If Money were (almost) no object....

[Wedo]

Hey all,

Here goes, my CEO wants a new computer. I've built quite a few machines for the office, the last three were Athlon 1800's with Shuttle AK31's, and he likes the way they run.

So I have almost an open line of credit on his machine, and I was wondering what the Overclockers would do. I've started with the the 2100+, probably the new Epox 8K3A+ board, and he wants a DVD/CDRW combo drive, CDROM, at least 512MB, and I already have a new Matrox G450 Dual display vid card as he wants two monitors, but I leave the whole system up to suggestions.

Let the spending begin!

Wedo

Fold, fold, and when no one is looking, make your network fold.

 

[Staz]

I'd stay away from the Combo drive, and get a DVDrom and a CD/RW. Other than that I am not up on the current MoBo's. Corsair PC2700 at cas 2-2-2 would be nice.

 

[JaY_III]

DUAL CPU
think DUAL

 

[JigPu]

DUAL CPU
think DUAL

Or go for that 4 million dollar Sun mentioned in GD... 72 CPUs...

Other than that... I would also go for the seperate DVD and CD-RW drives. Also, how big a HD are you thinking?? 80GB? In Raid 0+1? And a 21" monitor (mabey even LCD flatscreen...) to go along with it.

Sorry... My mind getting the best of me again...
JigPu

 

[Über~PhLuBB]

If money truely is no object, than go with an Abit KR7A-133 mobo, Athlon XP 2100+, 1.5GB of Corsair PC2700 (If you want to use all 4 DIMM slots, the RAM must be registered), Western Digital Special Edition 120GB 7200RPM HDD with 8MB cache, Yamaha 24x CD-RW, Pioneer slot-load DVD-ROM, Thermalright AX-7 (with Delta 80CFM, tuned with rheo), Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum, Visiontek GeForce3 Ti-500 OR Gainward CardExpert Ti-4400 (Comes out the 29th), stick it all in a CoolerMaster ATC-201 with an Enermax EG465P-VE(FM) 431W PSU.

If a NIC is required, get a Netgear FA311.

If a monitor is required, get the nessecary size Sony FD Trinitron CRT monitor.

If a printer is required, use judgment on the DPI required and go with Canon, Epson, HP, or Lexmark.

If a mouse and keyboard is required, get a Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical Keyboard and Mouse Bundle.

Cram the case full of as many 80mm Panaflos as can fit. Rounded cables would help with airflow, but if you fold the ATA cables right, it wont be much of a problem. Of course, use Arctic Silver III.

 

[Staz]

I like Uber~plubbs ideas. The only thing I would change is the slot load DVD. I would go for the tray load. I have no experiance with slot load DVD but some slot load car audio cd players can put a scratch mark on a cdr. Where it grasp it to pull it in.

 

[CrystalMethod]

SGI machine. Pretty sweet, cool looking, You'll hate that he has it and you don't, etc...
Specs here.

Ya'll that look at the the 600Mhz CPU and say "600 MHZ only?", Check out the FSB, and L2 Cache...
4MB L2 cache! 200 FSB! 64 bit! This is one sweet machine that is in relative reach of those of us with medium-deep pocket books.

Hell if you REALLY have an open line of credit...
This is the one for you!!!

 

[NeoMoses]

Most likely, your CEO won't use 1/4 of the processing power you give him, but if you don't build him a great system....

Here's some things that he'll love down the road.

1. Front USB 2.0 AND Firewire. He'll be able to easily plug in any peripheral for the next few years.

2. DEFINATELY GO FOR THE WESTERN DIGITAL SPECIAL EDITION HARD DRIVE(S). They are FAST! You could really impress him with RAID. And get him hard drive coolers. They're cheap, and from what I've been reading about IBM hard drives, they may buy you a few more years of operating life.

3. A 32X CD burner is all you need. Don't waste your money on a 40X. They're only a few seconds faster to burn a CD than a 32X (They only writes at 40X at very end of burning, not the entire CD). Lite-On, although inexpensive, makes good CD-RW Drives.

4. Dual processors are cool, but most of the time they're overkill.

5. A DigitalDoc might be cool, especially if your boss likes gadgets. It could also keep noise down.

6. For a heatsink, go with the thermalright ax-7 with variable speed fan. Most bosses/people don't want their computer to sound like a vacuum.

 

[Kingslayer]

I would go with Dual 2.0 Gig Xeons.
2 100Gig ATA-133 Maxtors in RAID-0.
1 Gig DDR
Radeon 8500 128 meg All in Wonder
Fast reliable DVD-RW
Pioneer slot load DVD
USB 2.0
Firewire
Get a 6 channel souncard and the 5.1 Logitech Speaker system. (He'll love you for this, in my opinion it makes the Klipsch system sound distinctly like a garbage can)
Big Mamba Jamba case complete with window and neon (Hey, if your gonna build a system like this, build it right!)
XP
Office XP
3Com 10/100/1000 NIC

Is most of this overkill? Absolutely! But if your gonna build something, build something worth braggin about!

