Pictures Of Your Dually Rigs!

i guess i'll post my first and only personal dual-processor workstation. i looked at the exif's and this was back in 2003 when i was 14 years old and totally into 3d animation and other cgi stuff, so i saved every cent i earned from delivering newspapers to buy me something reasonably fast and cheap (mostly used from ebay). and man, this "beast" was killer when i first fired up cinema 4d on it... compared to my previous pc, which was a amd athlon xp 1800+ with 256MB SD-RAM!

as of my memory, the specs were:
  • Tyan S2466 (from ebay)
  • 2x AMD Athlon MP 2400+ (from ebay)
  • 4x 256MB DDR 400 ECC (also from ebay)
  • Elsa Gladiac 921 DVI (I guess one of the BEST Geforce 3 Ti 500 cards ever made, also baught used from a friend)
  • Arctic Cooling heatsinks
  • one cheap-ass lc-power power supply (had two of thease because they were cheap back then, both died... one kinda exploded)
  • from the crappy pictures i think there is a soundcard and nic in there two and at max a 80gb hdd
  • and a obviously modded Chieftec CS-601 with some real cool 20x4 display to display the temperatures and so on, which was really necessary and something i got to have! (yay, i was young and thought modding was cool)

sorry for the crappy pictures, it was my first digital camera back then and i only have these pictures at that crappy resolution

lcatj.jpg


3M7z8.jpg


and that happend to the old one (mentioned above)... last use: 24/7 rendering with a massive amount of RAM... 256mb...

Ymoqe.jpg
 
Beert3Okad said:
(yay, i was young and thought modding was cool)
Click to expand...

Hey, don't knock it. Modding was cool and a helluvalot of fun. Until it wasn't.

Once upon a time, pulling out the dremel and carving up a case for an afternoon was a good time. Ditto with going to AutoZone to buy an engine oil cooler to use in your homebrew cooling loop to pull in insane cooling temps with your peltier.

When homebrew mods were replaced with horrible prefab window mods and cases with so much neon in them that it looked like a rainbow puked into it showed up, the joy was dead.

But it was fun while it lasted. :)

Hah.\/ \/ \/ I just noticed that I have my modding page still in my sig. Good times from 2003, but some of the fugliest cases ever... :D
 
agrikk said:
When homebrew mods were replaced with horrible prefab window mods and cases with so much neon in them that it looked like a rainbow puked into it showed up, the joy was dead.
Click to expand...

Thats right. I hated these baught-modded cases and their owners ;)

agrikk said:
Hah.\/ \/ \/ I just noticed that I have my modding page still in my sig. Good times from 2003, but some of the fugliest cases ever... :D
Click to expand...

Haha. That page is awesome! I like finding these old abandoned pages. Just to remember how "good" the days back then were :)
 
Beert3Okad said:
Thats right. I hated these baught-modded cases and their owners ;)
Click to expand...

Hah hah hah. :D

Don't get me wrong, I think cases look way better than they used to and the Watercooling thread has some gorgeous cases that I most definitely envy. But those cases are bought and assembled, not modded...
 
Personally I'm jealous of the MOTU 2408 peeking around the mixer board...

I want!
 
^ Damn, that's so clean it looks empty. I don't know how you managed to fit a quad socket, THREE radiator water cooling system in there!

Specs? What speed is it running at, how much does it suck out the wall?

It's pictures like this that make me contemplate blowing an awful lot of money on a computer.. :rolleyes:
 
Wiseguy2001 said:
^ Damn, that's so clean it looks empty. I don't know how you managed to fit a quad socket, THREE radiator water cooling system in there!

Specs? What speed is it running at, how much does it suck out the wall?

It's pictures like this that make me contemplate blowing an awful lot of money on a computer.. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...


Its not quite finished yet... its a rebuild of the rig in my sig.

Swapped the Tyan Board for a SM GL board.
Chips still 61xx ES chips 3ghz on previous board but now I have another 384w of headroom.

