Building a dual CPU, dual GPU encoding and gaming rig

Status
Not open for further replies.
rabidz7

rabidz7

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 24, 2014
Messages
1,354
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming and encoding

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$2000 is the maximum, but cheaper is always better. Tax and shipping is included in the budget.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Cincinnati, Ohio. I have Microcenter access

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPUs, motherboard, second PSU, watercooling pump, blocks for the GPUs, another CPU block, tubes, additional radiators if needed, maybe some more RAM.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I will be reusing a 900D, one EK CPU block, 4 8GB DDR3 sticks, a SeaSonic 520W Platinum, two 980 Classifieds, a 480mm radiator.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes, heavily.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
It is a CRT, so... It doesn't exactly have a "max resolution". I usually use 1600x1200 at 100Hz or 2304x1728 at 70Hz. I do plan to upgrade to a FW900 soon for 1920x1200@96Hz or 2560x1600 at 72Hz.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within 1-2 months.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
No special features, but SLI is needed.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I have valid disks for 64-bit Windows 10 and 8.1.

The only other criterion for this build is that it must use two 16-core AMD chips (I do lots of encoding and dispise Intel, plus I think having two CPUs would be cool). Also, please stay away from Asus parts as they have poor warranty service. I was looking at the 1200W SeaSonic Platinum PSU and Supermicro boards.
 
Last edited:
Well, at least you're joining this decade by moving over to AMD64 :)

I can't make any recommendations on dual motherboards from either maker, but just glancing at prices fit the Opteron 6380 plus motherboard is going to cost you around 2500 alone. Getting 16 core chips is going to blow past your budget all on their own, unless you prefer to take your chances shopping for deals on craigslist

I can also tell you're not taking this seriously when you insist on reusing a 520w psu for 32 massively overclocked cores plus Gtx 980 Sli, which you have already jumped the gun and placed it in your sig
 
Last edited:
I have to agree with defaultluser: You're not being serious or realistic here.

Your budget isn't high enough to get everything you want. Just the two 16-core Opterons and compatible motherboard will cost you ~$2300 alone. Then there's the higher amperage/wattage PSU you need and the HSF. Yes HSF since a full-up water-cooling setup like you're asking for is going to cost roughly $300 alone. The HSF is the cheaper route.

Then again, even if your budget was high enough, you still can't get everything you want: Those server motherboards generally don't support SLI since that's a feature that manufacturers have to pay licensing fees for. Since those using server motherboards generally aren't using their server hardware to play games, no point in paying for that fee. Now if you were using Crossfire on the other hand, that's a different story.

If you want SLI, you're generally looking at consumer grade hardware and therefore limited to only single eight-core setups.
 
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about the PSU. My case supports dual PSUs and I intend to reuse the SeaSonic in conjunction with another, higher-wattage PSU. I will obviously using used CPUs, which I can get for $250-$350.
 
rabidz7 said:
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about the PSU. My case supports dual PSUs and I intend to reuse the SeaSonic in conjunction with another, higher-wattage PSU. I will obviously using used CPUs, which I can get for $250-$350.
Click to expand...
Still doesn't matter since you want SLI. You're not getting that with the dual Opteron route.
 
rabidz7 said:
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about the PSU. My case supports dual PSUs and I intend to reuse the SeaSonic in conjunction with another, higher-wattage PSU. I will obviously using used CPUs, which I can get for $250-$350.
Click to expand...

Well then, you don't need our help designing a SYSTEM, just recommendations for motherboards and psus.

And next time if you plan on buying *SPECIALTY* components used on the side, please don't include that in your budget. It's a lot harder for us to know the average selling price of workstation/server hardware on the open market (as-opposed to the enthusiast resale market, which we have one of right here for reference).
 
Last edited:
wdeydwondrer said:
Does SLI/CF not function on dual Opteron boards?
Click to expand...
Like I said earlier: Only if the manufacturer of that motherboard pays the licensing for SLI. Which many don't because it's extremely rare for people to use server motherboards for gaming purposes.

Crossfire is an open standard with no licensing fees whatsoever so it should work.
 
Dangman said:
Like I said earlier: Only if the manufacturer of that motherboard pays the licensing for SLI. Which many don't because it's extremely rare for people to use server motherboards for gaming purposes.

Crossfire is an open standard with no licensing fees whatsoever so it should work.
Click to expand...

