Not Another SR-2 Build!?

[Team Merica]

Hi everyone! I have been a HardOCP and HardForum reader for more than 10 years but to date I haven't had very much to write home about. I recently started a build for an SR-2 based computer and I realized during my research and my build that I had wished there was more on the internet about this. Most of what I found were pictures of finished builds. I want to impart what I learned here, and open up any discussions anyone may have about it!

I'm keeping the pics small to respect the forum rules. If you want full quality pics let me know by PM and I can hook you up.

I will be posting in chronological order. Having 20/20 vision I wish I took some more pics of certain things, but I can always do my best to describe or discuss if you're interested.

I've been building PCs since 2003 and I've been liquid cooling since about 2006 on all my builds.

How this all began:
A long, long time ago I was drooling over pics and reviews of the SR-2. I thought to myself, "Man, I wish I could have that. It's too bad I can't afford it." And that was true, back then. The motherboard was like $600? And the CPU's were $1600 each. I went for the i7-920 back then and was very happy - I achieved a 50% overclock on that after enough tweaking and testing.

Fast forward to April of 2013 - I'm on Newegg and I see this "things you might like" category, and what's right there? The SR-2. What the hell? Are they still making those? How much... $400? Looked up the CPU compatibility list and searched Newegg but they're all discontinued. Hit up that ebay... well I'll be, the X5680 is selling for $800 each.

I pulled the trigger. Don't always get the chance to make a dream of yours come true, you know? Might as well take the opportunity. $2000 for the heart of the system. Would have been like $3800 or so a few years ago. Well, now I have no choice - I have to build this thing! And properly. Just got my tax return too!

I chose the following additional components:
Little Devil V8 - this thing is like the roomiest liquid cooling couch I ever saw.
Nvidia GTX Titan - might as well go all out. This board was designed for SLI, so get two!
Corsair Dominator - 48GB. Got the older model so I could reuse the RAM from my i7 build.
Seasonic X-1250 PSU*
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB disks, x4 - now I need a RAID card.
WD RE 1TB disks, x4 - imported from i7 build. Make that an 8 port RAID card.
Areca 1882i - Most recommended RAID controller for this motherboard, 8 port.
Asus DSX soundcard - read very bad things about the pricier models. Current soundblaster is PCI and I'm not happy with it. At first I tried the Zx from my i7 build.

* This PSU ended up needing splitter cables to power everything. If you wanted to run more than 2 video cards you would want a PSU with more cables.

Here is the Little Devil arriving from Slovenia! Looks like it went through Germany, cool.

 

[jojo69]

fold on that thing!

team33ftw

 

[Team Merica]

EDIT: so Flickr links don't work! Using imgur now...

Here's a bunch of items as they arrive

There's a few items there I ended up not using because they wouldn't work! The radiator, the sound card. I ended up changing this mid build.

 

[Team Merica]

fold on that thing!

team33ftw

You know.... I just might! I don't pay for power with my current lease because it's included with rent.

 

[Team Merica]

Here I am getting ready to perform the first POST test, to learn if any of the primary components need RMA, especially my ebay CPUs. Very nervous!!

Check out those sick copper heatsinks. Needed em so I could test before proceeding with build. Only had about 20 days to test for possible bad parts at this point and didn't want to wait for all the parts for the build to arrive.

It's Alive!!! Let the build begin!

 

[Entilza]

Wow nice, I'm sure that's a relief all your components posted easily.

That's a board you really don't want to bend any pins on, lol...

 

[Wicked_Bass]

Bookmarking

 

[Team Merica]

Wow nice, I'm sure that's a relief all your components posted easily.

That's a board you really don't want to bend any pins on, lol...

Dude, tell me about it. If you even look at this thing wrong, it does strange things. I got lucky on the hardware, I think. For anyone curious and considering purchasing one:

1) It only works with a couple of RAID cards. How is that possible? I don't know. Ask the engineers that frankensteined this board

2) If I have something plugged into the USB3 ports, the PC cannot power off. Awesome!

