Build Advice Workstation. Comments/Tweeks?

[Bitwacker]

Hello All,

I am building a workstation for software development (need threads/memory); with a little bit of gaming. It will be a water cooled (single loop CPU, GPU, GPU)

The new stuff (from Scan):
Intel Core i7 3930K Enthusiast Unlocked, S 2011, Sandybridge-E, Six Core, 3.2GHz, 12MB Smart Cache, 130W, Retail
Asus Sabertooth X79, Intel X79, S 2011, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), ATX
64GB (8x8GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-14900 (1866), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-10-9-27, XMP, 1.5V
2GB EVGA GTX 680 SC Signature, 28nm, PCIe 3.0, 6208MHz GDDR5, GPU 1084MHz, Boost 1150MHz, Cores 1536 +Free Games

The existing stuff:
2x120 SSD in RAID 0
2x1TB HDD data/backup
ATI Radeon HD 5870
650W powersupply

I am looking for comments, suggestions, improvements?

Specifically,
1) What might I expect to achieve with over-clocking of these components?
2) Will the power supply be sufficient?

Thanks in Advance.

[Tangster]

1) You can probably get an easy 4GHz.

2) Depends. If it's a reputable brand then it should be sufficient.

[Bitwacker]

Thank you.

I bought the Custom PC Vol. 101, which was very useful.

How do RAM timings affect the overclock (or do they)?

I was also looking at an SR2 - Dual Xeon build, but relatively this seems more cost-effective.

[Jaybles]

With dual 680s and an SB-E processor I would look for a higher wattage power supply. Something more like 850w.

[Blogins]

Originally Posted by Jaybles

With dual 680s and an SB-E processor I would look for a higher wattage power supply. Something more like 850w.

A quality 650W should be fine. Try it and see first!

[deathtaker27]

Once you build this you have to post a screenshot of all 64GB of memory being used, as I can barely max out 16 when i try

[rollo]

1. you should easily hit 4.4ghz to 4.5ghz anymore requires expensive cooling
2. If its a quality unit you should be fine if its a no brand name i would not be putting my pc next to it.

[Bitwacker]

Originally Posted by Blogins

A quality 650W should be fine. Try it and see first!

That raises the question: How do you tell when a power supply is not coping? What are the typical symptoms? Instability? Fails to start? Or do I need some equipment to test at the wall?

[Bitwacker]

Originally Posted by deathtaker27

Once you build this you have to post a screenshot of all 64GB of memory being used, as I can barely max out 16 when i try

Will do. It is a software dev thing:

2GB per instance Visual Studio + Resharper (stores the entire code DOM in memory)
4GB per instance for SQL Server (native for dev)
Deployment environment is typically 3+ VMs (IIS, App Server, SQL)
Test client 2 VMs

The sometimes:
RAM drive for all source (if you think an SSD is fast, try this... plus no SSD strain)
Continuous build clients

I build trading simulation stuff: which does in-memory calculation of 10000 trades. That eats 8-16Gb a pop.

[mm vr]

See this and decide yourself whether the upgrade is worth what it costs: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=552

Though I guess LGA1155 is limited to 32GB RAM.

Is TRIM supported for RAID0 setups on X79 by the way? At least during launch it was only supported on Z77.

[Bitwacker]

Originally Posted by mm vr

See this and decide yourself whether the upgrade is worth what it costs: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=552

Though I guess LGA1155 is limited to 32GB RAM.

Is TRIM supported for RAID0 setups on X79 by the way? At least during launch it was only supported on Z77.

Wow, it is quite a read. Most of the time the 2600K is even or ahead. The only real attraction is the Chrome compile test - in which the 3930K is a full 4min faster; which is what the rig is for.

I just wish they had overclocked results to show if the chips scale in the same way. I was hoping an increase in clock speed would scale more on the 3930K.

[Bitwacker]

http://www.techspot.com/news/51075-i...-i7-4770k.html

Can anyone guess when Haswell socket-2011 may be released?

[deathtaker27]

Q1/Q2 2013

[azrael-]

Originally Posted by Bitwacker

http://www.techspot.com/news/51075-i...-i7-4770k.html

Can anyone guess when Haswell socket-2011 may be released?

Originally Posted by deathtaker27

Q1/Q2 2013

Most certainly not! IB-E hasn't even made an appearance yet. That will happen sometime in 2013. When there'll be a HW-E is anyone's guess but it probably won't be before 2014.

Bitwacker, have you considered getting a Xeon E5-1620. It's the equivalent of a Core i7-3820, but supports ECC memory. Considering you're building a workstation and most X79 motherboards support both Xeons and ECC memory.

[Bitwacker]

Originally Posted by azrael-

Most certainly not! IB-E hasn't even made an appearance yet. That will happen sometime in 2013. When there'll be a HW-E is anyone's guess but it probably won't be before 2014.

Bitwacker, have you considered getting a Xeon E5-1620. It's the equivalent of a Core i7-3820, but supports ECC memory. Considering you're building a workstation and most X79 motherboards support both Xeons and ECC memory.