Would this software not work? It claims to be able to enable SLI on unsupported motherboards and with mismatched GPUs. http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/sli-with-different-cards.158907/
 
You want to do video processing and you're looking at AMD CPUs?

Really?

Well, at least you're supporting diversity by not supporting FemFreq. But when it comes to video encoding, LOL. Better cores are way more important than more cores.
 
Okay, I'm going to join my voice with that of others.

What you're looking to do isn't really realistic and isn't going to deliver the performance you seem to be looking for. And definitely NOT within your budget. Used parts or no.

You're looking for high performance per-core. And that is at odds with a massively multi-core setup. SMP (Multi-CPU) is a way of side-stepping this, but the cost of the motherboard skyrockets. And sure, you have umpty-jillion cores, but if they're running at 1.something Ghz, you're burning a lot of power and not getting a lot of performance.

Also, due to power consumption and their crippled FP performance, AMD isn't an ideal CPU platform either.

Plus, water cooling? Your budget be blown bub.

Were I you, with your budget, I'd look at a starting platform like this:

PC Hound Part List

CPU: Intel Core i7-5930K ($564.99 @ NCIX US) (Available at MicroCenter for $499.99)
Motherboard: ASUS X99-A ($254.95 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (4 x 4GB) Ballistix Sport ($169.99 @ TigerDirect)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 860W Platinum SS-860XP2 ($183.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: SAMSUNG 512GB XP941 Series MZHPU512HCGL-00004(0) ($440.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $1,614.89
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound

Use the remainder to finish out the water cooling loop (pump, tubing and reservoir) for the CPU if you want to OC it a bit. Forget watercooling the GPUs. You simply don't have the dosh for it.

This will get you 6 physical cores, 12 virtual cores at 3.5Ghz (base). While it's not "OMG-UMPTYJILLION CORES!", it's a bunch of very high-speed, efficient cores

It'll get you 16GB of RAM to start with. You can add more down the road when your budget allows.

Sans the watercooling loop, the system will draw about 600W running all-out (so you may need to pony up for a SLIGHTLY beefier PSU, maybe a Seasonic 1050).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
rabidz7 said:
Would this software not work? It claims to be able to enable SLI on unsupported motherboards and with mismatched GPUs. http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/sli-with-different-cards.158907/
Click to expand...

It doesn't seem all that reliable of a solution. Not to mention that you really don't know if you're getting the full performance out of your cards.

Then again, since you're going with AMD, you're not getting the full performance out of your cards anyway so might be a moot point.
 
I think I found what your [URL="www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z9PED8_WS/]looking[/URL] for. The only problem for you is it's Intel, it's a little dated and its a bit pricey but it does support dual CPU's and have 4 way SLI support. Throw on two of either of these and you should have the system your looking for.
Xeon E5-2630V3 2.4 GHz 8-Core Processor - $641
Xeon E5-2680V3 2.5 GHz 12-core Processor - $1,688
Xeon E5-2695V3 2.3 GHz 14-core Processor - $2,271

I found this by happenstance in my own searches and I am in no way an expert with motherboards or computer hardware so take what I say with a spoonful of salt.
 
PC Hound Part List

CPU: AMD Opteron 6376 ($634.7 @ Amazon)
CPU #2: AMD Opteron 6376 ($634.7 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: SUPERMICRO MBD-H8DG6-F-O ($734.42 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.SKILL 32GB (4 x 8GB) Ripjaws X Series ($316.15 @ Amazon)
Memory #2: G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) Ripjaws Z Series ($77.99 @ Newegg)
Memory #3: G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) Ripjaws Z Series ($77.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 04G-P4-3988-KR ($595.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card #2: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 04G-P4-3988-KR ($595.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: SAMSUNG 128GB XP941 MZHPU128HCGM-00004(0) ($133.47 @ Mwave)
Storage #2: Western Digital 1TB Blue WD10EZEX ($57.99 @ Best Buy)
Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 900D CC-9011022-WW ($339.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LITE-ON iHAS124-14 ($12.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $4,212.35
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound

The parts above are the closest ones to that I currently own in PCHound, though the CPUs are actually 6176SEs and the RAM is from different brands. I also have a 480mm radiator and PCI-Ex4 to m.2x4 card.I need suggestions for a PSU, watercooling cooling system, and a mass-storage SSD for this. I was looking at SeaSonic's 1200W Platinum PSU, but I don't know if it will have enough wattage due to the amount overclocking that I will be doing. For the watercooling, I was thinking of AquaComputer CPU blocks, EK fullcover GPU blocks, AquaComputer's Aqualis pump/res, Alphacool's radiators, and a universal VRM waterblock for the motherboard. I'm not sure how much radiator space I will need. For a second SSD, I was looking at Samsung's 850 line.
 
