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upgrade compatibility?
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upgrade compatibility? // Hardware
Post by Freaky42 // Mar 6, 2006, 10:16pm
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Freaky42
Total Posts: 28
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Hey guys me again,;)
Well I was in the process of ordering parts for my PC to upgrade it and was just wondering if anyone new of any compatibility issues that might arise with the following parts:
ASUS A8N Deluxe Motherboard on Nvidia Northbridge chipset. SLI enabled and PCI-Express.
AMD Athlon 64 FX-60, Dual Core, HT, 2.60ghz processor
ATI X1900 Crossfire edition 512mb PCI Express Graphics cards
That's it. Just trying to make sure if all features of TS V 7.0 would be compatible and function well. I heard of some Nvidia probs and was wondering if the chipset would hurt the motherboard however since that is mainly used if you are using SLI I think and the ATI cards use the PCI for their info passing(I think correct me if I'm wrong:D ) then that shouldn't be an issure correct?
Info appreciated thank you. |
Post by hemulin // Mar 7, 2006, 7:47am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Apparently (this is according to the ati website) You need an ATI X1900 if you want to run single card, and an ATI X1900 and an ATI X1900 Crossfire Edition if you want to run with dual cards. |
Post by Alien // Mar 7, 2006, 8:45am
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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ASUS A8N Deluxe Motherboard on Nvidia Northbridge chipset. SLI enabled and PCI-Express.
AMD Athlon 64 FX-60, Dual Core, HT, 2.60ghz processor
ATI X1900 Crossfire edition 512mb PCI Express Graphics cards
That's it. Just trying to make sure if all features of TS V 7.0 would be compatible and function well.
Personally I'd go for a dual-CPU motherboard & just 1 graphics card. If you have the kind of cash to throw at a high end ATI card I'd say get the top of the line X1900XT [XT version has a bit more oomph than the non-XT version]. Unless you intend to create scenes with insanely high polycounts, then I don't think you'd run into any performance issues with an X1900XT in tS7. Infact, I could be wrong about this [need someone from Caligari to confirm this], but I think you'd run into system memory limitations before graphics card performance issues if you got the 512MB v. of the X1900XT.
Also, bear in mind, that whilst nice graphics cards do make for nice eye-candy in the player, they do nothing for your actual rendering output, hence my suggestion of a dual-CPU setup. In which case, you can't really do better than the Tyan Thunder K8WE. Admittedly Opterons cost more than the 939 CPUs, but if you only get the 1 graphics card it won't be such big a difference.
I heard of some Nvidia probs and was wondering if the chipset would hurt the motherboard however since that is mainly used if you are using SLI I think and the ATI cards use the PCI for their info passing(I think correct me if I'm wrong:D ) then that shouldn't be an issure correct?
I'm afraid it's not that simple. You can't do Crossfire with an NVIDIA-based mobo at all. SLI [with NVIDIA-based cards] yes, Crossfire [ATI-based cards] no. Just as you need a mobo with an SLI chipset to do SLI, you need a mobo with a Crossfire chipset to do Crossfire. From looking at the Asus website, it would seem the only 2 [Crossfire-based boards] they do are the A8R-MVP & the A8R32-MVP Deluxe. There are other mobo manufacturers that make boards with a crossfire chipset as well, but I mentioned those as you were looking at an Asus board to begin with. |
Post by Norm // Mar 7, 2006, 1:37pm
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Norm
Total Posts: 862
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The only caveat I would add is that one has to pay the most attention to power supply. All the hardware, memory, etc requires power. There was a time when a 350 watt power supply was all that we needed. Now-a-days, if you do not have a 500+ watt power supply your machine acts funny as hardware wrestles for limited power from the supply.
In my mind, the most important compnent of any computer is the power supply. |
Post by Alien // Mar 7, 2006, 2:35pm
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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The only caveat I would add is that one has to pay the most attention to power supply. All the hardware, memory, etc requires power. There was a time when a 350 watt power supply was all that we needed. Now-a-days, if you do not have a 500+ watt power supply your machine acts funny as hardware wrestles for limited power from the supply.
In my mind, the most important compnent of any computer is the power supply.
Very true Norm. However, if he does consider my suggestion of going dual CPU [or at least getting a dual CPU mobo, he could start off with 1 CPU & upgrade later] then he'll need to look into PSU requirements of the mobo more carefully, as some/most dual CPU motherboards require a PSU that conforms to a specific standard [EPS12V/SSI EEB 3.51 (24pin + 8pin) - it'll either be listed in the specs of the PSU or as part of the name if it is complient].
Aside from meeting whatever electrical specs in terms of voltage, current, etc, EPS12V PSUs differ in terms of motherboard power connectors. Your typical ATX PSU has a 20 pin main power connector & a 4 pin secondary power connector, which IIRC was added to PSUs around the time of the introduction of the P4 [hence why it's often referred to as a P4 connector, even though quite a few AMD-based boards have a connector for it nowadays], whereas as I mentioned above the EPS12V PSUs have a 24pin main power connector & an 8pin secondary connector. Some also have an additional 6 pin connector [not to be confused with the 6 pin PCI Express/SLI/Crossfire connector a lot of PSUs have nowadays], which I believe was originally used on dual Xeon workstation boards, but can now be found on some dual Opteron boards as well. I had a look in the manual for the Thunder K8WE [yes, I know I'm sad - drooling over a motherboard :o] & apparently whilst the 24pin & 8 pin are mandatory, the 6 pin is optional, but recommended if using both of its PCI Express slots. That's just for that 1 mobo, by 1 company, but if I had to guess, I'd say other companies would give similar guidelines for their boards as well.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42/images_for_caligari_forum/s2895-power-connections.jpg
& yes, that's a pic of a Tyan Thunder K8WE :drool:
<edit>
BTW - if you're looking at PSUs, you might want to consider getting 1 that has "modular" connectors - eg where you only plug in as many leads for stuff as you need, so you don't end up with the problem of trying to hide/tidy away the good old fashioned "rats nest"
</edit> |
Post by Freaky42 // Mar 8, 2006, 7:00am
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Freaky42
Total Posts: 28
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Hey thanks guys. I almost went and bought the motherboard without realizing that little bit of info. I corrected that and changed my choices to this.
DFI Lan Party RDX 200 motherboard. It's crossfire enabled.
Changed the video card to a single ati x1900 xtx. I can get another crossfire card later if I want to upgrade more and bridge them.
Stuck with the single CPU setup for now. The AMD Athlon FX-60 will do for now. I aint quite that rich you know. This is the money I get for being deployed I can't spend it all now.;)
Of course a 600 watt power supply for all the new doo-dads. I checked and they should all be compatible now. Thanks for all the infor earlier. It really helped. |
Post by Alien // Mar 8, 2006, 2:22pm
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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Stuck with the single CPU setup for now. The AMD Athlon FX-60 will do for now. I aint quite that rich you know. This is the money I get for being deployed I can't spend it all now.;)
Oh well - still, the FX-60's quite a nice solution for a 1 chip system.
Of course a 600 watt power supply for all the new doo-dads. I checked and they should all be compatible now. Thanks for all the infor earlier. It really helped.
Well, at least you don't have the extra expense of getting an EPS12V PSU as you're not going for a dual-cpu system. Glad I could be of help. :) |
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