What Does A $16,000+ PC Look Like, Anyway?

[dragoncyber]

dmccarron While I do agree that some of what you say might have some ground to stand on the issue still remains that puget picked possibly the most expensive method for accomplishing the end goal. With some larger fans spinning at lower speeds would have moved more air with less noise, without all the cost of customization, the dangers of watercooling, or all the excess weight and cost of the water cooling system, and still remained perfectly stable.

My recommendation for going with higher performance processors instead of 4 slow ones is perfectly warranted, as their is currently nothing that '2' Core2 Quads at 3.8-4.0 ghz couldnt handle processing wise."8 threads at that speed would be more than enough for what ever he is doing. And it would have saved them money going with the skulltrail setup as well.

This is a perfect example of Puget taking advantage of a buyer who didnt know what they were doing when looking at cost compared to performance increases for each component added. 32gb of DDR2 ecc memory not only costs more, but performs worse than 12 or 24 gigs of DDR3 running at 1600mhz if they had decided to go with an i7 platform.The ddr3 memory bandwidth benchmarks we've been seeing lately is proof of that.

As other posters and myself have stated, their are other alternatives for reducing noise output other than huge complex, watercooling systems, with 9 fans.The cost on the cooling system by itself probably cost more than the processors and mobo together. So again a sever waste of time, energy , and resources for little if any gain in stability and performance.

And as one user stated they silenced everything except the loudest running fan, the graphics card, and the water cooling system resevoir being placed in the bottom was the worst placment Ive seen in that particular case type with all that room to work with.

One last thing, their cabling job was horrible, I would surely expect better wiring and neatness for a 16,000 dollar setup.

 

[jonbach]

Hello everyone! I appreciate the critical thinking regarding the details of this build. I wanted to poke my head in, to answer some questions and explain some of our choices.

First, this system was built last September. That it didn't post it until today is completely my doing – I did not provide the pictures and details to Toms Hardware until late last week. That should explain quite a bit about why [insert your new technology here] wasn't used.

Our client is using the machine for fractal generation, artwork which he sells quite successfully. It is incredibly CPU bound, but at the same time a very parallel operation. Its certainly ripe for GPU acceleration, but until there is a program running on CUDA this is the way to go. The video card was selected because we needed a two monitor dual-link DVI setup, but also wanted a quiet active fan since internal airflow would be low. The 8800GTS wasn't chosen for any particular strength, it just happened to be on hand and suitable.

I see a lot of criticisms about the liquid cooling setup as well:

1) CPU coolers in series rather than parallel: it absolutely does slightly increase the temperatures of the last CPU's in the series, but our testing found it to be a maximum difference of 5C even under full load.  We're talking the difference between all CPU's running at 45c, compared to it being spread from 43c to 47c.  In this case, we decided that the extra points of failure, and the added complication (both functionally and aesthetically) were not worth the slight spread-out of cooling.
 
2) Fans pulling air through radiator instead of blowing through it: We had it configured to blow through the radiator at first, but due to how close the case is to the radiator, we found that it was causing turbulence when the air hit the case.  This not only added noise (which our client is specifically sensitive to), but it lowered the cooling potential. Pulling air through the radiator was a better fit to the needs of this project.
 
3) Pump choice: The pump is basically a re-branded Swiftech MCP355.  It has plenty of flow for this system.  We run it at about 7V to decrease the noise and it still moves the liquid very well. Those of you expressing concerns about this pump may be thinking of the pump that comes installed in the Koolance IHX-720, which is nowhere near as good.
 
4) About the cooling performance: Remember that this project was designed for quiet operation. We turned down as much of the cooling as possible while still retaining what we considered a good operating temperature. Typically you find liquid cooling used to achieve maximum cooling. Since that was not our goal, you'll find many of our choices were not conventional.
 
5) 90 degree barbs: We only used two on the radiator. They were not a concern for us because at 30% speed on the pump, we're running a fairly low flow system. We simply had no problems with flow restriction. If there were a higher spread across the CPU temperatures, its obviously something we would have revisited.

6) Reservoir placement: Our client specifically requested that placement, one reason being that he wanted the fluid to be lower in case of leaks. While we certainly understand the convention of high reservoir placement to reduce air bubbles, we simply had no problems with that. Sometimes personal experience can trump standard convention Either way, in light of our client's desires, we did not feel it a problem that needed correcting.

