop. In particular, the 2GB RAM and the laptop HDD are bottlenecks. It has a 2GHz Core 2 Duo and a Quadro FX2600M graphics card. It is also on its second motherboard, third graphics card (replaced under warranty, but still) and is failing in various other areas.

So after a careful budget review I just sprung for a new desktop system (prebuilt off the shelf, with cost being a major consideration). The system is an Asus Essentio CG8250 (link is in French, to a major high street store, fnac). Specs (in English, but a lower spec it seems) here. Basic specs of the machine I ordered:

Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.4GHz, 8Gb DDR3 RAM, 1Tb SATA 7200 rpm disk, Nvidia GeForce GTX560 Ti, combined Blu-Ray reader and DVD writer, 2 USB3, 8 USB2, Gigabit ethernet. Base price €1,139 (including 5% discount) but then with 5% extra for 10 months financing.
I also ordered a LaCie 1Tb 7200rpm USB3 external disk at €89 so I don't have to crack open the warranty-breaking seals straight away. Although I will be tossing the keyboard asap and blowing off the pre-installed Win7 family edition (in French) in favour of a Win 7 64 Ultimate (in English, which I already have).

I realize the performance won't be on par with the SLI, SSD marvels discussed in this thread but then, the price is quite a bit lower too.

Yes, I will need a screen with that. The laptop can then be relegated to light email/Web use.

:smt026

DQE
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Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:33 pm
Location: near Portland, Maine, USA

Post by DQE »

Craig Gerard wrote:My Belkin 6Way Surge Protector + Battery Backup 600VA UPS appears to be unable to consistantly cope with the power being demanded by my new PC setup. The 'overload' warning is sounding off on a regular basis. It has only recently begun to do this.

I'm considering upgrading to an Eaton Powerware 5110 1500VA UPS uninterruptible power supply.

With the old computer system, in the event of a 'blackout' I had a reasonable amount of time to save documents, etc, before shutting down the system.

The new PC draws much more power and backup time is reduced to a matter of seconds.

Do you think this an appropriate/applicable upgrade, or is there something else going on that could be causing the 'overload'?

The system is running at standard clock speed; but I have many peripherals attached. Turning off some of the external peripherals has no impact on the 'overload' issue.

Running a stack cause intermittant 'overload' warnings, rendering of filters in Photoshop, editing RAW files in Capture One has the same effect.

I have checked the various settings, those I am familiar with, in regard to voltage, but could not find any adverse settings which may be contributing factors.



Craig
Craig,

I suspect but do not know for sure that the internal batteries in your UPS may have weakened excessively, probably due to aging. They only last a few years, typically, IMO. When they become too weak to support the attached load, as needed due to smoothing out minor power variations under a modest/normal load, it will act as if it's too small for the load.

My UPS (APC SmartUPS 2200) has a test button that will verify if it can support a load. I've never used it but check your instruction manual, probably available online. Maybe this will tell you more, if yours has a test button.

I have used the "Kill-A-Watt" home AC power meter to evaluate my own PCs' power usage. My old (now deceased) HP Blackbird gaming PC used as much as 550 watts under load. My new PC (i7-2600K CPU, 16GB RAM, dual video cards, 6 internal hard drives) uses about 130 watts at idle and about 300 under max synthetic test loads (driving both video cards to the max as well as the CPU). I need to double check the new PC's power usage and will post corrected data if my aging memory has let me down once again, but I think these numbers are about right.

I bought an APC SmartUPS 2200, but it is gross overkill for my PC and peripherals, and thus too costly. On the positive side, it will power my PC for 20+ minutes after a power failure but all I need is maybe 5 minutes to safely power down the PC if power fails.

Here's a link to this power meter.

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International- ... 512&sr=8-1

It's handy for checking home power usage for various appliances at a point in time or over an interval through its programmable capabilities. You just plug the meter into the wall socket and then plug your power strip that feeds your PC rig into the meter. It takes an instant reading and can average readings over time.

