New Workstation Build - i7 X99, Titan X, Overclocking...

[Peter Steele]

So through all of the various recommendations on the forums here I think I have decided on something of a cheaper/dummed down version of your PC Jeff (specs listed below).

I was originally thinking I would buy and put it all together myself, but after reading about some of your problems I have been having doubts since I don't have your computer knowledge to be able to fix the various glitches. Because of this I've been thinking of handing it over to an expert like Eric and the good people of ADK to do the build.

My only hang up is that if I go with ADK its going to put me a bit over budget and so I will have to drop down to 32GB of ram and give up the money I was going to use for a new camera slider, so while it would give me the security of a good stable build it will set me back a bit.


Octave has given me a bit of hope because he seems to be a success story with his build.
I guess my question is, since I will be doing the same motherboard and processor (even though not the same graphics card) would I be able just to follow your steps and work out more or less the same glitches you had to? Plus I won't be dealing with the thunderbolt stuff and maybe not even a raid controller if that helps at all.
Maybe you can't say since it probably differs from case to case, but I just thought I would ask for your thoughts. Thanks for all the good info.

 

[Octave Zangs]

So through all of the various recommendations on the forums here I think I have decided on something of a cheaper/dummed down version of your PC Jeff (specs listed below).

I was originally thinking I would buy and put it all together myself, but after reading about some of your problems I have been having doubts since I don't have your computer knowledge to be able to fix the various glitches. Because of this I've been thinking of handing it over to an expert like Eric and the good people of ADK to do the build.

My only hang up is that if I go with ADK its going to put me a bit over budget and so I will have to drop down to 32GB of ram and give up the money I was going to use for a new camera slider, so while it would give me the security of a good stable build it will set me back a bit.


Octave has given me a bit of hope because he seems to be a success story with his build.
I guess my question is, since I will be doing the same motherboard and processor (even though not the same graphics card) would I be able just to follow your steps and work out more or less the same glitches you had to? Plus I won't be dealing with the thunderbolt stuff and maybe not even a raid controller if that helps at all.
Maybe you can't say since it probably differs from case to case, but I just thought I would ask for your thoughts. Thanks for all the good info.

It should be pretty smooth, I never built or had a PC before, if that can help Plus the BIOS firmware is more stable now as well.

 

[David Moffitt]

While building a machine is easy enough, if you value your time an sanity and are doing it for a business / professional use, I'd highly recommend ADK. Eric's help was invaluable in troubleshooting some stuff with my ASUS X99-Deluxe setup. I'm HIGHLY technical (like "understand a hex editor, remember IRQs and SCSI LUN / IDs, use Terminal on the Mac and have compiled my own Linux kernel) but still found myself banging my head against the wall and having to RMA / exchange parts several times. Thankfully my box was just a "proof of concept" and I have my Mac Pro to use for paying gigs while I was doing so, but YMMV.

 

[Peter Steele]

While building a machine is easy enough, if you value your time an sanity and are doing it for a business / professional use, I'd highly recommend ADK. Eric's help was invaluable in troubleshooting some stuff with my ASUS X99-Deluxe setup. I'm HIGHLY technical (like "understand a hex editor, remember IRQs and SCSI LUN / IDs, use Terminal on the Mac and have compiled my own Linux kernel) but still found myself banging my head against the wall and having to RMA / exchange parts several times. Thankfully my box was just a "proof of concept" and I have my Mac Pro to use for paying gigs while I was doing so, but YMMV.

Man just as I thought Octave had soothed my fears you've brought them right back heh. I appreciate it though, I'm just wondering how Octave was able to escape any major problems :/ I'm not doing it professionally, but I still don't have excessive amounts of time to problem solve and if you and Jeff had some trying moments it will only be worse for me since you both know a lot more. So yeah...hmmm

Why did you have to return the parts? Where they broken or was it just compatibility issues or what?

 

[David Moffitt]

Man just as I thought Octave had soothed my fears you've brought them right back heh. I appreciate it though, I'm just wondering how Octave was able to escape any major problems :/ I'm not doing it professionally, but I still don't have excessive amounts of time to problem solve and if you and Jeff had some trying moments it will only be worse for me since you both know a lot more. So yeah...hmmm

Why did you have to return the parts? Where they broken or was it just compatibility issues or what?

Peter, first my intent wasn't to scare or worry, it's not that grave

RE RMA / returns, some was incompatibility, some was items damaged in shipping (Amazon being lazy / clutzy about packaging), and one item due to it being defective. Nothing too difficult or even that frustrating, just be aware that for as many PC builds that I order parts and get them and build it the same day in one fell swoop, I have had some drag out 2-3 weeks or more, for stuff like that.

i never want to scare anyone away from PC DIY, it's fun, rewarding, and can save you money, I was merely pointing out the tremendous value that companies like ADK add in the process when delivering a truly turn-key box. If it's for business, I am happy to spend the extra coin.