Thanks for the good discussion and the feedback! I'll continue to monitor, so please ask away if there is more information I can share.

Jon Bach
President – Puget Systems
http://www.pugetsystems.com

 

[dmccarron]

[citation][nom]dragoncyber[/nom]dmccarron While I do agree that some of what you say might have some ground to stand on the issue still remains that puget picked possibly the most expensive method for accomplishing the end goal....etc"[/citation]

I agree. Puget did everything to run up the cost. Given the facts provided I'd NEVER build a machine like this. Nor would I buy it. But I don't have all the facts. Had it been Falcon NW or All-American or IBuyPower or whoever, what might they have done? I have no business sticking up for Puget, but at the same time I have gotten over the "I could have done it better and cheaper" attitude over the years because it implicitly suggests that the IT guys making purchasing decisions like this are stupider than we are, and so are the builders.

About the reservoir - we all have agreed that given no space constraints, that was less judicious choice, even if the cooling was supposed to be low-flow and minimal. I have no idea why they would do that, unless they didn't want it to tip over and leak from the top.

About the GPU, I'm scratching my head too. Not to mention the PSU which surely has a fan in it as well. But I will be the last person to impugn a reputable builder without all the facts.

Lastly, I get the feeling that this system is old news - from some of the offhand comments by cangelini. Tom's does that sometimes - could have been constructed as long as a year ago for all we know. This might be why the parts are out of date.

 

[marraco]

[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]...
Our client is using the machine for fractal generation, artwork which he sells quite successfully. It is incredibly CPU bound, but at the same time a very parallel operation.[/citation]That may defend the use of the crappy ECC memory. Fractals are extremly sensitive to a bit going mad. Altought a software solution may solve it, sqezzing the advantage of DDR3, it also consumes CPU cycles, and only programmers can take that way today..[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]...The 8800GTS wasn't chosen for any particular strength, it just happened to be on hand and suitable.[/citation]At that price, you could had used a better video card underclocked. But without CUDA, OPENCL or need for a OpenGL card, even the 8800 was an overkill, so, well. ok.

 

[dmccarron]

[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]Hello everyone! I appreciate the critical thinking regarding the details of this build. I wanted to poke my head in, to answer some questions and explain some of our choices...[/citation]

Ok - thanks. I rest my case then. One thing though that dragoncyber did bring up is the GPU - very good point - never mind the four CPU's, of all things why no water block on the GPU - the LOUDEST fan even at idle? Or is that the quietest 640 in existence?

 

[00101010]

[citation][nom]Luscious[/nom]I've been building water-cooling rigs for many years. I see 3 problems with this setup:Running 4 cooling blocks in series is going to create a ton of back pressure, and that particular pump on the Koolance, while quiet, is not a very powerful one.90 degree barbs are a big no-no for a watercooling setup, they create even more back pressure making the pump work harder.You never place a reservior at the bottom. It should be at the top of the case where it is the highest component in the water loop so as to minimize the formation of air bubbles in the other components.I don't know how well their setup runs, but I would be very surprised if it goes for a year without something breaking somewhere.[/citation]

I agree Luscious. I was thinking how the cooling setup could have been improved with a few changes like you already mentioned. Hopefully this person has a lifetime parts and labor warranty.

 

[dragoncyber]

Hello Mr. Bach,

I would like to personally thank you for coming into this discussion as you have, for their have been many products on the market released that many of us die hard tech guys love to argue about how we do things better or would do things better, but never before have I SEEN THE PRESIDENT OF A COMPANY JOIN IN, IN DEFENSE OF SAID PRODUCT..THATS AWESOME AND YOU HAVE EARNED A GREAT DEAL OF RESPECT FROM ME FOR THAT.

That being said I am not the purchaser nor the user of this product and therefore dont know the true intentions or the extent of it's use, but I will say that for the money, I and many others feel they could build a better system. Now what that means to you running a company I cannot say.
But what it means to us is that for far less cash, we can create a machine thats trumps any that can be constructed by your company.

This is not an insult, so please dont take it that way. I would love to be in your position, doing what you do and loving it. I started building computers when I was fourteen, and Im 29 now. And I can tell you the passion for building is the same today as it's ever been. But the problem for me and many others is that we would love to buy awesome systems pre-built with great warranties, but they cost far too much with way to many overhead costs, to even be reasonably within our budget.

