EVGA SR-2 - Dual Xeon System

[raminux]

Hello,
I know this is not a new motherboard but I have not seen any worklog on Hard Forum. So I thought people might be interested.

System Purpose: photo and video editing and rendering workstation


Here are the specifications (some are still subject to change):

Motherboard: EVGA SR-2 Classified dual socket LGA1366 motherboard
Processors: 2 x Xeon X5670
Graphic Card: EVGA GTX 480
Ram: 12 x 4GB Mushkin Enhanced 1600MHz DDR3 PC3-12800 9-9-9-24 1.5v
System Drive: 2 x 128GB Crucial M4 in Raid 0
Data/Storage Drive: TBA
Raid Controller: 1 x LSI 9211-4i; 1 x MegaRaid IBM M5015 (same as LSI 9260-8i)
Coolers: 2 x Scythe Mugen 3 rev. 2
Case: Mountain Mods U2-UFO
Fans: 6 x Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850rpm
Fan Controller: Sunbeamtech Rheosmart 6 Fan Controller

Operating System: Currently Windows 7 64bit Ultimate; will switch to Windows 8 when it will be in the market. A Linux variant will be installed in a VM (Vmware Player).

Other parts: 2 x Lian-Li C-02 DVD-Drive front bezels and 5 x 5.25" bay covers; 3 x ********** HDD brackets all in black anodized aluminum. 1 x DVD Burner / 1 x 3D Blu-ray Burner and, a front panel hub.


Cooling system: Currently on air cooling but will eventually switch to water cooling.

The case should be here in two days (June 7th). System was just made three weeks ago and is currently working fine though it has not been used much yet. I am waiting for the case. It will then replace my rather old Mac Pro system.

The MM case has been ordered with some extra panels for costume modding.

Pictures will be added soon.

 

[raminux]

Case Details:

1 x U2-UFO CYO (Custom Computer Case)
- Window Etching: None
- Side 3: Trip original
- Side 2: Big window
- Side 1: Half Window
- Motherboard Tray: HPTX (EVGA SR-2)
- Front Panel Type: Duality
- Horizontal MB brace: Yes
- Front Panel Fan Spacing: 15mm
- Acrylic Color: Smoked Grey
- Finish: Black Wrinkle
- Back Panel Type: 10PCI-2PSU
- Back Panel Fan Spacing: 15mm


1 x U2-UFO Replacement Front Panel
- Finish: Black Wrinkle
- Front Panel Fan Spacing: 15mm
- Panel Type: Triple 360

3 x 18 x 18 Aluminum Replacement Panel
- Panel Type: Solid ALU Panel
- Acrylic Color: Clear
- Finish: Black Wrinkle

18 x Mountain Mods 120MM clear acrylic blowhole cover (smoked grey)
Etching: No Logo
5 x 120mm black steel mesh fan guard
2 x 120MM chrome fan grill - Black

More fan grills will be ordered later.

As part of the work log report, I will include a review of the case.

 

[raminux]

Preliminary Images:

Some packages

EVGA SR-2 Classified 1

EVGA SR-2 Classified 2

EVGA SR-2 Classified 3

Controllers

 

[DBZ33]

Congrats. Looking forward to the build.

 

[grambo]

You might need a minimum # of posts to have inline pictures.

Hey, I have the same RAM , but only 16GB not 16 sticks. Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[raminux]

You might need a minimum # of posts to have inline pictures.

Hey, I have the same RAM , but only 16GB not 16 sticks. Looking forward to seeing more.

Oops, my mistake. I meant 12 sticks that is the maximum number of ram sticks SR-2 can accept. I corrected the typo.

 

[DeathPrincess]

I first tried inserting them as images but it did not work. So I set them as links.

Need to set the flikr photos options up to allow linking (maybe the allow download option), the links need a .jpg/.png etc file extension on the end.

 

[raminux]

The Mountain Mods case is here. I will next write a brief review of the case.

The MM package

[/url]

Package opened

All panels and parts

 

[raminux]

I tried adding the Flickr html code for the images but, the editor on Hard Forum interpreted it only as a text. Like this:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/raminolta/7164408547/" title="Package by raminolta, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7076/7164408547_e9081f8d55.jpg" width="500" height="348" alt="Package"></a>

So it is not seen as a picture. I wonder if there is a way to have it shown as a picture on this forum?