2x RX360 1x rs240 radiators
Laing D5 pump
4x DT G34 sniper blocks
16x 2gb g.skill ddr3 1600 cas 6 ram.(flashed to cas 5 1333)

@ 3ghz with old chips 975w load
Antec HCP 1200w
and of course GT 1850 fans on everything :)
 
well...I guess i should probably dust first. To avoid embarrassment :)

I'll get something up here this weekend
 
My "Micro-Dual"





SuperMicro X7DCA-L (5 slots ATX Motherboard !!!, not Micro-ATX)
2x Xeon L5408 @ 2,13GHz
2x Dynatron H185
2x 4GB DDR2 667 ECC
Seasonic X-750
2x SSD Intel X25-V 40GB
Silverstone Sugo SG04-FH

Run Prime95 8hours/day, one LL Worker with 8 threads
 
Last edited:
gigatexal said:
curious why u run prim95 for 8 hrs a day
Click to expand...

prime95 is actually a dc project.
However many users just use it as a stability test.

The projects focus is in its name...
Searching for new primes.

I am a Folding at home guy personally...
 
lol that makes sense...i'm dumb. I guess the program knows where to pick off from when you ran it last? That's pretty cool.
 
bigted said:
stock heatsinks on xeons on an sr-2? no budget for some nice coolers? haha
Click to expand...

Lol they were used for testing purpose. I was planning to go with liquid cooling but the motherboard has some problem detecting my ram and I got a very good deal on E5 2690 so I decided to upgrade to 2011 :( Kinda sad to sell the whole set up along with all my water cooling.
 
Better pictures later, but anyways, here we go:
B7JkU.jpg

2x Xeon E5420 (Yorkfield-12m, 2.5GHz)
Supermicro X7DA8
8x1GB FD-DDR2 5300
150GB WD Raptor
Antec TruePower New 650w
Radeon X1300

I really am surprised by this setup--it feels fast--nearly as fast as my OCed i7 with a SSD. Total cost was $96 for the Xeon setup.
 
[Ion];1039527256 said:
Better pictures later, but anyways, here we go:
http://img.techpowerup.org/130118/B7JkU.jpg
2x Xeon E5420 (Yorkfield-12m, 2.5GHz)
Supermicro X7DA8
8x1GB FD-DDR2 5300
150GB WD Raptor
Antec TruePower New 650w
Radeon X1300

I really am surprised by this setup--it feels fast--nearly as fast as my OCed i7 with a SSD. Total cost was $96 for the Xeon setup.
Click to expand...

diggin the window fan mod :D very cool build :cool:

i built a 771 xeon system recently too, 2 5345's quads 4gb ram, 750w psu, 250gb sata drive, my total cost was about $61, most expensive part was the board off ebay for $27 here

ram, cpus, heatsinks were cost for shipping, sata drive i got free and 750w that i paid $70 for but it was damaged, so i got refunded for it. i wasn't going to use it, but i took it apart and banged out the dents and it works great. thinking of building another because it was so cheap! but idk when i'll come across more free quad core proc's.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
bigted said:
diggin the window fan mod :D very cool build :cool:

i built a 771 xeon system recently too, 2 5345's quads 4gb ram, 750w psu, 250gb sata drive, my total cost was about $61, most expensive part was the board off ebay for $27 here

ram, cpus, heatsinks were cost for shipping, sata drive i got free and 750w that i paid $70 for but it was damaged, so i got refunded for it. i wasn't going to use it, but i took it apart and banged out the dents and it works great. thinking of building another because it was so cheap! but idk when i'll come across more free quad core proc's.
Click to expand...

With ~2000W of computers in my dorm room (WCG systems) it otherwise gets very warm--so I'm taking advantage of the winter weather. I keep the window open a bit and I have 5 120mm fans hooked up to the i7 system just to the left (that's what the other HDD goes to).

That's a great deal on your system! I got the motherboard, CPUs, RAM, and HSFs for $75 shipped (and shipping was $35). For the HDD, I purchased a broken WD Raptor 150GB for $1, sent it in for RMA and received a 150GB Velociraptor in exchange. The GPU was something like $3; the PSU set me back $10 (a couple months ago I bought half a dozen Antec 650w PSUs at $10 each). I've actually since replaced the fans on the heatsinks (they were phenomenally loud) with a single 120mm fan. It sits just in front of the heatsinks, so only half o the air it moves passes through the heatsinks, but with such cool air coming in through the window it still runs very cool.

