Dual Socket Xeon E5 V2 (Ivy Bridge-E) Workstation Build - Need Advice/Suggestions.

[LUCI5R]

Guys,

Over the next 3 months, I will be building a new Workstation, and am going to require some advice & suggestions for this new build. Over the years XS members have gifted me with a tremendous wealth of knowledge & recommendation, so hopefully I?ll receive the same this time around.

I have built many Desktops from scratch, and also done significant upgrades to notebooks; so I?m very comfortable & familiar with hardware builds. However, this is going to be my first Workstation build, and will entail components & choices I'm not familiar with, and that?s where most of my questions are going to come from.

This build is essentially a ?future? build; Most of the critical components aren?t out yet, but are expected to release between September & November of this year. I?m giving myself a head-start to resolve some queries I have and be ready to pull the trigger once availability starts happening.

I?ll try & breakdown everything into as much detail as possible to make it easy for anyone responding.

Budget
I have a budget of $4,000. Realistically, I?d like to have the entire build from start to finish cost me $3,500, but I?ve added a $500 fluff so I don?t have to compromise a critical component or performance for the sake of meeting a deadbolt budget.

Usage
There are two primary usages of this machine.

1. CGI Development & Rendering: This includes ZBrush & Maya, with Maxwell as the renderer. Fortunately Maxwell doesn?t have a limitation on the number of both Physical CPU?s & Threads. This is going to be the major usage of this machine. The development also includes a lot of plugins, like RealFlow, Hair, etc., and additional tools like Photoshop, Premiere, Vegas, After Effects, etc.
   
2. Gaming: Gaming is very specifically limited to RTS games ? Starcraft, Command & Conquer, Company Of Heroes, etc. (NO fps / crysis etc!) I have a system with 2 X HD5870 Crossfire cards with an i7, and I cannot run Starcraft in ?Extreme? settings. Crashes in 5 seconds. Even in ?Ultra?, which is one step short of ?Extreme?, there is lag if I have too many units on screen ? and I have to keep Shadows at a minimum. I?d like to be able to max out settings fully & experience no lag.

Core Build
Although some of these components are not out yet, their release is just about a month or two away and most of the information has started to trickle out. Following is an abridged component list, which I will detail below:

Intel XEON E5-2600 V2 (Ivy Bridge-E) Series (Dual Socket / Dual CPU)*
Dual Socket LGA2011 Server Motherboard
GTX/SLI (700 Series) or Radeon/Crossfire (8000 Series) -- Dual Cards
32GB (4X8GB) DDR3 1600 ECC Memory
2 X 120GB SSD RAID1 (OS & Software)
2TB SATAIII 6.0Gb/s HDD (File Storage)
1200W PSU
Thermaltake Level 10 GT Case
2 X 27? LED Monitors

My main questions are going to be regarding Air Vs. Water Cooling, GTX Vs. Radeon, and PSU Advice. Other components I should be able to work out on my own, but I?ll give a little info on each:

CPU
Primarily, I will be going with the XEON E5-2600 V2 Series chip that is comparable to the current Xeon E5-2660 Sandy Bridge-EP chip; in other words ? 2.2 Ghz (3 Ghz Turbo Boost) equivalent Ivy Bridge chip, which if I?m not mistaken should be the Xeon E5-2660 V2 chip expected to release in September. Currently the Sandy Bridge-EP chip costs $1,300, and I?m hoping the V2 Ivy Bridge costs about the same. Depending on what the total cost comes out to, I may have to just go with 1 Chip for now, and then add a 2nd one about 3 ~ 6 months down the road ? whenever I can afford it.

Motherboard
I?m not sure if the current Dual-Socket LGA2011 Server boards support Ivy Bridge V2 chips or not; but either way, my main choices are Super Micro or ASUS. I have heard nothing but good things about Super Micro but never owned one. My personal experience with ASUS has been flawless, so I?d like to stick to ASUS unless someone convinces me otherwise.

Memory & Hard Drives shouldn?t be an issue. SSD for OS/Software & SATAIII for file storage. Depending on budget, I may go with 1, 2 or 3 27? LED Monitors. Eventually plan to have a 3-Monitor setup, but may have to start with just 1 to stay in budget.