Need to set the flikr photos options up to allow linking (maybe the allow download option), the links need a .jpg/.png etc file extension on the end.

 

[DeathPrincess]

The forums won't take HTML code, it uses BB code!

Click the yellow icon with the 2 grey mountains and the sun (I think it's the sun) above the post and it will ask you to put in the img URL (needs to have .jpg/other file extension on the end) and it will do it for you.

Or you can just put

round the image address:

[img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7076/7164408547_e9081f8d55.jpg[ /img]

(would the spaces)

Like thus!

 

[raminux]

Thanks to 'DeathPrincess'; I finally learned how to insert images from Flickr.

(original message modified. ... Old text: I tried that too but using the code

nothing shows up in my case. I guess, image insertion is disabled for me since I am a new member.)

....

The forums won't take HTML code, it uses BB code!

Click the yellow icon with the 2 grey mountains and the sun (I think it's the sun) above the post and it will ask you to put in the img URL (needs to have .jpg/other file extension on the end) and it will do it for you.

Or you can just put

round the image address:

Code:

 

[DeathPrincess]

I tried that too but using the code

nothing shows up in my case. I guess, image insertion is disabled for me since I am a new member.

There isn't new member restrictions.

Just make sure theres a proper url going between the tags. Copy and paste these two bits of text and remove the &#9734;s from the first tags and it shall work for you too:

[IMG&#9734;]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7076/7164408547_e9081f8d55_c.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG&#9734;]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7245/7349620558_dda551ef6e_b.jpg[/IMG]


Just need to make sure you get the proper urls from flickr, which seems to like to hide them. The html code contains the direct link:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/raminolta/7164408547/" title="Package by raminolta, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7076/7164408547_e9081f8d55.jpg" width="500" height="348" alt="Package"> Just extract the green part, delete the rest and put

 

[nOrVow]

 

[raminux]

Wrinkle black finish visited:

Samples of black wrinkle and anodized black

Samples of black wrinkle, anodized black and powder coated black

The black wrinkle finish in a different light

Another close-up

It is not easy to describe this finish. It is even more difficult to illustrate it in a photo! I currently do not have a macro lens and non-macro lenses cannot do the justice to this unique finish. For nearly two months before ordering the case, I have been searching the Internet for reviews of Mountain Mods cases and for pictures of their different finishes. I knew mirror black with its super reflective surface was not my thing, nor the mere brushed aluminum. It had to be either wrinkle or anodized black. My main concerns were aesthetics and scratch resistance:

i) Aesthetics: This surface is the most beautiful finish I have seen on a computer case so far. The surface has a semi reflective property, varying depending on the angle of view and the viewing distance from the surface in a unique way that is not easy to depict in a photo. All the pictures I have seen online including my own ones gave me the impression of it being a matte surface. If you look at the comparative pictures above, besides anodized and simple painted finishes, it may even look dull in comparison. However, seeing it by own eyes gives a complete different impression.

When looked from a close distance under the right light condition, its non-smooth glassy surface creates many tiny sparkles as if glass bids are glued to the surface. This was not my idea of a wrinkle painted surface I had in mind before actually seeing it by my eyes. So when ordering it, keep in mind this finish may be different from what you imagine or you see in photos.

ii) Durability and Strength: this was one of the reasons I was initially inclined toward anodized against wrinkle. It is well known anodized surface are tough and extremely scratch resistant. I was worried a powder quoted surface like the 'wrinkle black' might be prone to scratch and damage.
I am quite surprised to notice how tough this finish is. Using my fingernail, I tried scratching the surface without success. I don't know if MM's other powder quoted finishes (such as mirror black) are as durable but this one has gained my confidence on its durability.

I could have also gone for a costume wrinkle paint colour other than black if I knew MM would provide this particular wrinkle finish in other colours. I think a variant of blue in wrinkle would have been beautiful worth its extra cost.

My next message will be a review of the case aside from its finish.

 

[raminux]

I have been busy these days with work and couldn't finish the system but managed to assemble the case and take some pictures.

