Print
While unadulterated power and performance are a given in any Dream Machine build, aesthetics play an important part in setting our annual homage to excess apart from the pack. Still, some stand out more than others in looks.
DREAM MACHINE 2002
This DM was inspired by BMW’s famous 2002 Turbo, which audaciously featured its moniker in reverse to kindly let shepherds in the fast lane know to get the flock out of the way. Besides mimicking the 2002 treatment, this box famously featured the GPU that brought ATI back in front with a vengeance: the Radeon 9700 Pro.
DREAM MACHINE 2004
Jim Saling of Smooth Creations is no stranger to the Dream Machine, having custom painted four of our premiere builds, including this year’s. DM2004 marked paint job number two in that history, rendering a Silverstone Nimitz SST-TJ03 case all the more impressive.
DREAM MACHINE 2008
The year 2008 saw the most expensive case ever used for a Dream Machine. We managed to pull off an incredible deal to procure an HP Blackbird 002 case ($1,000) and then had the entire sucker chromed by Computer-choppers.com, which cost well north of $5,000 to do. It was the epitome of bling.
DREAM MACHINE 2012
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We want to hear from you! How should Dream Machine 2012 look? What should it include? Comment below, or send your ideas to comments@maximumpc.com.
Three GTX 580s is a lot, we’ll admit. You’re not going to find any games out right now that’ll push Dream Machine ’11 to its limits, but that doesn’t mean this system is overkill—far from it. Here’s what’s going to take advantage of the Dream Machine’s power:
BATTLEFIELD 3
The scion of one of PC gaming’s greatest brands, Battlefield 3 will be both the first true PC shooter to come along in 2011 and (hopefully) the first game to really take advantage of the graphics hardware in a cutting-edge PC like ours. Though it’s being released on consoles simultaneously, the PC version of BF3 is clearly superior, with better graphics, larger maps, and more players per dedicated server.
RAGE
We’ve got a few misgivings about Rage. We hate to see a great (arguably the great) PC developer creating a game with a console as a main focus, but we’ve got enough faith in Carmack that we believe the game will still be able to take advantage of a PC’s extra power. Rage also marks the first use of the id Tech 5 engine, practically guaranteed to power some monster titles going forward.
UNREAL ENGINE 3
Unreal Engine 3 is hardly new (it’s been around since the first Gears of War game launched), but it’s been evolving all along. The latest batch of updates, announced at GDC 2011, includes some advanced features like deferred rendering, subsurface scattering, and image-based reflections. There aren’t any games that have officially committed to taking advantage of the new features yet, but we expect to see some soon. In the meantime, check out the amazing technical trailer (which takes three GTX 580s to run at 1080p resolution).
CAN IT PICK UP WHERE LAST YEAR'S 12-CORE MONSTROSITY LEFT OFF?
Dream Machine 2011 looks great, runs fairly quiet, and its parts list is to die for. But it’s not just about looks and specs, it’s also about performance. Can this machine outpace its predecessor? After all, if technology can’t march forward in 12 months, something is drastically wrong.
And we don’t say that without first taking a really long, Jim Kirk–style pause to seriously ponder whether Dream Machine 2011 can beat Dream Machine 2010. That’s because Dream Machine 2010 was an especially monstrous King Kong of a PC. Just recalling the specs of last year’s Dream Machine is enough to make us pucker up in fear: not one, but two 3.3GHz hexa-core Xeon X5680 CPUs overclocked to 4GHz. Three EVGA GeForce GTX 480 Superclocked cards in tri-SLI, 24GB of DDR3/1600, and two 200GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs in RAID 0. Dream Machine 2010 was so mean, we had to feed it five netbooks for breakfast and then sweep up the tablets it crapped out all day long.
What can a lone Core i7-2600K do against that? A lot more than you’d expect. DM2011’s first victory came in our Lightroom 2.6 test where we convert a folder of raw photo files from a Canon 5D Mk II to Adobe DNG format for archival purposes. Fairly limited in threading, the benchmark favored the higher clocks of DM2011, which trounced the older DM2010 by 27 percent. That score is also a new benchmark record in the Lightroom test. We suspect that part of the win is due to the RAID 0 Vertex 3 drives. In some storage benchmarks we ran, the Vertex 3s were pushing in excess of 1GB/s read speeds and 500MB/s write speeds. No, that’s not a typo—in excess of 1GB/s read speeds! You can thank the SandForce 2 controller in the OCZ drive and the excellent SATA 6Gb/s implementation in the Z68 chipset.
