Building a Windows Workstation for 3D editing - My Parts List for your evaluation

[John Le]

Hi Everyone,

I was just wondering what would be a good set up for building a Windows based workstation. I plan to be using CS6, and the footage will be Red One MX Red code 420. This is for a 3D film.

Currently I have made a list of what I wanted to get, I just need some advice from the experienced people out there to see if this system is powerful enough, or if whether I could work with a cheaper less powerful system.

Bear in mind the system is needed for 3D editing, 3D Title creation and simple 3D SFX (nothing fancy, stock smoke, rain, clouds and lighting effects such as shafts of light)

All your input would be very much appreciated.

Anyways here are the components. OH BTW, if any of these components conflict and don't work well together please let me know.

1) Kingston SSDNow V+200 240GB SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive SVP200S3/240G This is to run the windows on.
2)Seagate Barracuda 7200 3 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive For storage.
3)Supermicro MBD-X9DAI-B LGA2011 E5-2600 Intel C602 chipset SATA PCI Express ATX Motherboard --Brown Box Mother Board
4)Intel Xeon Eight-Core E5-2690 2.9GHz 8.0GT/s 20MB LGA2011 Processor without Fan, Retail BX80621E52690 Chip - I only can afford one atm or do I need two? Is better to get two less powerful chips or one powerful chip?
5)Supermicro CSE-743TQ-1200B-SQ 1200W 4U Server Super Chassis (Black) - Housing and Power supply
6)Corsair Vengeance 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (CMZ32GX3M4X1600C10) - Total of 64GB in Ram -- is this enough or should I get more, as the mother board can hold 16 slots of 240 pin Ram
7)EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW 4096MB GDDR5, DVI, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort, 4-way SLI Ready Graphics Card (04G-P4-3687-KR) Graphics Cards 04G-P4-3687-KR Graphics card - Only one.

Am I missing any parts that I may need for the computer to run efficiently?

Again any help will is very much appreciated.

John Le

 

[Mark Pavy]

4K or 2K? Are you plan on using the cineform codec for 3D?

 

[John Le]

We have yet decided on the deliver. As it stands now everything is 2K, but 4K is just arround corner. So it would be prudent to deliver it in 4K to future proof it.

With regards to cineform codec for 3D, I am unsure what my options are. I do know that cineform is a great codec and is used regulary but asides from this, I don'ty know much as this my first attempt at 3D editing and delivery.

 

[Mark Pavy]

Cineforms very good for 3d as it allows very accurate control over the convergence and allignment of the 3D files. Compositing in 3D is considerably more difficult then you might imagine.
I would also suggest a dedicated cache drive for CS6 and I would also look at more media storage in either RAID 0 or RAID 5, and don't forget to back it all up.

 

[John Le]

Thanks Mark,

We are taking a course from the 3D Film Factory this December. I know there's a lot to learn.

But having said all that, are my list if components for my workstation powerful enough to do the job?

 

[Alex Carr]

Get the Asus Z9PE-D8-WS, A really great board for Performance workstations. I've got two of them, it supports RedRocket,Blackmagic, Atto, Myricom, sil3132, lacie usb3...etc... The only problem I've had is the Nvidia 680 overheats... So I've installed watercooling for the GPU and the x2 Xeons. under Full load the Xeons reach 50ºC, the 680 reaches 45ºC. Before I watercooled, the 680 would reach 85º-102ºC and the OS would lockup... Tried several 680 cards and it seemed to be the same thing... Davinci would always lockup after about 15-20 minutes, because the card overheated.

I've always purchased Asus, they are really the most reliable I've used. The big difference between the SuperMicro and the Asus is the Pci-e layout. With the Asus you get x7 slots at x16, some are x8 if it's full. The Asus supports less RAM though and only at 1333mhz. I've been using it for F65 4k footage, exporting full res is faster than real-time. But Full Res playback is only about 18-20FPS.(from a 24TB RAID, 1600MB/sec)

 

[John Le]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the insight. I will look into the Asus Z9PE-D8-WS. Could I ask which cooling system you bought, or what you recommend? Overheating was an issue that I may of over looked.

Also since Red announced its Red Ray and ODEMAX distribution channels I will be definitely mastering and delivering in 4K.

 

[Alex Carr]

Since my setup is rackmount, I went with the Swiftech MCR220 radiator with integrated pump and reservoir. Then bought x2 2011 waterblocks from Swiftech and a GPU-X from Heatkiller for the nvidia 680. It all fits nicely in a Supermicro Server case. I went with watercooling because I take this system on set with me, and its fairly silent... Until the redundant PSU's get hot.

 

[Henrik Cednert]

Since my setup is rackmount, I went with the Swiftech MCR220 radiator with integrated pump and reservoir. Then bought x2 2011 waterblocks from Swiftech and a GPU-X from Heatkiller for the nvidia 680. It all fits nicely in a Supermicro Server case. I went with watercooling because I take this system on set with me, and its fairly silent... Until the redundant PSU's get hot.

Alex, would you still go with the Asus or do you miss the possibility for extra RAM today? I'm torn between the asus and supermicro mobo myself. Better PCI layout or more RAM... Tough one. =/

John, what did you end up going with and are you happy with it?

Thanks guys

 

[DJ Meyer]

Unless you're going dual CPU or have concrete plans to, there is no point in going with a dual CPU board.

If you are going dual, the E5-2687W is faster and cheaper.

