Moving to larger PC.. Help and thoughts

[Jay A. Kelley]

I have decided to make a new thread in order to take advantage of the wonderful intelligence on there.

Some of you may remember I was going to move to MAC cause it had Divinci, and I thought, since it can also boot windows, I have nothing to lose..

Wrong. From a hardware perspective, I lose a lot of choices when going to MAC and in the days of CUDA with Premiere Pro, these choices are more important than ever.

Also, the tea leaves I am reading tell me that MAC pro has become the bastard child of Apple. They account for very little money in the company, and upgrades along with better systems have been SLOW. Meanwhile, Adobe (ala Premiere) seems to be a changed company. Their engagement with customers is better than ever, their softwarehas become truely groundbreaking. While Apple may have been the first to pick up the ball with RED, they falled to carry it over the goal posts. Avid and Adobe have far surpassed them in terms of feature set and consistancy. It's true that Divinci is MAC only.. But I believe that to be a temporary situation.. They are going to follow the money, and right now, sales of CS5 are flying.

MAC has become inconsistant, slow, and undependable (From my view, it's not law folks.. It' s an informal feeling I get from watching the company and what they do).

So that said, I need your help.. I want to build a MONSTER editing system.

Here's what I want to get:
Motherboard:
EVGA Classified SR-2 (Super Record 2)
http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=5


Case:
LIAN LI PC-P80 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112159

Power Supply
SILVERSTONE OP1000-E 1000W ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817256043

The processors will be XEONs (6 core) but I would like advice for the right ones. (I.E. how much of a difference between 2.66 and 2.93)

Also I would like advice for the best RAM. Here's what it can use (Go to 5520 motherboard support) (I am only looking for 12gb to start, so I play to fill 6 slots with 2gb.. But which ones?!)
http://www.evga.com/support/motherboard/

Also.. The system features 7 or 8 PCIe X16 slots. Does this work for the RED Rocket? Also can you put NON video cards into these slots (like a scsi controller) I have read that you can because it's a standard, but want to be sure.

The graphics card will be the NVidia 470. I have a SCSI RAID array, and will most like build a couple RAID ZERO arrays in the system for cache and editing.

From research, it seems that the PCIE x16 or x8 is the upcoming standard, so this is good. Also, is it safe to assume that USB 3 is BACKWARD compatible to USB 2 and 1?

It will be a HUGE system, but I read that these computers (and the new processors generate a LOT of heat), and I am not working in a small area, so I'm fine with a large case. Also I want something easy to work it.

Please give me a lot of advice, I will not buy anything for 48 hours in order to take into account your recommendations.

One more thing I'd like to bring up: There is a SUPERMICRO board that also has a number of PCIe X16 slots:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...0/X8DTH-6F.cfm

However I am told that even those they are x16 slots they are ONLY 7 lanes! Also there is no USB 3.0 and I feel it's a good idea to be ready for that.

Ok, have at it!



Jay

[Kenneth Elkington]

I can answer a few of your stray questions
The pci slots can take any size card if thy are indeed x16 slots. USB 3 is indeed backwards compatible.
And as far as the case goes I would look for something cheaper. Lian li is a super premium brand and the quality is supreme but they also charge a hefty premium for the prestige, you could save quite a bit by getting some from cooler master or antec and it would be no less sturdy or spacious.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Thank you Kenneth!! Wonderful and helpful answers.

You 'da man! (Like my Avatar, just got and I am still laughing)

Jay

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hi Jay,

You're about to embark on a great adventure, sure to be filled with ups and downs at every turn. :)

Here's a quick PCIe primer for you. The PCI Express host interface has a maximum number of lanes that it supports, typically the host interface is part of the "south bridge" controlling chipset on a motherboard. And this is true for all current Intel offerings. The Intel "Tylersburg" 5520 chipset has a maximum of 32 PCIe lanes, for example. These get divided up amongst the available PCIe slots. Every motherboard may handle this differently. Sometimes the lanes per slot are hard-wired and sometimes you can configure them via firmware/BIOS settings to allocate a desired number of lanes per slot.

You will find that most slots out there are "X16 slots" as far as the physical slot goes. This means it will accept a full-size and full-powered X16 PCIe card. This does not always mean that the slot actually has 16 lanes to use!!! There are currently no "perfect" PCIe solutions and I have yet to see one without flaws.

If we look at the two motherboards you linked to, here's what they offer for PCIe configurations.

The EVGA Classified SR-2 http://www.evga.com/articles/00537/
This motherboard uses the Intel 5520 chipset and has 32 PCIe lanes to divide up amongst 7 slots. They advertise 4-way SLI, which is possible if you lock the first 4 slots as X8 lanes and the remaining 3 slots are disabled. I'm not how configurable all their PCIe options are on this board, but there are enough slots and bandwidth to install an X16 video card, and X8 RED Rocket and X4 RAID controller and one more X4 device or a few X1 devices, etc..

PCIe devices are [almost] always downward compatible with fewer lanes. You can install a RED Rocket in an X4 or X1 slot if you want.

The SuperMicro board you linked is a really nice board. I happen to own a system built on that motherboard. It has dual 5520 chipsets, which means there is potential there for up to 64 PCIe lanes. It has 8 PCIe slots that are X16 compliant on the hardware level. However, they are all locked at 8 lanes 5.0Gbps PCIe 2.0. Very solid, wonderful configuration. But it seems that no slot can be configured as X16. Not an issue as I'm unaware of anything but high-end video cards/GPU cards that are capable of using X16 slots. Most of them work just fine and uninhibited in X8 slots. This is a larger motherboard and while it does have more lanes and one more slot, it does lack the USB3 and some of the other features of the EVGA gaming/workstation board. The SuperMicro board is intended for large servers, potentially some workstation applications.