A simple test re your UPS comes to mind. Get an ordinary incandescent bulb lamp, use a 100-watt light bulb, and see if your UPS can handle that load. If the UPS fails while providing surge/sag protection and while not plugged into the AC, then the batteries MAY be at fault. Using simple electrical loads such as pure resistance (e.g., incandescent light bulbs) is better than complex load tests such as powering some types of electrical appliances.

Perhaps your owner's manual has more about how to test the batteries? I've had good luck Googling owners' manuals recently, even for older equipment.

I realize that I haven't provided a definitive test of UPS electronics failure vs battery failure, but I hope that these inconclusive comments are still useful.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

DQE
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Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:33 pm
Location: near Portland, Maine, USA

Post by DQE »

ChrisLilley wrote:
DQE wrote: If one were to avoid impulsively throwing in too many "extras" like blu-ray DVD burners, and if one were to (probably wisely) stick with a single video card instead of the dual-video-cards I splurged on, a maxed-out Intel i7-2600K-based, air-cooled tower as I described would run about $3000 or so.
...
Perhaps one should think of the price range of such a system as being between a minimum of $2500 and a maximum of $4000.
I have been struggling with running Zerene and Nikon Capture NX2 on my existing (workstation-class, but that was five years ago) Dell M90 laptop. In particular, the 2GB RAM and the laptop HDD are bottlenecks. It has a 2GHz Core 2 Duo and a Quadro FX2600M graphics card. It is also on its second motherboard, third graphics card (replaced under warranty, but still) and is failing in various other areas.

So after a careful budget review I just sprung for a new desktop system (prebuilt off the shelf, with cost being a major consideration). The system is an Asus Essentio CG8250 (link is in French, to a major high street store, fnac). Specs (in English, but a lower spec it seems) here. Basic specs of the machine I ordered:

Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.4GHz, 8Gb DDR3 RAM, 1Tb SATA 7200 rpm disk, Nvidia GeForce GTX560 Ti, combined Blu-Ray reader and DVD writer, 2 USB3, 8 USB2, Gigabit ethernet. Base price €1,139 (including 5% discount) but then with 5% extra for 10 months financing.
I also ordered a LaCie 1Tb 7200rpm USB3 external disk at €89 so I don't have to crack open the warranty-breaking seals straight away. Although I will be tossing the keyboard asap and blowing off the pre-installed Win7 family edition (in French) in favour of a Win 7 64 Ultimate (in English, which I already have).

I realize the performance won't be on par with the SLI, SSD marvels discussed in this thread but then, the price is quite a bit lower too.

Yes, I will need a screen with that. The laptop can then be relegated to light email/Web use.

:smt026
This sounds like a very nice, powerful PC!

I predict that you'll be very happy with your new PC.

Your video card is the same as I have in my new PC, and I'm pleased with its silence and performance balance. I splurged on a second video card of this model in case I decided to have a go at high-intensity gaming and for my occasional PC-based flight simulation hobby.

You can add things like an SSD later if you get the urge. The SSDs are still dropping rapidly in price and also increasing in performance across a wider range of tasks. USB 3 is also great for its wide range of purposes. I'm finding that it's hard to use them for max photography load situations due to their limited size. For example, my grandkids just visited for a week, and I ended up taking several thousand photos (amusement park rides + continuous bursts of photos!). This many raw photos are just too big for my available SSD space. Also, I end up copying what I'm doing to a much larger 3TB backup drive, and having to do this ends up somewhat bottlenecking the elapsed time of of my total workflow. I'm still trying to figure how to make use of my available SSD free space.

Be sure and get Windows 7 64-bit to gain access to all your RAM. Photoshop CS5 works well under this OS as does everything else I currently use other than a few old Photoshop plugins.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

Craig Gerard
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Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 1:51 am
Location: Australia

Post by Craig Gerard »

Phil,

Thanks for the advice regarding the UPS overload problem. I believe it is caused by a combination of factors...so I'm replacing my current UPS and will read your response carefully.


Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

Craig Gerard
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Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 1:51 am
Location: Australia

Post by Craig Gerard »

Chris,

Your new computer should offer very good performance :)

Regarding SSD, during the course of this thread some of the 'speed' benefits were mentioned. Installing a good SSD or two at some time in the future is something I would recommend. Current operating systems, CPUs, mainboards, RAM are built to accommodate and work in unison with the benefits offered by SSD. They make a considerable difference in overall performance. At present, OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS are at the top of the game.

