Re: Bottlenecks

Mike T. pravi:
What's the point? You'd have to re-build it in 2-3 months, anyway.

The point is in the subject line. If imagine building the ultimate computer, you have to make sure you've discovered and eliminated all possible bottlenecks. That information can then also be used to build quick, neat and relatively cheap machines.

But you'd have to start with dual processors (each could be dual-core), which would rule out most Microsoft Operating systems and apps. that run on Microsoft Operating systems.

Say a 4 CPU motherboard (I haven't seen any with more CPUs on them, short of clusters), each dual core and each equiped with 4 GB of RAM. You are then looking at an operating system that can handle all that and you have a basic modern server system. But that is not the ultimate computer.

Otherwise, the fastest windows machine would be whatever the most expensive AMD proc. is at the moment, with whatever mainboard sports the fastest chipset AND allows the most RAM installed. Then you'd have to put in a PCI expansion card to add even MORE RAM, and likely tweak the heck out of the OS, so it will use the extra RAM.

Okay, so there are extension cards for adding RAM. Which bus would you use for the generic cards on the motherboard? PCI64 or PCI-Express (or something else)?

Intel processors can support up to 4 GB, technically. AMD processors can do more (how much already?). Obviously we will not be running this on Windows as Windows only supports 3 GB and that with special tweaks. It cannot be coerced to use any more.

Is there any OS in particular that you would like for this? A 64-bit compiled Linux? Or one of the professional UNIXes?

Oh, and if you think your video cards (two) are going to cost less than four figures each, you're thinking too small. :)

So, we got bridged PCI-Express graphic cards.

Then you'd need a bunch of 10K RPM hard drives, each with 16MB or more of cache. You'd have to specifically NOT RAID them. That is, if you want "top performance". To me, "top performance" means fastest that the system can run without undue risk of data corruption. So no RAID, regardless of type. Either it'll slow you down, or make it more likely to lose your data.

I got a RAID0 here and face no data corruption whatsoever. Does my computer thus defy reality?

I suppose you could have several harddrives linked into a RAID which is not plain 0, but something with redundancy and performance for example RAID50.

Those expensive controllers have a DDR memory slot for disk cache alone, so you're basically looking at 1 GB of hardware disk cache, and thus disk transfers, of about the same as the maximum data rate of your bus of choice, for all bursts of transfers up to 1 GB.

Same with overclocking. It can be done, but if you are looking for "top performance" in a reliable machine, just throw more money at it.

It is possible to overclock a processor without risking corruption. That is, to overclock it up to the levels that the manufacturer intended anyway, supply the proper cooling. How about cooling with condensator oil? It's very efficient and I've seen it done and in certain cases it does not even require active circulation.

You'd also need a single power supply somewhere in the 1KW range, and don't skimp on it (if that's even possible). -Dave

So a big, fat, stable, reliable powersupply. Can do.


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