michaelberens

I bought the system at mindfactory.de. They called me today and told me that they have "straightened" the cooler, tested the system and everything should work fine now. I didn't accept this and wanted them to replace all affected parts like CPU, Mobo, Cooler and GPU. After a little bit of negotiation they agreed to replace the cooler and after a little bit more of negotiation they also agreed to replace the GPU and run a stress test for all parts. I accepted this. Should i have been more insisting? I also sent some photos of the "disaster" to noctua support. They told me to return immediately the system to the retailer what i already had done. They also wrote an additional note that the NH-D15 in combination with the X99-A provides rather little clearance between GPU and the cooler but is generally no problem. To prove this statement they attached the following photo: So, still waiting and hoping that the parcel carriers will be careful.

Yes, i think the first pcie x16 slot is unusable due to the backplate of the gtx 970 strix. Also mentioned in this review of the asus x99-a . I should have read this before. Moving the gpu to another pcie x16 slot? I thought also about this option, but then read this: "Note: It is recommended that you install the graphics card into the primary PCI Express x16 slot. If you install the graphics card into the secondary slot, your system may not recognize the graphics card and there will be nothing displayed on the monitor. Also note that on some motherboard SbIOS, the physical location of the primary slot can be configured when there are more than one PCI Express x16 slots." > GTX 970 User Guide Wouldn't moving to another pcie-slot than the primary one also reduce the performance of the gpu? Just heard something like that...

Hello everyone, just received my new workstation which i ordered including assembly and testing by the retailer. I think the decision to order the Noctua NH-D15 (with mobo asus x99-a usb 3.1) was not the best one. Anyway - beside that, i think that the assembly wasn't done properly. Please take a look at the picture and tell me what you think about it. It looks really not good for me. Already RMA-ed the system. Thanks, Michael

Wow, so much input! Thank you all! To come to a final decission the next days i will do some research, reading reviews, checking the sizes of the parts etc. (because there is not sooo much hurry ) I just read a review about a comparison of different gtx970 cards where it says about the Asus GeForce GTX 970 Strix (well, not exactly that one which Nikolaos suggested): "depending on the case, this card could be the loudest or the most quiet .." What exactly does that mean and how can i check this in advance?

Thank you Dimitris, Nikolaos an numerobis! Well i think you all are right, the xeon e5 doesn't make really sense in my case, also the firepro w7100. So i think i will go with the i7 5820K and the Geforce GTX 970 - decision done! My first thought was "EVGA GeForce GTX 970 FTW ACX 2.0, 1216/1367MHz" , what do you think about that card? Nikolaos suggests the Gigabyte GTX970 mini? Since gaming and overclocking is not really intended, do i need liquid cooling? Next question concerns SSD - as Dimitris says it should be more than 250GB. So the Crucial BX100 would be a good choice. Numerobis suggestion about the Samsung M.2 PCIe x4 SSD sounds also great - but 500/512GB within my budget? :-(

Thank you very much Dimitris, Nikolaos and numerobis. Yes, you are all totally right - i see now that there is no plausible reason in my case to opt for the Xeon and the Firepro W7100. Saving the money i should rather get more RAM, a bigger SSD and HDD as you say and a GTX970 which does the same job or even better. So,the CPU/GPU decision is done : i7-5820K/GTX970! Overclocking? - i don't know so far, no gaming on this machine intended. But if there's a benefit for day-to-day work - maybe ;-) @Nikolaos: thanx, that looks good. What do you think about the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 ACX SuperClocked ? Do i really need Water-cooling? @numerobis: I haven't thought about the M.2 PCIe SSD so far. I just picked out the 512GB Crucial MX100 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s MLC (CT512MX100SSD1) for my new buildup. Well 32GB/s sounds great. I have to check the Budget again if 512GB is possible with m.2. So far, thank you all. I think i will come up with my final decision in the next days. bye, michael

Hello everyone, i spent some time over the last years in this forum to read or "listen" the discussions about hardware and technical topics. and i have to say, this forum is the most trustworthy source to form an opinion in this area. now it's the first time i am asked by my employer to give him an advice to buy a new workstation - mainly for architectural requirements (CAD, Adobe Suite, 3D Stills Rendering(maya/vray). Not High-End but Mid-Range (approx. 2K€ Budget). So, my concept is the following: processor: Intel Xeon E5-1650v3 6x 3.50GHz So.2011-3 WOF graphics card: 8192MB AMD Sapphire FirePro W7100 8GB GDDR5 RAM: 16GB HyperX Predator DDR4-3000 DIMM CL15 Quad Kit Motherboard: Asus X99-A Intel X99 So.2011-3 Quad Channel DDR4 ATX CPU Cooling: Enermax ETS-T40-BK Tower HDD: 1000GB Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 64MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s SSD: 250GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s TLC Toggle (MZ-75E250B/EU) PSU: 630 W be quiet! Pure Power L8 CM Modular 80+ Bronze Case: Lian Li PC-9FB Midi Tower Please tell me, what's your impression at the first glance. Are there any mistakes? Where is potential for optimisation? thanks, michael