What's your ideal setup?

[Jack Rabbit]

Within the realm of reality what kind of system would you like to have? I mean a reasonable system for a reasonably average person; not a lotto winner. You can't have Google's server farms or a zillion GPUs for folding. For some it might be a MacBook Pro and free wireless at Starbucks. Others might want the largest case available with all the bells a whistles crammed in. Others might want several similar systems so they can lan with their buddies on the weekend. Others may really want a media PC as part of the mix (I don't own a tele so that's not high on my list).

I'll start. I would like to have:

• A low power (electrical power) desktop for an always available web/e-mail machine.
• An upper middle class game machine upgraded every 18-24 months.
• A server with lots of RAM and hard drive space for file storage, backups, and virtual machines.
• A discrete gateway/firewall (m0n0wall on recycled parts) with gigabit wired network and 802.11n.
• A laptop for when I'm on the move, on the patio, or as a guest computer.
• A small and cheap netbook to carry around when the laptop would be a burden.
• A couple bench machines for testing and troubleshooting (probably retired game machine parts).

What would you like to put together? If you already have it, what is it?

 

[Overclocker~4.1]

Hmm whats reasonable? well here is my take.

What i would like to have.

1. Dual Intel CPU's, could be low end CPU's. But I would like to have a dual CPU rig.
2. SLI and a dedicated PPU.
3. Nice big case, like.. big. enough to hold a triple fan rad and a dual fan rad. one loop for the CPU's and one loop for the GPU's.
4. 4 Tb of storage in Raid 0+1 then 2 SSD's for a Raid 0 OS disk.
5. about 8 Gigs or ram for each Proc at least. and triple 20" monitor setup.

 

[b1lk1]

I have the PC in my sig that is my all in one server/gamer/workhorse/print server/etc... It does everything I need and then some. I just picked up a nice little ASUS UL80VT Notebook that is small and light yet powerful enough to casually game. I also have an i5 system I use for testing various parts. As for my network, I may not have a speedy network, but what I have is nearly bulletproof. My house is wired for networking and my PS3 and notebook do everything wirelessly The only thing I would change if I had the cash would be a couple high end graphics cards for my main PC.

I think too many people don't work their PC's enough or to their true potential. I used to be all about benchmarking and optimization, now I just run things stock and steady and I look for reliability over the fastest possible speeds. Just as an example, yesterday I was encoding some old VHS-C videos to burn to DVD while either playing a game or doing some writing. While I was doing this my wife was accessing the music stored on my PC with the Playstation 3 and she was using the laptop printing off pictures which also go through my PC as the printers are both attached to it. Multitasking is not only a consideration to me, it is a MUST.

 

[0o0]

I'm not gonna go there because it'd hurt either my heart or my wallet if I do

edit: ok fine I'll play:haha:
Primary:

haf922
4+1 raid'ed WD blackie 640gb
bluray drive
x25m 160gbx2
i7 860
gtx380 (when it comesh34r
p7p55d premium
hx850
Venemous X (I need to check speeling on that one)
p55a-ud4p
a bunch of mini-typhoon fans
Sentry LX fan controller

and a laptop, a netbook, an htpc with 6x2tb greens and 4 teamed gigabit nics (if possible):biggrin:

 

[Zero82z]

Dual Gulftown EE CPUs with a tri-SLI Fermi setup, 24GB of RAM, a quartet of SSDs in RAID 10 as OS drives plus a few 2TB WD Black drives in RAID 5 for data storage, an ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card, a Silverstone ST1500, all in a Corsair Obsidian 800D or Coolermaster ATCS 840 case, and three 30" LCDs. I think that about covers it.

 

[MarkOne]

..... a pair of SSDs in RAID 10 as OS drives p..

so you need 2 pair of raid 0 disk in mirror to make a raid 10 ... it's make 4 disks

and you forget the keyboard at $ 1200 what is the name again

 

[Zero82z]

so you need 2 pair of raid 0 disk in mirror to make a raid 10 ... it's make 4 disks

and you forget the keyboard at $ 1200 what is the name again

You're right, I was going to say RAID1 at first and then I changed my mind :thumb:. And I don't actually want one of those $1500 keyboards. Apparently they suck to type on, and I don't even look at the keyboard when I type anyway, so it would be pretty useless for me.

 

[jcmaz]

My computer w/ 22 inch LG Flatron and generic mouse and keyboard.

 

[_dangtx_]

id actually go with an amd on that one, 45 watter of your choice. mobo with onboard video, least ammount of components(2gb sticks of ram) and a nice psu, say earthwatts 430?

 

[Linus]

My computer is pretty much perfect as far as I can tell

Core i7 975XE @ 4GHz
DFI LANparty UT X58-T3EH8
12GB DDR3 1600MHz
2x GTX 260 SLI
Corsair HX1000
Silverstone TJ07B-W w/ powdercoated interior
Custom water cooling with mCubed T-balancer for noise management
Auzentech X-Mystique
LG Blu-Ray/HD-DVD combo drive
OCZ Vertex 120GB (OS & Programs)
2x Intel X25-M 80GB RAID-0 (STEAM)
Corsair P128 (not sure what to use it for yet. On a fresh format with a new drive arrangement as of today)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Samsung 305T 30" monitor
Steelseries Ikari Laser on QCK+ pad
Logitech G15 gen1
Logitech G25
Saitek AV8R
Microsoft wireless Xbox 360 controller
Sennheiser HD555 headphones
Sennheiser PC161 (just for mic)

For storage I have a WHS box with a Pentium D on an eVGA 790i board with 2GB of RAM and about 3.5TB of hard drive space. Video is handled by a PCI GeForce MX400 or w/e it's called

This pretty much takes care of all of my needs, but I guess I'll probably drop a few bucks on a couple of fermis once they launch.