New System Build; Old Builder!

[SirHaakon]

Greetings all,

Brand new to the Tom's Hardware forums and building my first custom PC in over a decade. It's a rather specialist system with some required hardware, and I want to make sure everything will be compatible and problem-free! Here is what I have come up with:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7WjhnQ

The two video cards are mandatory (and eat up half of my budget), and I would like to use this particular CPU as well. Everything else can be adjusted, though I have done a good bit of research trying to find parts that will best suit this build.

I want to make sure the video cards all will work fine in the available slots with the M.2 SSD also attached, and I'm also concerned about RAM clearance with my CPU cooler (though that is easy to swap out for a different one if there is a problem). More than anything, though, I would just appreciate another set of eyes on this to confirm there isn't something obvious I'm missing that might make things malfunction - it's always those little things that can trip everything up!

If anyone has any insight, recommendations, advice, or comments regarding my build - especially any tips to share before I start buying components, I would be incredibly grateful.

Thank you in advance for your time and support!

 

[g-unit1111]

I guess my first question would be - what are you planning to do with this build? Are you going to be using it for video editing or something else?

 

[SirHaakon]

I guess my first question would be - what are you planning to do with this build? Are you going to be using it for video editing or something else?

Great question. It's a rig built specifically to run a piece of software called CasparCG; you can find out more about it here: http://www.casparcg.com.

They have a systems recommendation page but it is dreadfully old; in short, they strongly recommend a Xeon-class CPU (I believe part of that is the necessity of the number of PCI-e lanes, but maybe 40 is possible with a modern i7 so there's probably another reason), and the two video cards are pretty essential to getting what I need out of the software. Everything else is just trying to maximize performance around those pieces. The software is currently 32-bit (so can only use 4GB of ram), but the next version will be 64, so I am trying to plan ahead.

More than anything, I just haven't built a computer in so long and just wanted to make sure all of my stuff is going to work together. I believe the board can accept RAM up to 3200mhz in frequency, but the CPU tops out at 2133. It's those little kinds of things that will quickly all add up and I'm sure there is more than one thing I have overlooked.

 

[bambiboom]

Greetings all,

Brand new to the Tom's Hardware forums and building my first custom PC in over a decade. It's a rather specialist system with some required hardware, and I want to make sure everything will be compatible and problem-free! Here is what I have come up with:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7WjhnQ

The two video cards are mandatory (and eat up half of my budget), and I would like to use this particular CPU as well. Everything else can be adjusted, though I have done a good bit of research trying to find parts that will best suit this build.

I want to make sure the video cards all will work fine in the available slots with the M.2 SSD also attached, and I'm also concerned about RAM clearance with my CPU cooler (though that is easy to swap out for a different one if there is a problem). More than anything, though, I would just appreciate another set of eyes on this to confirm there isn't something obvious I'm missing that might make things malfunction - it's always those little things that can trip everything up!

If anyone has any insight, recommendations, advice, or comments regarding my build - especially any tips to share before I start buying components, I would be incredibly grateful.

Thank you in advance for your time and support!

SirHaakon,

In general, the specification is very good from a cost /performance view. However, there are ways to perhaps better optimize the allocation of resources and also enhance the future potential.

1. Unless there are severe space limitations, in my view, using the M-ATX format is a limitation in an LGA2011 system. The LGA2011 has the widest memory bandwidth and RAM capacity, but the very small format motherboard limits the number of RAM slots and the slots crowd the CPU causing a conflict between the CPU cooler and the RAM, as you noted.

More importantly to the overall system potential, LGA2011 as compared to, for example LGA1151 with 16 or 20 PCIe lanes, LGA2011 has 40PCIe lanes to support peripherals. The current M-ATX motherboard selected has only the two x16 GPU slots- and a single x8 which in a system of this kind is a considerable limitation. With additional slots there's the potential for a RAID controller, eSATA I/O, a sound interface, a PCIe SSD, a Telsa co-processor, and etc. A full ATX board includes more PCIe slots and more CPU cooler to RAM clearance. An ATX case with have more drive bays than M-ATX and the larger size means better cooling air circulation and is easier to work on.

Recommend: Supermicro X10SRA Note that there are four x16 slots, run at 16/16/NA/8 or 16/8/8/8), 2 PCI-E 2.0 x1 (in x4) and a 512GB RAM capacity. Performance of this motherboard is very good. On Passmark baselines, an E5-1630 / Supermicro X10SRA / 64GB RAM/ Quadro K4200 system produces the second highest CPU score for the E5-1630 v3 of 10612. The highest score is 10670 in a Dell Precision T5810 (32GB / Quadro K2200) .

Recommend: Cooler Master SIL-652-KKN2 Silencio 652S No Power Supply ATX Mid Tower Case > $138 As the key words are "cooler" and "silencio", plus the space to include 9/10 drives, this would be appropriate to the use. A quiet system is extremely important in this use.

2. As CasparCG is multi-threaded, a CPU with more cores can provide enhanced performance and a dual CPU system has considerably greater expansion capabilities. With those considerations in mind:

Recommend consideration: HP WORKSTATION-Z620 | 2X INTEL XEON E5 2.4 GHZ | 250 GB HD | 8 GB RAM | No OS > sold for $510 (2.5.16)

This is a used HP z620 with a dual LGA2011 motherboard that can support two E5-2600 v2 processors up to 14 cores, 96GB of RAM, two GPU's, and 800W power supply.

Buy one with two low specification CPU's so as to obtain the special 2nd CPU riser /heatsink board. Then, purchase one or two-depending on the budget Xeon E5-2690 which is 8-core @ 2.9 /3.8GHz, used about $400 each. If the budget is tight, the second CPU can be added later. Start with 32GB of RAM (DDR3-1600 ECC).

With double the cores / threads and with a still healthy 3.8GHz single threaded performance, the performance should be excellent for video editing /processing. These systems are ultra-reliable and designed to be very quiet. I have two HP z420's with perfect reliability over two years and they are inaudible from 18" away. Also, with this approach, you don't need to research, order, assemble, and wire a system- just plug in the CPU, RAM.

System:_ $550
CPU:____$400
RAM:____$120
GPU's: _ $1400
Drives:__ $400
______________

TOTAL: $2,870

Comparing CPUs:

E5-1630 v3: Average Passmark CPU score: 10246 / single-threaded performance: 2091
E5-2690: Average Passmark CPU score: 14308 Dual CPU= 20755 / single-threaded performance: 1880

The single-threaded performance of the Xeon E5-1600 series has always been at the top, but in this use, the potential of dual E5-2690's in total processing power to achieve with a single, current CPU requires an E5-2695 v3 costing $2,375.

Just a thought.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6 -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Logitech z313 > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3550 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)