Last edited:
I hope you enjoy spending $2000 to get a little better performance than the $385 + $200 mobo for the Intel i7 5820k. And the "overpriced" 5960x will run circles around your setup for half the cost. Both support SLI and CFX that you can't really get on a dual mobo.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1320?vs=1289

I used the FX-9590 as a quick stand-in for a 2.3 GHz 16-core chip, assuming perfect scaling. You'd get better performance with two of them, but certainly not $2000 worth.

But since you can never be reasoned with, I'm out.
 
Last edited:
defaultluser said:
I hope you enjoy spending $2000 to get a little better performance than the $385 + $200 mobo for the Intel i7 5820k. And the "overpriced" 5960x will run circles around your setup for half the cost. Both support SLI and CFX that you can't really get on a dual mobo.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1320?vs=1289

I used the FX-9590 as a quick stand-in for a 2.3 GHz 16-core chip, assuming perfect scaling. You'd get better performance with two of them, but certainly not $2000 worth.

But since you can never be reasoned with, I'm out.
Click to expand...

As I said multiple times here, I got the chips and board used. Each CPU was $90, so $180 total. The motherboard was $250, but it also came with 8x2GB of RAM, a single spare CPU, and one backup heatsink. I would not have built this if the used hardware wasn't so cheap.

Including the cost of the components that came with my used motherboard, your suggestion would've cost me $935. What I did costs $430 and offers significantly superior performance. I saved over $500 while getting much higher performance.
 
Last edited:
So were using 5 year old server hardware to build an encoding and gaming rig?

Sounds like an adventure please keep updating and post the results, I would really like to see how well this system handles video encoding.
 
Last edited:
rabidz7 said:
What I did costs $430 and offers significantly superior performance. I saved over $500 while getting much higher performance.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't, and no, you didn't. They are old, weak CPUs with a bunch of cores to attempt to make up for the weak IPC. However most encoding works better with higher IPC than it does with more cores. Especially if you do any sort of filtering (personally I still use the heck out of AVISynth).

If you were to use AVISynth, which you probably aren't, my Core i5 4670S would probably beat your machine.

Anyway, if you've already got the hardware, just move into benchmarking and see what it can (and can't) do.
 
Last edited:
dandragonrage said:
No, it doesn't, and no, you didn't. They are old, weak CPUs with a bunch of cores to attempt to make up for the weak IPC. However most encoding works better with higher IPC than it does with more cores. Especially if you do any sort of filtering (personally I still use the heck out of AVISynth).

If you were to use AVISynth, which you probably aren't, my Core i5 4670S would probably beat your machine.

Anyway, if you've already got the hardware, just move into benchmarking and see what it can (and can't) do.
Click to expand...

Mind explaining the "no, it doesn't, and no, you didn't"? I have the hardware, but no way to cool or power it, which is why I have made the post above. I want suggestions for PSUs and watercooling equipment. The IPC (instructions per clock) on those chips is slightly higher than on Piledriver or Bulldozer, though it obviously isn't as high as Intel's stuff. The clock is low, but I will be heavily overclocking, which should bring per-core performance to about 8350 level.
 
AMD Opteron tm Processor 6176 SE 3m05s 1505.62 48 Cores 31 GB
AMD Opteron tm Processor 6176 SE 3m56s 1180.94 48 Cores 31 GB
AMD FX tm -8350 Eight-Core Processor 11m33s 402.73 Cores 8 15 GB
Intel R Core TM i7-5930K CPU 3.50GHz 6m15s 743.79 Cores 12 31 GB

Based on these Maxwell Render tables (assuming linear core scaling) your going to most likely get the same power as you would out of a i7-5930K at best, and as worse i7-4930K.

These are based on stock clocks.

Should be interesting to see how this hardware ends up preforming.

Also just an observation, you don't really seem to be looking for build advice, in fact you clearly have an agenda, next time maybe you should just post in the work-log thread.
 
You wont be overclocking on that motherboard i beleive (SuperMicro?) as it has no option too...
 
OP is banned. Thread should probably be locked so people will stop posting in it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top