3) There is a strange and persistent warning thrown by Windows in the event viewer regarding the PCI bus once every millisecond. Countless threads on the internet have revealed no fix for that, only possible work arounds. If you aren't running a version of the Intel chipset driver strictly compatible with this board, you will get random BSODs from this.

4) I have not experienced it, but I have heard horror stories of people with this board who cannot get the final 8GB of their RAM to register.

5) Overclocking is a nightmare. My first attempt resulted in failure to POST at even an additional 5MHz on the core clock, no matter the voltages. I have had great difficulty and I considering attempting it again in the near future. I am no novice to overclocking and had my i7 920 at 4GHz for years.

6) I had an issue at first where it would always Power on, Power off, Power on when I pressed the power button. I resolved that by tediously disconnecting and reconnecting everything over and over until it stopped happening. Possibly a short?

 

[Team Merica]

Time for some naked computer parts pr0n. This type of thing is easier when there's only 1 socket!

Get a good look at this stock heatsink because it eventually comes right off!

 

[Team Merica]

When building, it occurred to me that folks might be curious about the dimensions of the Little Devil. Not much info out there on it, and very pricey. Overall, I would recommend it. I ultimately disliked the way the side panels are mounted - you would ideally lay it down flat before removing them. Having liquid in there, I prefer not to do that. You could very easily scratch the panels if not careful when installing and removing them. Also, the mobo mounting point screws are not perfectly drilled. I could not mount 2 of the screws to the mobo. Same thing for the top radiator... all but 1 of the screws are proper. That final screw hole is off by like 1 mm and I couldn't align it perfectly.

I know these pics aren't perfect but I'll try to give you an idea of the dimensions.

As it comes, unboxed:

 

[Team Merica]

Space between back of mobo panel and side panel: approximately 0.8"

Width of cable management channels on mobo tray: approximately 0.75"

Width of cable management channels on chassis divider: approximately 0.8"

Length of cable management channels on chassis divider: approximately 2.75"

Length from back of chassis to first cable management channel on divider: approx 8.5"

Height on PSU support stand: approximately 5.5"

Length from back of chassis to that support stand: approximately 5"

Internal width of bottom compartment: approximately 8.5"

Length from top of chassis to mobo top edge: approximately 4"

No panels:

Me getting my thought process going:

 

[Team Merica]

In that last pic there you can see how I am mounting the reservoir. It's kinda jury rigged to some holes on the hard drive mounting section. I only have 1 screw per brace because that's all the mounting points I could do without drilling. With this part of the case being a high visibility area, I did not want to drill or cut unless absolutely necessary. Those braces, bolts and nuts came with that reservoir. They're not very tight on there - if you wiggle or pull on it they will move.

At first, I thought I would have the liquid from the GPUs go almost straight down to the cable channel near the window. I ended up having difficulty with that, so I decided to use the "rear" channel for the liquid and the channel closer to the window for the GPU power cables.

I ended up wanting to bolt the pumps to the case with foam insulating the contact, this way I could reduce pump noise. After much measuring and a little drilling - (measure 22 times, cut once) - I got that finished.

 

[Team Merica]

Let's talk about that liquid cooling strategery. Anyone want to see my super detailed planning documents I made right after deciding to buy the CPUs?

Liquid Cooling components:
Let me say first I would have chosen DangerDen. I used DangerDen exclusively in all of my builds prior, I loved their stuff and it was made in America. Miss them.

All tubing is XSPC flex in solid white. All fittings, extenders, and splitters are Bitspower.

I decided to make 2 loops.

Loop 1:
Pump: Swiftech MCP655 w/ Alphacool top
Radiators: Swiftech MCR480 (quad 120) - from i7 build
Black Ice GT Stealth 360 (triple 120)*
CPU: 2x XSPC Raystorm
Mobo: MIPS copper set for the SR-2*
Reservoir: Bitspower Water Tank Z 150

* I tried several models of radiators in the bottom compartment. This is the only model I found that would fit beneath the power supply.