ProShow Producer 4 also gave the nod to DM2011, by 16 percent, surprisingly, despite the application support for more compute threads. Clock speed and disk I/O couldn’t help this year’s Dream Machine beat last year’s in our MainConcept Reference encoding test, however—but the loss wasn’t as bad as you’d think. The dual-proc Dream Machine 2010 bested DM2011 by roughly 10 percent. Unfortunately, we were unable to run our Vegas Pro 9 benchmark on last year’s Dream Machine because of a bug in one of the app’s plugins that affects 12-core machines, but we’re pretty sure DM2010 would be favored. Once we moved to graphics, DM2010’s tri-SLI 480s ate dust from this year’s tri-SLI 580s, with STALKER favoring DM2011 by 24 percent and Far Cry 2 (mostly a CPU test at this point) also taking 15 percent. In 3DMark Vantage, the two machines split wins. In the graphics portion, DM2011 took down DM2010 by a healthy 32 percent. But the 12-core monster came back in the CPU portion, with a score that was three times that of the DM2011. In fact, the only machines we’ve seen beat DM2010 in that test are other SR2-based machines running on liquid nitrogen.
We’re happy to report that we’re mostly vindicated on our choice of the tri-SLI cards over quad-SLI. Using the brand-new 3DMark 11 test, DM2011 was able to ace all of the machines from our small form factor roundup in the July issue, three of which featured either quad-SLI or quad-CrossFireX, using two dual-GPU cards as well as overclocked processors.
In the end, Dream Machine 2011 accomplishes what we wanted. It’s the best PC you can build at this moment and it’s even fairly well-mannered. It doesn’t spool up with the sound of 1,000 fans and it uses less than 180 watts (sans monitors) while idling. We’ll call that a win.
| Dream Machine 2010 | Dream Machine 2011 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vegas Pro 9 (sec) | WNR | 2,191 |
| Lightroom 2.6 (sec) | 296 | 233 |
| ProShow 4 (sec) | 932 | 801 |
| Reference 1.6 (sec) | 1,394 | 1,546 (-10%) |
| STALKER: CoP (fps) | 101.9 | 125.9 |
| Far Cry 2 (fps) | 177.5 | 203.3 |
| 3DMark Vantage Overall | 47,179 | 45,360 (-4%) |
| 3DMark Vantage GPU | 40,601 | 53,511 |
| 3DMark Vantage CPU | 91,806 | 31,648 (-66%) |
Dream Machine 2010 consists of dual 3.3GHz Xeon X5680s overclocked to 4GHz, 24GB of Corsair DDR3/1600, on an EVGA Classified SR-2. It runs three EVGA GeForce GTX 480 Superclocked cards in tri-SLI, two 200GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs, and two WD 2TB Caviar Black drives running Windows 7 Ultimate.
Comments are closed on this article
brightsmith
April 08, 2012 at 10:29pm
It's really very disappointing. This is not "Dream Machine". It's just a 3-way SLI Gaming Rig. Which is really cool from this review is only Cosmos II.
I hope, by mid 2012, Maximum PC presents the Dream Machine 2012 with the following minimum specifications (at least):
2 x Intel Xeon Processor E5-2690 16-core @ 3.30 GHz (2 x 8-core)
EVGA Classified SR-X (Intel C606 Chipset)
96 GB (12 x 8 GB) Crucial DDR3 1600 MHz ECC Memory (Water Cooled)
4 x EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Hydro Copper (4-way SLI, Water Cooled)
1024 GB (2 x 512 GB) OCZ Vertex 4 (RAID 0 @ SATA 6 Gbps, TRIM enabled)
4096 GB (8 x 512 GB) OCZ Vertex 4 (JBOD @ 2-port SAS to 8-port SATA 6 Gbps)
1 x Plextor Blu-ray Disc Writer PX-LB950SA
Mountain Mods Case + Danger Den Water Cooling Kit with better configuration (remember Dream Machine 2010)
2 x Enermax Platimax 1200W (1200 Watt, 80 PLUS Platinum)
Using Xigmatek XAF-F1452 (or better fan)1 x Sony Trimaster EL OLED Monitor PVM2541 (for watching movie or single monitor gaming) + Monster Advanced High Speed HDMI Cable
3 x BenQ XL2420TX Gaming Monitor (for 3D NVIDIA Surround)
Razer StarWars: The Old Republic Gaming Keyboard + Mouse + Mat
Benchmark DAC1 HDR or another high-end external DAC
Sennheiser HD 800 Headphone
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1 RTM
JLloyd13
March 27, 2012 at 3:12pm
no 12 core? not even a 6 core?!? no diy water cooling?!?
disappointed. it might be better at gaming, but last years would rip it in two at many other things.
very disappointed
JLloyd13
March 27, 2012 at 12:21pm
No 12 cores? No water cooling? This years might be better at gaming but last years would rip it in two in alot of otherstuff. Disappointed.