Thanks, that is quite a good steer. In my mind I have been oscillating between Xeon and Enthusiast-level components. I must say an SR-2 build is very appealing (on some levels, altough it is cost/perf overkill).

ECC is nice, but as machine is a workstation and not a server (production) - therefore nice but not necessary.

Would a e5-2630 be closer match to the 3930K?
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...-cache-95w-oem

My previous builds have all been consumer-level parts -- i.e. my comfort zone. Where can I find information on Xeon builds? Particularly, I find the abundance of Xeon parts confusing.

[azrael-]

Originally Posted by Bitwacker

Thanks, that is quite a good steer. In my mind I have been oscillating between Xeon and Enthusiast-level components. I must say an SR-2 build is very appealing (on some levels, altough it is cost/perf overkill).

ECC is nice, but as machine is a workstation and not a server (production) - therefore nice but not necessary.

Would a e5-2630 be closer match to the 3930K?
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...-cache-95w-oem

My previous builds have all been consumer-level parts -- i.e. my comfort zone. Where can I find information on Xeon builds? Particularly, I find the abundance of Xeon parts confusing.

ECC is meant for servers _and_ workstations alike. Pretty much everywhere memory errors are a no-no. Hell, considering how much memory is the norm today I'd even say ECC should be mandatory on consumer systems. Doesn't really cost that much extra either (depending on the type of ECC memory).

As for Xeons, it's reasonably easy to understand the current naming scheme ...up to a point that is. Xeon E3 denominates single-socket CPUs from the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (with the v2 moniker) families. The E5 series is Sandy Bridge-E and can be multi-socket. The E5-1xxx chips are single-socket, the E5-2xxx are dual-socket. Unsurprisingly the E5-4xxx series is quad-socket. The E7 series is a different beast altogether. Those CPUs are based on Westmere-EX and not really interesting for workstation use.

If you're only going for a single-socket build have a look at either Core i7 or Xeon E5-1xxx. If you're planning on going dual-socket I believe you _have_ to get Xeon E5-2xxx CPUs (or their predecessors, but who'd want that?).

BTW, my new rig which will replace the deceased one in my sig will be based on an Xeon E3-1245v2 and an ASUS P8C WS motherboard with 16 GB ECC memory (Yeah! I know. I'm slumming. ). To be built this christmas.

[Bitwacker]

Originally Posted by azrael-

ECC is meant for servers _and_ workstations alike. Pretty much everywhere memory errors are a no-no. Hell, considering how much memory is the norm today I'd even say ECC should be mandatory on consumer systems. Doesn't really cost that much extra either (depending on the type of ECC memory).

As for Xeons, it's reasonably easy to understand the current naming scheme ...up to a point that is. Xeon E3 denominates single-socket CPUs from the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge (with the v2 moniker) families. The E5 series is Sandy Bridge-E and can be multi-socket. The E5-1xxx chips are single-socket, the E5-2xxx are dual-socket. Unsurprisingly the E5-4xxx series is quad-socket. The E7 series is a different beast altogether. Those CPUs are based on Westmere-EX and not really interesting for workstation use.

If you're only going for a single-socket build have a look at either Core i7 or Xeon E5-1xxx. If you're planning on going dual-socket I believe you _have_ to get Xeon E5-2xxx CPUs (or their predecessors, but who'd want that?).

BTW, my new rig which will replace the deceased one in my sig will be based on an Xeon E3-1245v2 and an ASUS P8C WS motherboard with 16 GB ECC memory (Yeah! I know. I'm slumming. ). To be built this christmas.

Thanks. His helps.

I am read this for Xeon background:
http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/xe...s,2-288-2.html

Am looking at:
Asus Z9PE-D8 WS Intel C602 Socket 2011 x2 Workstation Server Board
2x Intel Xeon E5-2620

It is hard to find relavant benchmarks for the expected performance.
http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/xe...s,2-288-9.html

I find the Chrome VS2010 compile a very good baseline. But I cannot find something for 2xE5-2620.

[rollo]

Thats because very few sites cover workstations and those that do get sent builds to test by dell ect.

And if im honest your better of going to Dell ect if your going after a duel cpu system, simply because of the service support. And the guarentee that they will have your computer up and running asap as part of there support package.

I assume your buying this for a business, you can get dells business packages and if you ring them up they will throw in 2 years on site for nothing. You will likely only pay £3-500 extra from going to dell for a computer that you wont have to mess around with and not have to be support bot if anything ever goes wrong.

We have 5 workstations here in the office and all are from dell, got a decent deal on there customer support 3 years on site they will be replaced once it ended. Yes we could of saved £500-£1000 on the 5 machines total but thats not money saved, If we ever have an issue we know dell will get it fixed ASAP.

Instead of us having to find the fault and fix it ourselves which could take days, Each day 1 of the machines is down is several grand down the drain.

In Workstation land Uptime is key, time is very much money.

[azrael-]

Have a look at the review of a Dell T3600 over at Anandtech. Awesome stuff, but it certainly doesn't come cheap.

[Bitwacker]

Originally Posted by azrael-

Have a look at the review of a Dell T3600 over at Anandtech. Awesome stuff, but it certainly doesn't come cheap.

Certainly is a monster.