Michael and the list, I would recommend the following: DDR 333 (PC2700) CAS 2 (lower latency) I am a big fan of dually systems as this gives Win NT 2K XP the chance to do other things including load balancing on the second CPU, and no hyperthreading is not as good as SMP multi-threading ala PIII Athlon MP. I've been using a Dual PIII in Win NT doing 1GB sized files in MapInfo and Vertical Mapper with this configuration for 18 months and the system has s never had a blue screen of death or a required OS reboot due to OS corruption. IE will have memory errors and similar MS apps but MapInfo is rock solid. Obviously a PIII is getting dated. So if you hate AMD and love Intel then the P4 2.53 GHz is a good chip, but I would buy the ASUS P4S8X. It will allow AGP 8X (important later), has up to 3GB PC2700 DDR, has built in 6 USB2.0, 2 Firewire, serial ATA and ATA 133. AGP8X is important as the newest graphics cards are AGP8X which leads me to an interesting and probably to most of you surprising tidbit of info. I have at home and Athlon 1200 MHz, and at work a dual PIII866MHz, both have 1536MB PC133 SDRAM. Both systems have at max 128MB AGP Aperture size At home Win2K, at work Win NT. When we as MapInfo users want to do a 'save window as' to create a graphic from a layout or map window we use memory. Specifically video card and AGP aperture memory, as I believe the map window is sent out to texture memory storage. My reason for saying this is that at work I have a 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1 video card (32MB SDRAM on card), at home I have a visiontek Geforce 4 Ti 4600 (128MB DDR on card). When I do a save window as I can get a larger bitmap out of the 3Dlabs equipped MapInfo machine as opposed to the G4 Ti 4600 equipped machine. Currently the 3Dlabs card in question costs $144 Canadian, the visiontek card $479. Now 3D is way better in the Geforce equipped machine but what is more important, status 3D or MapInfo stability and capability. Why would the 3Dlabs card have such a feature you ask? Simple the 3Dlabs card is a professional graphics card even if a bit dated. 3Dlabs built into their Oxygen line of cards the ability to use large amounts of virtual texture memory (there's that texture memory thing again). The 3D Labs Oxygen VX1 has 256MB of texture memory (32 + 256 + 128 = 316MB). The Geforce 4 card has (128MB + 128 MB = 256MB). Now even I realize that what I have just said is a fair bit of arm waving and that these different locations of memory have different uses to a degree but there's go to be something to it the graphics I create are living proof. This gets me back to AGP8X. The newest line of 3D Labs cards have AGP8X and up to 16GB of virtual texture memory for the graphics card to swap in and out of as needed. Given my above beliefs this may be very useful for 'Save window as', especially considering the 20,000 pixel upper limit on the 'save window as' options in MapInfo 7. Also the ASUS P4S8X will to some degree help future proof your PC with regards to AGP graphics, providing PCI-X doesn't replace it to soon. Serial ATA will help future proof you PC as well. AGP8X is also twice the graphics bandwidth as AGP4X. The 3Dlabs base Wildcat VP card is the 760 (64 MB DDR), it does 165M vertices/sec, 25G AA pixels/sec. The top of the line Wildcat VP 970 (128 MB DDR) has faster memory and core clock speed and does 225M vertices/sec, and 42G AA pixels/sec. Both of these beat the Geforce 4 Ti4600. They are in the line of Quadro 4 cards. Also, even my old 3Dlabs card comes with calorific color calibration software from e-color.com. Which I found does a remarkable job on graphics, maps, photos etc. The Wildcat VP760 is $690 Canadian, the Wildcat VP870 (128MB DDR, slower clock and core speeds than 970) is $920 Canadian. Also I would buy an IDE or serial ATA RAID using 0+1 with western digital 120GB ATA 100 drives (WD1200JB), as these drives have 8MB of cache compared with other ATA drives which have only 2MB. Promise, highpoint, Adaptec (highpoint chips), or 3ware make great IDE/serial ATA RAID. Note both the Geforce 4 and Wildcat VP cards have dual monitor support so do yourself a favour and increase your screen real-estate. It will make things like screen captures better, let alone MapInfo.
In summary: ASUS P4S8X 3Dlabs VP (760, 870, 970) 3 x 512MB PC2700 CAS2 DIMM's IDE RAID 0+1 ATA RAID 4 x WD1200JB HD's Antec Performance Plus 1080 case (grey, black, beige); 430W, 480W, 550W PS 2 x Viewsonic GP95f+/GP95f+B (beige, black) or 2 x NEC FE950+/950+B (white, black) 1 x Yamaha CD-FW1 (44x24x44) plus burning images on CD surface. 1 x 16x DVD 1 x3.5" floppy drive. ... and anything else your heart desires... I've run out of ideas. Regards, and good luck, Stan Johnston Geologist -----Original Message----- From: Michael Gibson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: September 11, 2002 09:07 PM To: 'MapInfo-L' Subject: MI-L Hardware Specs Hi all, one for the tech heads I have the fortunate situation of a new position and a budget to purchase hardware. The system is to accommodate Mapinfo Pro 7.0 and associated files including transport, contours, land parcel for regional water utility, and will be required to be productive for a period of no less than three years. I have listed my proposed specs below, please comment on the technical level. I'm limited to a windows environment - Intel pentium based box. I'm concerned with regard to Hdd access speed and video refresh rates in particular. Someone has suggested the NVIDIA(r) Quadro4 series of v/card??????? Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 processors at 2.4 GHz Intel(r) 845E chipset with DDR memory support 1 GB DDR SDRAM 266MHz DDR SDRAM DIMMs 2 DIMM sockets 120 GB1 Ultra ATA/100 EIDE hard drive 32x/10x/40x max. CD-RW / 12x max. DVD-ROM Combo Drive 128 MB DDR Nvidia(r) GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card with TV out and DVI 19" (17.9" viewable, .24mm-.25mm AG) P992 FD Trinitron(r) Monitor Microsoft(r) Windows(r) XP Professional Sound Blaster(r) Live! 1024v Value Digital Sound Card 1 front headphone jack 6 USB ports - 2 front/4 back 1 serial port 1 parallel port with ECP 1 PS/2-style keyboard port: 6-pin mini-DIN 1 PS/2-compatible mouse port: 6-pin mini-DIN 4 PCI slots 1 AGP Power 250 watt supply Input Voltage: 90 to 135V at 50/60 Hz; or 180 to 265 V at 50/60 Hz Output Wattage: 250W maximum continuous Heat Dissipation: 534 BTU/hour (fully loaded - w/o monitor) Backup Battery: 3.0 V CR2032 lithium magnesium oxide coin cell 3.5" 1.44 MB diskette drive Keyboards: DellTM Enhanced QuietKeyTM Keyboard (PS2) Optional: Logitech(r) Optical Scroll Mouse (USB) Optional: Intel(r) Pro100 M PCI Ethernet Network Card Optional: Harman/Kardon(r) HK-206 Speakers Micheal Gibson Asset management and GIS coordination Rous Water - Regional Water Supply [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 2987 --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message number: 3021
