New Workstation Build

[braddewald]

[Final] list looking okay?

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($369.99 @ Amazon)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($92.95 @ Mwave)

Motherboard: Asus X99-A ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($255.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: Crucial 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($384.99 @ Adorama)

Storage: *Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($399.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: *Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($227.98 @ Directron)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($349.99 @ Amazon)

Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case ($104.99 @ NCIX US)

Power Supply: Corsair Professional 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($147.46 @ TigerDirect)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($147.26 @ OutletPC)

Total: $2481.59

[beestee]

Looks good, but I just read an article about the GTX 900 series video cards that might have changed my purchase decision. In the article they suggest going for one of the reference design cards because it seems manufacturers may be locking down the non-reference cards so as to avoid RMAs:

 

Do not buy Zotac's GTX 980 Extreme

 

Been testing the 970 today. Running SPECapc for Max 2015 it actually scores very similarly to the 750 Ti on many of the GPU tests, but on some of the important tricky tests (viewport performance while moving a city) the 970 handily outpaces the 750 Ti by double and in one instance (moving blended lights) triple.

 

Without overclocking the 970, I am getting a benchmark rating of just over 16,000 in Lumion 5.0 and I get just under 8,500 without overclocking the 750 Ti.

[Nikolaos M]

[Final] list looking okay?

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

 

 

Power Supply: Corsair Professional 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($147.46 @ TigerDirect)

 

 

The same psu for under the half price in newegg http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-hx650. And, as I wrote before, I think it would be better to split your hdd storage space in 2 or 4 parts in order to secure your data with a raid config. Risk spreading, they call it. But of course it's your choice.

[braddewald]

Awesome, thanks!

[braddewald]

Changed the cooler, MoBo and PSU so I can walk out of MicroCenter with all of it instead of waiting on 7 places to ship to me. Does it still look okay?

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($299.99 @ Micro Center)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Nepton 280L 122.5 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.99 @ Micro Center)

Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($219.99)

Memory: Crucial 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($409.99)

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($469.99 @ Micro Center)

Storage: Western Digital 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($199.99)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($359.99 @ Micro Center)

Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case ($134.99 @ Micro Center)

Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ Micro Center)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($139.99)

Total: $2439.90

Edited November 21, 2014 by braddewald

[numerobis]

According to some reviews the Nepton 280L seems to be quite noisy. The pump speed can be lowered manually to acceptable levels, but the fans are very annoying and ineffective and need to be replaced to get a silent system.

[Nikolaos M]

All top AIO coolers are noisy, but yes, Nepton 280L is a bit louder than average. I'd choose this kind of cooler only for extreme oc (where cost and noise are not so important). For anything modest (4.2-4.3Ghz) an air cooler is the best choice imo for many reasons. Noise is one of them, but the main reason is that AIO's have a notable advantage compared to air coolers only in high oc's and under full load. In any other situation the difference is insignificant and in some cases air coolers perform better. The Cryorig R1 that I mentioned in my 1st post is currently the best air cooler in the market. It's better than the (once mighty) H100i, and costs much less. D15 is also a top cooler, equal to some AIO's and much quieter in use.

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2014 by nikolaosm

[braddewald]

Hmm. I may have to order just the fan and pick everything else up in store. I'm hesitant to order all the other parts from all those places online during the holiday season like this since the chances of breakage triple.

 

So...

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($299.99 @ Micro Center)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($89.98 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: MSI X99S SLI Plus ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($219.99)

Memory: Crucial 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($409.99)

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($469.99 @ Micro Center)

Storage: Western Digital 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($199.99)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($359.99 @ Micro Center)

Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case ($134.99 @ Micro Center)

Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ Micro Center)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($139.99)

Total: $2429.89

[Dimitris Tolios]

I would not go 850 Pro without a special pricing deal, - $200 or so is crazy imho - but that's me.

 

Newegg has 32GB 4*8GB Crucial DDR4-2400 kits for $399. Had a limited promo code for $340, but it expired already

 

Amazon did not follow this price drop yet - remains 495ish for that kit.