Why no quad crossfire? You guys said to yourself: the 6990 is the fastest card out there today. Even if it dosnt scale great and might be a pain to setup, there is no way 3>4
I was very disappointed
Maki
March 23, 2012 at 10:30am
Fabulous machine! I would like to have this monster instead this trash I've been using for 6 years. :/
prodaja celika
reiserb2003
March 10, 2012 at 1:02pm
Let's start here:
"In the end, you have to go with the components you have, not the components you wish you had. In the here and now, Dream Machine 2011 is the best PC you can build, and it even has a logical upgrade path as Intel’s upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge chips will drop right into this beauty."I AGREE with this statement, you have to go with what's available at the time, hoping you plan well enough to make future upgrades as trouble-free as possible. With that said, I do not understand this quote from the SAME article:
"The case for this year’s Dream Machine is so new you can’t get it in stores. In fact, we barely got ours in time for this month’s issue. Cooler Master’s Cosmos II isn’t supposed to be revealed at all for another month..."So, these two statements in the article contradict themselves, even if you are merely talking about the case itself.
I am a new member of this site, and I understand this is now an older write-up, but when I look at things like this, it does make me second guess the credibility. We are not talking about people arguing over what "the best" is or people's opinions about the color choice, we are talking about stating you have to go with what's available, then stating you included something that was not available.
So, if you're going to include something that wasn't to be REVEALED for another month, then why not go ahead and choose a motherboard that comes out in 6 weeks, how about the CPU? What about components being revealed by the end of the year?
I'm all for articles with current parts; I'm all for articles with upcoming parts; but don't set the rules on your article yourself, then break that very rule.
Of course, if I am missing the context of something, I'm all ears (eyes in this case) for being corrected.
Doe_BOY87
January 25, 2012 at 10:48pm
Awesome machine- I would definitely perfer intel processors. nice job.
thedeem0n
January 24, 2012 at 2:50pm
oh cut the crap... "Dream PC", with a bright yellow case? wtf do I look like Latin King?! My colors are 2-Tone - Primary Color being Black, secondary color being Red.
My Dream case: Cooler Master HAF 932 or HAF X - ATX FULL-Tower w/ USB 3.0, Black Interior, [4] factory installed Fans, 1 being in the front under the drive bays with a red led in it, so the mesh glows Red so there Glowing Red Light coming from the inside of the computer...LOOKS COOL!! ($ from Newegg)
My Dream Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 (AM3+ Socket), has 6 PCIe 2.0x16 expansion slots & 1 PCI expansion Slot, 4×240pin RAM Memory Slots & it's able to address up to 32GB RAM. ($249.99 at Newegg)
My Dream CPU: AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz Socket AM3+ 125W x8 (so 8-Core) Desktop CPU. ($199.99 from Newegg)
My Dream Power Supply: Apevia ATX-WA1100W Warlock 1100-Watt ATX Power Supply - SLI and Crossfire Ready, 135mm Fan, Clear Sides ($99.99 from Tiger Direct)
My Dream RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory ($89.99 from Newegg)
My Dream Video Card: Galaxy 56NPH6HS4IXX GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card with Dual DVI outputs on 1 card. ($219.99 from NewEgg)
....this stuff is good for now...I'll continue somewhere else if people want to see my alternate Anti-PC world "Dream PC of 2011". & to further explain some of my unusual choices, like Gigabyte GA-990FX-UD7 Motherboard instead of an Asus ROG Motherboard; the Gigabyte Motherboard has 6x PXIe 2.0 x16 expansion slots & is AM3+ Socket which is good for AMD's new 8-Core "FX" CPU's. & the reason I chose the AMD 8-Core FX CPU instead of an Intel Core i7 CPU? Cost!! Those i7's can cost like $1000+ BY THEMSELVES...Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Sandy Bridge-E 3.3GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W 6-Core, there's barely any question that ASUS+Intel would make the best computer, BY FAR...but I'm looking for a Dream PC one of the very big parts - NOT over $12,000!!! ...my absolute dream PC would be if someone GAVE me an Alienware M18x Laptop, one of the Black ones with the red backlit keyboards...YEAH...
thedeem0n
January 24, 2012 at 2:50pm
oh cut the crap... "Dream PC", with a bright yellow case? wtf do I look like Latin King?! My colors are 2-Tone - Primary Color being Black, secondary color being Red.
