computer builds and overclocking: lecture 6 cases and gpus

Carnegie Mellon University

NFS: Computer Builds and Overclocking

Instructors:John Levidy and Alex Soto

Carnegie Mellon


Power Supplies – key points, what did we learn?

Disk Drives - what is important to look for?

RAID – finish conversation about practical types of RAID.

Last Lecture


Cases◦ What to look for in a case? ◦ Who are the big manufacturers?

Graphics Cards◦ A brief historic context.◦ Graphics Cards, how do they work?◦ Benchmarks.

Review for Midterm!

Today


Form Factors, as discussed in Lecture 1: “Form Factor is simply a physical specification of the size of the motherboard. You will want to make sure the case you buy is large enough for your Motherboard.”

Cases


Cases for different Form Factors

EATX ATX MicroATX MiniITX


Brand – this is another situation where the brand matters. It is worth buying something that will last forever.

Material – Aluminum, Steel, Plastic

With or Without Power Supply

Number of Drivebays

What to look for?


Will your heatsink of choice fit?

Front panel ports for USB and Audio devices.

Would it support watercooling – what do you need to support watercooling?

Style!

What to look for?


My Baby


Cont’d


Case Modding Community!


Cont’d


Historic Context – first graphic card was the IBM MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter). Following this release, there were periodic releases through the 80s and early to mid 90s.

By 1995 Matrox, Creative, S3, and ATI were releasing video cards that incorporated 3D functionality.

Graphics Cards


In 1997 3dfx released their first Voodoo graphics chip, which included 3D effects including Anti-Aliasing.

Following this, 3dfx released the Voodoo2, and the newcomer, Nvidia, responded with the TNT and TNT2.

The Accelerated Graphics Port is released, and there is no longer a graphics card -> CPU communication bottleneck.

Cont’d


Nvidia bought 3dfx and took over the video card market with the introduction of the GeForce family.

Beginning in 2003, ATI and Radeon had become the primary (and effectively the only) graphics card manufacturers.

How does the graphics card business work? Does Nvidia sell directly to Best Buy / Newegg?

Cont’d


The current situation is that about two years ago, ATI just released its R700 family of GPUs (the HD 4000 series).

Nvidia now had very serious competition, because they hadn’t made groundbreaking changes since the 8000 series architectures.

Nvidia responds with the GT 200 series, which were often higher priced for equal performance to their ATI Radeon counterpart.

Current


ATI Releases the Evergreen series (HD 5000 chips), which while not being as innovative as the HD 4000 series, was still an improvement and held the crown for quite some time.

Nvidia responds with the GT 400 series, which were considered quite a disappointment to the PC Building community due to massive power consumption, thermal output, and relative pricetags.

These were the first DX11 chips, and for now it seems as though ATI is on top in terms of price / performance (unless running folding @ home or similar applications).

Current Cont’d


The kings.


Graphics Card generates a video output for your monitor to display.

Also can provides additional functionality of 3D rendering, video capture, TV-Tuner adapter, MPEG decoding, multi-monitor support, and PC Gaming.

An “Integrated” graphics card is hardware that include a graphics chipset on the motherboard (typically developed by whoever develops Northbridge).

Usually has some embedded memory, but often draws from RAM to meet memory requirements.

How do they work?


Integrated graphics are for use in low-performance systems or for those not wishing to run any3D applications.

Dedicated Graphics (a separate card attached through the PCI slot) has its own RAM and Processor, all designed specifically for processing video images.

Cont’d


GPU◦ Dedicated processor optimized for 3D graphics

processing.

◦ Designed to perform “floating-point” calculations.

◦ Clock Frequency and fragment shaders.

◦ Massively Parallel, huge numbers of simultaneous cores, challenge CPU for power.

Components of a Graphics Card


Distributed Computing project designed to simulate protein folding.

Designed to run both on GPU and CPU.

Folding @ Home


VBIOS – contains information that allows the motherboard’s northbridge and the graphics card to communicate. ◦ Clock speed◦ Memory Timing◦ Operation Speeds / Voltages◦ Flashing VBIOS

Components, Cont’d


Video Memory◦ The amount of onboard memory available to the video

card.

◦ Currently ranges from 128MB to 4GB (for single card)

◦ GDDR vs. DDR – bandwidth and clock rate

◦ Used to store screen image, Z-buffer, textures. For high-resolution and high-AA / AF applications.

Components Cont’d


Video Card Heirarchy


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121389

Reading specifications




Gaming performance – resolution and AA / AF levels matter!

Power Draw levels

Video Playback

Link: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/benchmarks,114.html

Graphics Benchmarks

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/benchmarks,114.html




Optimized for Specific Applications

Multiple Video Outputs, Model Rendering

Open GL

Workstation GPUs


Motherboards◦ Old Northbridge

Memory Controller + CPU -> PCI communication◦ New Northbridge

CPU -> PCI Communication◦ Form Factors◦ Gigabyte, Intel, Foxconn, MSI, ASUS, etc.

Review


RAM◦ Buy from a good brand◦ Speed vs. Timing◦ DDR2, DDR3

CPU◦ Clock speed◦ Architecture◦ AMD vs. Intel

Review cont’d


Power Supply◦ Brand names◦ High Ampage on the 12 V Rails◦ Connectors for your video card(s)

Hard Drives ◦ RPM◦ Capacity◦ Cache Size◦ Latency

Review Cont’d


Solid State Drives◦ Random IOKps◦ Throughput◦ Power consumption◦ Sturdier than HDD

Review Cont’d


Ten Questions, multiple choice, 8 points each.

2 Questions, open – ended response, 10 points each.

Will be a review posted by the start of the weekend that should hold strong similarities to the midterm itself. Do the review!

Midterm


Midterm Q&A

computer builds and overclocking: lecture 6 cases and gpus

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