New monster build

[ddrueding]

My main rig (in my sig under Work1) has found a buyer. I have a couple weeks to build a new system for myself.

From what I can tell, the CPU to get is the 4770K (unless there is some awesome overclockable Xeon I'm not aware of).

I still like Gigabyte boards, so the G1.Sniper 5 seems the obvious choice.

Filling it with RAM is a certainty, though I don't have any strong manufacturer preferences (thoughts?)

Is everyone in agreement that a pair of GTX Titans are the way to go?

Some fast 500GB+ SSD

The Corsair 1200i is my current favorite PSU

Cooling? Now that I'm F@Hing, I want a system that can be very quiet at idle, but do what is necessary under sustained full load (anticipating 1kW). Water is tempting, but a PITA.

 

[Adcadet]

Sandy-E? Ivy-E? Wait for Haswel-E?

 

[ddrueding]

Haswell-E looks interesting, but not soon enough. Same with Ivy-E

Sandy-E doesn't have the clock speeds I'd like. Cores is nice, but many of the things I do are still mostly single-threaded.

 

[CougTek]

Too bad you want to overclock or else, I would have pointed you this system.

For the F@H client, wouldn't you be better off with 3x GTX 780 rather than a Titan duo? Either way, you won't be able to silence those. My GTX 580 aren't very noisy, but they are still easy to hear and the Sapphire Radeon HD 7970OC is louder, even if it's not a screamer.

For the heatsink, you could try the new Noctua NH-U14S. I read good reviews about it. There are plenty of other good choices too.

 

[Mercutio]

Of course I don't agree about your perverse video card ideas, but why bother to overclock? The -k series desktop CPUs are specifically excluded from some of the advanced features found on Xeons and your gaming experience isn't going to be objectively improved by an extra 10% above and beyond what turbo mode is already giving you. I suspect, per Stereodude's link from yesterday, that your content creation apps would benefit more from the updated CPU architecture than from getting a couple extra older CPU cores.

 

[Chewy509]

Being silly here, but why not:
Supermicro X9DA7 - http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X9DA7.cfm
2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W ( 8 core) - http://ark.intel.com/products/64582...5-2687W-20M-Cache-3_10-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI
4x Kingston 64GB RegECC DDR3-1600 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239276

Gives you 16 cores @ 3.10GHz and 256GB RAM, 3x 16x PCIe3 slots and 2x 8x PCIe3 slots for PCIe based SSDs, SAS2 controller.

Choose your own PSU, GPUs and SSD...

Add in some Titan's and you might be able to play Crysis...

 

[Mercutio]

The X9DA7 doesn't support those 64GB DIMMs, Chewy. dd would have to make do with 16 of these.

 

[Chewy509]

Apologies, the 64GB DIMMs I linked are a kit of 4x 16GB DIMMs...

 

[Chewy509]

Oh crap, Dave's reply is taking a while... he might actually be considering what I put up? (I was only joking).

 

[ddrueding]

Nah, clock speed is too important to go anywhere but top end (3.5, maybe 3.4). The OC is optional, so I might skip the "K" part to get the other features.

Coug, that system would be too noisy. I suspend folding when I am in the office, so it only needs to be quiet when near idle.

I think the Titans will be better for gaming than the 780s. I anticipate going to 2x (maybe 3x) 2560x1600 at work, if not a single 4k screen.

Looks like the Kingston KHX24C11T3K2/16X (x2) is on the HCL and would get me 32GB @ DDR3-2400.

Coug's Noctua NH-U14S looks like a winner if I stick to air cooling.

I don't think I'll bother with a PCIe-based SSD, the regular SATA ones are plenty good these days.

Chassis? That is a big motherboard.

I really like the ERM-3K3UC I have at home, but don't know if I want to invite the kind of drama water offers on my work machine.

 

[CougTek]

Chassis? That is a big motherboard.

It's probably not expensive enough for your taste, but the Fractal Design Define XL R2 would do the job for your build.

I also want to point out, even if that system is out of the equation, that the SuperMicro barebone tower I linked before was said to be quiet by all three of the owners who wrote feedback about it at NewEgg. So it cannot be that noisy at idle.

 

[CougTek]

Or for an even better cooling, specially for your graphic cards, the Silverstone Raven RV03B. Ugly but effective.

 

[Stereodude]

Coug's Noctua NH-U14S looks like a winner if I stick to air cooling.

The NH-D14 is a better air cooler under load than the NH-U14S. link

 

[CougTek]

...and if you want the absolute best air cooler possible, you fit two Thermalright TY-143S 140mm fans to a Phantel PH-TC14PЕ cooler. But that will cost you ~110$.

Source

 

[ddrueding]

New spin: Dad just got a gig rewriting the Corsair Link software, So I told him I'd need some more gear handy for testing/etc.

If I use the Corsair H100i cooler (and Obsidian 900D for easy mounting), Corsair AX1200i PSU along with Corsair Dominator CMD32GX3M4A2400C10 memory (32GB@2400), that should solve a lot of problems.

