Has anyone used a 64 bit opteron system, and if so

[1000101-]

Currently running XP Pro 32 bit on this system with a 64 bit linux on another drive.

[mag]

Got my dual 242 opteron system the other day at work.. so thats dual 1.6 ghz

runs maya fine.. so far the entire adobe video collection runs fine too...

it got 46 seconds on the Test Center benchmark (it has 2gb ram and xp pro)

our dual xeon 2.4s got 57 seconds.... thats with 2gb ram and win2k

so for a computer that was a few hundred dollars cheaper than the dual xeon setup its nice that it performed even better.. makes the boss happy

(our single p4 2.6 [1gb ram 2k] got 75 seconds and our new single p4 2.8 prescott [1gb ram xppro] got 66 seconds
BTW .. just if you want some more numbers)

but yeah.... so its early days but the perfomance is great... and so far the stability has been fine...

[jtk77]

I jsut hopes it works under win2k..untill my corporation gets off their butts and aproved something else..
for us it shouldn't matter at ALL..I'm stuck with it.
But like I said, I gotta think about the furture so I don;t screw anyone over.
These boxes will be in use for about 5 years before they buy again.. yea no crap.. its horrid to even contemplate.
I change mine out at home every two years at the lest.

[mag]

hmm well the opteron machine would have had 2k on it but needed xp for premiere pro...

[mag]

Hmm i cant see it performing mega badly under 2k...

as for your dillema.. well 5 years is a long time.. no matter what you pic now in 5 years time you're still going to have a bunch of slow computers...

Personally id choose the 64s because surely within the time frame that you're planning to hold on to the computers 64 bit software will actually be a reality so you'll get a nice speed boost midway through the lifecycle of your pcs.

which of course wont happen with the xeons.

So in 5 years you'll either have some 'slow' machines or some 'less slow' machines.

At my work we got the opteron machine because it was cheaper than the xeon config we were considering and we reckoned it would be as faster or at least as fast. Turned out it was faster so that was good. I dont know if we'll be hanging on to it long enough to see the benefits of 64bit computing but that doesn't really matter because it would seem we made a pretty good purchase anyway... even without the carrot of 64bit being dangled in front of you the opteron would still seem to be a good choice...

[jtk77]

Hey guys, well if anyone cares we know what we're doing now after much debate.
We're going 32 XEOns on winXP PRO.
They said we can go XP after all that, but they were not confortable going AMD.
Also turns out, the engeneers can, in their budget for maintance , redo the insides to go 64 bit intainum or whatever is going to be out down the road. So we're not technicaly stuck for 5 years. Sounded like a good plan for now , for us.
Now we have a debate.. these sony digial LCDs look awsome in another room we have, and it would save us deskspace.. I like CRTs but I havn't worked on some of these new LCDs yet as far as graphics and things..
What do you guys thing?

[jtk77]

Mm just tested a Sony flatscreen, its one of the nicest LCD screens I have used but its not good enough.
Everything seem to have a texture to it, gradeints especialy. Also it doesn't hold color variations as well as a CRT.
So CRTs it is.

[idagrove]

I don't mean to be contentious, but are these workstations primarily for modeling/animation? I wouldn't necessarily advocate LCDs for art directors or compositors, but for all other purposes, I've found them to be more than adequate. And in my profession (2d print/web design), even the latter tasks are often done on LCDs successfully.

It's an interesting debate. One of the issues I have dealt with in 2d is that even on CRTs there is no reliable way to represent PMS colors and other important color considerations, even with well-tuned color management workflows. And my understanding is that film is similarly confounded by the comparatively low dynamic range of existing computer displays.

[gmask]

And my understanding is that film is similarly confounded by the comparatively low dynamic range of existing computer displays.

Film is impossible to compensate for .. depending on where the film is processed the color will be different and every job is a different lab usually. Bascially you do color tests and send a range of tweaks of frames and see what the results are then produce the final.. it's a PITA! There are however HIgh Dynamic Range displays avaiable now but you would stil have the unpredictabilty of color film development to contend with.

[jtk77]

The LCD we demoed in our price range wasn't very good holding gradents or anything fine like the CRT could. In a lot of instances it was worse at holding detail than an NTSC monitor is.
The slight ghosting at anything over 12 ns on its refreash, these were at 16, will cause you, over time , to thing you're aniamtion is smoother than it acualy is. Or so I have heard from people.
These workstations are 3d, compositors, photoshop. All of it and we did not think LCDs under a grand are there yet for these tasks.
Also, the "wet" speckle they have drives me nuts when looking at textures , it look like a texture itself, I can see this causing issue when really looking at the detail in a complex picture. Or perhaps that would be something to get used to as well. But the fact is, theres no reason but deskspace. I can't see any advantage to it but that.
For the money we can get some really top of the line CRTs. So thats what we're going with.
As far as PMS goes, of course a monitor can not porperly display that, thats why you have hardcopy swatches with the codes there , so you KNOW that the red of the screen look like the one in your hand even if its off a bit. Thats the point of PMS colors.
All in all theres no point to an LCD monitor that I could see for any work like this.

