TR Forums

mthguy wrote:

I should be able to get away with something closer to 700W right?

So as I see it my power requirements are (please tell me if I am missing something)
my estimates in {}
Intel E5-2687W v2 130W (this is the TDP, which doesn't represent the maximum draw, should I add in headroom here to be safe?
AMD W7000 130W (just a 6pin connector)
HDDs {5W}
Mainboard {15-30W?}
memory (8 dimms) {?? 2W}
fans {2W}
so the total of these is ~300W, figure in 33% headroom... does this system really run on only 400W? would a 400W supply likely provide enough power when the system is under stress? I really need some help.

A good modular 500W PSU should be all you need for that rig.

Just gonna throw this out there... 7990 is only $619, you could get two of them.... And the equivalent of one is what the new Mac Pro will have, so you can bet the software you will use will be optimised for it


You'd need a beefy power supply as each card is 375w, but you would then have 4x7970ghz equivalent graphics horsepower

Ok, I will update the Specs in the 2nd post... but I have moved to a 550W PSU from NZXT HALE82N I believe. modular. only about $60 vs the $330 the 1200W one was. I like NZXT's Cases, who makes their PSUs? I doubt they are producing them...

mthguy wrote:

Intel Xeon E5-2687W v2 (8 cores @ 3.4GHz, Socket 2011)
ECC 1833MHz DDR3 memory 64Gb in eight sticks (8x8Gb)

The Asus P9X79-E WS (link) will support this proc, but for RAM it lists 2400(O.C.)/2133(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 rather then 1833MHz.

do to the scarcity and relative price jump for faster memory, I have settled for 1600MHz DDR3 ECC Registered and bumped it up to 8x16GB

I'm going to go ahead and be a nay-sayers ... buy a HP Z820 and call it a day. Part of my job is Linux C++ & Java programming and part of it is studio recording work. Obviously the Studio work is all done on Macs, but the programming work is all done on a Z820. It's very much a time is money sort of thing when it comes to doing the regression testing and compiling. Also perhaps the biggest issues is what happens when something breaks. With my workstation, HP is out here in 4 hours with a replacement component.

I have 2 E2643s, the Liquid Cooling thing, a Quadro K600, 256GB of Registerd ECC DDR3-1600 RAM, A 512GB SSD, a pair of 1.2TB SAS Drives. I have it hooked up to two 27" Apple monitors (I have one that I swap back and forth with my rMBP.)

It works just fine and it's plenty crazy fast.

a setup like that is WAY more than the $5000-$6000 I am looking to spend. but I agree that time is money, but I like to spend my time playing with things bought with someone elses money....

mthguy wrote:

I like to spend my time playing with things bought with someone elses money....

Don't we all...

At least for a GPU I think you should wait till AMD UNVEILS Hawaii gpu on the 28th of this month..we might be in for a pleasant surprise. If you cannot wait till the unveiling of Hawaii based gpu line I am sure you can still build your whole system and just use a very inexpensive video card or one you already own that will support your displays, and gauge your new rigs brute computing performance before you spend a lot of money on a video card to game or whatever else you might be doing.

As for the CPUs if you plan on gaming I would go for the 1st posters selection and get 1 or 2 fast 8core CPUs over 10+ core slower CPUs. I am pretty sure a faster 3.4ghz+ 8 core will game a lot better then a 3ghz or slower CPU that has more cores running at a 500+MHz slower speed.

mthguy wrote:

do to the scarcity and relative price jump for faster memory, I have settled for 1600MHz DDR3 ECC Registered and bumped it up to 8x16GB

Oh, one thing that totally slipped my mind was the whole concept of memory rank. It affects mainly the bigger, cheap DIMMs. Looks like a lot of the 16GB dimms are "quad-rank".

Here's something on it:
http://www.supermicro.com/support/resou ... config.pdf

vargis14 wrote:

At least for a GPU I think you should wait till AMD UNVEILS Hawaii gpu on the 28th of this month..we might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Are better Linux drivers going to be released too? Hardware doesn't really mean much if the drivers are awful or non-existent.

