| Author |
Message |
Steve
Guest
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 Posted:
Tue Sep 21, 2004 6:21 am Post subject:
Workstation / PC upgrade, What computer set up do you use? |
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This subject might have been covered before but, I am going to bring
it up again:
Do you use a workstation, ie. Hp, Sun, Sgi,
If so do you know what:
graphics?
processor speed?
ram?
hardrive size?
Do you use a Desktop PC?
Graphics card?
Processor speed?
ram?
Hardrive?
At work we are researching the different options for computers and I
am the head researcher.
Things I have looked at so far:
http://www.caddprimer.com/magazine/ - A good list of cad magazines to
help with this project
http://www.tomshardware.com - hardware guide / review
http://www.alienware.com/main_creative_pro.aspx - One of the IT guys
at work thought these machines were worth looking at.
Please let me know what people are using out there for hardware.
Thanks
Steve
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hamei
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Sep 25, 2004 7:24 pm Post subject:
Re: Workstation / PC upgrade, What computer set up do you us |
|
|
Steve wrote:
| Quote: | This subject might have been covered before but, I am going to bring
it up again:
Do you use a workstation, ie. Hp, Sun, Sgi,
If so do you know what:
graphics?
processor speed?
ram?
hardrive size?
Do you use a Desktop PC?
Graphics card?
Processor speed?
ram?
Hardrive?
At work we are researching the different options for computers and I
am the head researcher.
Things I have looked at so far:
http://www.caddprimer.com/magazine/ - A good list of cad magazines to
help with this project
http://www.tomshardware.com - hardware guide / review
http://www.alienware.com/main_creative_pro.aspx - One of the IT guys
at work thought these machines were worth looking at.
Please let me know what people are using out there for hardware.
|
Heck, no answers .... okay. I'll take a stab at this.
I use an SGI Octane and the other people in the orifice use
late-model Windows crap peecees with nVidia graphics & P-IV
cpu's and all the other buzzword stuff running on Windows 2000.
(No XP, I won't let them get *that* far away from rationality.)
On Windows, it's, like, okay. Nothing special. I have W-fire
on one that I play with occasionally. It works okay. Occasional
crashes but these are workstations and Windows people aren't
used to doing two things at once, so it doesn't really matter.
The SGI Octane is not very fast by today's standards. I bought
it several years ago and it shows its age. In fact, I run 2000i(2)
on it cuz that's what I have for Irix.
However - a friend ran some *very* large fea analyses on exactly
the same Octane as I have. It ran about 40% slower than his hotdog
peecee *but he could use the Octane the entire time the analysis
was running.* The peecee was useless for any other task and needed
a reboot upon completion. On the exact same peecee under Linux he
couldn't even run the analysis without recompiling the kernel. He
declined.
My Octane came with the operating system installed. That was
about four years ago. I haven't touched the os since. The
Windows boxes magically get their registries butchered about
every six months. Perhaps there's an easy fix, but I've found
a complete reinstallation to be faster. Wow. We don't even
want to *begin* to discuss the amount of time I have to waste
on virus scares, email worms, intruder hack-attempts, spyware,
and the ever-present temptations of IRC, QQ, yahoo Messenger,
MS Messenger, and god knows what other crap. Maintaining a
Windows network in a safe manner is a full-time job. I haven't
even *touched* the Octane, except to upgrade the os for free
every few months - and that takes about twenty minutes. And
this is over a period of *years* now. Oh yeah, disk defragment ?
yeah, right ! hahahaha.
There's the other issue. The guts of Windows suck. The file
system (NTFS in our case) is absolute crap. Windows cannot
address more than two gigs of memory. Oh sure, they SAY it
can, but try it some day. Late model mainboards from SGI can
hold eight gigs of memory. The bigger boxes have 32 or 64 or
whatever, some number beyond any need I can imagine for my
work. You don't even know how much the SGI is using, it's
that transparent. Irix is a 64-bit operating system. In many
cases that's slower than 32 bits, but here we go - do you
need more than two gigs of memory ? Large assemblies ? If so,
the Irix version of Pro/E is 64 bit. Direct addressing of
a gazillion gigs of memory without kluge workarounds.
Are you a fan of multi-tasking or multiple users ? Windows
sucks. Unless you LIKE everything dumped into c:\programs\
documents and settings\my crap\his crap\someone else's crap
with every single config setting buried into that ten gig
oh-so-fragile Registry kluge, Unix is better. MKUCH better.
