Thanks everyone for the replies! I wish I could get away with a single graphics card, but there isn't one quite powerful enough. I want to be able to play a few old games and the new Elite Dangerous at 4k, plus have GPU power for Blender rendering, and still be able to run a ton of VMs from time to ...

Hi, I have an Ikea Micke desk : http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/images/products/micke-desk__0172811_PE327002_S4.JPG - but assembled with the PC cupboard on the right. The cupboard is 58cm x 28.5cm x 50cm (HxWxD), has an open back, and the desk back is about 5cm from the wall. I've been using a laptop for ...

No. The quad-cores go a good bit lower. Please read the SPCR review this article is discussing. My bad, I thought i5 = dual core, so assumed i5-2500K was dual core... That's good. So it will come down to price then (cpu+mobo+ram). Although the lower-end AMDs (e.g. A6-3600 ) might do even better, bu...

This ain't a server chip. Is there any reason you want to use it for a server?. 23W idle power consumption (DC, according to the review) is pretty good. Intel chips systems go down that low, but only dual core parts AFAIK. If you know of a quad core intel that does less idle then please let me know...

I'm interested in this cpu family for a server. From reading the review, I get the impression that the A8-3850 would make for a good balance of very low power consumption when idle, with quad cores and enough oomph for when really necessary. The A6-3600 would probably be the best choice, providing i...

Hi, Does anyone know if Windows power management keeps a seperate timer for each drive? In a multiple drive machine, you may find that the drive that holds the system partition is more or less constantly accessed, so won't be spun down, but will that prevent other drives that are very rarely accesse...

I'm running the Beta service pack - so full name is Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise Edition R2 SP1 - quite a mouthful. No problems at all, although my cpu (opteron 275) doesn't have the virtualisation stuff. And I have both VMWare Server and MS VS running simultaneously - no problems provid...

I thought I'd post here rather than ressurrect the thread I started a while back: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=24260 ; as this seams to be the dual opteron thread du jour... I've started to build my system... not all the parts have arrived yet so I can't tell you whether it's a s...

I'm about to do the same thing, more or less. I was hoping to use the new Silverstone TJ07 but if I can't get hold of it in time (won't be available in UK until mid December) I'll probably get the TJ06, which got a good review here. Also on the horizon is an ATX sized version of the K8WE - a Tiger r...

http://www.silverstonetek.com/2005wpc%20show.htm With a similar spec to the machine I want to build - dual opterons, Tyan Thunder K8WE motherboard. There are more pics on the sites linked to at the bottom of the page. I've been in touch with Silverstone and they've been very forthcoming with details...

Kate Bush - Aerial

Well worth the 12 year wait.

Hopefully the TJ07 will be released soon and then it will get a thorough review here. I just asked Silverstone and they say that it should be quieter than the TJ06 for the machine I want to build (2x dual core opteron).

It's been a few years since I last used a Dell Dimension, so things may have changed, but generally I've found the Optiplex line to be quieter than the Dimensions. The "ultra-small-form-factor" models use small, high rpm fans so are a bit noisier than the larger desktop and mini tower models, but ge...

Enigma, the first four albums back to back...

...got a lot of work to get through tonight...

Kate Bush : The Whole Story

Thanks everyone for your tips. Still no greenlight on the project; but I've done a bit more research on the system in the meantime. First the bad news about iSCSI... 1) Emboot's PXE-downloadable iSCSI initiator - netboot/i - which would allow me to boot from a remote iSCSI volume, without an HBA, WO...

v3rt1g0 & mathias: With the opterons having an integrated memory controller, the rest of the motherboard doesn't have many hot running components and all the boards I've been looking at use passive heatsinks. On Friday I had a chance to see a few cases in person. The P180 doesn't look as bad as it d...

My grandparents have a fridge (not a freezer, but does have a freezer compartment) that is over 50 years old, still working, and has no moving parts! It's totally silent but I doubt that it's energy efficiency is that good. I asked my grandfather whether it worked using the peltier effect (I thought...

Mathias: yes, this is a very big job. Most of the work I've done since going freelance has been much smaller scale in terms of infrastructure. But I've built a bigger network than the one this workstation needs to - or could - simulate. One of the CPUs on the biggest database servers would have paid...

no, it keeps me!

I'm freelance and the cost of the workstation comes out of my fee, so yes I get to keep it. I could skimp on the spec and save the cash, but I'd be taking a risk with the success of the project, which could cost me a lot more if I make a costly mistake!

a drive over iSCSI will logically be slower than attached locally, if only for the overhead of TCP/IP and Ethernet and latency in the switch. In the real world though, I doubt this will be noticeable. The seek time and sustsained transfer rates of a drive (not from cache) are always the limiting fac...

Edit: got the TDPs wrong! Please forgive any naivety - this is my first post... Later this year I'm going to need to build myself a dual CPU workstation which I'll be running at home (I work from home). I'd like to make it as quiet as possible without compromising too much on the specs. I'll need to...