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Planning / building a new system. Part 1

LEGEND ,
Mar 27, 2012 Mar 27, 2012

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At some point in time, we all face that difficult decision. We know that our system is at the end of its lifecycle and needs to be replaced in the near future. But does it require a complete new system, or is it worthwhile to upgrade parts of the system, or is it better to wait for the new .... that was just announced?

We all have these thoughts from time to time, we have budget restraints, we have to 'sell' our ideas to the Financial Director, we have to get final approval and then, as a final step, we must implement them.

This gives you the link to a multi-part sequel about planning and building a complete new system. It is not a simple copy this build and paste it for your system builder, because it is based on my own ideas, budget limits, needs, and idiosyncrasies. It is full of uncertainties, decisions to be made, further investigations to be done, but the intention is to take you along on this journey to a new system, showing you the choices I had, the decisions I made and why.

See: Planning and Building a new system

I appreciate your feedback and help in this endeavour, which may not be finished before september 2012. I intend it to be a 6-7 part sequel with pictures of the build progress.

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LEGEND ,
May 23, 2012 May 23, 2012

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In case you were wondering whether there are alternatives for this case, well there are. See http://www.mountainmods.com/index.php

And if you are wondering whether there are solutions if you need even bigger raid arrays with your system, look at http://www.aberdeeninc.com/abcatg/petarack.htm

For some pictures of what THAT looks like, see http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/582-petarack-petabyte-sas.html .It was not only price, but also size that decided me against this solution. I could not fit it under my desk but it gives one more storage.

If you want to go even more extreme, look at: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/BlueWaters/ which also uses Tesla acceleration, as well as 400PB storage.

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LEGEND ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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On the request of an old friend here on the forum, I have added a small piece about water cooling and why I chose not to use it. Might be interesting.

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Community Beginner ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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Harm Millaard wrote:

With increasing numbers of disks the benefits of water cooling diminish, because the disks all make noise and there does not exist a cooling block for disks, so fans are still required there.

There are plenty of options for water cooling disks.  Here is a link to a few:

http://www.aquatuning.us/index.php/cat/c106_HDD-waterblocks.html

Harm Millaard wrote:

Pro's of water cooling:

  • It saves the sound of at least one fan on the CPU cooler, possibly two in a push-pull configuration.
  • It saves the sound of the video card fan, if there is a cooling block available for the video card in use.

Con's of water cooling:

  • It is far more expensive than air cooling and not much better.
  • It still requires fans for the radiator(s), negating the advantage of no CPU or video fan.
  • It adds the sound of the pump.
  • It is a difficult and time consuming job to install and requires more maintenance than air cooling.
  • It requires a large chassis, or external housing and the clutter that brings.

While I agree with most of your reasoning above, I disagree with certain points.  And since so many people look to you for guidance, I feel obliged to point out the part that is just opinion.  Water cooling IS more expensive than air cooling, and IT DOES take more maintenance and more time to install.  I think everyone would agree with those points.  Whether a large chassis is a negative or not, I guess depends on viewpoint.  You've already clearly proven that you are ok with a large chassis.    You either needed the large chassis, or would have had to use external housing and the clutter that it brings, for all those disks.  But you understood that the additional disks bring additional performance for you, so you are OK with the large chassis.  Its the same with water cooling. 

