New Workstation Build

Hi All,

I'm migrating from Mac to PC and need a workstation for video/3D work. Once I pieced together my hardware I realized that building my own computer seems to be the only way to get the specs I'm looking for within my budget. I'm having slight reservations about no support as it is the first time I am building a computer - any advice appreciated. Please comment on my build.


Attachment 129405

Some specific questions:
How loud is the 7047a?
If I eventually wanted to scale my gpu computing, could 3 dual slot gpus and a x8 raid controller fit?
What is supermicro's reputation and support like? I've spoken to them a few times and didn't feel great about my interaction.
Are the heatsinks that come with the barebones system sufficient?
Any other boards/cases you recommend over this? I prefer the motherboard in the Supermicro 7047gr but I've been told it is so noisy it's not really suitable to be in an office under a desk. I like the build quality of Supermicro (professional case, psus, mobo), but I've heard the EVG-SRX is nice as well.

Thanks again and any advice much appreciated.

super micro is the best server board OEM. can you link the bare bones that you want. i do not think that a bare bones is a good idea if you plan to run multiple cards as the psu will not be enough. and do not buy a 580 they use way to much power and are :banana::banana::banana::banana: compared to the 680 but still cost near the same price.

also what are you going to doing with what software and load. as a raid card and 2 graphcis cards (that will not team cuda) seam like a bad choice.

How come you chose a consumer and professional GPU? As Zanzabar said, those two GPU models dont really team together. If you just want stream processors, Nvidia makes cards for that. If you need monitor outputs and good cuda compute power for professional applications then just stick with the Quadro line. If what you are working on is capable of using cuda computing from the desktop range of cards then drop the Quadro and just get a consumer card. If you want huge single precision floating point, the GTX680 is the way to go. If you want double precision floating point, I am pretty sure the Fermi architecture is much faster. Or even the AMD FirePro models, but I heard Nvidia's pro support is much better
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla-servers.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/workstation-solutions.html
http://www.amd.com/us/products/works...s/w9000.aspx#3

Here is the link to the supermicro barebones system.

http://www.supermicro.com/products/s...ys-7047a-t.cfm

I need the quadro card for working in Maya. I am also using a color correction program called Resolve that uses one card for display and all other cards for compute. They recommend the GTX 580 Classified as the most powerful certified card for the program. I think the 680 isn't recommended due to Kepler's weaker compute (is this correct?). Here is a pic of their manual. As you can see they also recommend the 7046GT (newer version is 7047GR) but I've been told it is loud and more suitable for a server rack. Any input much appreciated.

Attachment 129436

Thanks!

I actually just spoke to tech support at Blackmagic and they told me the 680 4GB Classified slightly outperforms the 580 so I'll be going with that card.

they do not recommend keppler since it older than keppler. the 580 is also about 100W more than the 680 and slower in every way, yet they cost about the same. you should also never get a gforce card to offload cuda as they are limited in the drivers to not do that unless you trick it into thinking it is outputting videa and then it still will not work with a quatro, that is what a tesla card is for and they make sure of it. with things like blender, maya, autodesk suit, or solid works run better on amd cards for modeling but then the rendering software works better in CUDA, and things like premier work on cuda (only one card for cuda) but do not need a workstation graphics card.

also, what software are you working with, it seams like overkill for a workstation as you are building a render server, so unless you are working in maxwell or publishing renders all day it dose not seam ideal.

I use those cases all the time for my builds, they make a lot of noise, do not plan on sitting next to one all day.... wait... what did you say ??? LOL ;)
Even just plugging those in to the wall kicks up the PSU fans which make more noise then most peoples entire desktops do.

I love the cases tho and are great for servers. When I have my full rack setup with 6 of those puppies and crancking at 100% loads its like a jet is landing in your office HAHA :)

Software packages: Avid, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Autodesk Entertainment Suite (Maya), Da Vinci Resolve

Blackmagic specifically recommends the GTX cards for CUDA processing over any quadro or tesla - I posted the doc above which says they prefer GTX. They just changed their recommendations to the 680 over the 580. The only reason I am purchasing a second video card is to use the GPU compute in Da Vinci Resolve. Quadro is for the Adobe CS and Autodesk.