For the Case, the Thermaltake Level 10 GT looks pretty good & solid. Not sure if there?s any reason to look elsewhere.

This brings me to my three main questions:

Air Cooling Vs. Water Cooling?
Obviously the Server chips don?t overclock so overclocking is not even an issue. I?ve read many different posts & articles, each giving a different opinion, and that?s why I?m undecided.

I?ve never done Water Cooling before so it would be a first for me; that & the fact that there?s no Overclocking involved favors Air Cooling. HOWEVER, I live in California and although I have an AC where the Workstation will sit ? I don?t always like to keep the AC running, and California is natively quite hot. Although the machine will not be running 24 hours a day constantly --- there will be periods when it will be running 24 hours a day when it?s rendering an animation.

The case obviously supports water cooling & expense should not be an issue - plus I'd love to learn something new. However, I just don?t know if I should or shouldn?t indulge in Water Cooling for this machine. I don?t know if Air will be enough to keep the machine cool for those 24 Hour rendering periods! Definitely need advice!

Whether you suggest Air or Water Cooling, I also need advice on the best possible Air Coolers to get (Keep in mind this would be a Dual-CPU Machine ? So I would need 2); and for Water ? the most reliable kit which is easier for a newbie to install & use and has good reputation of not leaking!

Radeon (8000 Series) or GTX (700 Series)?
I don?t want to make this a debate about AMD vs. nVidia. From what I gather, AMD is releasing consumer versions of its Radeon HD 8000 cards by October-November; however, GTX 800 series is not expected to release till sometime in 2014 (Correct if I'm mistaken), and I?m not waiting that long. So I have no choice but to pit AMD 8000 vs GTX 700. Generally CGI Developers prefer nVidia over AMD, especially Maya users ? so ideally I?d like to go with GTX. However, the AMD 8000 series upcoming cards might offer better hardware for similarly priced GTX 700 cards. I?m planning to stay around $400 per card, so $800 total for the SLI or Crossfire setup. It?s pretty much going to be GTX 770 2GB ($429) Vs. the comparable Radeon HD 8000 Series card for around $420.

The RTS Games will also be a factor here, so your recommendation needs to be based for both CGI & Gaming.

PS: I have done considerable research on Quadro & FirePro cards and also experienced firsthand; most people agree that Quadro?s & FirePro?s never achieve the same performance for Gaming, and similar CGI Development can be had easily with SLI or Crossfire Video Cards, so I don?t really see any reason to spend $800 for a single Quadro or FirePro.

PSU
This is my only other query. I?ve only used & installed 500W ~ 650W PSU?s, Rosewill or Corsair, and have no further experience with PSU's ? especially powering a Dual-Socket Workstation. I?ve used Power Calculators and the requirement appears to be somewhere between 1000W & 1100W, so I?ll pick up a 1200W PSU ? but I have no idea which one to go for this kind of a machine. The PSU should be able to handle Dual-Xeon and Dual-GPU?s. Any suggestions are welcome.

I think this pretty much covers it all. Please feel free to ask questions and appreciate any advice/suggestions I can get.

Thanks!

[bearcatrp]

Corsair makes some nice cases. Have my dual X5670 westmeres in it. D800 but they have a newer one out. 4 hot swappable plus more storage. My supermicro board has been flawless since building 2 years ago. Go with a GOLD rated PSU, probably 1200. I use a 850 corsair and one 7950 gpu in it. Don't forget about a UPS to protect it. I use air cooling since i don't OC. Picked up a fan contoller but haven't installed it yet. The rest is pick out the best you can afford. Post picks when its up. Hopefully MM chimes in to help. He is the man I always check with.

[zir_blazer]

For RAM, you may want 8 * 8 GB, even if it looks a bit excessive at first. With 4 * 8, you will be running either one CPU Quad Channel or both in Dual Channel, missing the full Memory Bandwidth potential. Considering we're talking about LGA 2011 Xeons, you may want to use Buffered/ECC instead of Unbuffered/ECC. You will not have access to all the mainstream RAM variety, through.