[idagrove]

Fair enough. I respect the desire to have the best possible digital display, despite the problems with final output. But I guess I'm just not as sensitive to the drawbacks of LCD as others seem to be.

Also, the reliability of the PMS standard is sometimes overstated. It's still sometimes difficult to use in design because the relationships between colors are sometimes hard to guage, especially when using PMS and standard CMYK in a single product. Swatches are exactly that, and they do not account for the effects of, say a sheet of red with a small green dot in the middle. And most PMS colors are, in fact, mixtures of elemental ink colors, so there's always compensation to be made on press. Anyway, this is not really the point of this thread so I'll shut up.

[gmask]

This is along the same lines as NTSC standing for "never the same color" .. the swatche sare so that professionals have a common reference but it does not mean that their output is in fact calibrated properly.

In regard sto LCD's I was workign with this designer that had three monitors .. multiscan CRT, NTSC CRT and LCD. He was going on that he preferred the LCD and I was like but that doesn't mean anything... I hope you are tweaking based on it.

I've also had designers send me graphics they have created for TV using pms colors and CMYK.. sheesh.. hello

[jtk77]

mlattis I agree with you on the PMS thing

but really, on the LCD side of things I just don't see the benefit right now.

[aaron_johnson]

check out these puppies

Planar PX171M
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view\_content.as...ar17&page=1

and Hitachi CML174B:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view\_content.as...lcds&page=1

these are supposed to be the 2 best fast refresh LCDs around, both with 16ms pixel response time (12ms rise/4ms fall). if anybody here has used them in maya i'd be keen to hear feedback.

still maybe not good print productions screens but surely for maya, animations and video they would be awesome...?

[jtk77]

Yea but what is the point? Just curious. Why would you spend that much when you're just trying to get close to what a CRT can do for a fraction of the cost?
Deskspace? Is that really worth it?
Just curious, and yes these are nice, just too expensive for the a benefit that I don't see.
I'd like to hear whos using them , for what and why of course myself.

[ruddy]

The industry really really wants us to switch to LCDs and Plasma. Could it be because CRTs last so much longer and have longer warranties? At SIGGRAPH the place was lousy with LCD displays and I was under whelmed. My new Sony 21" G520 is so much brighter that an LCD and even at $800 is about a third of the price of the same size LCD monitor. Footprint means nothing to me. LCDs are not just thin, they are dim.

-db

[gmask]

Sure theydo.. currently LCD's are more expensive meaning they make more money whereas CRT's are dirt cheap and their is allready a fierce competition there so they mak eless on selling them.

There are good things about LCD like less power consumption and less heat output as well as being easier on your eyes but for professional work they still don't cut it. They only reason I have thought about buying one is because they are more portable than a 22 inch monitor and I do have to bring my own equipment on occasion to a worksite but not frequently enough to warrant the expense.

[ewan-m]

I'm just about to be in a similar position to JTK77 and have to start costing out for hardware. At the moment I'm thinking quad opterons with 2gig Ram per processor running suse 9.1 for render nodes and dual opterons (a la boxx) running 2 gig Ram/FX2000 & xpPro for workstations. Has anyone had experience with a config like this? Would I be better going for more Dual render boxes rather than Quads? Also, does anyone know of suppliers other than boxx in the UK? I have a couple of rough quotes (not really sure of the quantities I'll be able to get yet 'cos the finance guys are still mucking about), but would like to get at least 3 or 4 together before I go back to the boss.
Cheers

[jtk77]

Boxx curently seems to be the only builder that will properly support a graphics house, as far as setup, calling them, server setup ect.
They even gave us a direct phone line to a guy there that only handles video capture cards in case we run into any issues and need to figure out what we're doing. I was really impressed by that.
On a side note, the FX2000 is junk, I don;t even think they sell them anymore. We went with the FX1100 card and its been getting good reviews, I have heard anyway.
As far as our monitor issues, we have gone with 22 inch Diamotrons by Hitachi . They seem to be really nice, a heads up guys
SONY HAS STOPPED SELLING CRTs! Except for the really highend expensvie one. Like 1300 bucks,
Can you beleive that?
I was floored.

[aaron_johnson]

yep it is crazy - the irony is Sony made the best CRTs and their LCDs are among the worst.

btw check out this viewsonic 20" 16ms LCD review here, looks pretty sweet:

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view\_content.as...201b&page=1

and they make a cheaper 17" version with the same specs