Applications include editing and coloring regular HD footage as well as RED 2K and 4K which is why I am looking into the xeons as opposed to an OC'd i7.

Buckeye, are you referring to the 7047a or 7047gr?

i guess if they are saying it works to use a gforce for sideloading cuda now go for it. you can always use moded quatro drivers if needed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rlr297

Buckeye, are you referring to the 7047a or 7047gr?

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either one really.

See that bar down the middle that has the fans mounted to it ? Those are like 150cfm Deltas, plus two on the back side and then each PSU has its own fan.

It says in the description that they are Super Quiet fans, don't let that fool you one bit :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buckeye

either one really.

See that bar down the middle that has the fans mounted to it ? Those are like 150cfm Deltas, plus two on the back side and then each PSU has its own fan.

It says in the description that they are Super Quiet fans, don't let that fool you one bit :)

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150cfm is 3600rpm i think, that is super quiet for delta.

LOL its hard to tell the difference sometimes Zan when I have a rack full of these going.

But even just one machine makes far to much noise for a office.

hmm, that's terribly disappointing. Just to confirm, the 'whisper-quiet' systems are too loud to sit beneath my desk?

Do you have any alternative solutions you could suggest?

Yeah they are not whisper quiet. But to be fair when not loaded up heavy and you have the fans controlled by your motherboard you should be fine. I usually crank mine up with very heavy loads for stress testing.

You really will not find a better server style case, they are the Cadillacs of cases.

Your looking at a 2687w so you should be fine.
I usually use 3960x's at 5.0ghz so I have a very heavy load on my systems.

get the same MB, get a case that will fit it, and a good solid seasonic psu. you could also get some good coolers for the cpus as that will keep noise down or liquid cooling if the budget allows (note that you need 2011 narrow compatible heatsinks so you will most likely need to get an extra bracket and will need to check.)

MB- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813182260
case- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112342 (supports 2 psus if needed)
psu - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9&Tpk=seasonic or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0&Tpk=seasonic


also this has not been mentioned, the intel 520 is a sandfornce drive and is worse than the 510. i would get a crucial m4 or intel 510 (marvel based) over anythign sandforce.

Here is a review I did awhile ago on one of these cases.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...iew&highlight=

The big selling point for us is the 1400W redundant power supplies, but we also use other case just like this one with smaller PSU's.

These are extremely nice cases tho, you will love one if you end up getting it. I know I do :)

Hi Zanzabar,

Thanks for the advice I'll look into just using a separate case. I must say though that after doing alot of research my favorite cases are by far the supermicros. The website says 27dB but I'm not really sure what that means in the real world.

Could you link to an article that describes the problem with sandforce, I was under the impression that the 520 was the most reliable and one of the higher performing drives.

Thanks!

the intel 520 dose not have a bad rep, the sandforce drives from ocz, corsair, gskill, patriot, tansend, and others have a rep for failure on sandforce drives. they are also very slow with uncompromisable data. then places like storage review do not rate them highly. and who do you trust more intel, or crucial (aka micron.)

Intels have a 5 year warrenty also.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rlr297

hmm, that's terribly disappointing. Just to confirm, the 'whisper-quiet' systems are too loud to sit beneath my desk?

Do you have any alternative solutions you could suggest?

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Why not just buy replacement fans off Newegg that are much quieter but still blow a decent amount? Like these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835185060
Not the quietest fans, I have 3 of them in my computer and the noise from them is what I would consider right at the border of tolerable to have sitting in the room with me for a long time.


Assuming of course the case uses 120mm fans, that is pretty standard though so it should.

