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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Workstation advices, intel processor and motherboards

Christoffer Glans

Christoffer Glans

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I've been waiting for the skylake update in order to use DDR4 memory and USB-C. Now I've heard news that it won't be out until 2016, but some others point out that it's going to be released like next week.

I'm wondering what type to get in order to get the best performance when working with Dragon 6K R3D and 4K DPX files. I'm going to use DaVinci Resolve, Adobe After Effects and Avid Media Composer primarily.

Right now I own a Titan X card, but my motherboard, RAM and processor is like 5 years old so I need to update them as well. The biggest problem I've had has been unstable USB3.0 connections and getting high speeds to my external RAIDs. So I need to upgrade to a system that enable both internal processing speeds and a great data stream speed from external drives.
So DDR4 RAMs and USB-C connections (thunderbolt 3) would be a great advantage.

I've been looking at Intel Xeon, but the clock speed is rather low compared to an 8 core I7, so which Skylake-processor should I choose? And what motherboards are available that can use Skylake, DDR4 and has USB-C connections? If nothing is around, which ones are coming?

My basic setup would be a minimum of 8-core Skylake processor (physical cores), 32-64 GB DDR4 Ram, Titan X 12gb, USB-C to external USB-C RAID (SSDs).

Any good tips on this kind of setup?
 
Intel breaks their lineup down to platforms ie Mobile, Desktop, Workstation, and Server. Mobile and Desktop are on the same update cycle while workstation and server are on the same update cycle. Mobile and Desktop are evidently updating to Skylake here in the next couple months instead of Dec of this year as was planned. Intel seems to have moved the Skylake release up rather than releasing Broadwell for those. Workstation and Server wont update to Skylake until next year at the earliest. The X99 platform is the workstation platform Haswell E. That already has DDR4. Skylake is bring DDR4 to mobile and desktop unless Intel changed that as well which I doubt. I suspect Skylake was moved up because the ram Fab partners were complaining about the DDR3 and DDR4 split production. That was driving up costs and prices of ram overall. They can't reduce the cost of DDR4 significantly until most production moves to DDR4. So I suspect Intel was forced to move that date up to deal with the Fab partners.

The configuration you describe above would be the current X99 platform and not Skylake. We dont know what CPU's Skylake will feature yet but I would not expect any above 6 core and likely ram will still be maxed at 32GB for that platform. PCI-E channels will still be far more limited than the Workstation and Server platforms. There are USB3.1 cards and USB 3.1C cards already available. I wouldn't worry about having that onboard especially USB C since the power requirement will be so high there likly wont be more than 1 or 2 of those ports onboard in the future anyway.
 
Skylake will be 4 core at launch (6700K) and only 4 DIMM slots, it will support 64GB but you don't want to know the price of 16GB sticks... ouch. X99 is still the best bet until Broadwell-E or if there's a "workstation" Skylake (which I don't even see on the roadmap). On one hand Skylake overclocks like nobody's business (5Ghz+ is easily obtainable) but OTOH the limit of memory and the max 4 (8 virtual) cores can be a huge bottleneck depending on your applications. Skylake's advantage is in reduced power usage, not in performance.
 
The next iteration of high-end desktop/workstation chips with more than 4 cores -- i.e.: successor to the current X99 platform, is probably about a year away. And the same goes for the next iteration of the desktop and mid-range server class of Xeons (E5 series).

As with most computer purchases, unless you know for sure that the next big update is imminent, then don't wait if you need it now. By the time we see the next round of high-end CPUs, we're going to have newer and better GPUs than the Titan X and 16GB DDR4 DIMMs will be commonplace. If you need it now, buy something now. If you don't, then wait, because there's always something better just around the corner.
 
Where did you see 64GB support? Intel doesn't max the Desktop or Mobile platforms to 32GB because of limits to unbuffered ram density. They do it to delineate the platform differences like the PCi-E lanes.
 
64GB support on the Skylake desktop has been hinted at and nothing confirmed. It's limited to 32GB as far as I can tell unless Intel slipped support in late and none of the OEMs or motherboard makers are showing it off. Which is very unlikely. I wouldn't count on > 32GB. If you want 64GB+ then you better go X99 or wait for its successor.

FWIW, Skylake does support 32GB for high end mobile systems now, no longer clamped at 16GB, so hopefully the next update to the Macbook Pro, HP Z notebooks and other similar systems won't be crippled by 16GB limitations. Hopefully.
 
Intel has always supported 32GB on Haswell Mobile. Apple just didn't implement 4 slot configs for some reason. Clevo has from the beginning of Haswell Mobile.
 
So the Skylake that is coming right now is only their i7 versions?
 
i7 Desktop and Mobile are releasing next. That will not include the Workstation and Server which are the HPC platforms. Desktop and mobile have been limited to quad core and 32GB of ram with 20 PCi-E lanes for the last couple of generations. That is also the platform the Imac and most retail store HP/Dell systems are based on.
 