The OP shouldn't wait for these cards. The OP should buy the best current card with support and let other people work out if, or when, the new cards will have support. Linux support from AMD has lagged, sometimes very badly, behind graphics hardware launches in the past.

Oh, one thing that totally slipped my mind was the whole concept of memory rank. It affects mainly the bigger, cheap DIMMs. Looks like a lot of the 16GB dimms are "quad-rank".

Here's something on it:
http://www.supermicro.com/support/resou ... config.pdf

Great resource, I am still a little unsure of the difference (mostly a terminology thing) between RDIMM and LRDIMM (low-power/low-voltage?)

the spec sheet for the DIMMs I am currently considering link here doesn't appear to mention a rank, but assuming they are Quad-Rank, it looks like the X9SRE I have selected should be able to handle 8 DIMMs (2/channel, 4 channels/CPU), is that right?

Flatland_Spider wrote:

vargis14 wrote:

At least for a GPU I think you should wait till AMD UNVEILS Hawaii gpu on the 28th of this month..we might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Are better Linux drivers going to be released too? Hardware doesn't really mean much if the drivers are awful or non-existent.

The OP shouldn't wait for these cards. The OP should buy the best current card with support and let other people work out if, or when, the new cards will have support. Linux support from AMD has lagged, sometimes very badly, behind graphics hardware launches in the past.

I agree there, the w7000 from AMD seems to have pretty good driver support (Eyefinity too, which is nice for my four monitor setup) I have a V5900 in my current workstation and it seems to play ok with ubuntu.

mthguy wrote:

Great resource, I am still a little unsure of the difference (mostly a terminology thing) between RDIMM and LRDIMM (low-power/low-voltage?)

the spec sheet for the DIMMs I am currently considering link here doesn't appear to mention a rank, but assuming they are Quad-Rank, it looks like the X9SRE I have selected should be able to handle 8 DIMMs (2/channel, 4 channels/CPU), is that right?

LRDIMM (load-reduced dual inline memory module) are buffered, Here are a couple of links that explain it well.

Basics of LRDIMM
http://www.edn.com/design/systems-desig ... -of-LRDIMM

What is LR-DIMM , LRDIMM Memory ? ( Load-Reduce DIMM)
http://www.simmtester.com/page/news/sho ... sp?num=167

Oh, I think I remember when those load-reduced dimms came out. Fully buffered dimms were too expensive, so this was a cheaper alternative. I think the point is that adding a buffer lets you go with bigger dimms.

The kingston link says:
64GB (16GB 2Rx4 2G x 72-Bit x 4 pcs.) PC3-12800
CL11 Registered w/Parity 240-Pin DIMM Kit

I think the 2Rx4 ... means dual rank. but I'm not sure at all actually. just guessing here.

Looks like rank isn't as big of a deal as it used to be. I think the older chips only handled 4 ranks per channel. So if you had a quad rank dimm, you could only use 1 dimm per channel. Though on the Ivy Bridges... it looks like if you use 2 quad rank dimms per channel, the max speed drops all the way down to DDR3-800! (Not sure if you can overclock the memory on Xeons, either. My guess would be no?). Though, memory speed probably doesn't have a huge effect on most tasks, either? (Only thing I know that is memory bandwidth limited is computational fluid dynamics.)

Hmm... I guess I am unclear on what the difference is between a fully buffered DIMM (FBDIMM) and load reduced DIMM (LRDIMM). It sounds like essentially the same thing?

this is very helpful, thanks so much for the resources. I have always felt just a little out of the loop on some of this stuff. I really appreciate the help.

I am going to reach out to my contact for kingston to verify the Rank of these particular DIMMs, if the are dual rank, that would be great!

Yugiyurigyu wrote:

I think the 2Rx4 ... means dual rank. but I'm not sure at all actually. just guessing here.]

Your hunch was correct, just heard back and they are in fact Dual rank, so at least I don't have to worry about the speed dropping to 800Mhz, not that my workflow would have really suffered (much) from that, but it is good to know.