My Dream case: Cooler Master HAF 932 or HAF X - ATX FULL-Tower w/ USB 3.0, Black Interior, [4] factory installed Fans, 1 being in the front under the drive bays with a red led in it, so the mesh glows Red so there Glowing Red Light coming from the inside of the computer...LOOKS COOL!! ($ from Newegg)
My Dream Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 (AM3+ Socket), has 6 PCIe 2.0x16 expansion slots & 1 PCI expansion Slot, 4×240pin RAM Memory Slots & it's able to address up to 32GB RAM. ($249.99 at Newegg)
My Dream CPU: AMD FX-8120 Zambezi 3.1GHz Socket AM3+ 125W x8 (so 8-Core) Desktop CPU. ($199.99 from Newegg)
My Dream Power Supply: Apevia ATX-WA1100W Warlock 1100-Watt ATX Power Supply - SLI and Crossfire Ready, 135mm Fan, Clear Sides ($99.99 from Tiger Direct)
My Dream RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory ($89.99 from Newegg)
My Dream Video Card: Galaxy 56NPH6HS4IXX GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card with Dual DVI outputs on 1 card. ($219.99 from NewEgg)
....this stuff is good for now...I'll continue somewhere else if people want to see my alternate Anti-PC world "Dream PC of 2011". & to further explain some of my unusual choices, like Gigabyte GA-990FX-UD7 Motherboard instead of an Asus ROG Motherboard; the Gigabyte Motherboard has 6x PXIe 2.0 x16 expansion slots & is AM3+ Socket which is good for AMD's new 8-Core "FX" CPU's. & the reason I chose the AMD 8-Core FX CPU instead of an Intel Core i7 CPU? Cost!! Those i7's can cost like $1000+ BY THEMSELVES...Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Sandy Bridge-E 3.3GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W 6-Core, there's barely any question that ASUS+Intel would make the best computer, BY FAR...but I'm looking for a Dream PC one of the very big parts - NOT over $12,000!!! ...my absolute dream PC would be if someone GAVE me an Alienware M18x Laptop, one of the Black ones with the red backlit keyboards...YEAH...
addy03
January 06, 2012 at 4:12am
Super bonne continuation blog I think they must have to fighting hard in the last match because it's really deciding them to pass to round of last 16. Godd luck for them. Testosteron
cubanomx
December 27, 2011 at 9:43am
Wow. I'm wondering if Apple have a workstation with this features?. Raid0 with dual SSD? 3 video cards? this tech in motherboards? AMAZING
drcrazyrich
December 13, 2011 at 11:50pm
but I ll say it again how about making 2 machines one intel one AMD both with simular parts and compare them .However I realize too the new AMD CPU is not quite what we were all expecting so maybe use double CPU boards ,kinda like the last dream machine 2010 .also what about using those new SSDs that connect via PCI e x1 slots ,they re pretty fast ,like to see how well they work in this type of aplication. And it ld be nice to see 6990 cards vs 590 cards :)
jacrider
November 15, 2011 at 7:55am
This article got me off my butt to update my box. I was still on a 680i board with a Core2Quad chip. Not bad, but nothing like this.
I built around a Gigabyte Z68 board, the slightly newer 2700K CPU, same Vengance RAM and two 60GB Vertex 3 SSD's (in RAID 0). The remaining parts (Asus Xonar Essence sound card, Samsung DVD burners, Antec case, Corsair power supply, HDD's, etc) came from my existing box. No change to monitor, keybd, mouse, speakers, etc.
I'm not a gamer, but I run a decent EVGA GTX 550 Ti card. My OS of choice these days is Ubuntu 11.10 x64.
All in all, I dropped about $1K on the upgrade and what a difference. Lots of people will put their systems through all the performance tests, but my real-world test is Handbrake. On my Core2Quad system, I could consistently encode DVD's at about 60-70 frames per second. The 2700K based system I am between 170 and 180 fps. That means a 2 hour movie was encoded in about 22 minutes. That's fast.
So no fancy paint jobs or multi monitors and video cards. However, for me, this is a fantastic machine. I forgot to mention the Corsair H80 watercooler ... very quiet and easy to install. CPU temp hasn't exceeded 45C.
Thanks for the inspiration.
handyman315
November 02, 2011 at 7:13am
It's November and still no production Cooler Master Cosmos II case. Is this all about hype or has the release hit a definite production problem? Maybe with those dual rails at the top & bottom?
Neel Chauhan
November 04, 2011 at 1:54pm
They should use the Silverstone TJ11 instead of this cosmos case which will come later than Sandy Bridge E.
handyman315
November 11, 2011 at 7:52am
Silverstone prices make me wince.
One thing I've always liked about MaxPC Dream Machines has been the use of production, or near-production, components. Not this year.
JlzMT
September 06, 2011 at 11:10pm
For those who are wondering about audio, there doesn't appear to be any room left for a sound card.
Rognin
September 26, 2011 at 10:53am
If they would have liquid cooled those three 580's (which isn't such a bad idea) the bottom PCI slot would be open for business. That's what I'll be doing in an ATX case. I'll post a link to pics tomorrow. I am still waiting for said sound card however.
wlmeng11
November 30, 2011 at 8:24pm
But can it run Mine..........
Not Craft.......................
