I like this commercial, but Boxx workstations are basically just a rackmount server with nVidia quadro/tesla cards and a remote PCoIP card. If money is no limit, I can build you an 80-core workstation with 2TB ram and 200TB of storage. (probably about 6kW of power required). You'd have to run Windows 2012 Server to support that much ram though (8.1 pro only supports 512GB)
EDIT: with recently released Xeon E7v2, can have 8*15-core, so 120 cores, and 4TB ram...


Most of their arguments are ATI vs nVidia and Windows vs Mac OS X.

I got to unbox a MacPro two weeks ago, they are quite nice, small, easy to open (flip 1 switch, then lift). What's different about seeing them in person is how shiny it is - all the images made it seem kinda flat black, but it's very glossy. The internal SSD could sustain 900+ MB/s (both read and write) on the Blackmagic benchmark tool. Really impressive. Attach a thunderbolt Drobo, and you are set for storage capacity.

Funny! My 8 year old son's favorite group is KISS. He got the new album for Christmas, and while the new songs on the album are passable as music, They just don't have a push their older stuff did. I don't care if KISS are good musically, but they they did have some good tunes to rock out to.

As for Mac, I'm not sold on everything they produce, but I do use a "Duel-Core Intel Xeon Mac Pro" at work running OS 10.4 and other than the impossible keyboard commands, It's a pretty good computer.

Put it this way, If I owned two cars, a Volkswagen Bug and a Porche, I wouldn't care which one I was driving, they would both get me from here to there, and that's all I ask!

I'm a Dual QUAD-XEON 2.3GHz running Debian.

Wait, WHAT THE FUCK? They want FIVE HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS FOR TWO EXTRA FUCKING GIGABYTES OF 800 MHz RAM!?!?! That shit is like, $25 fucking dollars a damn stick!

Let's break it down:
Two Xeon CPUS: $579 ea. ($1,158)
ATI 2600 XT: $66
2 GB 800Mhz RAM: $50
320GB HDD: $84
Optical drive: $35

(That's assuming a stock system from them with an additional CPU)
That's a total of $1,393. Add a MoBo with 8 memory slots that will accommodate two CPUs (~$250), a case (~$100) and let's say a 750w PSU for $140.

Grand total? $1,883. Could be higer depending on the MoBo. I've never priced a dual-socket board before.
The exact specs from Mac? $2,799.

Yup. You read that right. About one thousand extra dollars for an image of an apple with a bite taken out slapped on the case.

Can someone please justify that for me? I mean, I know you need to make a profit and all, but a $1,000 mark-up?

Also, why the hell would you want a measly 256MB gfx card when you're running two quad-core CPUs? (Not saying You did that, dotdue, it's just what their minimum setting is)

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
Memory: 6 GB
Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05
SMC Version: 1.25f4


OK, I figured out the nipple thingy is a small ball that controls the scrolling up/down/left/right. Learning overload here . . .

It would sound a lot like spambots or searchbots, though I can't imagine they'd be pounding your servers at such a regular interval. Just in case, you could think about globally changing href links to no follow to keep bot indexing down.

I think you're using php, so you could look into a code accelerator like eAccelerator, though don't hold me accountable if your Xeon machines start spewing sparks. And if you're using MySQL, here's a nifty article on query caching which you may or may not find useful. Dunno. If it is rogue bot traffic, I've heard of people using bot traps, as well.

I hope you find some of this helpful at least.

...a brand new shiny dual quad-core Xeon box.

Ooh, sounds sexy. I bet Siftbot can't wait. Still, how typical. Dumping the old chip set for a new trophy wife. She worked herself to the bone to help get him where he's at today, only so he could kick her to the curb when he starts hitting the big time.

Even in the cyberverse, men are pigs.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

We're baaack. Sorry it took so long. It was closer to 4 hours than our scheduled 1.

Thanks to Lucky for staying up late and making it right.

The good news is that the old servers and the new servers are now happily together in their own rack.

We haven't flipped the switch on the new second dual xeon web beast- but we will tomorrow.

Please let us know if you experience anything strange - or have deja vu like feelings - as we all know what those indicate.

"In hindsight putting this on the front page probably would have made you rich, probably lots of anon sifters who appreciate the sift probably would have helped out too.

That's very true. I was an anon since Beta, and I would've been down with that. You should remember that for your next [ahem] Dual Xeon server.

I think it's a great idea to raise the charter amounts for people who want to give more. Dual Xeon servers aren't cheap.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Well, it's $10 for 3 months which = $3.33 per month, but seriously- we need some way to defray the costs of hosting and bandwidth.

I hate having to put ads up. I wish VideoSift could be completely ad free- but it's always a trade-off. We love getting lots more traffic, but we need to be able to pay for high-quality servers to support it. At the moment we're on a very high-end dual Xeon dedicated box for the web server, and a separate dedicated box for the database- and because nature abhors a vacuum and VideoSift is great - we are already starting to feel the outer edges of this configuration. Next is dual load-balanced webservers. oh boy.

How are we supposed to pay for all this?! Ads help and charter memberships help.

You may have noticed that VideoSift is not a "funded" start-up with a slick marketing budget and lots of visual gew-gaws. It's just us nerdy types and you all.

We want VideoSift to continue to grow and serve as an alternative to the shiny souless "communities" on the web. How do you think we should pay for it? Seriously I'd love to hear some ideas, as I'm a bit tapped. (monetarily and otherwise)

"all day" is tomorrow, I hope, too lazy to go out now...

In reply to this comment by maatc:
thanks for that mate!

remember it sais "maybe"

but you will be oozing good karma all day and that alone should attract the potential mating partners!

In reply to this comment by looris:
oh I'm glad to know this will get me laid

thanks for that mate!

remember it sais "maybe"

but you will be oozing good karma all day and that alone should attract the potential mating partners!

In reply to this comment by looris:
oh I'm glad to know this will get me laid

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

static1.videosift.com is running off of a CDN, so it's not on the box at all.

We have plenty of ram, CPU is our issue, particulary with Apache.

And we're on a dedicated dual Xeon box.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Well, this time, we're going to go to the highest single box configuration we can find, a dual Xeon beast. We think it should last a while, as we're going to switch at the same time as the new VS 3.0 comes in, which has a lot less overhead.

After that- we'll go to a dedicated database box and a single webserver box, and then add in webserver boxes over the months.