 

[Peter Steele]

Haha alright a little hope is returning. In all honesty if I had the money I would do ADK in a heartbeat, and I still might do it even without the money. But after getting a bit of input from you guys building myself is looking a bit more possible which I am leaning towards so that I can put the extra money into the full 62GB ram along with a slider.

 

[Peter Steele]

Hey Jeff, I don't know if you ever ended up transferring this build to the bigger 750D case or not, but if you were to do it would you stick with the same cooling configuration? If I were using the Corsair H100i GTX for the cpu with the 3 fans included in the 750D would I be ok with maybe just 2 extra 120mm's such as the SP120 quiets?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Peter, if you go to the 750D case, you can fit a larger cooler like the H110i GTX or the larger Noctua cooler, both of which I would recommend here. I have not moved my build to the larger 750D or similar case and I may do so, but it's running just fine as it is, although I don't have it clocked quite as high as I know it's capable of. The CPU cooler can't quite keep up with the system clocked above 4.3GHz when under load for a significant amount of time.

I have additional fans added into the front of the case, which gives me two 120mm up front pulling air in and blowing through the drive cages, then two more on the other side of the drive cages (included with case) pulling that air and pushing it into the main compartment area. Added two 120mm fans on the side door pulling air into the main compartment. There is another included 120mm fan blowing air out the rear of the case as well as the PSU fan exhausting air out the bottom and the dual 120mm fans blowing air out the top through the 110i GTX cooler. I have decided that placing the CPU cooler radiator at the top of the case is just not a good idea. I would recommend going for a case that allows it to be front or rear mounted and ideally where cooler air can be pulled through it from the outside. The C70 case will allow me to install the cooler at the bottom, however that is problematic with this case for two reasons. First and foremost, it requires removing the lower of the two drive cages, which means I would lose three of the six internal 3.5" bays. Also because air intake at the bottom for this, and many other cases, can be problematic when sitting on a carpeted floor -- I would recommend cutting a piece of smooth plywood or other material on which to set the system to open up airflow.

All things considered, I will leave the system in the C70 case for now. No sense in upgrading and then buying a bigger CPU cooler. I may replace the internal HDD RAID with 2.5" form factor SSDs at some point, if the system is still in service when the need for that arises. I could then bottom-mount the radiator pulling in and add two additional exhaust fans up top. 6 x 2.5" SSDs will fit into one of the two drive cages, or I could modify the lower cage to allow clearance for the radiator and still preserve enough space for two to four of those 2.5" SSD's in it as well.

 

[Peter Steele]

Awesome thanks Jeff, I think I will lean towards the larger case then just to avoid the chord issues that you mentioned with the C70, and then do the H110i with maybe just 2 extra fans to start with and see how the temps are and add more in if need be

 

[Richard Tran]

10 Core Broadwell Coming...

10 Core Broadwell Coming...

..... for those who can wait.

: https://www.extremetech.com/computi...ore-broadwell-e-processors-with-25mb-l3-cache

 

[John Bellari]

..... for those who can wait.

: https://www.extremetech.com/computi...ore-broadwell-e-processors-with-25mb-l3-cache

I think possibly the biggest benefit for those of us editing 6-8K video
next year would likely be Intel / Micron XPoint OPTANE products to be available on that platform
for use as scratch disks and hopefully more lanes for dual HBM 2 based new Nvidia Pascal GPU with NVME raid 0,
of course price dependent

looks promising next summer/fall when all these pieces fall into place patiently awaiting
the 8K HDR Rec2020 OLED/Quantum LCD displays with superMHL
to ship in volume hopefully in spring 2017...

 

[Eric Z]

Hey Jeff,

Will this be a good addition for your build?
HP Z Turbo Drive Quad Pro
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/z-turbo-drive-g3.html

Basically, this storage solution allows up to 4x m.2 PCIe NVMe SSD sticks in an enclosure sitting on a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot.
Looks kinda long, though.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

There are other PCIe cards out there that do the same thing, don't need to buy that through HP. That said, it's not really a good fit for my current configuration -- I would have to eliminate something else as I'm maxed out on PCIe lane usage. With only 40 lanes to spread around, I kinda wish motherboard makers would quit trying to shove all these multitude of onboard SATA ports and other stuff at us. Make things a bit more modular. Onboard M.2 interface is nice, but there's only one of them at X4 and very poor selection of SSDs on the market to fit. Would love to buy a 2TB or larger for it, but.... Which is also something that we run into with the PCIe solution you've linked here. Fine and great, but HP only offers 256GB SSDs for it unless they have recently added 512's and even then, 1TB is the biggest available on the open market, making this a maximum 4TB solution. Too big and fast for OS and applications, not big enough for serious workspace. Really good for fast scratch disk and/or cache. For my uses on this workstation, I think the system on the single integrated M.2 and the internal RAID make the most sense. I should have gone with 6 high capacity SATA/SAS SSDs instead of the oversized 6TB SAS HDD's. Performance is pretty good, but nowhere near as good as it would be the SSDs and I have way too much space for a single workstation... But whatever, sometimes you get a deal and you run with it.