 

[Wedo]

GREAT ideas OC'ers. I think we should have a list like this every six months or so to keep everyone informed, many eyes and ears are better than two.

Update: We're running a W2K adv. server network with 3Com, SonicWall, and D-Link(just the switch) so I'll go with a 3Com card.

My boss is pretty tech savvy, he installed his own T-1 that connects his house to the office, but doesn't care to know what is available in the PC market.

I'll set him up with the firewire and USB up front, great idea, and since the general opinion is that combo drives stink, I'll get him a DVD and a CD-RW.

He games sometimes late at night when most of the employee's have gone home, so the sound system, video card, and performance will matter for him. He's a Q3 arena nut, but wants to stick with dual monitors so I think I'm locked into the Matrox dual card that's sitting on my desk.

Thanks again, keep them coming as I'm sure there are others that are getting some tasty ideas...

Wedo

 

[Kingslayer]

Ditch the Matrox and get him the new Radeon 8500 LE.
128 meg of DDR AND dual heads.

 

[Wedo]

Update:

AMD 2100+ w/ Epox 8K3A+ $413
256MB (x2) Corsair 2700 Cas 2x2x2 $107
WD Special Edition 100GB 7200 HD's with 8MB cache $191
Antec SX840 case (had an extra in the office) $120
Rounded Cables (2), Shim, 3 80mm Delta's, 2 HD Coolers, Thermalright AX-7 all from hardcorecooling.com $146


Looking at internal firewire cards for front placement...

More to follow,
Wedo

 

[WaTaGuMp]

If you want REAL speed from the Hd go with a Seagate 15000 rpm drive then use a board with RAID 5 and stripe them all together. The use the rest of the system with SCSI interface, that would be some serious speed.

 

[Wedo]

If you want REAL speed from the Hd go with a Seagate 15000 rpm drive then use a board with RAID 5 and stripe them all together. The use the rest of the system with SCSI interface, that would be some serious speed.

whoa.

Good idea, but I think he'll be suprised enough with the RAID 0 and WD special edition drives.

However, anyone have an opinion on going external firewire for the DVD and CDRW? If I'm going to give him front firewire and USB access, I'll have a PCI card with nothing plugged into the back on it, could use external drives only.

Wedo

 

[Hookem]

If he multi-task with multi-thread programs then a SCSI dually is the way to go...If he wants dual display then the Matrox G550 is a more versitile video card than the G450 but make no mistake if he is not a gamer and wants dual display the G550 is a better choice...A Tyan Tiger with a coulple of AMD MP's with Teckram SCSI adapter with one little ole X15 Cheetah SCSI hard drive will run circles around any IDE raid setup...If money is not that big a deal then SCSI him up...I agree about the Combo DVD CDRW...Get a Plextor CD-RW...106S Pioneer slot load DVD-CDROM...with the Pioneer DVD burner...I would not want to use my $400 DVD drive to play music CD's on...Or my $140 CDRW for that matter... A black hard anodized 70series Lan Li case would well be worth the money for initinal eye candy...Its nice to be the Boss !!!! Good Luck with the system whatever you decide !!!

 

[Mothra]

Just to throw in my 2 cents, if you're going for some brownie points with the boss, and of course $$ is no object - go for the CoolerMaster ATC110 case - what a slick looking case, all aluminum with an aluminum door on the front to cover up all those tan and black drives. What a beaut!

 

[eab]

One thing, I would defently try to get front USB 2 and Fire wire ports. LCD displayes are the sweetest. But if he games I don't know how well they hold up for gameing, But duel 21" crts would be the bomb.

If you need a printer go with a color lazer printer.

 

[Crash893]

if you really want to impress him go with dual monitors
(prefreably lcd) since hes probably going to do a loot of looking at documents and other stuff and not that much gameing( you never know)
**the monitor gives you about 99% of the info of whats going on with the comptuer MAKE IT AS BIG AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE***


i dont know if your office has a genorator or something like that but you might want to get him a ups

i would also get him the coordless mouse ( optical) thouse things are cool


also i dont know how devoted you are to this guy($$$$$)
but mabey you could get the case first and mod it to have the company logo or something or have the logo etched into a window

on one hand you want this thing nice but the other you dont want it super tricked out becuase hes a proffeshonal

im unsure on raid ( you dont want anything screwing up so he think you gave him a bummy computer)

the only other thing i can think of is that "U.are.U" fingerprint thing that automaticly logs you on to your account in XP

he might like the security of that

 

[Dufrain]

doesnt the platinum video card have front usb and firewire ports on the thing that fits in a cd bay.cant you use a pci card for the dual display and agp for a radeon 8500 or something for gaming.maybe there is a monitor switching adapter you could find for using the dual display.

 

[Element-Xero]

Yeah thats what I was going to suggest. Throw in the Geforce 4 4400 as a gaming card, and throw a pci matrox in there for his other monitor. Then you got the dual monitor setup, and one monitor will be able to push some serious framrates!