For Motherboards, look here for Reviews.

[lutjens]

I'd go with the Corsair AX1200i power supply. I've built two systems with them and they seem quite good (if a bit pricey).

I'm not sure about the appications you run and what (if any) benefit a Quadro or FirePro card would give you, but you will not be able to SLi Quadros on a home built system.

I second the motion about the RAM...you need 8 sticks of something...and 8GB sticks are the way to go. I recently picked up some Kingston 10th Anniversary RAM (2x8GB) for about $140 CDN a pack, so total price for 8 sticks is roughly $550, which is a worthwhile investment. I'd recommend using 2x240GB SSDs instead of 2x120GB drives, as SSDs maintain their speed better with some free space (to perform garbage collection).

Water cooling is a good option, but considering the low wattage you'll be dealing with and lack of overclocking ability, you're not going to be gain much by water cooling.

[LUCI5R]

Corsair makes some nice cases. Have my dual X5670 westmeres in it. D800 but they have a newer one out. 4 hot swappable plus more storage. My supermicro board has been flawless since building 2 years ago. Go with a GOLD rated PSU, probably 1200. I use a 850 corsair and one 7950 gpu in it. Don't forget about a UPS to protect it. I use air cooling since i don't OC. Picked up a fan contoller but haven't installed it yet. The rest is pick out the best you can afford. Post picks when its up. Hopefully MM chimes in to help. He is the man I always check with.

I definitely need to add UPS to my list before I forget to add the expense; thanks for reminding me! Will certainly post pics - through the process & after. Good to hear from another Supermicro user; I'm keeping a good eye on both Supermicro Vs. Asus. Thanks!

For RAM, you may want 8 * 8 GB, even if it looks a bit excessive at first. With 4 * 8, you will be running either one CPU Quad Channel or both in Dual Channel, missing the full Memory Bandwidth potential. Considering we're talking about LGA 2011 Xeons, you may want to use Buffered/ECC instead of Unbuffered/ECC. You will not have access to all the mainstream RAM variety, through.

For Motherboards, look here for Reviews.

You're right!! I completely agree with 8*8 GB, and using Buffered/ECC. 8X8 might stretch the budget a tad but it makes total sense. I'll also take a good look at the motherboard reviews you linked to. Thanks - Appreciate it.

I'd go with the Corsair AX1200i power supply. I've built two systems with them and they seem quite good (if a bit pricey).

I'm not sure about the appications you run and what (if any) benefit a Quadro or FirePro card would give you, but you will not be able to SLi Quadros on a home built system.

I second the motion about the RAM...you need 8 sticks of something...and 8GB sticks are the way to go. I recently picked up some Kingston 10th Anniversary RAM (2x8GB) for about $140 CDN a pack, so total price for 8 sticks is roughly $550, which is a worthwhile investment. I'd recommend using 2x240GB SSDs instead of 2x120GB drives, as SSDs maintain their speed better with some free space (to perform garbage collection).

Water cooling is a good option, but considering the low wattage you'll be dealing with and lack of overclocking ability, you're not going to be gain much by water cooling.

Completely agree with you guys about 8 sticks; 8X8GB might stretch the budget a tad, I may have to look into 8X4GB option, but will definitely be going with 8 Sticks of Buffered/ECC RAM.

The Corsair AX1200i looks real good!! I had a $250 whereabouts budget set for PSU, but I can definitely stretch it to $300 if necessary. I was wondering, what's the difference between AX1200 & AX1200i? At first glance, I can't see any aside from AX1200i looking like the newer model. The AX1200 is GOLD rated and under the $300 mark, closer to my $250 mark. Need to look into both.

Quadro/Firepro is not a concern for me; I've done good research on that and I'm definitely sticking with GTX/Radeon SLI/Crossfire, just haven't reached a decision between those two though.

Still stuck on the Watercooling vs. Air options. I know OC is not involved and most people prefer Watercooling for OC, but I do have the interest & budget for it, and exhaustive rendering will generate considerable heat. Just not sure!

Thanks guys!