 

[Troy Smith]

There are other PCIe cards out there that do the same thing, don't need to buy that through HP. That said, it's not really a good fit for my current configuration -- I would have to eliminate something else as I'm maxed out on PCIe lane usage. With only 40 lanes to spread around, I kinda wish motherboard makers would quit trying to shove all these multitude of onboard SATA ports and other stuff at us. Make things a bit more modular. Onboard M.2 interface is nice, but there's only one of them at X4 and very poor selection of SSDs on the market to fit. Would love to buy a 2TB or larger for it, but.... Which is also something that we run into with the PCIe solution you've linked here. Fine and great, but HP only offers 256GB SSDs for it unless they have recently added 512's and even then, 1TB is the biggest available on the open market, making this a maximum 4TB solution. Too big and fast for OS and applications, not big enough for serious workspace. Really good for fast scratch disk and/or cache. For my uses on this workstation, I think the system on the single integrated M.2 and the internal RAID make the most sense. I should have gone with 6 high capacity SATA/SAS SSDs instead of the oversized 6TB SAS HDD's. Performance is pretty good, but nowhere near as good as it would be the SSDs and I have way too much space for a single workstation... But whatever, sometimes you get a deal and you run with it.

Jeff how do these 6tb seagates seem to be as far as reliability?

thanks

 

[albert rudnicki]

and so I build this system, thank you Jeff
For work storage I got 2x1TB SSD drives configured as RAID 0, I am running differential backup every day.
After the BIOS firmware upgrade (asus deluxe x99) I lost the RAID 0 with no chance of recovering it.
Half a day of work wasted, not bad....
Decided to get a proper RAID card and add another SSD to make a RAID 5.
What's the best option out there without braking my wallet any farther then it already is.
Its my first PC in 10 years....
thanks for ideas.

 

[Alan Skinner]

I have now built two of these boxes and love them both! The first one is just called Monster. It has the RAID card as specified by Jeff and three of the 6TB SAS drives running RAID 0. It is use for RED files and for point cloud modeling in Trimble Realworks as well as Autocad and Inventor projects. Also using it for 4K files from my Inspire 1 UAS work.

The second one does not have the RAID card and is called Mini-Monster.

I have had great results with the 6TB Seagate SAS drives. I have an external SATA SAN box that I sync to every time I get up using AllwaySync software and also at the end of each day. That way, I get max speed from the array with RAID 0 and a nice fast incremental backup any time I sneeze.

Thinking of putting three more SAS or SATA drives on the RAID card for a second volume to do the backups internally but have not gone there yet.

Thanks again to Jeff for sharing his builds so we can copycat them!

Alan

and so I build this system, thank you Jeff
For work storage I got 2x1TB SSD drives configured as RAID 0, I am running differential backup every day.
After the BIOS firmware upgrade (asus deluxe x99) I lost the RAID 0 with no chance of recovering it.
Half a day of work wasted, not bad....
Decided to get a proper RAID card and add another SSD to make a RAID 5.
What's the best option out there without braking my wallet any farther then it already is.
Its my first PC in 10 years....
thanks for ideas.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jeff how do these 6tb seagates seem to be as far as reliability?

Very good reliability thus far. I would only recommend if you need insane capacity, though. Currently I think the way to go is a bunch of 1 to 3 TB SSDs.

Decided to get a proper RAID card and add another SSD to make a RAID 5.
What's the best option out there without braking my wallet any farther then it already is.
Its my first PC in 10 years....
thanks for ideas.

The Areca 1883i (or x or ix models are the best way to go, the i or x designators signal internal or external or both for connectivity). Best way to save money for a small RAID would be to just run from the internal controllers. But as you have already experienced, you'll want a good backup as the onboard RAID hosts tend to scramble themselves with motherboard updates and other things that should be more trivial.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Jeff, anything interesting in the compact server market coming?

Thanks.

 

[albert rudnicki]

JEff
Thanks for your time and kindness.
Your a real Mecca of knowledge.

I am sure Areca is great, but It is pricey, especially with souring Canadian dollar

On the other hand, any experience with overclocking?, My system doesn't like it, it seams.
I am running 6core 3.5 MHZ on Asus Deluxe x99 3.1. With full tower 1000watt and good water cooling.

I've got

 

[David Moffitt]

Overclocking takes a bit of skill and understanding how things like VCORE, VRING, VCCIO/SystemAgent voltages interact with each other, it's not merely a matter of "turn up VIN and increase multiplier" - even things like phase control of the VRMs matter when you go beyond a mild OC. It's not terribly difficult but expect to take 3-5 days of tweaking, trying, rebooting and then a TON of validating (XTU, AIDA, Prime95, etc) to be sure it's stable.

I had my x99 5930K at 4.8 but run it at 4.5 daily - some chips aren't as lucky and your safe ceiling may be 4.2-4.3. Still a worthwhile upgrade from stock core speed but it's not absolutely necessary - I for one would rather have a mild but 100% reliable workstation than one that renders 2fps faster but crashes even occasionally.