Sweeper?
methor44
August 27, 2011 at 11:09am
I have admit that to me this is overkill but thats just me. I love the case and the color though. But one thing is missing... a sound card!!! Hello? You build a dream machine with onboard audio???? You could have added the Creative X-FI Titanium HD you reviewed and gave a kick ass rating to. I look forward to all your forth coming systems when the new Intel CPUs hit the real world. By the way... if the 990X is your top processor then why did you not go with that? Just curious.
tofooty
August 24, 2011 at 4:48pm
2.1 audio is pure fail. Otherwise, can't fault any of the gear choices.
gr3atl10n
August 22, 2011 at 9:16pm
I invented (well with a suggestion from the invisible girl I LOVE!) 2012's look.
The vertical slot load DVD.
You might also look into Amazon Power selller 'Komputerbay' who I procured a 2000Mhz 16 GB Quad Channel DDR3 Kit for under $250.
My board went back to MSI with the RAM a bit over 2 volts and the 1100T at 5Ghz. I got the red and yellow dots to load before it wouldn't post.
Hey here's a smasher. Let's see an AMD Rig for a dream machine like the one I built (if I had your SSDs in RAID 0 or even 6 GB/sec SATA 3 Drives I would have come up considerably from 5.9 on the WEI to a modest 7, my second lowest score.
For under 2 grand (OK I owned the 89 dollar video card a HIS Ice Q 5670 T and I owned the OS; Steve Ballmer Flavored Windows 7 Ultimate no lie) Even with the custom (1 dollar worth of plexiglass and a half hour of cutting and drilling) case work.
A plethora of videos exist documenting the nearly painless birth of this extreme mod (a tribute to antique MAD Magazine articles detailing make something from something else) complete with front facing label top mount slot load DVD and Antec (iMon) remote for painless ejecting after the evenings first beer.
Dale.
gr3atl10n
August 22, 2011 at 9:22pm
Yeah, does the x68 run at xxx16 or is it PCI e 3 running at a sure-fire x32 in 3 way SLI.
I'm pretty sure I switched to AMD cos of a little known factoid about SLI and x58 chipsets running x16,x8,x8 even in 3 way configuration a problem apprently solved by the x68 Sandy Bridge and PCI e 3.0 which allegedly runs in 3 way SLI ata whopping 32 x on (one would think) presumably all three or more channels.
Hmm?
Neel Chauhan
August 22, 2011 at 12:22am
"You see where this gets you? Pretty soon you’re waiting for the “next big thing” while driving a Pentium 4 box in the slow lane while your fellow gamers scream at you to get the hell off the server and quit dragging down the pings."
lol funny
Grandpa
August 13, 2011 at 11:32pm
I love the looks of the paint and the case. But I noticed how close together those GPU's are. With the bottom two so close, the top two will be running warm even without stressing them. The noise can't be good. Then there is the extreme overclock of the CPU. Wouldn't that require the CPU fans to run fast all the time? Again more noise. Seems like a more powerful processor with less overclock and less fan speed would be better. What would those GPU's sound like with water cooling and with the tank out of the way and the pump on the lower back inside of the case to hide the noise?
I'm probably wrong, but it seems like there could be more done besides overclock, overclock, overclock.
mrbup2008
August 11, 2011 at 11:56am
First off, I suscribed to your magazine when I picked it off the shelf in 2010 and have been a reader ever since. I love the Dream Machine 2011, but it leaves a little more to be desired. That's just my preference. I'm not one to question your taste in hardware, but couldn't you guys use something like two hexa-core processors and 4 GTX 580s? I know that 3 GTX 580s is enough to play anything, but you are MAXIMUM PC!
Just a recommendation for your next custom build, why not use 4 GTX 580s instead of two GTX 590s?
drcrazyrich
August 11, 2011 at 3:10am
ENOUGH WITH THE INTEL NVIDIA C*@P ,TAKING BRIBES LATELY?? LAST YR U MADE IT SAME STUFF .COULDA USE AMD SERVER CPUS 12 CORES I BELIEVE .WHY NOT 2 DOZER CPUS AND 2 6990 CARDS HHMMMM? AND A KOOL MSI OR ASUS MOBO ?? MAYBE MAKE ONE OF EACH INSTEAD OF PLAYING FAVORITES !!!
drcrazyrich
August 11, 2011 at 4:07am
I really liked the 2008 dream machine overall ,and yes I realize it too had an intel CPU in it but AMD had nothing yet to go against it then .But it did have 2 ATI 4870x2 s in it at least .And the case you put it all in rocked !! Still looks great today !! Also your latest does look good too ,but I ld liek to se it with some AMD stuff inside it and compare the 2 ???