In fact, that whole idea of drive letters is just so much
obnoxious trash these days. Irix is the *same* operating
system with the *same* file system that outfits such as
Lockheed and NASA use for their visualization centers or
the HomeLand Security branch of the SS wants to use for its
pervasive snoop system. Not "the same family" - the *same*
o.s. Irix scales. It scales from one to 1024 processors.
Irix is good. And the Indigo magic desktop is just as easy
to use as Windows Explorer (or even Lightstep, which is
what I generally put on my own Wincrap partition.)
SGI is on a mission to self-destruct. I don't know that I
could honestly recommend buying their stuff at this time.
If you are an engineer and you look at the hardware, it's
exquisite. There is absolutely *nothing* in peeceeland that
can compare, even remotely. The O2 in particular is just a
jewel. If you don't mind that little drawback, I have recently
seen some really nice Octanes go for $3500 to $5500 on eBay.
The things are built like tanks, used is no problem unless
they drop them off a building, and the only $$$-replacement
part is the cpu or the grafix card. If I were in the market
for a new box that's probably what I'd want. Don't let mhz
numbers scare you. Pentia go really really fast but half
the time their pipeline is empty so they aren't really doing
anything. Plus, where a Pentium may take four cycles to
complete an operation, a MIPS chip will complete several
operations per cycle. That doesn't mean the MIPS cpu is very
fast - it isn't. A 600 mhz r14k is probably about as fast as
a 1.5ghz Pentium .... but there's a lot more to a computer
than just the cpu. You'll hear lots of comments about graphics
cards in here : well, ALL the SGI graphics work great with
Pro/E. SGI *invented* OpenGL. And an octane doesn't even HAVE
a bus : it uses what's basically a switch. None of the components
argues with the other components to share a bus 'cuz the Octane
doesn't HAVE one. The feel of an Octane is quite different
from a peecee. They don't feel fast (although a Fuel does, and
I would guess that a Tezro does as well.) They feel not as
snappy, but smoother. What you notice tho, or actually don't
notice, is that you can load that puppy down and load it down
some more but nothing changes. If you've got lots of memory
(can hold 8 gigs, remember) then run Pro/E, I-DEAS, Maya, load
seventeen huge assemblies, run ftp and some music player and
ten other services in the background AND run an fea analysis
if you want, but the Octane won't tell you how loaded it is.
It doesn't care. Try to run three tasks on NT and the fucker
will seize up tighter than your grandma's ...err ... anyway.
Otherwise, maybe I'd look into an HP-UX box. Their processors
are faster but their grafix is not quite as good. However, HP
will probably continue to exist. I'm not so sure about SGI.
Pointy-haired types who put all their eggs into the Linux basket
worry me. Sure, maybe some day Linux will be great. Or maybe
someday it will morph into yet-another-crappy Windows clone.
The latter is the direction it seems to be taking at the present.
Either way, abandoning a twenty-year-old PROVEN technology for
something that might one day become good, doesn't strike me as
smart. But then, I don't have pointy-hair, so no one listens
to me :-)
Anyway, I've always preferred other systems to Windows.
Technically, Windows isn't very good. However, it took a
year of maintaining a Windows network to make me really
despise that shit. It is just *so* awful compared to any
commercial Unix that i can't imagine why professionals fall
for the magazine hoo-haw crap. It may be great for grandma
but if you want to spend your time *using* the computer,
don't go Windows/Intel/Peecee. It's junk. I'd recommend
that you plop down $500 and get a decent but not great
Octane from eBay and try it for a while. You may not end
up going SGI for reasons other than technical ones, but I
guarantee you this - if you try a commercial Unix for a
while, you'll never be satisfied with Windows/Intel/CheapCrap
again.
if you decide you'd like to try an SGI, run your flag up
the pole. I'd be happy to make suggestions for a machine
that should please you. |
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Steve
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:02 am Post subject:
Re: Workstation / PC upgrade, What computer set up do you us |
|
|
Thanks for the reply hamei,
Your enthusiasm for the unix environment is a passionate one for sure.
I agree I used to use HP Unix and now I am in the PC world. If I am
working with anything graphics intensive or complicated geometry I end
up re-booting after a while, when I complain to my employer they tell
me to prove that my PC is too slow!
Has anyone ever heard of a PC that can hold it's own against a Unix
box?
On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 23:24:06 +0800, hamei <hamei@pacbell.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Steve wrote:
This subject might have been covered before but, I am going to bring
it up again:
Do you use a workstation, ie. Hp, Sun, Sgi,
If so do you know what:
graphics?
processor speed?
ram?
hardrive size?