 

[omegatotal]

watching this build :-P

 

[raminux]

While I have been busy with work, I also had to wait for the black screws I ordered for the case to arrive. MM only included a bunch of (still inadequate) black thumbscrews. The rest of the included screws were silver not quite fitting the case black color. I decided I wanted to use all black screws, possibly the most unnoticeable ones; hence I ordered 6-32 screws 6mm and 9mm lengths with hex button heads. I also ordered black nuts to use with them whenever necessary. Therefore for all visible holes, I will be using these screws, which means even for fans mounts. I did do not want to use the thumbscrews even though they are more convenient since they are too big.
I received the screws today and I am putting the system together. I learned working in the lower level in a horizontal configuration is quite inconvenient. I am sure two level vertical configuration is more convenient. Nevertheless, I do not complain and I still like my choice.

Meanwhile, I have been trying to decide which hard drive to use for data storage. Remember, I mentioned acquiring an IBM M5015 raid controller (same as the LSI 9260-8i) and I planned to set up a raid 5 array for data storage. I almost made my mind to use 2.5&#8221; drives. This is because I have realized while the case has enough space to accommodate 3.5" drives (I will need 8 units), eventually when I will switch to water-cooling, this may become a problem. With 2.5" drives, there shouldn&#8217;t be a space problem.

However, it turns out the choice of a hard drive model is not as smooth and obvious as I thought. There are three possibilities:

i) Using fast SSD drives in a raid 5 (or raid 0) configuration results in an incredibly fast I/O throughput.

Major con: SSD drives with large capacity are extremely expensive.

ii) Using consumer grade hard disk drives: this is pleasantly an inexpensive option which still can yield very good I/O throughput. Nevertheless, after doing extensive research I have learned about a serious burden:

A feature called TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) is crucial to lessen the likelihood of the array failure. It seems the two major hdd manufacturers have decided to exclude this feature from consumer grade hdd&#8217;s. Only enterprise level hdd&#8217;s feature the function which, may also be called CCTL (Command Completion Time Limit) or, ERC (Error Recovery Control).

An alternative solution would be having a raid card which allows to change the timeout value (the time the raid controller allocates to a given hard drive to do it standard recovery procedure in order to handle an occurring bad sector. At this point, I do not still know if M5015 raid controller would allow this. I will need to check it out.

Another problem: some users have reported poor I/O performance when using consumer grade hdd&#8217;s on a raid controller such as LSI 9260. In these situations, manufactures normally respond by saying they do not support the use such hard drives with thier controllers.

WD used to have a utility program which could be used to enable TLER on this class of hard drives. Apparently, in 2009 they decided to ship drives that could no longer make use of the utility, most likely for marketing reasons: an attempt to force consumers to buy their more expensive enterprise class drives if they wanted to have a raid array. Hence it became impossible to enable TLER.

iii) Using enterprise grade hard disk drives specially made for raid set ups.

Major con: The 2.5" drives are about 4 times more expensive than their consumer grade alternatives while the main useful difference is merely having TLER enabled by default. The 3.5" ones are still reasonably priced.


Your inputs are appreciated if you know a good solution to the dilemma.

 

[Vaulter98c]

If you run into any errors with the board or want some guides check out the DC subforum, we've run like 25 or more of these boards at least, hell I used to have 2 myself lol, but we've got plenty of OC info in there if you dont mind a bit of reading lol

Great board, besides the memory issue it's awesome but still, fun little board lol

 

[raminux]

Do you mean 'Overclocking & Cooling sub-forum? The Hard Forum search box does not return any result (no matter what sub-forum I try even when I switch to sub-forum to show all threads from the begining). I search for the term 'SR-2'. Yet, doing Google search led me once to at least one thread on this forum about SR-2 OC.


Ramin

If you run into any errors with the board or want some guides check out the DC subforum, we've run like 25 or more of these boards at least, hell I used to have 2 myself lol, but we've got plenty of OC info in there if you dont mind a bit of reading lol

Great board, besides the memory issue it's awesome but still, fun little board lol

 

[Sgraffite]

Do you mean 'Overclocking & Cooling sub-forum? The Hard Forum search box does not return any result (no matter what sub-forum I try even when I switch to sub-forum to show all threads from the begining). I search for the term 'SR-2'. Yes, doing Google search led me once to at least one thread on this forum about SR-2 OC.


Ramin

I think vBulletin might be considering SR-2 too short of a "word" to search for, and removing it without telling you.

