New Build, any problems?

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gerbiaNem

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Messages
2,169
I'm mainly concerned with the motherboard cpu ram combo. Any problems filling all the ram slots especially?

Component Description
Processor 2x Intel Xeon X5680 6-core 3.33GHz
Motherboard SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DAH+-O
RAM Wintec 24GB (3 x 8GB) ECC Registered DDR3 x 6 144MB
Graphics NVIDIA GTX 580 1536MB
Case Lian-Li PC-X2000F
PSU Corsair AX1200
SSD PCI-Express OCZ RevoDrive X2 360GB
Storage HD 2x Raid 1 WD Caviar Green 2TB
Blu-ray Recorder LG 10X Blu-ray recorder with lightscribe
DVD Recorder Asus 24X DVD+-RW
Parallel Expansion Card PCI-Express Parallel Port Card

Win 7 Ultimate x64
 
Neither that board nor that power supply will fit in that case. You need to get a Supermicro case if you wish to use that board. You will also need to populate memory banks for both processors, so you're looking at at least 6 sticks of RAM. I would also get a proper RAID card and 4 SSDs if you want better performance at a lower cost as well as the OCZ thing is a complete waste of money.
 
The X8DAH+-O will also fit in the big Chieftec's. You do have to drill/tap a couple of holes for the two non-standard standoff mounts, but the rest are on standard E-ATX layout. I have that same board in a Chieftec Bravo BA-01B-B-B. They are hard to find (Newegg carries them off and on).

Oh, and I think those X5680s are too much for you. Just send them over and I'll gladly send you my X5550s. Pretty sure you'll like them better ;););)
 
Blue Fox said:
Neither that board nor that power supply will fit in that case. You need to get a Supermicro case if you wish to use that board. You will also need to populate memory banks for both processors, so you're looking at at least 6 sticks of RAM. I would also get a proper RAID card and 4 SSDs if you want better performance at a lower cost as well as the OCZ thing is a complete waste of money.
Click to expand...

How do you figure the AX1200 won't fit? The case has standard ATX compatibility, and the psu is standard ATX. I looked up the "enhanced" e-atx spec that the motherboard uses. It's only .68 inches longer on width. The screw holes match, and I saw a picture of the case with a standard e-atx mb with plenty of room left over. I looked at the supermicro bundle cases first. For some reason they didn't impress me that much, but I'll reconsider if I have to.

I'm filling all 18 ram slots with 8GB sticks. The board says it supports up to 196GB, but I don't think ram exists to make it there.

The new revodrive looks to be a huge improvement over the previous generation. To get a fast enough controller for 4x SSDs costs 900 (Areca 1680ix-12 which maxes out at 800MB/s) Other controllers don't go nearly that fast. Then 4 SSds, even at 64GB each would cost at least 500 more. So the revo x2 comes out looking like a blazing fast bargain and gives 740MB/s read and 720 write with compressible data. It also makes for less points of failure, though technically it is raiding onboard.

Does anything that I'm saying make sense?
 
The power supply is too long. The board will definitely not fit either. You're looking at the wrong dimension. It's proprietary in size and is taller than a normal board, not longer. 16gb stick of RAM exist and are available as well. They are approximately $1000 each. As for the the controller, you're looking at the wrong things. Why would you get a 12 port card for 4 drives? That Areca card is nowhere near the top anymore. Get an LSI 9240 instead.
 
serbiaNem said:
How do you figure the AX1200 won't fit? The case has standard ATX compatibility, and the psu is standard ATX. I looked up the "enhanced" e-atx spec that the motherboard uses. It's only .68 inches longer on width. The screw holes match, and I saw a picture of the case with a standard e-atx mb with plenty of room left over. I looked at the supermicro bundle cases first. For some reason they didn't impress me that much, but I'll reconsider if I have to.

I'm filling all 18 ram slots with 8GB sticks. The board says it supports up to 196GB, but I don't think ram exists to make it there.

The new revodrive looks to be a huge improvement over the previous generation. To get a fast enough controller for 4x SSDs costs 900 (Areca 1680ix-12 which maxes out at 800MB/s) Other controllers don't go nearly that fast. Then 4 SSds, even at 64GB each would cost at least 500 more. So the revo x2 comes out looking like a blazing fast bargain and gives 740MB/s read and 720 write with compressible data. It also makes for less points of failure, though technically it is raiding onboard.

Does anything that I'm saying make sense?
Click to expand...
The "enhanced" E-ATX screw holes do not all match. As I indicated above - two of the holes are out of line with the E-ATX specificiation. The rest match - but the two that are off are pretty important as they support the weight of the CPU & cooler.
 
I think I'll stick with a supermicro case and psu then. How is their reputation for reliability?

I think I'll stick with the revodrive. It comes out to 100 cheaper to go with 3 120GB vertex 2s and an LSI 9240. It's pretty much the same performance, and same sandforce controller used for both. But the cabling will be neater. This isn't something that will need to grow over time.

Thanks.
 
Supermicro is excellent (something like the SC747TG-R1400-SQ would work for you and not be too loud). I don't know why you're worrying about cabling for a workstation such as this. Get the LSI 9240 and 4 x 90gb SSDs instead of 3 x 120gb. You'll get higher performance and it will still be over $200 cheaper than the RevoDrive. You could save even more money and just get a board with an integrated SAS controller.
 