I think the comments regarding sound and performance above are somewhat misleading.  Water cooling can achieve far superior results to air cooling, and it can do so at much quieter levels, even when considering the pump (which is inaudible when decoupled).  The whole point of water cooling is cooler temperatures and quieter operation.  And the reason we want cooler temperatures, is the ability to achieve higher overclocks of CPU and GPU's.  I think the wonderful PPBM results you have overseen prove how important processor speed is to good Premiere performance.  Overclocking your CPU will get you better results, and water cooling will allow better overclocks than air.  Water cooling will ALWAYS have an advantage over air, because it has the ability to take heat and move/spread it over large surfaces that are not surrounding the components you want to cool.  And because the water has already moved the heat away from the componenet (CPU), and I can use very low RPM fans to move the heat away from the radiator and out of the case.  Water cooling is better performance, at quieter noise levels, than air.  When done right.  I guess anyone could point to a really bad water build, or a bad air build, and try and form conclusions.  But I think I'm staying pretty factual when I state that water cooling will get better performance than air cooling, at quieter noise levels.  But it does come at a price, which is the cost involved and the maintenance.  Some of us will be ok with that trade-off.  And I guess I could also make the argument that if my CPU and GPU are running cooler because of my water cooling, they will last longer than if they were air cooled, and that these savings would offset any additional cost of water cooling.

Enjoying the article so far! 

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LEGEND ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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Thank you for the constructive comments. Much appreciated.

I quite agree with your statement that higher overclocks are achievable with water than with air. But with reasonable overclocks in the range of 4.0 to 4.8 GHz the temperature differences between water and air are negligent, it is beyond that range that water cooling is showing its teeth. But my consideration is the mechanical noise of 24+ hard disks in my setup that outweighs the low RPM fans for the radiator(s).

I looked at your link, but how do you cool all these hot-swappable drives in these cages with water?

Magnum14.png

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Community Beginner ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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Yeah, you would definitely have to give up the existing hot-swappable drive cages if you went with a HDD watercooled setup.   But, most would agree that HDD's don't need much, if any, cooling provided.  I think water cooling the HDD's is overkill.  And I also agree that your system would not experience any of the "quietness" benefits of most water cooled system, because of all those disks.  So many of the positives of water cooling are negated for your system.

But if it were me, I would still consider it for the CPU, just for the lower temps you could get there, and/or the higher overclock achievable.  Most of the tests I've seen show between 5 and 10 degrees celcius cooler while idling, and even more than that when the system is stressed.  And that's at stock speeds.  When you start getting into overclocking, the temperature deltas between water and air are even larger.  That's a big temperature difference, that you could use to either extend the life of your CPU, or push it into a higher overclock.  Plus...if you give water cooling a chance...you'll find its kind of fun and addictive.  You have room for at least two 480 radiators on top of your case, and could mount additional in the side if you desired. 

Will be anxious to see your PPBM scores, regardless of your cooling setup, with this great new system your building!

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Guru ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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Water Cooling has 1 main advantage over active air cooling and that is cooling efficiency. Essentially cooling efficiency is the ability to move a set amount of heat from the heatsink in a set amount of time in declared/different ambient conditions so as to avoid heat buildup on the material. This is a very important concept for people to understand because this is why a certain ambient temperature ceiling is required to maintain or be less than or the cooling efficiency degrades very quickly. What this translates to is heat begins to build up on the heatsink until a point the cooling unit is no longer able to cool the device below thresholds. Another variant of this is greater heat generation requires greater cooling efficiency in order to move the heat away from the heatsink in time before continuous heat buildup on the material begins. This is why active cooling is as efficient as water cooling with ideal ambient conditions with standard heat generation. However when you have either extreme ambient conditions or heat generation then Watercooling has far greater efficiency in moving the heat than Active air cooling. Water Cooling has a much better capability to move more heat or dissipate heat quicker than active cooling.

The caveat to this as there always is one is quality of components. Cheaper, less efficient materials and active components will always lower the over all efficiency of the specified unit which of course lowers the capability to move heat away from the heatsink.

Eric

ADK

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Community Beginner ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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ECBowen wrote:

However when you have either extreme ambient conditions or heat generation then Watercooling has far greater efficiency in moving the heat than Active air cooling. Water Cooling has a much better capability to move more heat or dissipate heat quicker than active cooling.