Regarding a monitor; buy the best you can possibly afford. High-end, big name monitors with a dead pixel can be purchased at significant savings. The dead pixel is virtually irrelevant. Apparently, my main monitor has a dead red pixel somewhere in the bottom right-hand corner. I have not bothered to look for it, but I love it, because that dead pixel saved me well over a thousand dollars :)


Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

Craig Gerard
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Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 1:51 am
Location: Australia

Post by Craig Gerard »

The 'overload' problem was related to the UPS. It was not providing sufficient power for the recently built system.

I had initially thought it was due to a faulty USB hub as I received some odd messages from Win 7 which were rather blunt....basically, the OS warned that a USB connection was causing an overload/power surge and if the problem was not addressed the OS indicated it would disable the port.:shock: (which port!)

The USB hub/port in question is on a U2410 monitor, so I plugged the monitor into a separate outlet whilst awaiting the arrival of a new UPS.

I replaced the Belkin 600VA UPS with a new Eaton 5110 1500VA Uninteruptable Power Supply (screenshot below).
It is providing surge protection, sufficient battery backup during an outage, filtering and supplementing mains voltage (if/when required). The monitoring software provides all manner of details, including, realtime information regarding load in % of unit capabilities.

Image

My older Belkin 600VA unit has been assigned to lighter duties. The battery is okay, it just wasn't up to the demands of the upgraded PC....that's my conclusion :roll:



Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

DQE
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Location: near Portland, Maine, USA

Post by DQE »

Thanks for the update.

I really like the graphical display of the UPS status. Assuming that the power load shown is more or less at idle, you should have good headroom for running the system under load, I would think. This assumes it has an idle/load ratio similar to my own PC rig.

BTW, there is a lot of good software out there to stress test your PC and/or video cards, as you and others probably already know.

At the moment, my personal favs are:

1. Furball - runs your video card(s) to the max.

http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/

The Mersenne Prime Search (32-bit or 64-bit as needed) test is popular these days for CPU load testing:

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/browse.php?c=18

Firing these software load tests up should also provide info about how well the UPS makes out under real PC electrical loads. Power loads depend on the nature of the load, with reactive loads being different from simple resistive loads (e.g., an incandescent light bulb).

These tests are also good for establishing a baseline PC (or UPS) capability in case it seems to weaken or become unstable under load later on.

Hope this is helpful.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Well for now I'm going the other way, rather than splashing out on a new machine I've bought a new 2tb hard drive (to replace a smaller drive), 4gb more ram (2x2gb ddr2 800mhz), an esata hd dock and Windows 7.

I'm currently in the process of copying data to the new hard drive which is temporarily mounted in the external esata dock - once that's done I will install the extra memory and then format one of the internal partitions I've copied the data from and install Win7 64bit onto that aside my 32bit WinXP.

It's obviously not as big an upgrade as a monster new machine but I figure my existing box does have some room to grow, the current memory limit of 3.5gb (due to 32bit windows) is quite a problem for me, so going to a 64bit OS and increasing to 8gb should help quite a bit (unfortunately that's as much memory as my ip35pro mobo can take) I'm also gaining 1tb of internal storage (and 1tb external) which will prevent me from running out of hd space for another year maybe, by which time I hope to sort out some kind of NAS box.

So if I disappear for a few days you'll know the upgrade didn't go as smoothly as planned! ;)

Simon W
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Post by Simon W »

Hey Phil, I have the same 560 OC TI card, upgraded from a 275 and love it. I too dabble in flightsim ing (xplane), see my videos here:

Link

I've found the 560 to be incredible for sims/ gaming, it seems to be at the right sweetspot...this month. I have a first gen core i7 920 that seems good for most tasks, 2 yrs old and still going strong. SSDs are amazing, wouldn't live without one now.

Rik, does zerene multithread??!! I'll be trying it soon, what an amazing looking tool!
Simon W
EOS 5D Mk 3; Olympus BH-2; Zerene Stacker
Melbourne, Australia

Craig Gerard
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Post by Craig Gerard »

Simon,

In Zerene Stacker goto >Options > Preferences, you will see the Multiprocessing configeration options.


Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

Simon W
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Post by Simon W »

something to look forward to then.

Still awaiting the Olymp. to canon adapter, but the L mount arrived from UK - absolute mint, like new, in its box with original instructions, nice :D
Simon W
EOS 5D Mk 3; Olympus BH-2; Zerene Stacker
Melbourne, Australia

Craig Gerard
Posts: 2877
Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 1:51 am
Location: Australia

Post by Craig Gerard »

Laurie,

That's what I did initially, upgraded to Win 7 Pro 64 bit. I did a clean install; but kept my previous 32 bit OS installation on a separate HDD.

Going to 64 bit and adding more RAM had such a positive impact that I caught the 'bug' and built a new system, inspired, somewhat, by Phil's reports.

You may notice the lack of a decent email client in Win 7. Windows Live Mail can been downloaded; but it is not very good when attempting to backup or export messages, best to go with a dedicated email client. I went with Outlook 2010, it can be purchased separately; but you may as well buy one of the MS Office packages which include Outlook.

Let us know when you have emerged from the 'dark side of the moon' 8)


Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

Craig Gerard
Posts: 2877
Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 1:51 am
Location: Australia

Post by Craig Gerard »

Simon wrote:Still awaiting the Olymp. to canon adapter, but the L mount arrived from UK - absolute mint, like new, in its box with original instructions, nice
Postage to and from the UK is excellent!

If that OM to EOS adapter is delayed or you become impatient, send me a PM. I have one, not using it at the moment, but could loan it to you.


Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

Simon W wrote:Rik, does zerene multithread??!!
The main computations are all multithreaded. There are still some serial sections (such as image reading), plus some memory management overhead that makes the parallel efficiency less than 100%. So, you get big gains from additional cores/processors, but even more if you fire up two or more copies of ZS to run multiple stacks at the same time.

--Rik

DQE
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Post by DQE »

Simon W wrote:Hey Phil, I have the same 560 OC TI card, upgraded from a 275 and love it. I too dabble in flightsim ing (xplane), see my videos here:

Link

I've found the 560 to be incredible for sims/ gaming, it seems to be at the right sweetspot...this month. I have a first gen core i7 920 that seems good for most tasks, 2 yrs old and still going strong. SSDs are amazing, wouldn't live without one now.

Rik, does zerene multithread??!! I'll be trying it soon, what an amazing looking tool!
Thanks for the link to your new microscope, etc.

------------------------------------------------------------------
<Warning - off-topic, macrophotography-irrelevant personal note follows:>

With much risk of getting too far off-topic fpr this forum and thread, I'll expand a bit on my intermittent interest in PC-based flight sims.

I see from your Youtube profile that you're an X-Plane fan. I've also dabbled a bit with that sim, but my sustained interests are realistic 747-400 sims, especially Aerowinx PS1 (an older unusually realistic sim that depends on other "scenery generator" flight sim software for outside views). A current sim in this genre is provided by PMDG, but PS1 enthusiasts are very eagerly anticipating the complete rewrite of PS1 into a modern version, known as "PSX". This is well underway but will possibly take a few more years for its solo author to complete, as best I can follow.

Here's a link to PSX's forum, where its remarkable creator interacts with various 747 engineers, pilots, and even hangers-on (like me) as he programs the new version.

http://aerowinx.com/forum/index.php

The most remarkable home-built 747 simulator is surely this one:

http://www.hyway.com.au/747/latest_news.htm

With info on his listing in the Guiness Book of World Records here:

http://gizmodo.com/5169495/man-builds-7 ... ess-record

This fellow, an Australian trucking industry executive, created a full-motion 747 simulator, using PS1 as the core software.

There is some interest in using X-Plane as a slaved generator of the outside view during simulated flight, too, as well as MSFS in its various versions. The basic idea is to use PSX much like PS1 was used, where it provides all the cockpit controls and full control of the aircraft's (simulated) flight, including simulating a large percentage of failures of various components, instruments, and their interactions.
-Phil

"Diffraction never sleeps"

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