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I just checked the psu length, and the pc-x2000f would have fit the ax1200. The x2000f supports 200mm long psus, up to 260mm with extension installed. The ax1200 is 200mm. What am I missing here?
 
serbiaNem said:
I'm filling all 18 ram slots with 8GB sticks. The board says it supports up to 196GB, but I don't think ram exists to make it there.
Click to expand...
Note that there is a limitation in the 5520 chipset that will limit your memory speed to DDR3-800 if you do this. The line-drivers are not strong enough to run at 1333 with that many DIMMs installed. You might not care. Just thought I'd point it out. For more info read the SuperMicro MB manual - its summarized there.

serbiaNem said:
I think I'll stick with the revodrive. It comes out to 100 cheaper to go with 3 120GB vertex 2s and an LSI 9240. It's pretty much the same performance, and same sandforce controller used for both. But the cabling will be neater. This isn't something that will need to grow over time.
Click to expand...
Over time I think you'll regret that decision. The new Revo will work well and scream, but it is a dead-end solution. I know you don't think that it will need to grow or change, but no computer technology is changing as fast right now as SSD. A couple of extra cables are worth it to get the long-term flexibility. And you can really do it with just one cable if you get the SuperMicro 4x1 2,.5inch drive housing and the right cable to connect to the 8087 port on the Perc5.
 
PigLover said:
Note that there is a limitation in the 5520 chipset that will limit your memory speed to DDR3-800 if you do this. The line-drivers are not strong enough to run at 1333 with that many DIMMs installed. You might not care. Just thought I'd point it out. For more info read the SuperMicro MB manual - its summarized there.


Over time I think you'll regret that decision. The new Revo will work well and scream, but it is a dead-end solution. I know you don't think that it will need to grow or change, but no computer technology is changing as fast right now as SSD. A couple of extra cables are worth it to get the long-term flexibility. And you can really do it with just one cable if you get the SuperMicro 4x1 2,.5inch drive housing and the right cable to connect to the 8087 port on the Perc5.
Click to expand...

DDR3-800 is fine, memory is what is really needed. I figure by the time the SSD needs replacing, I can probably buy something for much cheaper with better performance/storage to replace it. The revodrive is probably overkill as it is honestly, the simulations being run will fit nicely within the ram.
 
Willing to spend massive premium on X5680 CPUs, memory intensive simulation that requires 90+ gigs of ram, but memory throughput is uninteresting to you...things that make you go "hmmmm".
 
PigLover said:
Willing to spend massive premium on X5680 CPUs, memory intensive simulation that requires 90+ gigs of ram, but memory throughput is uninteresting to you...things that make you go "hmmmm".
Click to expand...

you think triple channel ddr3-800 will be a bottleneck? Looking here, it doesn't seem like triple channel which is 50% more bandwidth does much to saturate the processor anyway. It's similar at other sites where they use 3.2GHz chips also. These are hex core, so it's probably utilizing more bandwidth though.

Is there any other chipset that can handle the load of the added memory? what's the maximum number of dimms the 5520 can handle before degrading?
 
sbglobal2010 said:
You probably don't need the added features of the UD5 mobo, and could consider the EX58-UD4P instead. However, the UD5 is an excellent board.

If you want room to SLI your video card, then you should up your PSU to the Corsair 850TX.

If you need to save money, you're probably OK with keeping your 2 HDDs. Maybe the better upgrade here is to use these for maybe another year or so and then get a SSD along with Win 7.

I see no compatability issues here and that's a great build!
Click to expand...

I think you may have responded to the wrong thread.
 
Another possible solution is a 4P 12-core Opteron solutions with Server 2008 R2. HFSS supports the OS, so it would still work. That would probably be faster, no?
 
Parts are on the way. I decided to go with a 240GB revodrive x2 just to simplify the build process. I know many were against it. I'll post pics as soon as it's done.
 
All done.
Max temp fully loaded is 80C on one core which I can live with. Had to disable turbo though.
case.jpg

screen.jpg

I ended up moving the video card over one slot to get the heat away from the cpu, I also didn't get the 580, waste of money for the applications.
How does it look?
 
Looking good. 80C is a bit on the warm side, but still within acceptable limits.
 
Hi Op

Please tell me you went with the EVGA SR-2 board that can overclock. The Xeons are fantastic cpus. But on stock out of the box they are plagued by the 2 cpu overhead communicating to each other and to the ram. So they get beaten by everything on the x58 chipset and the 1155 2600k cpus. The overhead brings it down.
But when overclocked to 4ghz they stomp over everything in its path.
 
Spooony said:
Hi Op

Please tell me you went with the EVGA SR-2 board that can overclock. The Xeons are fantastic cpus. But on stock out of the box they are plagued by the 2 cpu overhead communicating to each other and to the ram. So they get beaten by everything on the x58 chipset and the 1155 2600k cpus. The overhead brings it down.
But when overclocked to 4ghz they stomp over everything in its path.
Click to expand...
Huh? Seriously? You obviously haven't a clue what you're talking about.
 
SR2 maxes out at 48gigs of ram. Convergence point on our simulations was limited by ram, which is why more ram was preferable to marginal speed increases through bandwidth.
 
serbiaNem said:
SR2 maxes out at 48gigs of ram. Convergence point on our simulations was limited by ram, which is why more ram was preferable to marginal speed increases through bandwidth.
Click to expand...

ok thank you for the decent and good reply that makes sense. So the cache and the ram setup was your main aspects you chose the setup as your uses are server related.
 
Spooony said:
or maybe you have no clue what was said
Click to expand...
You were suggesting that two X5680s are slower than an i7, be it single socket 1366 or 1155...and a communication bottleneck? Really? The board has far more bandwidth to pretty much any bus because it has two 5520 chipsets to start. The SR-2 is also not a workstation board and is a bit of a joke in that regard. Overclocking is also the last thing you'll ever do on a proper workstation.
 
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