[LUCI5R]

I made two observations I wanted to post:

One was, unlike desktop motherboards, the server motherboards don't seem to have Audio capabilities. I have a nice Samsung 5.1 (old ht) system that I use with my PC; it has TOSLink Optical In for true 5.1 audio (Dolby/DTS). I definitely would like to have the capability to pass on 5.1 Audio via Optical Out to the Samsung system. For this reason, I'm adding a Sound Card to my list. Per my preliminary research, the closest and most affordable match I'm seeing is the Creative Sound Blaster Z 5.1 PCI Express x1 sound card. I like the fact that it's PCI Express 1x slot; has Optical Out for 5.1; and supports both DTS & Dolby. It's under a $100 as well.

Second, the "Buffered" memory chips are coming out to be too expensive - they will overthrow my budget into oblivion. Unfortunately, I'll have to stick to ECC/Registered but not Buffered. I'm hoping this isn't a MAJOR let down. Planning to go with 8 X 4GB or 8GB depending on final budgetary concerns.

Right now, a very "early" list of components is looking like this:

CPU: 2 * Xeon E5-2660 V2 (Releasing September 2013)
Motherboard: ASUS .OR. Supermicro (Undecided/Waiting to see new models for Xeon V2)
GPU: 2 * Radeon 8000 Series Crossfire (Releasing September 2013) .OR. 2 * EVGA GeForce GTX 770 DUAL SuperClocked 4GB 256-bit GDDR5
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Z 70SB150000000 5.1 PCI Express x1
Memory: 2 * Kingston 16GB (4 x 4GB) 1600 ECC Unbuffered
PSU: Corsair AX1200i .OR. Corsair AX1200
SSD: (RAID1) 2 * Intel 335 Jay Crest SSDSC2CT240A4K5 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC
HDD: Seagate STBD3000100 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s
Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT (VN10001W2N)
Cooling: Air .OR. Water (Undecided)
Monitor: 2 * ASUS VE278H Black 27" 2ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen LED
Keyboard: Microsoft SIDEWINDER X4
Mouse: Razor Orochi Bluetooth (Already Own)
UPS: (Still Researching)

Thanks!!

[bearcatrp]

Have been running unbuffered ECC memory from the start and zero issues. Crunches great with no errors. Have processed video with zero issues. Unless you have a program that requires it, not needed.

[LUCI5R]

Have been running unbuffered ECC memory from the start and zero issues. Crunches great with no errors. Have processed video with zero issues. Unless you have a program that requires it, not needed.

Perfect! That resolves that. Still muddled over Air vs Water & Radeon vs GTX - my last conundrum.

[zir_blazer]

Unfortunately, I'll have to stick to ECC/Registered but not Buffered. I'm hoping this isn't a MAJOR let down. Planning to go with 8 X 4GB or 8GB depending on final budgetary concerns.

Buffered and Registered are the same, they're synonmys currently. I just think that saying Unbuffered and Buffered makes more sense that Unbuffered and Registered.

What you're missing with Unbuffered, is Buffered capacity to reach sky-high capacities with tons of modules.

[LUCI5R]

Buffered and Registered are the same, they're synonyms currently. I just think that saying Unbuffered and Buffered makes more sense that Unbuffered and Registered.

What you're missing with Unbuffered, is Buffered capacity to reach sky-high capacities with tons of modules.

Thanks for the clarification; I actually did wonder what the difference was between "Registered" and "Buffered". Considering the budget & the usage, I'll stick to Unbuffered, I think it should be sufficient for me.

More information about the upcoming Xeon's seems to have come out; early indications are placing the E5-2660 V2 chip at around $1,500, slightly more then I was expecting. All things put together, I don't think I'll be able to go in with Dual Xeons. I'll have to go in one-by-one, which I'm assuming (and hoping!) is possible to do. The 2 chips alone would put me at $3,000 which would severely compromise all other components; so inevitably, this is going to be a Single Xeon build initially, and then 3 ~ 6 months down the road, I'll add the 2nd Xeon. I'll make sure to select all other components with a Dual-Xeon build in mind.