** I could NOT find this in stock, anywhere. MIPS stopped making them and I almost cried. BUT, the amazing people at aquatuning.de found one for me after a month of searching and communication! I would highly recommend them if you need to find something or need advice. Their customer service is astounding.

Loop 2:
Pump: Swiftech MCP350 DDC w/ EK X-Res Reservoir top
Radiator: Black Ice GT Stealth 360 (triple 120)
GPU: 2x EK Geforce GTX Titan VGA (original) w/ backplate*

* This was the only block available at the release of the Titan. I would have chosen something else in the end but I did not want to build twice, essentially.

 

[Team Merica]

Things ended up changing since I made those awesome pictures, obviously. I learned that the pumps would be better near the front. Only 1 model of radiator fit underneath the PSU. At first I had wanted to put fancy drain ports on the bottom of the chassis, for perfect draining. I could not make that work with the space limitations, height of the components, angle of the tubing... etc. So I settled for some long drain tubes that I can tuck between the radiators when not needed.

I am running dual 360's on the bottom and a 480 on the top. The reservoir for the GPU loop is built into the pump. That actually works surprisingly well and I would recommend it.

Before I had the MIPS mobo block I decided to get started. It was unclear at this time if I could get my hands on one. Getting it started:

I love this reservoir. It has plenty of options for multi loop and personal preference. You can see here the MCP655 in the CPU loop. That T line there runs to the drain tube which is tucked between the radiators. The radiator has a 90 degree fitting to the pump and a 45 degree fitting to the reservoir. The vertical tube from the pump goes up to the 480 reservoir. There's an elbow up there to manage the corner at the top of the chassis (not shown).

Here you can see how I am planning to do the GPU loop:

 

[Team Merica]

The first fill!

I have a spare PSU I use with a paper clip shorting out the main connector so I can fill my loop without running the PC. Quite handy. No pics of that, but let me know if you want to see it. I consider this a must-have tip for setting up liquid cooling. I also make my own coolant - 5% car anti freeze, 95% water. Saves a lot of money and works great. I currently have green anti freeze because I can't find the orange kind anymore? I loved the orange kind.

 

[Team Merica]

After installing the liquid I did some benchmarking. I was seeing horrifying CPU temps (ambient + 15C for idle and ambient + 40C for load) and I knew right away I did not have a good CPU to heatsink mate happening.

I inspected the thermal paste and it was not connecting with like 50% of the CPU surface!

I put a straight razor on there and learned that the CPU surface was amazingly convex. I decided to lap them down. I have done lapping in the past so I'm not super worried but I paid $800 each for these and there won't be any refunds...

My goal was flatness, not mirror shine. I spent about 6 hours total on this for the pair of CPUs and the pair of heatsinks.

Ahhhh that's better!

 

[Team Merica]

Around this time the MIPS block arrived - SUPER STOKED

I had been getting worried, though. I had been trying to research on the internet how to make my own block or use a combination of other blocks because there were seriously none of these available. In all my research, I never saw a single pic of a naked SR-2.

Behold, the beauty undressed:

 

[natej315]

sick!!!

 

[Team Merica]

Mounting the block. This was also scary, you need to make sure you're getting good contact on all of the MOSFETs and stuff so I actually installed, removed to check, and then reinstalled.

Right here I'm thinking that I can't believe this is happening and I'm going to have this computer.

 

[Team Merica]

sick!!!

Thanks, man. I had the butterflies the whole time. Still do, actually.

 

[Team Merica]

Time for some GPU madness?

One of the launch features with the Titan was that the LEDs inside the heatsink would glow brighter and brighter as the fan speed increased. Yup, that's coming right off.

Before modification:

Ooo baby:

Closeup of that latest gen tech core:

All done! I recommend Arctic Silver ceramique:

Just for reference, here's what a Radeon 9700 Pro (remember that?) looks like with liquid on it from back in my day:

 

[Team Merica]

Testing out the placement of the parts and getting the connectors between the GPUs right:

And installing into the chassis, filling:

 

[Team Merica]

Rear side of the chassis:

Front side:

I chose lamptron touch screen fan controllers. They're a little buggy and are very sensitive about the pressure on the fan header connections. Not sure if I would recommend them to someone else.