If the seller I bought the Xeon combo from can find another one, I plan on building a second :)
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Ion - the Scythe 60mm fans I got work super on that board, quiet, quiet, quiet, only raised the temps by 15~ or so overnight running Sp2004 on all 8 CPU@ 100%
 
dbwillis said:
Ion - the Scythe 60mm fans I got work super on that board, quiet, quiet, quiet, only raised the temps by 15~ or so overnight running Sp2004 on all 8 CPU@ 100%
Click to expand...

That's not bad at all. For now, I think I'll stick with the 120mm--it works well, is dead silent, and I have a bunch--but if I need the computer to be 2U in the future (I guess the GPU kinda messes with that too) I'll pick up a few :)
 
bigted said:
diggin the window fan mod :D very cool build :cool:

i built a 771 xeon system recently too, 2 5345's quads 4gb ram, 750w psu, 250gb sata drive, my total cost was about $61, most expensive part was the board off ebay for $27 here

ram, cpus, heatsinks were cost for shipping, sata drive i got free and 750w that i paid $70 for but it was damaged, so i got refunded for it. i wasn't going to use it, but i took it apart and banged out the dents and it works great. thinking of building another because it was so cheap! but idk when i'll come across more free quad core proc's.
Click to expand...
Le Borat: very nice!
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
tUFfx8n.jpg


This was before most of my parts got in, and before I realized Hyper 212 Evos won't fit in a 4U case :( I have to do some cable management in this Chenbro Tesla case before I post any assembled pics! I cut up some 1/2" aluminum angle for motherboard standoffs so it wasn't sitting directly on anything. Gave the PCI backplates some room. I should probably just mount this thing and all my other computers in metal drawers..
 
Hey, if one of you guys ever thinks about selling one of your rigs, please do let me know. (Warning ahead of time: more than likely, I won't be able to afford it, but in case I can, I definitely want one, someday) I know that I can get a good dual-quad rig on eBay for about $200, but I figured I'd ask around the forums before I'd ever pull the trigger on a purchase.
 
THE OLD DUAL WAR HORSE​

This horse pulled its weight for nearly 8 years. Its twin volcano cores and four threads rocked hard far longer than I had ever hoped for. However, the inability of the original Xeon EMT processor to run a modern 64-bit operating system, on a Tumwater motherboard with limited memory address space, combined with an application death blow dealt from LightWave ultimately doomed this server/workstation. This monster set a new standard for the term "loud". She roared for the last time as I shut her down over the holidays, parting it out while building a new war horse...

aw7750_side.jpg

CONFIGURATION:

Alienware MJ-12 7750
Chenbro SR105 Professional Workstation Chassis
Enermax EG851AX-VH 660W
X2 Dual Xeon SLI Tumwater Motherboard
Dual Intel Xeon 3.6GHz Hyperthreading EM64T 64-bit 800 MHz FSB 1MB
3GB Dual Channel DDR2 Registered ECC SDRAM at 400MHz
NVIDIA Quadro™ FX 4400 PCI Express 512MB GDDR3


A NEW DUAL STEED WITH 32 LEGS​

The new war horse is a small form-factor server/workstation that's easy to service where space is limited. The platform is primarily intended for virtual machine sandbox software development. There will also be occasional modeling, effects and video editing, with background video encoding/rendering work.


tronBuild024.jpg

tronQuadroInstall1.png

tronASUS_16.png

​

SOFTWARE

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit is the boot OS running Adobe's entire Creative Suite CS6 for post-production work, LightWave for 3D modeling and ZBrush for sculpting. Oracle VirtualBox manages five sandbox CentOS UNIX virtual machines that continually run the following server software in separate silos:

1. Web Service VM: Tomcat server running several Spring RESTful web services
2. Web Application VM: Tomcat and Apache web servers running several applications
3. Cache/Queue VM: MongoDB server with data cache and queued collections
4. Database VM: Full Oracle database server and Fusion stack
5. Search VM: Tomcat server running full Solr search engine stack


HARDWARE

The new server centers around a standard ATX motherboard with Sandy Bridge-EP dual Xeon LGA 2011 sockets. The open-bench inspired Cooler Master HAF XB case provides excellent air-cooling characteristics using five Noctua fans. Highlights include two Xeon E5-2670 processors, 64 GB ECC registered quad-channel server memory, and a Quadro K5000 engineering graphics adapter.