So the big question left is which 480GB+ SSD to get?

 

[CougTek]

So the big question left is which 480GB+ SSD to get?

The Corsair Neutron GTX 480GB, of course. ~460$ last time I checked. Very consistent performance.

 

[ddrueding]

So I think Everything is in the Amazon Shopping Cart:

Corsair Obsidian 900D
Gigabyte GA-G1.SNIPER 5
Intel i7-4770
Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB 2400MHz
(2) EVGA GeForce GTX Titan SuperClocked 6GB
Samsung 840 Pro 512GB
Corsair AX1200i PSU
Corsair H100i Liquid CPU Cooler
Corsair SP120 Quiet Edition fans

Total: $4,750.54

These things keep getting cheaper to build.

 

[timwhit]

This is an office machine?

 

[ddrueding]

I tend to get some gaming done at the office

 

[ddrueding]

The Corsair Obsidian 900D is by far the best case I've ever worked in. The Gigabyte GA-G1.SNIPER 5 just disappears inside of it, with room above for a 3x140 or 4x120 radiator and fans in both push and pull. There is also room for a full row of cable management openings below the MB and two rows in front. With a full 1"+ of room behind the motherboard tray, there is no excuse for not having a super-clean build.

 

[ddrueding]

Pre-OC the Win8 Performance score is 8.1 (tied but for graphics, 8.5)

 

[CougTek]

And I thought my new Silverstone RV03 was spacious. Yours is ridiculously large. There's enough space left to fit a beer compartment.

 

[Mercutio]

Needs more drive bays.

 

[timwhit]

My computer looks like shit in comparison. Maybe I should pay one of you guys put my next one together.

 

[CougTek]

You are aware that Dave's computer doesn't look like shit partly because he paid close to 5 grand for it, do you?

Of course, you can have something neat for a fifth of that amount, but normally, you won't end up with a tidy interior with a 40$ enclosure and a generic power supply.

 

[timwhit]

My case is an Antec P180, not quite a $40 case.

 

[ddrueding]

Needs more drive bays.

I removed one of the drive bays just because. At the moment it is housing 3x 3TB (RAID-0) and the 512GB 840 Pro

My case is an Antec P180, not quite a $40 case.

The P180 was my previous "favorite case", but this beats it by a mile. It also costs nearly triple the price. 10% on the computer case is not unreasonabe.

 

[timwhit]

The P180 was my previous "favorite case", but this beats it by a mile. It also costs nearly triple the price. 10% on the computer case is not unreasonabe.

I have 5 3.5" drives + an SSD in the P180, it's quite cluttered.

 

[ddrueding]

This case has a 3-drive hot swap system that you can mount to any of the 3, 3-drive sets. You can also buy two more and have 9 hot-swap SATA bays. That would make the cabling look fantastic.

 

[timwhit]

$360 for a case is quite a lot. It does look very nice though.

 

[P5-133XL]

I have several P180's and I distinctly dislike them: The drive bays next to the PS are totally unusable without taking the intervening fan and mounting it outside the case (The HD's placed there over-heat otherwise).

 

[Bozo]

The second generation of P180's had the fan between the power supply and hard drives moved to the front of the case. The metal divider was also
remove.
I still don't care for the P180 case. They are big and heavy, but don't really have a lot of room in them.
The Corsair really looks nice.

 

[Adcadet]

I'm loving my Corsair 650D, except I've had to replace the integrated fan controller twice, as my three fans kept blowing out the crappy little switch.

 

[ddrueding]

No fan controller ships with the 900D. In the market for one right now.

 

[LunarMist]

Is there some way to get up to 64GB with 8 RAMs?

 

[CougTek]

8GB and 16GB memory stick have been readily available for years. There are even several 32GB sticks now, although the latter are quite expensive.

 

[LunarMist]

8GB and 16GB memory stick have been readily available for years. There are even several 32GB sticks now, although the latter are quite expensive.

I don't see that any of the boards handle 64GB. Apparently that Hasbro CPU is limited to 32GB for some reason. uke-r:

 

[Mercutio]

It's limited so Intel can continue to guide users to Extreme Edition or Xeon CPUs.

If you have a task that requires a working set big enough for that to matter AND don't have the cash for a $400 Xeon, AMD probably has something that's kinda-sorta the right fit.

 

[mubs]

I don't see that any of the boards handle 64GB. Apparently that Hasbro CPU is limited to 32GB for some reason. uke-r:

Hasbro is a toy company; your expectations are unrealistic, don't you think?

 

[Chewy509]

As Merc said, on the Intel side you're limited to Xeon's or SB-Es, AMD side any AM3+ Opteron will do 64GB with ECC to boot.

eg. SuperMicro X9SRA with a Xeon E5 will get you 256GB of RAM... AMD side is more limited as most server boards with C32 or G34 sockets don't have audio...