Here you can see my awful cable management in the bottom half of the chassis. Good thing you can't see it normally!

 

[Team Merica]

First time powering on with everything installed!

You can see the rear fan isn't spinning - fan controller issue. I also didn't cable manage a cable there! I'm also not in love with the small window on the side panel and I make the decision to order the "XL" window version. Frozencpu was carrying the window so I didn't need to wait 15 days for delivery from slovenia.

Closeup of the fan controllers.

 

[Team Merica]

Now we fast forward to the completed build pics. I've changed out the sound card due to driver issues, I've replaced the side window, and I changed some cables. If I would change anything more at this point I would change the power button from red LED to white LED. However, that power button is not a standard size and I don't want to mess with it right at this moment. BF4 is launching in 2 days

 

[WorldExclusive]

Bravo Sir. Even I'm going back to the SR2.

 

[Almighty ODST]

Wow. The build is gorgeous!

 

[atp1916]

Awesome. SR2 still the only real option for going the X5xxx overclocking route?

 

[jojo69]

what kind of ppd you been getting?

 

[bigted]

Awesome. SR2 still the only real option for going the X5xxx overclocking route?

sr2 is only viable option for overclocking 2 1366 xeons. most xeons work in single socket x58 boards and overclock just as well as the i7 1366 cpus though.

very sick build, what did you get for OC? don't know whether i saw that or not.

 

[Team Merica]

Awesome. SR2 still the only real option for going the X5xxx overclocking route?

If I remember correctly, at the time when the SR-2 was released it was. This is my first dually rig so I'm not authoritative on this... but I do believe clock speeds and voltages are not something most server boards have as options in their BIOS. I don't actually know that, though.

 

[Team Merica]

what kind of ppd you been getting?

I'm a noob - I don't know what PPD means? Posts per day? I don't expect many posts here because the SR-2 is pretty long in the tooth now.

EDIT: points per day! Folding! I haven't started folding yet - damn video games. I took the whole week off to play BF4. I could do it while sleeping - I have no real excuse!

 

[Team Merica]

sr2 is only viable option for overclocking 2 1366 xeons. most xeons work in single socket x58 boards and overclock just as well as the i7 1366 cpus though.

very sick build, what did you get for OC? don't know whether i saw that or not.

Well, right now I'm not overclocking.

The first two times I attempted it, the board would not POST with even just an additional 5MHz on the core clock. I researched and found a few threads and pages across the net where people were discussing SR-2 overclocking. I had several of the voltages set to what was agreed to be near the edge of acceptable levels including the CPU voltages at 1.5 and the DIMM at 1.65... and no luck.

I tried disabling almost every feature, removing half the memory, setting the memory divider to 800MHz and even raising the PWM frequency. Nothin! Computer runs prime95 and memtest86+ both for 24 hours totally fine at stock clocks and voltages so I am not suspecting bad parts. I never had this level of difficulty getting it started on any of my previous computers. The X58 w/ i7 went to 4GHz (+50%) with moderate difficulty.

Since then, I have recently changed how I have the power connected to the splitters to the additional CPU power headers. I am considering trying again now in light of that, but BF4 just launched and I am digging on that so much.

I must say, this PSU didn't have enough native connectors for this build - but the EVGA power supplies got awful reviews. P.S. I think hardocp is the best reviewer of power supplies.

The idle power draw is 430W. While playing BF4, 700W. FurMark + Prime95 is 1000W.

At stock clocks, idle temp on the CPU cores is 30C (21C ambient).
At stock clocks, full load temp on the CPU cores after about an hour is 60C (21C ambient).

EDIT:
GPU temp at idle: 31C (21C ambient)
GPU temp at full load (FurMark) for 15 minutes: 50C (21C ambient)