CONFIGURATION

Cooler Master HAF XB ATX Computer Case
ASUS Z9PA-D8 dual LGA 2011 ATX mainboard with PIKE 2008 daughter RAID adapter
KingWin LZP-1000, 80 PLUS Platinum Modular Power Supply
2 x Intel Xeon E5-2670 8-Core 2.6GHz Sandy Bridge-EP Processor, 3.3GHz Turbo Boost, 20MB L3 Cache
64GB 8 x Samsung 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz ECC Registered Server Memory M393B1K70DH0-CK0
nVidia Quadro K5000 Graphics Card 1536 CUDA cores 4GB GDDR5 Memory VCQK5000-PBN
2 x Sedna PCIE 4-Port USB 3.0 Adapter (2 x External, 2 x Internal)
ASUS XONAR_EONE Digital-to-Anal​og Converter (External USB sound)
Boot Array: 2 x Samsung 840 Series 250GB Solid State Drive (SSD) in RAID-0 (500GB)
1.5TB VM Array A: 2 x Seagate Momentus XT 750GB SATA 6.0Gbs Solid State Hybrid in RAID-0
1.5TB VM Array B: 2 x Seagate Momentus XT 750GB SATA 6.0Gbs Solid State Hybrid in RAID-0
LG Blu-Ray Burner SATA 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache
AFT PRO-57U All-in-one USB 3.0 5.25" Media Card Reader
2 x Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140x140x25mm Fan, 800/650 RPM, SSO2 Bearing (front fans)
Noctua NF-P12 PWM 120mm SSO2 Bearing (upper-rear fan)
2 x Noctua NF-R8 80mm Case Fan (lower-rear fans)
BitFenix Spectre 200mm Case Fan (top fan)
2 x Artic Freezer i30 CPU Cooler with four direct-contact heat pipes
2 x Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Focused Flow Fan, 1500/1200 RPM, SSO2 Bearing (CPU fans)
 
bigted said:
diggin the window fan mod :D very cool build :cool:

i built a 771 xeon system recently too, 2 5345's quads 4gb ram, 750w psu, 250gb sata drive, my total cost was about $61, most expensive part was the board off ebay for $27 here

ram, cpus, heatsinks were cost for shipping, sata drive i got free and 750w that i paid $70 for but it was damaged, so i got refunded for it. i wasn't going to use it, but i took it apart and banged out the dents and it works great. thinking of building another because it was so cheap! but idk when i'll come across more free quad core proc's.
Click to expand...

What is the power consumption of this setup at full load?
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
princeamd said:
what is the power consumption of this system at full load?
Click to expand...

These are the power numbers I've observed at idle and under 100% load:

IDLE
CPU 0/1: 5W x 2 = 10W
QUADRO K5000: 18W
TOTAL: 28W

100% LOAD
CPU 0/1: 104W x 2 = 208W
QUADRO K5000: 116W
TOTAL: 324W
 
Last edited:
[Ion];1039527256 said:
Better pictures later, but anyways, here we go:
B7JkU.jpg

2x Xeon E5420 (Yorkfield-12m, 2.5GHz)
Supermicro X7DA8
8x1GB FD-DDR2 5300
150GB WD Raptor
Antec TruePower New 650w
Radeon X1300

I really am surprised by this setup--it feels fast--nearly as fast as my OCed i7 with a SSD. Total cost was $96 for the Xeon setup.
Click to expand...

That is really close to my dually rig. Mine has the Xeon 5335's (X7DAE). Nice set up!
 
Got an Old Dual Pentium Board laying around ...

dual_p1.jpg


I've got some dual and quad machines too, think i'll post them soon.
 
EspoNation said:
That is really close to my dually rig. Mine has the Xeon 5335's (X7DAE). Nice set up!
Click to expand...

Thank you! :)

I have another system with four AMD Opteron 8350s (2GHz quads) that subjectively just feels much slower--according to well-threaded CPU benchmarks, it is a bit faster, but at probably twice the power consumption. I wish DBWillis had more of the DP Xeon combos available--definitely a great price, although finding a case will be a challenge.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top