 

I got my mobo / CPUs from Microcenter too, and pricematched a 4770K @ $240 in Staples 6 or so months ago, as the Tustin CA MC is notorious for not keeping CPUs @ stock - or faking not having them when you ask the uber-low-price + combo? Who knows...at any rate, I wish I could support them more, but I mostly go just for the door-buster CPU deals

Edited November 22, 2014 by dtolios

[inatosema]

Buy from stallard. Refurbished. Very good prices.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

This thread has been very helpful as I am working on building a new machine for home use. Can you guys check out these specs and see if I am doing anything stupid? I am going to just buy everything from Newegg for ease. Also, and tips or tutorials you can point me to for the build. I have never done one before. I have changed memory, video cards, power supplies, and processors before but never a build from scratch. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($389.99 @ Newegg)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($99.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: ASUS X99-DELUXE LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard ($288.77 open box)

Memory: Crucial 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($199.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($128.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 4TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive($144.99)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($349.99 @ Newegg)

Case: NZXT source 220 CA-SO220-01 Black Steel Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: Corsair HX Series HX 650 650W ATX 12V Plus Gold ($109.99 @ Newegg - $20 rebate card)

Monitor:HP Pavilion 27XI 7ms IPS ($259.99 @ Newegg)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($139.99)

Total: $2,356.12

[Dimitris Tolios]

Overall solid built. I would not get a EVGA 970, at least not a reference one like the vanilla and SC ones.

I would go for Asus or MSI, as EVGA is known to have above average coil-whine issues. Probably not EVGA's fault 100%, as they follow the reference design, but the upgraded power delivery system in the Asus, MSI & Gigabyte models appears to do consistently better.

 

I am expecting my Asus Strix 970 today.

Caution on the Gigabyte G1 970 & 980s : those are very long cards. I would get one over the Asus, but it is just too long and would not fit in my Corsair 540Air that has a thick radiator for water-cooling in the front. (gives me around 11in clearance).

 

Between the MSI & the Asus, the MSI BIOS allows for slightly higher power delivery wattage, but if you don't plan on extreme overclocking, that's irrelevant. The Asus was still good for 1500Mhz core, had a backplate and was black - MSI has that kinda cheesy red that doesn't fit in my black / blue / white component color scheme.

 

 

The cooler might be overkill, you could go for the older ND14 and save $20-25 with no real shortfalls.

If you are after higher overclocks where the ND14 will fail you, so will the ND15. Both of them are on-par with most 240mm CLC units out there, so more than enough for mild (like 1GHz over stock!) overclocks with that 5820K.

 

 

I don't know if you want 32GB of ram now or in the future, but I would prefer going 2x8GB sticks if you are, as using all 8-slots did cause some random compatibility issues back in the X79 days. I don't know how X99 & DDR4 fairs in this regard.

Edited December 10, 2014 by dtolios

[Gary Ledgerwood]

Thank you Dimitris! Very helpful response. How the hell do you know and retain all of this information?! It is amazing. Let me know how your Asus Strix 970 looks when you have it up and running. I could jump up to 32GB now but is it really advantages for running 3ds Max, Photoshop and Sketchup?

 

I am currently using a Boxx 4920 Extreme at work and I was looking for something of similar speed at home without spending the $5500 I dropped on the Boxx.

[braddewald]

This might be blasphemy but when it was all said and done I had my local Micro Center do the build for me. It's like $100 and saved the headache of trying to figure out how to do it myself. I just gave them all my parts and it was ready within 18 hours. They did an awesome job with everything especially the cable management. It would have been a fun project but the amount of time I would have spent on doing it myself just wasn't worth it - it ended up being cheaper to have them do it in the grand scheme of things.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

Great tip, Bradley. I kind of want to do it myself for the experience but the reality is that I will have all of the parts sitting around on my desk for months with a half built skeleton that I cant even use. I was also considering buying a Dell just so I didn't have to deal with it.

[Dimitris Tolios]

INFIDELS!

 

 

Well, whatever makes you feel better I guess. I would see some benefit in you knowing the ins and outs of your built so that you could support & maintain it with confidence should something trivial comes up in the future - instead of having extra downtime waiting for your local PC shop to do it for you, but no one can force that on you.

 

 

This is my typical counter-argument with even the best h/w companies out there - like Boxx.

Warranties are good, but if something hangs up, you are done: technically you cannot touch it without voiding warranty, even if it was an easy "fix" or even if it was a quick hack (i.e. borrow a SSD from another machine just to keep the box running for a few hours, or add some memory for that last render etc).

 

 

Shipping machines back and forth for RMA or upgrades is a huge pain and could mean lots of overhead (shipping is on the client) and downtime for most people. The latter hurting professionals the most, as we are not talking a few hours, not even just a couple of days.

 

 

So there are strong Pros for being able to "tweak" things yourself, on site.

Even if you have to order a new part overnight, or drive to the local shop and buy it at a small premium (I will rant on my guilt for not supporting local stores more another time), could save you not just time, but money and reputation in the long run.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

This is also an excellent point. I just experienced a failing CPU on my Boxx and they were really pushing for me to send it in but I couldnt suffer through the 4 days of down time. They ended up sending me the replacement processor and I installed it myself. You are swaying me back the other way. )

[Dimitris Tolios]

This is also an excellent point. I just experienced a failing CPU on my Boxx and they were really pushing for me to send it in but I couldnt suffer through the 4 days of down time. They ended up sending me the replacement processor and I installed it myself. You are swaying me back the other way. )

 

 

 

Well, yes.