Well put.  And a CPU under load is definitely 'extreme heat generation'.  Also agree with your statement that you can have build up on the heatsink (or radiator) to a point that cooling is no longer able to cool the device below a threshold.  The way I'm combatting this in my current build, and to lower that threshold below what most would find acceptable, is to add more radiators.  The limitation of air cooling is there is only so much heatsink space afforded by the component.  With watercooling, I can spread that heat over a large area away from the CPU.  I'm fitting 4 large radiators in the same case that Harm is using for this build (although I do have the pedestal also).  With that much cooling space, I can get away with running the radiator fans at SILENT speeds (slow) and still get temperatures lower than what could be achieved with loud (fast spinning) fans and air cooling. 

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New Here ,
May 02, 2012 May 02, 2012

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RjL - that's good to know - just because it will "work" doesn't mean it'soptimal!  What would you say about the option of getting 4x8 instead of 8x4 and the possibilities of adding another set of 4 in the future?

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LEGEND ,
May 02, 2012 May 02, 2012

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Dorothy,

You will likely pay around a 30 percent premium for going 4x8 instead of 8x4. However, this will give you room to expand whereas going with 8x4 would require you to completely replace some or all of those sticks just to expand RAM.

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Community Beginner ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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Harm

I've been doing a lot of reading of these forums and your Planing / building article... keeping up to date with your monster build. Infact, I'm building my own mini monster atm and have been able to draw some guidance on how I should proceed. I have a quick question if you don't mind addressing... With all your power requirements for this build, what are your toughts on an adequate UPS. I see eps calculator has recommended 2200VA rated one. Thanks...

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Community Beginner ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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Will you give you my two cents also here.  Whatever you decide are the appropriate power requirements, ...split it between two PSU's.  In the current build I'm working on, I have two Corsair AX850's.  If you are after a quiet build, this helps greatly.  With the Corsair's, the fan doesn't even start spinning until you put an above average load on the PSU.  By dividing the load between two units, I'm anticipating have absolutely zero PSU noise, because there will be no fans spinning most of the time.  Quiet is one my requirements.

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Guide ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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IMHO regarding water cooling after living with a fast water-cooled system for over a year...

Pros:

- for my build, I'm feel I'm getting similar cooling performance to a top-notch air cooler, but at a lower sound level. Using a single 480mm radiator and two slow, quiet 120mm Noctura's, my setup is quiet, cools well, and has been reliable. I suspect that "force fed" water flow around the cpu / gpu is more effective than the convective liquid flow that air-coolers count on (aka heat pipes).

- water block cooled GTX video cards during a render are virtually silent compared with any fan cooled design I've ever been around.

- a Swiftech centrifugal pump "suspended" by water tubing is absolutely SILENT; I happened to learn this while prototyping my final build (my pump is not bolted or taped to anything in my system - and no, that was not my original plan!)

- No issues whatsoever regarding installing and getting air-flow around your RAM (water blocks are tiny compared with air-coolers)

Cons:

- More cost; I'd say $100 more for a good system CPU cooler (aka Swiftech 655, cpu water block) and $125 additional extra for a GTX with factory installed water block

- Extremely time consuming to plan and build; yes, I repeat, EXTREMELY time consuming!!! Also, once you have something like a water-block cooled GTX mounted you really will not want to invest the time required to test any other video cards.

- Weight; nobody ever seems to mention this, but water-cooling adds weight vs. an air-cooled setup, and powerful video editing PCs are pretty heavy to begin with.

- More trouble / risk to relocate; Once all the bubbles have been purged from the system its best just to leave most water cooled PC designs sitting upright.

Other comments:

- Once built, my water cooled build has proven to be extremely maintenance and trouble free. And, when I upgraded a quad-core to a six-core CPU I'd even say that is was much easier do than when I've done similar CPU changes on a build that utilized a large, efficient CPU air-cooler

- Technically (ignoring the "time" factor for planning and implementing your build) my first choice for fast and quiet is water-cooled, 2nd choice is air-cooled, and for me dedicated sealed system "liquid" coolers (Corsair H70, etc.) would be a distant 3rd choice. Why? Water and air are the most effective coolers, and water is the quietest to effectively cool my 6-core 4.5 GHz system. Finally, dedicated liquid coolers just don't seem to rate the reliability that I desire for 24/7 use, including when I'm not home.

cpachris,

Seems like you and I value strong performance and extreme quiet...