I'm also adjusting storage space after doing some current usage calculation; my OS & Software are fitting well within 60GB; Games & Other User files account for 100GB ~ 200GB but they will be going on SATAIII HDD, so I'm going to go in with 128GB SSD's (RAID1) as opposed to 256GB, and 2TB HDD as opposed to 3TB. Storage I was initially picking was overkill.

Going in with a single Xeon for now, I'm seriously leaning towards Corsair H100i Liquid Cooling as opposed to air (I'll figure out what to do about cooling the 2nd CPU when I come to that).

For PSU, I'm also looking at the Thermaltake Toughpower Grand TPG-1200M 1200W ATX GOLD, which is almost $80 less then Corsair and comes with good reviews.

Following is again an "early", but revised list from above, with retail & expected prices:

CPU: Xeon E5-2660 V2 (September 2013) -- $1,590
Motherboard: ASUS .OR. Supermicro (Undecided/Waiting to see new models for Xeon V2) -- (Approx. $359)
GPU: 2 * 8950 Crossfire (September 2013) .OR. 2 * EVGA GeForce GTX 770 DUAL SuperClocked 4GB -- (Approx $850)
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Z 70SB150000000 5.1 PCI Express x1 -- $90
Memory: 2 * Kingston 16GB (4 x 4GB) 1600 ECC Unbuffered -- $356
PSU: Corsair AX1200 GOLD .OR. Thermaltake Grand TPG-1200M GOLD -- (Approx $250)
SSD: 2 * SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC128B/WW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC (RAID1) -- $199
HDD: Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s -- $99
Case: Thermaltake Level 10 GT (VN10001W2N) -- $239
Cooling: Air .OR. Corsair H100i Liquid Cooling -- $99
Monitor: ASUS VE278H Black 27" 2ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen LED -- $249
Keyboard: Microsoft SIDEWINDER X4 -- $49
Mouse: Razor Orochi Bluetooth (Already Own) -- $0
UPS: (Still Researching)

The above alone is exceeding my $4K budget by a couple hundred dollars; although I do anticipate saving a couple hundred dollars in coupons & discounts by spreading the purchase on Newegg, so I should be just about on target. Really hoping the E5-2660 V2 comes a tad cheaper then expected.

Later down the road, would add another Xeon E5-2660 V2 and the ASUS VE278H Monitor.

I'm also realizing this forum is good for discussing the CPU, Memory and the general build, but I probably need to open threads in the GPU & Cooling forums for my two main questions that I need more informative answers to in order to make a good decision, so I'll probably go ahead & do that.

Thanks.

[zir_blazer]

That build looks horribily unbalanced, you're simply putting TOO MUCH budget on Processors. Yeah, blame Intel that currently reserves their Sandy Bridge-E with all the 8 Cores working for 1000 U$D+ Xeons, and will possibily do so with their 12 Core Ivy Bridge-E when they launch. But do you need THAT much CPU horsepower, at the cost of sacrificing everything else? Did you considered how much RAM the applications that you are going to use usually needs for your project size (Small, Medium, Large)? Because you could be overkilling with these Processors yet still be RAM and Memory Bandwidth starved, so final performance may not perform as impressive as you could be expecting for the money you are dumping there. An alternative would be going big on all other components yet just medium or small on Processors (2x Xeon E5-2603 or equivalent). At the very least, you have just these two Processor to tackle for an upgrade.
Also, purchasing a single Processor first and a second one later may not be a very good idea. From the integration of a PCIe Controller in the Processor itself, with LGA 2011 Xeons, PCIe Slots usually are physically connected to either of the Processors or the Chipset, so if you left a Socket unpopulated, you will NOT be able to use that PCIe Slot. You should check the Manual of the Motherboards that you're intered in to see if they have a diagram that shows you what slot is connected to which Processor (All Supermicro Manuals I checked had that diagram). BTW, sub 400 U$D Motherboard seems... too cheap for Dual Socket. High end Server toys usually seems to be on the 500-700 U$D range.
Alternatively, you may check if you can get a Dual Socket Motherboard that allows overclocking, so you can get more performance out of those cheap-ass Xeons. While Xeons are Multiplier Locked, I think that on LGA 2011 you DID had some margin to play with the Base Clock. I don't recall how much, because that's the most important variable regarding if its worth it or not doing so. Also, getting a Motherboard with such feature is extremely niche, as Server and overclocking are usually on opposite sides of the market. EVGA made such Motherboards, and they were expensive.