I am not trying to hurt anyone's business, just pointing out obvious weaknesses in the "system".

 

 

But please, if you can replace a CPU, you've already conquered the hardest step in building a PC ... give or take

 

 

Is there time involved beyond that? Of course, and for businesses time is money, and each one balances that differently.

The issues can come up whether you are using "named" towers or DIY, or hybrid of the two...Murphy's law doesn't care for brand names: if something can break, it will...certain % of builds has issues, can it can be from any of all those different components.

 

 

As for information retention: well, we are all geeks in some ways. I wish I could retain more detailed information on other things that troubled me ... like those stupid uni classes, or those ARE exams...

[Gary Ledgerwood]

Well I think I am going to give it a try and be assured that I be over here asking for help if the sh*t hits the fan.

 

I hear you on the information retention. I have been eligible to sit for the ARE for 2 years now and I still haven't got around to it... but I can remember Seinfeld episodes or old Adam Sandler movies line for line. Completely useless information is clogging my brain I think. I need a reboot. Thanks again for the insight.

[braddewald]

Everybody is different but for me, even if it took me a single day to build the machine the $100 would pay for itself.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Everybody is different but for me, even if it took me a single day to build the machine the $100 would pay for itself.

 

 

Totally with you. Still, with some experience it should take you less than 2 hours to put it together.

If I was leading some IT effort with more than one identical or nearly identical machines, I would take some time to setup the 1st machine with OS & apps etc, and then clone the SSD to the rest of the SSDs or even keep a spare copy in a back-up drive for future redundancy. Copying images between SSDs is a matter of a few minutes these days.

 

 

Most people into this know that setting up a CG workstation software-wise, can be very tedious if you are doing it from scratch, much harder than putting few components on a motherboard and the set in a case.

[numerobis]

For me when setting up a new machine the most time consuming part is software installation and setup (unless a custom water loop is included).

 

As Dimitris said, building it up is a matter of maybe 1-2 hours, depending on your components and how much time you spend on the cable management. Windows + drivers + updates (already more than 160 now since SP1 for win7) + programs + settings takes much more than these 1-2 hours. So yes, if you have more than one node, cloning really helps a lot.

[jensandersen]

Just some input for you Gary. I finished my new build this weekend with nearly the same setup as you are thinking about. I haven't looked inside a case in the past 10years so I was a bit nervous.

The build ended up like this:

5820k cpu

Noctua D15 cooler - This is huuge. I had made sure it would fit the case, but sadly the extra fan that comes with it, will extend further out because of the ram. So much so that I can't mount the side wall of the case. So I can only run it with 1 cooler at the moment - I can't be arsed to dismount the whole cooler and turn it 90degrees to see if it can fit like that. But it keeps my CPU at 72degrees full load when OC'ed to 4.4ghz and 1.2V.

MSI x99 sli plus motherboard

32gb crucial ram (4x8gb - be very sure not to order the ECC version. I had done that without seeing it and couldn't figure out why the bastard wouldn't boot!)

MSI 760 GPU (was on offer and is handling my scenes nicely)

Samsung evo 500gb ssd

2xWD 1TB satas (These are the most noisy part of the build and it bugs me out! Might be able to get some different mounts for them)

CoolerMaster Silencio 452 (Looks good, but was a bit on the small side and cable management was not that great).

 

It was fun building it up from scratch, but I was a bit nervous about static electricity wrecking some of the hardware and apart from the wrongful ram choice, everything went good. So go for it!

[numerobis]

Noctua D15 cooler - This is huuge. I had made sure it would fit the case, but sadly the extra fan that comes with it, will extend further out because of the ram.

Yes, i thought this too as i looked at the specs of the "NZXT source 220" (but then i forgot to post it).

The case is is only 195mm wide - minus the side panels. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NZXT/Source_220/

165mm for the cooler + ~15mm behind the tray + maybe ~15mm board+CPU = 195mm

If it fits at all, there is absolutely no room left to move the fan up if it collides with the RAM - and looking at the Noctua i think it will.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

Thank you both for the feedback. So what are we thinking here? Should I return the D15 and go with the D14? I just got my shipment confirmation this morning.

 

Not sure about the RAM... It doesnt specify ECC - Non ECC. Hopefully that isnt a problem. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148863&cm_re=crucial_ram-_-20-148-863-_-Product

 

Thanks again for the input.