I just dropped 3,500 dollars on a system that I specced out against 2 other boutiques before I built it myself.Total system cost was almost double my parts cost. Explain this?? How do you boutique builders ever expect to make it in this failing economy, when you are trying to sell to niche market gamers and enthusiasts who already know how to make the machines they game on everyday. You are performance focused system builders yet your machines are not focused price-wise to your intended audience.

If I can build a machine myself which blows away the boutique bought machines, at half the cost, why would I ever consider buying one? And as far as warranties are concerned almost every compnent of my system except my monitors (26" Samsung x2) have a lifetime warranty.

Price these extreme systems to make a profit sir, and I'll back you 100%.But do it remembering that the audience you are selling too is far more intelligent and capable than your average electronic shopper. Thats all I ask.

Thanks for Reading -

DragonCyber
(Josh 29, in Florida)

 

[Luscious]

@JonBach Any reason why you didn't go with Swiftech components?

 

[stingraysteve]

Maybe Im missing something but it looks like the cooling runs from CPU to CPU to CPU to CPU. By the time the fluid gets to the last one how cool can it be?

 

[o0 zeno 0o]

All that to run Windows?! What a waste... heh.

I would definitely love to know what he's using it for (and why he couldn't have run it on a UNIX platform for that price).

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]o0 zeno 0o[/nom]All that to run Windows?! What a waste... heh. I would definitely love to know what he's using it for (and why he couldn't have run it on a UNIX platform for that price).[/citation]

Flip back a page--that question is answered

 

[rambo117]

wow, that would be insane for video encoding.... Tom's!! please get this guy to let you borrow his rig!! >: D i wanna see the multimedia benchmarks with this beast

 

[jonbach]

[citation][nom]dmccarron[/nom]why no water block on the GPU - the LOUDEST fan even at idle? Or is that the quietest 640 in existence?[/citation]

Those double slot width coolers are very reasonable when it comes to noise. Under load or some gaming, it ramps up, but that's desired. We wanted something that would run quiet, but ramp up when needed.

Or I could answer another way: it indeed was the quietest in existance There are a number of revisions of the cooler on that card, and one in particular was much quieter. We would actually reject the shipments (with the agreement of the manufacturer) when we would get a batch that used the coolers we knew were louder.

Jon Bach
President – Puget Systems
http://www.pugetsystems.com

 

[cruiseoveride]

If someone just gave you $16k, would you buy one of these?

 

[jonbach]

[citation][nom]Luscious[/nom]Any reason why you didn't go with Swiftech components?[/citation]

I'll give you a brutally honest answer to this one: availability with Swiftech is too sporadic, and Koolance is across the street

Actually, now that I think of it, when we built this Koolance wasn't across the street. We used to use Swiftech more often, for their CPU and chipset blocks, and also for Xeon air cooling. There were times we'd have to wait for months to get their product in, and we just can't run a business waiting like that.

That isn't to say we couldn't have gotten something in special for this build, but again, this wasn't about extreme cooling, it was about quiet cooling. And it's still a Swiftech pump in the Koolance unit.

Jon Bach
President – Puget Systems
http://www.pugetsystems.com

 

[jonbach]

[citation][nom]cruiseoveride[/nom]If someone just gave you $16k, would you buy one of these?[/citation]

I'd focus on my mortgage first

 

[sohei]

first of all !
it is expensive what you don't use ....
this Pc was built for someone , not for us ...someone with his demands ...demands that are top 1 priority ...so the cpus,hdds,videocard,etc are not something to debate , because we don't now nothing about this demands , ok we know that this pc must be silent ....witch is an important feature ....
i-am not a pc watercooling expert but i can tell you this .
The pc is something that needs to be cooled ...
every thing on this planet must respect the physics laws ...with this in mind let's start something...
1) every watercooling system ( cars,pc,bikes etc) must have the biggest recipient above the main source of heat ..why? because the air bubbles will remain there because there is the lowest pressure ( air needs to grow in volume) in our case the radiator ...and the radiator is high enough .
2) the pump place is not on top or down somewhere ...but is the nearest to source heat ...so the water must go through heat with the maximum pressure ..in our case if you put the pump up ,the pressure will not be at the maximum ...
3 a pump to be efficient must have a short distance to pump ...in our case the shortest distance to pump is from a lower position ...because water from above the pump will fall down without any necessary power
4 if the components are the best that can be purchased i don't know ...but the implementation of this components is good ...
and when you buy something now it's mean that you needed now ...and AMD cpus are in top now