[OldChap]

I don't do any of the things you do with your machine, I just crunch

I suggest you take a look on ebay where you may find more e5 26xx ES processors that you might expect.

You can save a bunch of $$$'s but there are some things to watch for. You want to get the C2 processors or failing that maybe C1 stepping for one simple reason. .. Companies like asus with their z9 pe8 board switch off the ability to run es cpus with the later bioses unless it is c2.

earlier cpu's may not quite be set right to run certain ram types / speeds and they might also not turbo up the same amount as retail

I mention this option so that you might save a buck or two or perhaps target your cash differently.

I'm running both the asus and a supermicro with the older C0 cpu's and although very cheap (I paid around $300 ea.) compared to C2 silicone the, rules are different quite often.

[LUCI5R]

For rendering, rule of thumb is more number of cores & threads; absolutely nothing else - including RAM - helps and delivers the process more then number of cores & threads, and therein lies the reasoning behind 2660 over something like 2603 which is definitely cheaper but almost half the cores/threads.

Deciding on 2660 was purely from the 10 Core / 20 Thread point of view; I do understand your suggestion about 2 X 2603's, undoubtedly they would give a good rendering performance, but you have to remember, that's going to add up to 12 Cores / 24 Threads at lower Ghz - not a whole lot of rendering benefit over the 10 Core / 20 Thread 2660 with faster cores. So to answer your question blatantly, YES, I do NEED that much CPU Horsepower, strictly from the Maxwell Rendering viewpoint. Currently i'm running Stereoscopic 3D simulations using Maya/Maxwell & also RealFlow, and what the 10 Core / 20 Thread will deliver is definitely worth the $1300 ~ $1500, even at the cost of some other components. Remember, gaming is secondary usage of the machine; rendering is first.

That all said - you did raise some valid points. I'm not 100% sure if the motherboard I pick will support a Single Xeon; I'm concerned about that! You might be absolutely right!! I may not be able to go with a Single Xeon and that would obviously be a major issue.
You're also right about the Motherboard somewhat. Decent Dual Socket would be well-placed around $500, although I have seen some good ASUS & Supermicro choices hovering around $400 and that's where my pricing is coming from. I may have to sacrifice a little one that to run the 10 Core / 20 thread solution.

I definitely have more research to put in and fortunately I have time since neither are the Xeon V2's out yet; nor the Radeon 8000 I'm looking into. But as far as rendering is concerned, I can tell you quite honestly, all other components can be and will need to be sacrificed to get more cores & threads.

[OldChap]

example for your consideration:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/INTEL-XEON...item20d502eb5d

[LUCI5R]

The following is a System Block diagram for a Supermicro motherboard; similar to one I would eventually be picking. This may not be the exact same motherboard I choose, but I wanted to clarify a concept as brought up by members in this thread, about the possibility of using a Single CPU first, and adding a Second one later.



I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly.

Per the above diagram, the Sockets that are linked to the CPU 1 block will be available if there's a CPU in the CPU 1 block; and sockets linked to the CPU 2 block will be available if there's 2nd CPU in there.

So in other words, If I only install a Single CPU to begin with, I won't have the sockets linked to the CPU 2 block, BUT, I should have the sockets linked the CPU 1 block. These include ...

- 8 DDR3 1600 Ram sockets
- All SATA Ports
- LAN
- 3 PCI-Express Slots (1 * x16 & 2 * x8)

In my particular case, I plan to install 8 Memory Sticks, 2 Video Cards (SLI) and 1 Sound Card (x1), and 3 hard drives (2 * SSD / 1 * HDD). It appears that if I'm understanding this correctly - I should be able to get away with installing a single CPU initially and still be able to run my 3 expansion cards and storage without loosing any feature I require initially.

Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Thanks!!