I'd skip the Barracuda if I were you...go for another Constellation ES.2 3TB or Hitachi Ultrastar 4TB. The solution I'm personally comtemplating is the HP Proliant ML350p Gen8. It can hold a boatload of drives, is well built, has the ability to power three graphics cards and can take up to 4x 1200W power supplies. The 24 DIMM slots that it comes with allow for almost as much memory as you could want. It also has enough PCI-E slots allow for comfortable expansion opportunities. The only downside is the lack of E5-2687W support (the highest supported processor is the E5-2690). There are ways around this issue though...;)

Proliant server seems like a cool idea but I'm not sure how practical it is. I spoke to Supermicro and the barebones system I am looking at doesn't have a redundant power supply so it may be ok. Unfortunately the fan casings are proprietary so I would have to use Supermicro fans. I'm not sure these cases are ideal for custom mods. The two sizes of fans are 80cm and 92cm

On the other hand, I really like this board http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...0/X9DRG-QF.cfm. Would this fit in an HPTX case? My understanding is that HPTX dimensions are 13.6x15 while this motherboard is 15.2" x 13.2" . I was looking at Lian Li cases.

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product...5&ss_index=138

Thanks!

any of the 10 slot cases should fit it (XLATX i think vbut hptx looks the same) silverstone has some nice ones so you have 2 high quality places to look. what are planning that you need so many pci-e slots over the MB you were looking at before?

The main reason I would consider that board is the potential to scale my GPU compute if needed. Most the software I am using seems to be moving towards leveraging CUDA more and more - so if in a year I need to add dual slot cards it wouldn't be an issue. But the fact of the matter is I don't need that many slots for my current needs.

it seams like a good idea then, i also do not see why a redundant psu is needed for a workstation. it is not like there is a even a small failure rate for those seasonic psus and it solves the problems of finding a case/psu just to get a single unit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zanzabar

any of the 10 slot cases should fit it (XLATX i think vbut hptx looks the same) silverstone has some nice ones so you have 2 high quality places to look. what are planning that you need so many pci-e slots over the MB you were looking at before?

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Im not up on these boards really well, but I remember hearing that many Supermicro server boards often have proprietary mounting holes that only fit Supermicro towers? So if that is the case then the motherboard he wants wont fit any other brands.

Yes, it seems that board is a proprietary size. I was looking into other boards with large amounts of pci-e slots and the EVGA SR-X Classified looks pretty solid. It seems I could have 2 double slot cards, a single slot and a raid controller. Does anyone have experience with this board?

I know EVGA is big with gaming but I'm not sure how their boards fare as a workstation board.

http://www.evga.com/articles/00668/

Just read a pretty shoddy review of the board over at http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/c...fied_review/11

Thanks!

did you find one of those boards, they were hard to come by when they were newer and they have been obsolete for a while now. have you tried looking at tyan they are high quality and have a few boards that have lots off 16x and 8x slots.

SR-X is the new board for socket 2011, The SR-2 was the older model that is hard to find now days and meant for socket 1366


The SR-X board is not exactly meant for a workstation or server board, but more for the high end performance enthusiast. You might want to look into ASUS' dual socket enthusiast board instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131817
The board also only uses E5 Xeon server processors that support ECC RAM so it would probably work out very well for you. Just be sure and look into specific RAM compatibility so you dont have problems.

Hi Guys,

So after doing some more research I've decided to go with the Supermicro system. It seems the motherboard supports 3 dual slot cards and a x8 slot.

There are two versions I am looking at - the motherboards are essentially the same except one has an on board LSI Raid controller. I was curious what your guys opinion is on the raid controller that comes with the board (link below) versus an Areca 1882ix (link below). I'm leaning towards the Areca but the onboard option seems appealing due to freeing up a PCI slot and being less expensive.

Board with Raid Controller
http://www.supermicro.com.tw/product...c600/x9da7.cfm (http://www.lsi.com/products/storagec...SISAS2308.aspx)

Areca Card
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/1882.htm

Thanks again for the help.