 

[Henrik Cednert]

Just been hinted about this by a manufacturer:

The Sandy Bridge-EP socket 2011 CPU SKU is E5-2698
Sandy Bridge Everest CPU specs
4.0 GHz, 4 cores, 135W
Requires optimized cooling for CPU temperature (~30 deg C cooler than other CPUs)

Not much info about it out there but apparently it's unlocked! Can't find any official info about it so the manufacturer might have mentioned something that ain't out yep. Google shows it in some benchmarks though... Engineering samples?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Unless you're going dual CPU or have concrete plans to, there is no point in going with a dual CPU board.

If you are going dual, the E5-2687W is faster and cheaper.

+1

The 2687W is the superior CPU. The 2690 is popular though because it's the next bast CPU performance-wise and consumes less power -- that is why you pay more for it.

As for the dual CPU thing, you should consider your timeframe for buying that second CPU. If you will only be running a single CPU for the next 4+ months, then I suggest getting an i7-3930K or i7-3960X desktop setup and overclocking it. You drop to 6 cores, but you can run over 4.5GHz.

New Xeon CPUs based on the Ivy Bridge are due soon. I think they're ready to go and were supposed to ship around the end of next month. However, it seems they have been pushed back to the August/September timeframe now, but Intel has been kinda vague on this. One theory is they're still trying to maximize returns on the current series, which were late to arrive and to work out a few other kinks possibly. Originally the next Xeon iteration was supposed to use the same C6xx series chipsets, however there may be a couple new chipset revisions in the works as Intel really wants to push Thunderbolt. There's also a memory glitch in the current Xeon platform and a lot of us are hoping that is addressed with the next round.

So there's my advice. Unless you're going to run with dual CPUs right out of the gate, then save your money and do the i7 thing. Get yourself some faster storage -- that single 3TB HDD is going to drive you nuts anyway. A nice RAID will really help -- I recommend something with adequate space you can run from that will give you at least 450MB/s sustained. So that's 4 of those 3TB in a RAID-0 or at least 5 in a RAID-5...

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Just been hinted about this by a manufacturer:

The Sandy Bridge-EP socket 2011 CPU SKU is E5-2698
Sandy Bridge Everest CPU specs
4.0 GHz, 4 cores, 135W
Requires optimized cooling for CPU temperature (~30 deg C cooler than other CPUs)

Not much info about it out there but apparently it's unlocked! Can't find any official info about it so the manufacturer might have mentioned something that ain't out yep. Google shows it in some benchmarks though... Engineering samples?

Don't get too excited. It will never see the light of day, all the unlocked chips are indeed OEM sample or engineering sample units. There are/were several models floating about that aren't going to happen. Intel is circulating engineering samples of the next iteration already as it is. They're unlocked too. The release versions [almost] never are unlocked. The last time a Xeon CPU series was shipped with unlocked multipliers was about 6 years ago and those didn't overclock worth beans anyway. "Everest" is the code name for a few different variants of Sandy Bridge OEM samples.

If you want to overclock a current Xeon, they seem to tolerate a 3~6% bump -- at least the 2690 and 2687 do. To get over 4%, it seems that we have to test with several chips until we find a pair that like it. The chip can probably take a bit more with serious cooling, but the RAM is the weakest link at the moment. 1600MHz RAM is already a bottleneck on the faster E5 chips, the better motherboards can handle 1866MHz RAM, but manufacturers can't seem to deliver 1866MHz RDIMMs that are 100% reliable. Forget about overclocking the RAM, it isn't going to happen. I've mostly given up on overclocking the current round of Xeons (again). Best overclocking motherboards for Xeons are the EVGA SR-X with C606 chipset and the ASUS (can't recall specific model, but it's their monster $600 board).

 

[Henrik Cednert]

Thanks for your insight Jeff. I always enjoy reading your posts since you always have a objective view on things and also seems to have some kick ass contact network, so thanks for not only your reply here but for all your posts. =)

After spending the weekend researching the matter aI have come to the same conclusion, if you can wait 3-4 month you should. So I probably go for a few SSDs for now to cure that bottleneck. Have an old 8 disk 2TB RAID5 but it feels dead slow today. It was the beast back in the days but today, not so beastly. =)

Don't get too excited. It will never see the light of day, all the unlocked chips are indeed OEM sample or engineering sample units. There are/were several models floating about that aren't going to happen. Intel is circulating engineering samples of the next iteration already as it is. They're unlocked too. The release versions [almost] never are unlocked. The last time a Xeon CPU series was shipped with unlocked multipliers was about 6 years ago and those didn't overclock worth beans anyway. "Everest" is the code name for a few different variants of Sandy Bridge OEM samples.

If you want to overclock a current Xeon, they seem to tolerate a 3~6% bump -- at least the 2690 and 2687 do. To get over 4%, it seems that we have to test with several chips until we find a pair that like it. The chip can probably take a bit more with serious cooling, but the RAM is the weakest link at the moment. 1600MHz RAM is already a bottleneck on the faster E5 chips, the better motherboards can handle 1866MHz RAM, but manufacturers can't seem to deliver 1866MHz RDIMMs that are 100% reliable. Forget about overclocking the RAM, it isn't going to happen. I've mostly given up on overclocking the current round of Xeons (again). Best overclocking motherboards for Xeons are the EVGA SR-X with C606 chipset and the ASUS (can't recall specific model, but it's their monster $600 board).