Waiting on Braodwell-E for a Mini-ITX Build in SilverStone Raven RVZ02

And then getting a 2016 iMac & rMBP

Finally ThunderBolt is worth adopting.....3.0 is still slower than PCIe 2.0 which is what my Mac Pro Tower has, hoping the faster GPU, RAM and SSD will gap the difference.

Been talking to 2 editors both rave about the speed on 2015 iMac for renders much faster than Mac Pro 12-Core Tower


From what I'm looking at blog posts wise and forecast I wanna say end of this year or next year (March2016) we will have Broadwell-E & Skylake Z170

Falling in love with this ASROCK X99 Board so cute and fast
 
My understanding with thunderbolt3 is that it has 2 channels with 2 bi-directional lanes, each at 40 Gb/s, which results in a lot more bandwidth than thunderbolt2. And USB 3.1 C will have a single 40 Gb/s lane. Both will share the same connector type, and while TB3 cables will work as USB 3.1C cables, the reverse will not be true.
 
Ok, so because I got the Titan-X card I don't want it to be working at half speed because of a slow processor, RAM etc. If I get the i7 Skylake processor that's being released now and get some DDR4 memory and a new motherboard, then I might switch processor next year to get more cores.

Does anyone know if there's any motherboards with true USB-C? I really need that connection on the motherboard, probably the only thing keeping me from upgrading right now.
 
Christoffer you need to be on all the motherboard blogs, I'm not ready to build yet so I'm not up to speed....still waiting haven't heard much since CES & Computex....

I wanna say I saw a couple months back that there where one or two boards with USB Type C

Shiblon USB Type C only does 10Gbs like Tbolt 1.0......Thunderbolt has always been Bi-Directional since 1.0 all the way to 3.0 much like FireWire back in the day....

Ultimately they plan to reach 100Gbs hopefully by end of the decade.
 
ASRock has these for Z97 & X99 Chips


This X99 board has it but $350!!!

Like Jeff said if you NEED a computer buy now and get it running ASAP...if you already have a rig that can get you by like myself then wait.

I'm doing everything off a 2012 6-Core Mac Pro GTX 980 4GB + RRX & rMBP 2014

Waiting to update everything to Thunderbolt 3.0.....Mac Pro for an iMac and the new Retina MacBook Pro
 
Are those USB type-C boards bidirectional? From what I understand the USB type-C should work as thunderbolt with two lanes of data.
 
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...its-way-alongside-usb-3-1s-10gbit-performance

That gives a good idea of USBC and 3.1 which are separate standards.

All of the current Asus 3.1 boards come with controller cards for those ports. The Skylake chipset boards will likely have atleast a couple onboard ports. However once again, the soon to be released Skylake platform will be desktop and mobile. That will have limited CPU core options and ram. The workstation platform is the X99 and the only option besides server for CPU's with more than 4 cores and 64GB of ram or more.
 
Sorry to burst in on someone else's thread but it's related. Does having 2 cards in SLI increase performance visibly? I have an older card that is cheap to get a 2nd one since I can't afford a 980 now. Does it make sense to SLI it? (GTX 580)
 
Eric Bowen said:
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...its-way-alongside-usb-3-1s-10gbit-performance

That gives a good idea of USBC and 3.1 which are separate standards.

All of the current Asus 3.1 boards come with controller cards for those ports. The Skylake chipset boards will likely have atleast a couple onboard ports. However once again, the soon to be released Skylake platform will be desktop and mobile. That will have limited CPU core options and ram. The workstation platform is the X99 and the only option besides server for CPU's with more than 4 cores and 64GB of ram or more.
Click to expand...

A controller card isn't really very good since I need space for the Decklink card for Resolve, 1 or 2 slots for the Titan X and monitor card and maybe a slot for a PCI SSD card as cache drive. The USB type-c should be on the board itself.
Also, is there any difference between USB3.1 and type-C? Heard different things about this and that theres a traditional USB-style port for USB 3.1 while the real USB type-C is the small port.
 
Yes USB3.1 and USB C are different standards that can be combined. C is about connection, power, and transmission connection. USB3.1 is about the protocol and controller. You can have USB3.1 and not have USB C just like you can have USB C and have USB3 instead of 3.1 . BTW the new Skylake Asus Z170 boards released even earlier than expected. The current max Skylake Desktop CPU is 4 core 8 threads and 32GB of ram is the current max as expected. Intel has been very consistent on their delineations. The PCI-E lanes are also limited. However the boards do have the Thunderbolt card header and USB 3.1 C onboard. Just keep in mind these will have limited performance for realtime playback with 4K media+ though it will handle it especially since Skylake brings DDR4 to desktop and mobile.
 
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