Do you use a Desktop PC?
Graphics card?
Processor speed?
ram?
Hardrive?
At work we are researching the different options for computers and I
am the head researcher.
Things I have looked at so far:
http://www.caddprimer.com/magazine/ - A good list of cad magazines to
help with this project
http://www.tomshardware.com - hardware guide / review
http://www.alienware.com/main_creative_pro.aspx - One of the IT guys
at work thought these machines were worth looking at.
Please let me know what people are using out there for hardware.
Heck, no answers .... okay. I'll take a stab at this.
I use an SGI Octane and the other people in the orifice use
late-model Windows crap peecees with nVidia graphics & P-IV
cpu's and all the other buzzword stuff running on Windows 2000.
(No XP, I won't let them get *that* far away from rationality.)
On Windows, it's, like, okay. Nothing special. I have W-fire
on one that I play with occasionally. It works okay. Occasional
crashes but these are workstations and Windows people aren't
used to doing two things at once, so it doesn't really matter.
The SGI Octane is not very fast by today's standards. I bought
it several years ago and it shows its age. In fact, I run 2000i(2)
on it cuz that's what I have for Irix.
However - a friend ran some *very* large fea analyses on exactly
the same Octane as I have. It ran about 40% slower than his hotdog
peecee *but he could use the Octane the entire time the analysis
was running.* The peecee was useless for any other task and needed
a reboot upon completion. On the exact same peecee under Linux he
couldn't even run the analysis without recompiling the kernel. He
declined.
My Octane came with the operating system installed. That was
about four years ago. I haven't touched the os since. The
Windows boxes magically get their registries butchered about
every six months. Perhaps there's an easy fix, but I've found
a complete reinstallation to be faster. Wow. We don't even
want to *begin* to discuss the amount of time I have to waste
on virus scares, email worms, intruder hack-attempts, spyware,
and the ever-present temptations of IRC, QQ, yahoo Messenger,
MS Messenger, and god knows what other crap. Maintaining a
Windows network in a safe manner is a full-time job. I haven't
even *touched* the Octane, except to upgrade the os for free
every few months - and that takes about twenty minutes. And
this is over a period of *years* now. Oh yeah, disk defragment ?
yeah, right ! hahahaha.
There's the other issue. The guts of Windows suck. The file
system (NTFS in our case) is absolute crap. Windows cannot
address more than two gigs of memory. Oh sure, they SAY it
can, but try it some day. Late model mainboards from SGI can
hold eight gigs of memory. The bigger boxes have 32 or 64 or
whatever, some number beyond any need I can imagine for my
work. You don't even know how much the SGI is using, it's
that transparent. Irix is a 64-bit operating system. In many
cases that's slower than 32 bits, but here we go - do you
need more than two gigs of memory ? Large assemblies ? If so,
the Irix version of Pro/E is 64 bit. Direct addressing of
a gazillion gigs of memory without kluge workarounds.
Are you a fan of multi-tasking or multiple users ? Windows
sucks. Unless you LIKE everything dumped into c:\programs\
documents and settings\my crap\his crap\someone else's crap
with every single config setting buried into that ten gig
oh-so-fragile Registry kluge, Unix is better. MKUCH better.
In fact, that whole idea of drive letters is just so much
obnoxious trash these days. Irix is the *same* operating
system with the *same* file system that outfits such as
Lockheed and NASA use for their visualization centers or
the HomeLand Security branch of the SS wants to use for its
pervasive snoop system. Not "the same family" - the *same*
o.s. Irix scales. It scales from one to 1024 processors.
Irix is good. And the Indigo magic desktop is just as easy
to use as Windows Explorer (or even Lightstep, which is
what I generally put on my own Wincrap partition.)
SGI is on a mission to self-destruct. I don't know that I
could honestly recommend buying their stuff at this time.
If you are an engineer and you look at the hardware, it's
exquisite. There is absolutely *nothing* in peeceeland that
can compare, even remotely. The O2 in particular is just a
jewel. If you don't mind that little drawback, I have recently
seen some really nice Octanes go for $3500 to $5500 on eBay.