 

[crazjayz]

He means this sub-forum: Distributed Computing

 

[omegatotal]

about the HDD questions you asked, which is more important, speed or storage, also secondary if you choose speed, is iops or transfer rates more important?

you could purchase 3 of the smaller size version of drives from manufacturers and if they work, re-sell or exchange them for the full size version you want with minimal loss compared with buying all at once, or going with enterprise grade drives

 

[raminux]

One idea is having about 1TB of active data space where I keep active projects and all their relevant files. Then I would like having a second larger space, still inside the computer, where I leave inactive projects. The second space acts as a back up for the first data space.

I will also have an external backup storage to be safe. The reasons for having an internal back up space:

Possibility of having much faster transfer rates between the primary active workspace and the secondary backup space. An external storage cannot provide the same transfer rates. It seems both e-sata and USB 3.0 cap by about $100MB/S. Recently I used Firewire 800 on my Mac Pro to transfer about 100GB of data to an external Lacie drive and it took an hour to finish the job. That is just about $28MB/S; not satisfactory at all. I recall Firewire 800 used to be faster in the past and I could have 50MB/S. Still it is slow. The idea of having an internal backup space is having very fast transfer rates of ideally $300MB/S between the internal active data space and the internal storage space. An external storage cannot fulfill this task.

As per what speed is important for the primary active data space, I know it has to be quite faster than $100MB/S of a single HDD. How much faster and what sort of speed I need? I don't know yet. I will be working on projects in Adobe PS, PP and AE. I need a speed that won't be the bottleneck of the system so that the hard drives can keep up with the speed of the rest of the system. I only guess both iops and transfer rates are both important.

I just checked bios options in my raid cards and, they both have a number of timing options. I don't understand what they are about at the time being but, there is a chance changing the timeout value is one of these options. Generally speaking, finding online literature which explains all these options is not easy, not even for a motherboard bios.

 

[raminux]

My apology for the long period of inactivity. Despite being busy with work, I finally managed to finish the workstation on air cooling. I have installed Windows 8 64bit release preview on the system and Linux Ubuntu 64bit inside Vmware Player. Windows Explorer file manager crashed a few times during extensive file handling last night. Nevertheless, the system works great overall.

Update on storage solution:

System drive: 2 x 128GB Crucial M4 set to raid 0.
Data storage: 5 x 1TB Seagate Constellation ES 3.5" drives set to raid 5

I had to purchase black screws too since I didn't like the big ugly thumbscrews included with the case (and there weren't enough of them anyway).

I have decided to stay on air cooling for a while as water-cooling is another expensive and time consuming project by itself. Nevertheless, I will start overclocking the system and see how far I can go with that on air. I will soon post pictures of the new system.

I guess the next task, aside from OC is bench-marking, right? Does anyone has a suggestion which software is best (preferably some free ones)?

Now my Mac Pro tower is no longer needed and has to go. I have a video project for which I still need FCP. I have moved the project over to my Macbook Pro.

 

[tived]

raminux,

how are you finding your system?

did you have any other issues with windows 8 x64?

thanks

Henrik

 

[raminux]

Henrik,
I really like the new system though I find the box a bit noisy with all the 120mm fans now that I don't still have a fan controller. I have installed adobe production Premium suite on the system and so far so good. Windows 8 x64 had very few crashes at the beginning but now, it hasn't had a crash for a long time except the Windows Weather applet that doesn't want to work (only in one user account). Overall, I don't have any complain against the new metro user interface. I am OK with it though I am not crazy about it.

Unfortunately, I have been very busy with work and haven't had a chance to over clock it yet and, it is still on air cooling. I have only purchased the water block for the motherboard but no other water cooling part yet. I am also thinking about switching to a Quadro card together with a 10bit wide gamut display such as NEC PA301W. I am eyeing online to find a good deal on otherwise expensive monitor. My old CRT has started showing its age.

Hopefully I will have more time soon to write more details about the system. In the meantime, if anybody has any question, please don't hesitate to ask.

 

[raminux]

Some little news on my system:

As of now I haven't had a chance to overclock the processors in my system yet. However, I had a chance running a little test on seeing how efficiently the CPU's are cooled.

After letting the Prime95 running for more 2 and half hours, CPU temperatures rise to 60 and 56 (average of cores). Note there is only one fan on each CPU: GT 1800rpm pushing air in. The fans actually don't run at their full rpm. One runs at about 1450rpm while the other one runs at 1200rpm. I don't know why they are running at different rpm's which I guess can explain the temperature difference between the two CPU's. Ambient temperature was about 21C. It looks like a good result. I hope I can soon try things OC'ed.