 

[TechDicky]

[citation][nom]Luscious[/nom]I've been building water-cooling rigs for many years. I see 3 problems with this setup:Running 4 cooling blocks in series is going to create a ton of back pressure, and that particular pump on the Koolance, while quiet, is not a very powerful one.90 degree barbs are a big no-no for a watercooling setup, they create even more back pressure making the pump work harder.You never place a reservior at the bottom. It should be at the top of the case where it is the highest component in the water loop so as to minimize the formation of air bubbles in the other components.I don't know how well their setup runs, but I would be very surprised if it goes for a year without something breaking somewhere.[/citation]

Took the words right out of my mouth... There are some things I definitely like about this rig and the radiator is one of them. But as for the rest of the cooling configuration... All I can say is WTF are they thinking?

Picture 11,12,18,& 19 show some pretty clear shots of the elbows on the radiator. They appear to be the same diameter as the tubing, yet they make a hardcore 90 degree turn? Why would you do that to your system? Just because companies sell them, doesnt make them a good idea. Thats an awful thing to do. At the very least, I would have used elbows 50% to 100% the size of the tubing and tried to find an elbow with at least a little bit of a curve to it. You can also see on 18/19 that they are on the bottom of the radiator. OUCH! Make your pump work why dont you. So the pump has to push the coolant up through that massive radiator from the bottom? That seems like a bad idea, but it really depends on what kind of pump you are pushing it with.

From Pictures 20 & 21 you can see some more disturbing pictures and information. The pump and reservoir are located the the bottom of the case? It looks like it is the RP-1000 which has a single PMP-400 pump. That pump may be sufficient, but it sure would leave me with an uneasy feeling of imminent failure.

Worse, from the cooling stand point, it appears to pump the coolant up to the top processor. And from there, in a single series run, it goes down processor by processor until it gets to the bottom.

At Picture 2, they said "And the temperature on the CPUs? 36 C at idle, 45 C at load." When pigs fly... They might get the first CPU at those temperatures, but there is just no way that the other three are, particularly the last one are going to run at the same temp in this configuration.

For > $16k, I would have expected a better design on the cooling system. I would have probably also insisted on two Intel X25-Es, and I would have probably gone for SAS 15K RPM Drives.

It would be interesting to hear what they plan to use it for... Seems like a good candidate for ESXi for Virtualization, but then why the video card, sound cards and dual DVD-RWs. So I am thinking video editing, but in that case seems like there are some other NLE cards that might have been a good addition. I don't know... maybe they already have the NLE card or are going to use external NLE Hardware? Video editing is my best guess, but I would still like to know for sure.

 

[ShadowFlash]

I'v actually seen this system for quite some time, which explains it being built some time ago. I am currently in the proccess of building a similar set-up based on the tyan FT48. My B4985 Mobo is not as current as the one used, but it isn't exactly "legacy" yet. The tyan FT48 comes relatively quiet right out of the box with passive heat pipe heatsinks and a very nice shroud to direct the centrally mounted PWM system fans over both the processors and RAM. The only Processors that are not usable in this case are the power hungry SE models due to thermal constraint. My question of course would be why all the effort to produce an obstrusive looking system, when something from the MoBo manufacturer already exists? AFAIK, the new quad socket boards will easily fit in this case along with the 8-drive SATA/SAS backplane. I cannot tell from the picture how many sticks of RAM were used, but if its more than 4 per CPU, then the speed will drop from the 667Mhz used.

Why would anyone want a system like this ? I plan on using mine to host 3-5 simultaneous workstations using vmware, multiple monitors, and USB over network to route the mice, keyboards, and sound cards to individual screens. This will allow all the kids to surf, do homework, watch videos, listen to music, or whatever on there own VM while I simultaneous do CAD/CAM work at home in my spare time. Of course my total budget is about $3K and most of that goes to things like video cards and hard drives/controller. This set-up allows me to build 1 very nice system ( needed for CAM ) while justifying the added expense by not buying multiple bargain basement computers for the rest of the family. Further more the Host will still be capable of playing most, if not all current games.