[bearcatrp]

Looking at that chart, looks like you will lose half the PCI-E slots until you buy the second processor. No harm emailing the board manufacturer for confirmation. Get it from the horses mouth before you spend the money. Your right about rendering, highest ghz processor and plenty of ram. I have 48GB in mine and uses just about all of it. Don't know about the new boards but my X8DTI-F board maxes out at 48GB using unbuffered ECC. 192GB if I use registered. Might want to verify if maya won't have issues with unbuffered. That going to be one smokin setup when its completed.

[LUCI5R]

Looking at that chart, looks like you will lose half the PCI-E slots until you buy the second processor. No harm emailing the board manufacturer for confirmation. Get it from the horses mouth before you spend the money. Your right about rendering, highest ghz processor and plenty of ram. I have 48GB in mine and uses just about all of it. Don't know about the new boards but my X8DTI-F board maxes out at 48GB using unbuffered ECC. 192GB if I use registered. Might want to verify if maya won't have issues with unbuffered. That going to be one smokin setup when its completed.

That's exactly what I plan to do - get in touch with Supermicro (or ASUS) and try & confirm that information first hand; Capital idea!

For me it's not so much a Question of loosing half the PCI-E slots w/ one CPU; it's more a question of will I be able to run 2 Video Cards; 8 Memory Sticks; 1 Sound Card; 3 HDD's with one CPU initially. If the answer to that is Yes, then I should be good to go. Also remember, this is for a short duration. 3 ~ 6 months; I should be able to add that 2nd Xeon in that timeframe. If push came to shove, I have a contingency plan of going with a dual GPU card like 7990 or 680 instead of Crossfire/SLI - that will only require 1 slot. But I honestly don't think it will come to that.

I have been looking into it and there's people running Maya with unbuffered, so that shouldn't be an issue - I do have a Question for you though. The 48GB Unbuffered ECC you're running - is that 8 X 6GB or some other combination? Sounds pretty awesome.

Thanks man - Appreciate the response!

[bearcatrp]

12 4gb modules. Tri channel architecture. I rip my movies to stream to my apple tv. Rips quickly.

[LUCI5R]

12 4gb modules. Tri channel architecture. I rip my movies to stream to my apple tv. Rips quickly.

Cool!

[Xanth]

I am only curious and like a dumbass only skimmed through the thread,

BUT

You are building a WORKstation. Since you can not overclock it, why not just buy a WORKstation and get the onsite / overnight warranty. I recently thought about building an Asus Dual 2011 system and ended up getting a barebones Dell Precision T5600 and slapped two E5-2689s in it, looks great, works great, really quiet and very power efficient.

I know they can be stupid expensive, but a Supermicro, Dell, or HP barebones or base system with your own CPUs, RAM, GPU, and SSD/HDD can be an ideal solution IMHO.

Don't get me wrong I have an ASUS Rampage IIIE and a Maximus VI Formula for gaming, but for work, I have been using dell precision workstations for about 7 years now and have been impressed with near 100% uptime and overnight parts service should anything even begin to act strange.

[yojimbo197]

I am only curious and like a dumbass only skimmed through the thread,

BUT

You are building a WORKstation. Since you can not overclock it, why not just buy a WORKstation and get the onsite / overnight warranty. I recently thought about building an Asus Dual 2011 system and ended up getting a barebones Dell Precision T5600 and slapped two E5-2689s in it, looks great, works great, really quiet and very power efficient.

I know they can be stupid expensive, but a Supermicro, Dell, or HP barebones or base system with your own CPUs, RAM, GPU, and SSD/HDD can be an ideal solution IMHO.

Don't get me wrong I have an ASUS Rampage IIIE and a Maximus VI Formula for gaming, but for work, I have been using dell precision workstations for about 7 years now and have been impressed with near 100% uptime and overnight parts service should anything even begin to act strange.

There's a couple reasons I'd be hesitant about getting a Dell or HP workstation from present/past experiences:
1. Proprietary fan connectors-HP and Dell have used 5 pin connectors in the past, so using your own heatsinks or fans may not be feasible without wiring tricks
2. Proprietary heatsinks-makes using your own heatsinks or watercooling difficult, especially if the BIOS is setup to only recognize input signals from the 5 pin setup. Not to mention replacing stock heatsinks or adding a stock heatsink tends to be costly...
3. Locked BIOS-can't always easily adjust individual fan speeds, or anything else for that matter
4. "Optional" components that should really be standard like thermal sensor and rear exhaust fans
5. Slower and/or smaller stock fans on heatsink and/or in front or back-makes efficient cooling harder.....