- Regarding your idea to have 2 AX850's - FYI, I'm not aware of anyone doing this unless you plan on doing something like powering all of your drive with one p/s and the rest of the PC with the other. A few years ago I did just that for a poor-boys home server build where the PC consisted of two cases. The drive case used one power supply, which had a physical on/off switch on the power supply itself, and the "paper clip" pin short trick on one p/s mounted in one case to power 8 drives. The main case used a power supply in the normal fashion connected to the motherboard, case power switch, etc. Eight 1 meter long SATA cables ran from the controller in the main case to the "drive" case. To power things on, I fired up the drive case first, and simply started the server just like a normal PC hard boot. BTW I had this "dual-box" "dual p/s" server for a 3 years and now a friend has been running it for 2 additional years, so I can say is has been totally trouble free.

- I'm very happy however using a single AX1250 for my main home PC / editing box now for the same reasons that you mention - it pretty much runs silently all of the time because it is never having to work close to its maximum capacity.

Regards,

Jim

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Community Beginner ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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Jim,

lol....I use the paperclip trick all the time when testing fans.    for two PSU's in the same case, i'd do something a little more elegant, but the same rough idea.  using the same method, you can wire the second PSU over to the same two wires on the first PSU that you would have shorted, and the computer power switch then controls both PSU's.  becoming more common that it used to be.  i'll probably wire it myself and sleeve it, but there are a host of vendor solutions available now for less than $20 bucks that do the same thing.  Here is a link to a review of a few of these vendor solutions if you're interested:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/24/black_art_dual_psus_in_your_enthusiast_pc/1

And yes, I think we both value quiet performance.  With the build I'm working on right now, I'm even going to do my primary storage as an SSD array.  I know that there will be lots of people that immediately poo-poo that idea in this forum.  And I'll readily agree its not the cheapest way to do things....but I think my 8 to 10 disk SSD raid 5 array will be faster than many other HDD arrays that have even more disks.  But....we'll see when I'm done.  I'll post some benchmarks. 

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Guide ,
Jun 02, 2012 Jun 02, 2012

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Correction for my post #36; the "edit" option is not available for me to edit my own post so I'd like to mention I use a 240mm radiator, not a 480mm. Sorry, my bad!

Jim

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New Here ,
Jul 07, 2012 Jul 07, 2012

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So I have been looking over your build and I have been wondering why you are useing raid 3 over raid 5. Can anyone tell me what eactly why raid 3 is better for video editing than raid 5.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 07, 2012 Jul 07, 2012

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The major difference is dedicated parity (raid3) versus distributed parity (raid5). It has noticeable impact on sustained transfer rates and rebuild times. Video material is usually about long sequential reads/writes and that is where dedicated parity comes in handy. For large IOP environments, webshops, news sites and the like, sequential reads/writes are not terribly important and then raid5 is the more attractive option. Also see: Adobe Forums: Raid Performance and Rebuild Issues

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Guest
Oct 23, 2012 Oct 23, 2012

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Hi, I was wondering if you had thought about using a Rack case system, you could fit a 10 or 12 U Rack under your desk. You can buy full hot swappable 4U 24 bay Rack mount cases for example http://www.xcase.co.uk/X-Case-RM-424-Pro-p/case-424-pro.htm. Which you can use as a SAN for your main system using external RAID cards.

I know you have made you decision now but if you had concidered it, it would be interesting to hear why you decided not to go that way.

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LEGEND ,
Oct 23, 2012 Oct 23, 2012

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The simple problem with a 19" rack is its width. Height would not the problem under my desk, but the width. It would have as a consequence that I will always hit my knees to the rack.

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