The things are built like tanks, used is no problem unless
they drop them off a building, and the only $$$-replacement
part is the cpu or the grafix card. If I were in the market
for a new box that's probably what I'd want. Don't let mhz
numbers scare you. Pentia go really really fast but half
the time their pipeline is empty so they aren't really doing
anything. Plus, where a Pentium may take four cycles to
complete an operation, a MIPS chip will complete several
operations per cycle. That doesn't mean the MIPS cpu is very
fast - it isn't. A 600 mhz r14k is probably about as fast as
a 1.5ghz Pentium .... but there's a lot more to a computer
than just the cpu. You'll hear lots of comments about graphics
cards in here : well, ALL the SGI graphics work great with
Pro/E. SGI *invented* OpenGL. And an octane doesn't even HAVE
a bus : it uses what's basically a switch. None of the components
argues with the other components to share a bus 'cuz the Octane
doesn't HAVE one. The feel of an Octane is quite different
from a peecee. They don't feel fast (although a Fuel does, and
I would guess that a Tezro does as well.) They feel not as
snappy, but smoother. What you notice tho, or actually don't
notice, is that you can load that puppy down and load it down
some more but nothing changes. If you've got lots of memory
(can hold 8 gigs, remember) then run Pro/E, I-DEAS, Maya, load
seventeen huge assemblies, run ftp and some music player and
ten other services in the background AND run an fea analysis
if you want, but the Octane won't tell you how loaded it is.
It doesn't care. Try to run three tasks on NT and the fucker
will seize up tighter than your grandma's ...err ... anyway.
Otherwise, maybe I'd look into an HP-UX box. Their processors
are faster but their grafix is not quite as good. However, HP
will probably continue to exist. I'm not so sure about SGI.
Pointy-haired types who put all their eggs into the Linux basket
worry me. Sure, maybe some day Linux will be great. Or maybe
someday it will morph into yet-another-crappy Windows clone.
The latter is the direction it seems to be taking at the present.
Either way, abandoning a twenty-year-old PROVEN technology for
something that might one day become good, doesn't strike me as
smart. But then, I don't have pointy-hair, so no one listens
to me :-)
Anyway, I've always preferred other systems to Windows.
Technically, Windows isn't very good. However, it took a
year of maintaining a Windows network to make me really
despise that shit. It is just *so* awful compared to any
commercial Unix that i can't imagine why professionals fall
for the magazine hoo-haw crap. It may be great for grandma
but if you want to spend your time *using* the computer,
don't go Windows/Intel/Peecee. It's junk. I'd recommend
that you plop down $500 and get a decent but not great
Octane from eBay and try it for a while. You may not end
up going SGI for reasons other than technical ones, but I
guarantee you this - if you try a commercial Unix for a
while, you'll never be satisfied with Windows/Intel/CheapCrap
again.
if you decide you'd like to try an SGI, run your flag up
the pole. I'd be happy to make suggestions for a machine
that should please you. |
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|
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|
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hamei
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Sep 30, 2004 8:36 am Post subject:
Re: Workstation / PC upgrade, What computer set up do you us |
|
|
Steve wrote:
| Quote: | Your enthusiasm for the unix environment is a passionate one for sure.
|
It was just a general feeling until i got stuck with the job
of maintaining a Windows network. Having to actually try to
make this junk work correctly cost me most of my hair and a
bleeding ulcer. If I ever meet any of those assholes from
Redmond in a dark alley, there'll be a bunch of happy fishies
THAT night !
I'm partial to irix but if you're an HP-UX person, you can
get a pretty good box on eBay for $1500. J6000, maybe. |
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Steve
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sun Oct 03, 2004 6:37 pm Post subject:
Re: Workstation / PC upgrade, What computer set up do you us |
|
|
A friend of mine told me about the bench mark at
http://www.proesite.com/
Have you used this or any other benchmark?
I think the OCUS benchmark ver 4 will provide a good hint as what part
of your hard is slow.
If you think your graphics is slow or a problem you can run the OCUSb4
and see how your graphics card compares with other graphics cards.
The bench mark can be run on windows and unix, give it a try a let me
know where you stand with your machine?
I ran the test my score was extremely low 5500 sec, 4000 sec was due
to graphics. I new I needed better graphics, a new card is on the way
should be here wednesday then I will retest.
Steve
On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 12:36:14 +0800, hamei <hamei@pacbell.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Steve wrote:
Your enthusiasm for the unix environment is a passionate one for sure.
It was just a general feeling until i got stuck with the job
of maintaining a Windows network. Having to actually try to
make this junk work correctly cost me most of my hair and a
bleeding ulcer. If I ever meet any of those assholes from
Redmond in a dark alley, there'll be a bunch of happy fishies
THAT night !
I'm partial to irix but if you're an HP-UX person, you can
get a pretty good box on eBay for $1500. J6000, maybe. |
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