[lutjens]

There's a couple reasons I'd be hesitant about getting a Dell or HP workstation from present/past experiences:
1. Proprietary fan connectors-HP and Dell have used 5 pin connectors in the past, so using your own heatsinks or fans may not be feasible without wiring tricks
2. Proprietary heatsinks-makes using your own heatsinks or watercooling difficult, especially if the BIOS is setup to only recognize input signals from the 5 pin setup. Not to mention replacing stock heatsinks or adding a stock heatsink tends to be costly...
3. Locked BIOS-can't always easily adjust individual fan speeds, or anything else for that matter
4. "Optional" components that should really be standard like thermal sensor and rear exhaust fans
5. Slower and/or smaller stock fans on heatsink and/or in front or back-makes efficient cooling harder.....

The benefit to the Dell/HP workstation is the package and having everything engineered to work with that package. Nothing should need to be changed...the heatsinks should work as intended, there is no need to watercool and everything should just work. Hopefully, no compatibility issues or funky bugs and if there are, support to deal with the issue (instead of wasting your time diagnosing and rectifying them yourself). For some people, time really is money, and they don't have the time to waste.

[yojimbo197]

The benefit to the Dell/HP workstation is the package and having everything engineered to work with that package. Nothing should need to be changed...the heatsinks should work as intended, there is no need to watercool and everything should just work. Hopefully, no compatibility issues or funky bugs and if there are, support to deal with the issue (instead of wasting your time diagnosing and rectifying them yourself). For some people, time really is money, and they don't have the time to waste.

I'm not arguing about the utility of a pre-made machine for the average person. Both my parents and I have Dell desktops and they work fine for our purposes.

However, you're argument about everything "just working" doesn't always hold true once you push the machine to the edge of the envelope. The OP states that he will be doing CGI development and Rendering as well as gaming, both of which have the potential to stress the system. That's when you start to see the problems with stock heatsinks and cooling.

[lutjens]

I'm not arguing about the utility of a pre-made machine for the average person. Both my parents and I have Dell desktops and they work fine for our purposes.

However, you're argument about everything "just working" doesn't always hold true once you push the machine to the edge of the envelope. The OP states that he will be doing CGI development and Rendering as well as gaming, both of which have the potential to stress the system. That's when you start to see the problems with stock heatsinks and cooling.

For most pre-made consumer-grade OEM machines, I agree wholeheartedly with you. I have to disagree when it comes to actual workstations, though. The Dell Precision line and the HP Z line of workstation are a significant cut above the standard offerings from Dell and HP and are engineered with far greater margin in them for tolerance to adverse conditions (excessive ambient temperature, 24/7 full load conditions, etc) than are the consumer-grade machines. Component selection is usually better also. My old Dell Precision 690 is a tank...dead to rights reliable and actually quite cool due to the massive heatsinks used, even when BSEL modded.

My HP Proliant (which I'm now using as an actual server instead of a server/workstation hybrid), is likewise unstoppable. The damn thing is as solid as a rock...I only reboot it once a month and only then for patch updates.

[LUCI5R]

I agree with both of your arguments; I cannot state categorically that there's anything wrong with good/solid HP or Dell Workstations, but I also agree with Yojimbo's point about customization/personalization. Not having an "need" to do modifications & upgrades is purely subjective. In my particular case, I'm not worried about timeframe - I have given myself up till October-end, even November-beginning to finish this build. What I would like to do is be able to pick the best parts, ones I want & desire, that fit my need & budget, and build exactly how I require it. Custom-build will always provide a greater level or personalization/customization/modification that a pre-made never will. Whether or not you "need" that level of modification is purely & individual factor. I have an Alienware system as well; everything came in the box pre-made from Dell and it works brilliantly; serves it's purpose & is flawless.

However, this particular Workstation I do choose to custom-build.