BK_NC
August 10, 2011 at 6:26pm
Got the mag. And read the article online. I have to say that I think its a sweet machine but you've totally dropped the ball in benchmarking and it makes me say what is even the point of building this thing if you aren't going to test the hell out of it with a whole slew of games and other software. I know you have limited space in your magazine but there is no excuse not to post more benchmarks on your website. If they are here, you have hidden them well. Sites like Anandtech, Tomshardware, Hard OCP, and others put you to shame in the suite of benchmarks they use regularly. I"ll just focus on games here but using only Far Cry 2 and STALKER? Thats pathetic. Are they even DX11? Where is Battlefield BC2 and F1 2010 along with Civ 5 and Starcraft 2. Why not have a full suite to cover the whole range of games out there to really show off the dream machine and how it make them shine in triple screen Nvidia Surround.
Again what is even the point of building it if you aren't going to throw everything you can at it and show that to everyone.
How about lending this thing out to Anandtech or Tomshardware for a week or so and we'd really see what this machine is capable of.
I'm a new website member but have been a reader since the beginning of your magazine and I expect more out of you and the Dream Machine 2011 than what you've given here. If you actually paid for all these parts its been a big waste of time.
gold-rush@cox.net
August 02, 2011 at 3:52pm
Looks "Sweet" to me!!! Love the Syfy look, stands out in the crowd. That is close to what I would want for a Dream Machine. Really who can spend more than that on a computer for personal use. Most people at my job think I'm crazy if I spend over 1,000.00 on a Rig.
mfineman3
July 26, 2011 at 10:32am
What a wimpy system.
Re the "Dream Machine 2011" on pages "Dare to Dream" pages 24-34 in "Maximum PC",
September 2011 (volume 16, number 9)
In general, expanding on
surfacewound http://www.maximumpc.com/user/surfacewound July 19, 2011 at 8:27pm,
Yes, I know you trying to make a nominal desktop size system, rather than making a rack or cloud system (see Google or Lexx) for getting things done in parallel, but this so called "Dream Machine" could be improved in many ways to it more reliable, faster, useful for other tasks than game playing, still keep the cost below US$30K1. Only one CPU and only one that will give the Intel Core i7-990X "a run for its money in many benchmarks".
Why not go for 2 sockets, each with more power, like some XEON? Perhaps two US$1K CPUs; maybe two US$3.5K CPUs (No need for US$6K units.) (No need for an 8 or 16 socket server boards) Dell T7500 can take 2 XEONs.
2. What happened to PCI 3? PCI 3 stuff came out before the magazine did. Didn't you have access to PCI 3 stuff for testing? (See also GoldenMonkey http://www.maximumpc.com/user/goldenmonkey July 16, 2011 at 10:47am)
3. 16GB? My 2 year old off the shelf laptop has that much memory. Go for 32GB or maybe 64GB, depending on the sweet spot. (No need for server size 256GB or up)
4. Graphics: Don't any of the US$1500 boards better?
5. What about a graphics processor? (Tesla??) How can I crack passwords or mint bitcoins with this underpowered system?
6. If you think you need a RAID 0 system disk, why didn't you put the system on an SSD on a PCI card? (US$3K additional, maybe)
7. Why not Seagate Constellation ES.2 instead of Barracuda XT?
8. What's with Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL instead of ULTIMATE? (No need to get a server version.)
9. Like sufinsam July 15, 2011 at 4:00pm says: wheres the SOUNDCARD!!!!!!!!!
10. I think the problem is that this is a US$6K system with US$7K worth of monitors. (US$10K, not including data storage or monitor, was a reasonable "dream" system in 1989 when I got my first home system, so I'd be aiming for $US25K to $US50K by now.)
Other notes:
A. I might use a "streaming" error recovery disk drive instead of one of the 3TB drives. (For multistream TV playback)B. I might use RAID 1 for the rest of the storage. Using RAID would mean two more 3TB drives in the system.
I'd put a bunch of memory RAID card.
I'd also look for a RAID card was safe from power failure, including failure of an external UPS.
I'm not sure if I would use time limited recovery drives for these for, or stick with Seagate ES.2 Constellation drives.
C. I'd put in a second optical device. Depending on the possible speed gain, this drive doesn't have to have write capability.
D. I'd put in another network card, perhaps a "gaming" 1Gb Ethernet or 1Gb X four networks Ethernet card.
E. (I don't know if any Intel Thunderbolt stuff was available in your time frame. If so, I would have put in Thunderbolt stuff)
F. I'd put in a slot for ExpressCard 34/54.
G. I'd put in eSATAph connections (eSATA with 5 and 12 volt power over the "data" cable"
H. I'd throw in IEEE-1394a for video camera connection and IEEE-1394b just because it is there.
I. I'd throw in a floppy drive: still needed for some diagnostics and "pure" Duke Nukem.
J. (Uptime improvement things like 2 out of 3 power supplies and redundant UPS's with automatic failure are beyond what this machine is intended for.