I don't know if Windows Server 2008 Standard supports NUMA, but if so it is a refreshing change not to have to buy the enterprise edition just for this feature like with 2003.

 

[vider]

[citation][nom]garydale[/nom]OK, he's got a good mainboard and CPUs with sufficient memory. And he's got RAID for storage. However, without redundant power supplies, the whole thing can be shut down by a minor component failure. Moreover, the cooling system also represents a single point of catastrophic failure. If the cooling fails the system shuts down. If the coolant leaks, the system could fry.There's a reason why server boxes are noisy. They rely on massive amounts of air flow through redundant fans to keep things cool. Any fan or power supply could fail and the system keeps running. When you want to pack a lot of powerful components into a box, you need to expect failure and this design doesn't.For the money, I'd look at getting a good server box and putting it in a soundproof container instead.[/citation]

You have said the truth, I have been installing racks for quiet a while now and there is no way to get a good V.M. that wouldn't be noisy. You'll just be better of in getting a PC sound proof container!

Well said garydale

 

[vider]

Smokes, he wants it for fractals? Ok, so it's not VM. That's understandable. Thanks god he didn't turn to Apple xD.

 

[TechDicky]

[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]"First, this system was built last September"[/citation]

That alone does explain alot! Not only about component selection but cost. It's tough to think of it in terms of prices of only a few short months ago... much less a half year ago.

[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]"Our client is using the machine for fractal generation, artwork which he sells quite successfully."[/citation]

Hah, never would have thought about that one... That also explains alot!

[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]"our testing found it to be a maximum difference of 5C even under full load. We're talking the difference between all CPU's running at 45c, compared to it being spread from 43c to 47c. In this case, we decided that the extra points of failure, and the added complication (both functionally and aesthetically) were not worth the slight spread-out of cooling."[/citation]

That's what I am talking about... Theory is great... and it's usually all I've got, since I can't afford to put some of these things together to test them out... But at the end of the day what matters is results. There is just nothing quite like testing to flush out the best designs.

[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]"The pump is basically a re-branded Swiftech MCP355.... Those of you expressing concerns about this pump may be thinking of the pump that comes installed in the Koolance IHX-720, which is nowhere near as good."[/citation]

It's pretty much the same pump I thought it was, but none the less... all other information we now have considered, it is an understanable decision.

[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]"Jon Bach
President – Puget Systems"[/citation]

I've got to hand it to you... You've got some ballz... I was shocked that you would actually came on here not just once but at least twice that I noticed. I also have to hand it to you for taking it well... Everyone on here seemed to be beating up the design pretty badly, and it takes a person with confidence and conviction to not get defensive and start slinging crap... As has been said, you wont likely find any of your current or potential customers here. You cater to a different group. And this group is probably pretty tough, nigh impossible to impress... But that said, I really respect and appreciate your braving the brutal opinions here to provide some much needed clarification and information. Doesn't mean everyone will suddenly agree with everything, but it is certainly respectable...

Thanks,
Richard Benfield aka TechDicky

 

[michaelahess]

I just built a server with 16 amd cores, 32GB FB-DIMM's, dual RAID 10's with 15k SAS drives and a RAID 5 with 4 15k SAS drives, and the whole thing cost a hair under 6 grand with server 2008 license. This guy got ripped off! And what's with the RAID 1, that's nothing compared to a RAID 10 for any kind of load this machine would actually be used for.

Typical rich person not understanding the value of a dollar.

 

[randomizer]

Why Barcelona CPUs and not Shanghai?

 

[Veesofnaught]

[citation][nom]TechDicky[/nom]I've got to hand it to you... You've got some ballz... I was shocked that you would actually came on here not just once but at least twice that I noticed. I also have to hand it to you for taking it well... Everyone on here seemed to be beating up the design pretty badly, and it takes a person with confidence and conviction to not get defensive and start slinging crap... As has been said, you wont likely find any of your current or potential customers here. You cater to a different group. And this group is probably pretty tough, nigh impossible to impress... But that said, I really respect and appreciate your braving the brutal opinions here to provide some much needed clarification and information. Doesn't mean everyone will suddenly agree with everything, but it is certainly respectable.[/citation]

+1 for that. Clarification is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY here on Toms. Otherwise, you get comments that are a couple pages short of being a full essay. I wouldn't dare step in here like Jon Bach did after my work had been picked apart. Well played.