K. (I think multi-drive failure storage would be too slow: The easiest way would be Drobo iSCSI. This would be a big performance hit. It might be possible to do something giving the same reliability using an internal RAID controller, but I think that this also would give a big performance hit unless a board supporting multiple live mirrors was available.)
L. I'd probably go for a "squarer" system since I like stacking things on top and next to each other.
surfacewound
July 19, 2011 at 8:27pm
Great looking PC, overall a nice build. But I very much disagree with the direction taken regarding storage. I’m about to go on a spiel here so if you’re interested in what I think is a vastly superior setup just bear with me.
Three separate 3TB drives is just... clumsy/messy. Having a lot of storage inside just one machine is becoming less useful these days. More centralized solutions like a NAS server are far better in my experience. I was eagerly awaiting the QNAP TS-659 Pro II Turbo NAS (http://www.qnap.com/USEng/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=167) and picked one up as soon as it was available, it’s fantastic. With 13.5TB of network attached storage for centralized storage of music, videos, drivers, applications (installers), etc., why on earth would you want three individual disks (-> volumes) installed in your desktop, any of which could fail losing all of the data? Data backup is a given but when you’re talking about up to 3TB of data x3 it suddenly gets a lot more complicated.
So I think the Dream Machine’s storage solution should have revolved around being the fastest storage possible with reliability being a close second instead of… whatever DM11 was. I also found it interesting how they talk about how sweet the integrated 6Gbps SATA controller is; I’m sure it’s nice but if you’re using an integrated solution you’re still in the minor leagues, certainly not Dream Machine worthy. A dedicated RAID controller card is well worth ditching one of those THREE GTX 580s for.
So here’s what my dream machine would have:
-If I were building now, I’d have to get a 990X. The 2600k is fantastic, but dammit, I want at least six cores in my next PC. Realistically I realize that the 1366 platform is dead, which is why I wouldn't actually go this route and am instead holding out on upgrading my i7 950 to see if LGA 2011 ever happens or at least for Ivy Bridge. Here’s the thing though; the editors mocked the X58/1366 platform for its elderly status because of its poor (or even non-existent? I don’t even know) support of integrated 6Gbps SATA. To that I say, who gives a rat’s ass? Why?
-Adaptec 6805 RAID controller (http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/products/controllers/hardware/sas/value/sas-6805/)
Eight delicious enterprise-class reasons, that’s why. (this Adaptec is fully interchangeable with Areca or a few other good brands, but I couldn’t’ quickly source an 8 port SATA III Areca link).
And that allows for:
-8x SSD in RAID 0 (are SSDs reliable enough for this? If not, RAID 5). This is where Windows and your applications would live.
-2x 3TB mechanical HDDs in RAID 1 (onboard). This is for all the data you use most frequently and want to be immediately available to you, and to serve as duplicate storage for your most important data (which would primarily live on your NAS and, ideally, be backed up offsite as well, be it through a program like CrashPlan or something fancy like utilizing the QNAP’s support for linking it to Amazon S3).
But everything primarily lives on your NAS server. This is where you access your music, videos, etc. from your desktop, HTPC, laptops, etc. It’s also where you can save your Windows 7 backups, and the QNAP linked above also runs as a Time Machine server so it backs up Macs as well. I have a desktop, HTPC, laptop, and a Mac Mini in my network and I love this setup, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
So how do you connect it all? That leads to my next two parts:
Start out with a good quality switch, not what’s most likely the junk built into most consumer routers/cheap switches. How about a nice managed HP Procurve?
That QNAP has dual gigabit NICs, and that Procurve is a nice managed switch and oh look, it supports LACP! So let’s use 802.3ad link aggregation to bind those two NICs together and get the best performance. What’s that, you want a 2Gbps pipe to your NAS from your desktop? No problem, dual gigabit enterprise-class server NICs coming right up!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106014
Which therefore allows for teaming goodness:
http://content.wuala.com/contents/ghm3/Public/NIC-Trunk.png
Chances are the NICs built into your motherboard can be joined to the team so if you REALLY wanted to you could have even more bandwidth but I don’t imagine that having any real effect.
This is how I have my home network set up, and for the money it simply cannot be beaten.
This setup allows me to enjoy a 90-110MB/s (yes that’s megabytes per second) throughput between my desktop’s 4TB RAID 5 array (made up of 4 older 1.5TB Barracuda drives) and my QNAP. By comparison, my HTPC, with its single 2TB drive usually gets 50-65MB/s
Is this all overkill? Perhaps a bit, but isn’t that what Maximum PC, and even more specifically, the Dream Machine is all about? Anymore, talking about NAS servers and routers/switches is no less relevant to the Dream Machine than the monitors or keyboard and mouse are.
Xebeche
July 19, 2011 at 3:28pm
Loved the article, and the related vids. But I'm curious why so few "best-of-the-best" items went into this build. The case - exotic now because we can't have one...yet - I understand.
GoldenMonkey
July 16, 2011 at 10:47am
I think MPC's gone soft. They used to get unreleased processors, motherboards, custom water cooling, the whole 9 yards. Now, except for the Cosmos case, everything they get is retail. That's not necessarily a bad thing for people who want the same parts as this Dream Machine, but the essence of why the Dream Machine exists in the first place is gone.
brannank
July 15, 2011 at 11:02pm
Hey MAXIMUM PC, what not let the readers submit our own version of the Dream Machine and you the staff select which one is worthy of being built. This year's machine is nice, but yea, where's the Creative Titanium discret sound card, what about Revo Drive 3's (now with trim support)-what's happened to Maximum PC?! Hire back the folks who demanded "only the absolute best will do" on your staff-your letting us down guys:(
brannank
July 14, 2011 at 12:31am
Dream Machine 2011 looks great;) It's back to bleeding edge glory of yonder years. I do have one question/complaint and that would be why not opt for a case that has a inverted motherboad configuration for optimum heat exhaust, like the Silverstone Fortress 02 (FT02) - I think it's time to move on from "hey that looks really cool but thermals are not so great" to "let's choose a a case that look nice enough but has the best thermal profile possible"
vectorizer
July 13, 2011 at 6:27pm
Long time subscriber here. My favorite issue is the dream machine build. Why is it published here first? Honestly, I am going to compare the magazine to the web site to see what exactly I get for the paper subscription. I guess you guys are telling me that the paper version just isn't necessary. [I am aware that this was already expressed by others.]
And the CPU portion of this build is big disappointment.
avenger48
July 13, 2011 at 5:27pm
I'm actually curious. If the clocks are the same (IE, SB is downclocked to 4GHz) which has better CPU performance, DM 2011 or DM 2008?
Assume 8-threaded apps, since SB will clearly slaughter at 4 or less.
Gutter96
July 13, 2011 at 8:58am
A $12,500 rig is certainly a dream to me. Also to anybody else I know. Why does a rig have to have 48 threads, 4 CPUs, 8 GPUs, 6 SSDs & 15 TB of storage to be a "Dream Machine"? While we're at it, where's the prototype LN2 cooler? Were's the 12NM 24 core LGA 2235 CPU? Were's the prototype DDR6 Memory? Where's the 3000 watt PSU powered by plutonium? Come on Max PC! Why don't you have access to all this unreleased stuff!? COME ON PEOPLE! Get real.
On a serious note though... STOP putting half the content of the next issue on the website BEFORE the issue is out!! Otherwise why do we need to subscribe in the first place!?
illusionslayer
July 16, 2011 at 1:50pm
1. It's not a $12,500 rig. It's a $5,500 rig with $7,000 spent on w7 and montiors.
2. The idea behind dream machine isn't to spend money. If it were, I'd have no problem with this. But considering they could have easily gone with an EVGA SR-2 and beat the snot out of this rig, I have a problem. I certainly do not dream of having a machine that can be beat by last generation hardware.
3. A 3000 watt PSU powered by plutonium is just about the worst idea I've ever heard. 3000w is simply not an option in 99% of American homes and plutonium isn't exactly common.
4. 4 cpus and only 48 threads? Lame.
essjay22
July 13, 2011 at 6:23pm
>>On a serious note though... STOP putting half the content of the next issue on the website BEFORE the issue is out!! >>Otherwise why do we need to subscribe in the first place!?
Indeed. The very reason I did not renew my subscription.
On the dream machine, I am always interested in what components MPC chooses but for most of us, one of everything is more than sufficient.
kixofmyg0t
July 13, 2011 at 1:45pm
Yeah ur right. A $12,500 rig IS a dream......
........but its still not as awesome as last years........
But since just being expensive is good enough to qualify as a Dream Machine you can get a Sempron, some LN2 and overclock it to 6+Ghz(so it will be "faster" than DM'11) and then dip the enitre case in palladium=another $12,500 "Dream Machine".
handyman315
July 13, 2011 at 6:29am
Gordon, I've been critical of your DM the last couple years, especially last year's Beige Box; but you've hit it right down the middle this year. Every time I move/transport a PC I have made a mental note to try one of these "barred", LAN party cases.
This machine is attainable, or slightly more modest variations of it, by any of your reader-builders out there. The box alone is barely over $5,000. The components have been cherry picked from your Best of the Best using brands geeks have come to trust. The cable management is to die for.
This is exactly the type DM that got me hooked on your fine magazine years ago. Thanks for taking us back on course.
Yellow? My friends won't be laughing so much anymore about my "Yellow Bird", built in 2007.
AKap64
July 13, 2011 at 5:07am
Best part!
You know what we like about Windows 7? It served up a supersize cup of STFU to that no-talent assclown Justin Long, aka the Mac Guy.
lol