USB 3.0 hosts out there now are downward compatible. However, when you connect USB2 devices to most hosts, everything slows to USB2 speeds. I don't know if that's a limitation of the current hosts I've used or if it's actually part of the spec. The EVGA SR-2 board has one USB3 header with 2 ports and I believe has two USB2 headers as it has 10 ports with 4 of them internal. But I don't know for sure how many headers it does have. It looks like a nice board, it is definitely one I would consider.

I'll be building myself a new PC workstation here soon, but I'm waiting for the next Intel CPU and chipset update. Which is promising more PCIe lanes on the south bridge and we're getting a more unified core and cache design -- more efficient 6-core design. The CPUs should arrive in the OEM channel within the next couple months, the chipset will arrive by the end of the year. And then I think we'll see 8-core CPUs early next year.

For cases, I recommend the Lian-Li or Thermaltake. Antec is nice too and can be a bit cheaper, same with cooler master. Just compare features and sizes. You will find that the case pricing isn't going to be a huge concern in the grand scheme of things. Typical premium on a Lian-Li or other premium case brand is $25 to $50. If you're finding case models that are more than $70 cheaper than the Lian-Li, there is typically something wrong with them in my experience. Or you are being over-charged for the "premium" case.

As for Apple and the Mac Pro... Hopefully an update soon, with the next CPU release. But their design for the Mac Pro has stagnated and gone downhill. Apple had it right with the first Mac Pro -- they were one PCIe slot short, but they let us configure our lane assignments. With the '08 model, they screwed up -- still one slot short, and really 2 slots short since they decided to hard-lock the PCIe configuration. '09 Mac Pro was better since they gave us all PCIe 2.0 slots, but still one for sure, maybe 2 slots short of what everyone needs. In their defense, the chipset they're using supports a maximum of 40 PCIe lanes in the current Mac Pro, but the configuration of 2 X16 and 2 X4 doesn't fit everyone. I think they need an extra slot and a configuration of 1 X16, 2 X8 and 2 X4. But that isn't what we have....

[Jay A. Kelley]

Wow Jeff.. This is Golden.. I owe you a drink.

(Edit: Jeff, I went back and looked at the EVGA product page again.. They are posting the following config for the PCI-E slot arrangement:
4x16 or 6x8 + 1x16... This tells me they have 64 lane available, not 32... Would you agree? If this is true, then I am loving the EVGA board more than supermicro again! :)

Let's talk about the lane assignment for a moment. My main issue is that since I am running Premiere CS5, I want to give all 16 lanes to the Nvidia 470. After that, I really don't care since I really doubt the other cards are getting much out of anything more than a 4 lane system anyway. Would you agree?

If you were to say that 16x is overkill for the Nvidia, then I would perhaps consider the SuperMicro again.

The EVGA board is very impressive, but it's HUGE.. The Lian Li PC80 one of a handful of cases that can handle it. So the Lian Li is the choice there.

I love the Motherboard Case Combo of the SuperMicro though. I'm using the Nvidia GTX 470 and this system is being built to really crank out Premiere Pro.. However, based on your letter, I am beginning to wonder if a 16 lane PCIe bus is more than the stuff I am putting into it needs...


Jay

[Elsie N]

Jay, I see you follow the (Colin) Powell Doctrine that was attributed to him during Desert Storm. That is, amass overwhelming force before attacking.

But for those who may be frightened half to death by the cost of what you are assembling, I am going to outline what I'm working on at present.

MSI brand mobo 760GM-E51
Bought this in a combo purchase along with an AMD Athlon II X3 Rana (435) The price of the combo was $99.95 with free shipping.

I bought this to run Premiere CS5 and they say that for AMD one needs a Phenom II processor, which is a step above the Athlon. But many of the Athlons being sold are actually Deban dye Phenom IIs with the fourth core locked. The MSI motherboard will easily unlock such a core and also will then enable a 6MB L3 cache which on the Athlon II is listed as three 512 kb individual core caches. I don't yet know if I got one of the plain Athlons or one that is a reduced core Phenom. Either processor can be safely overclocked, according to the reviews, to about 3.7 Gh on air (that is, without having to use a water system or other means to enhance cooling) and with the standard heatsink.

I will be using my old Dell Dimension 8400 case and factory RAID 0 system drive, along with other things like the optical drive and various add ons like an older model Quadro card. (I know, I know... CUDA shoulda woulda.) I also have an ATI Radeon card that will match up with the onboard ATI GPU and will work in tandem like a Crossfire setup, even though the mobo only has one PCI-E 16lane slot, one single lane slot, and 2 pci slots. For the editing-only machine I am setting up, that will be just fine. (If the Leadtech Spurs Engine card would work as a render only card, I would put it into the single lane slot and use the machine for more than just editing, probably. Otherwise, I will likely use it for a USB 3.0 card) No extra cost here.

But RAM is an extra cost. This is more-or-less a practice build since it is my first one, and I want to keep costs down is case it catches fire at some point. :)

So I bought some A-Data Gaming RAM DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)... only 2x 2GB sticks, for something like $95 dollars for the pair. They were on sale. Free shipping but not the normal Newegg UPS three day free shipping that is sometimes offered.

Since I have monitors galore I won't need to add that. I do however need a larger power supply than the old 350 watt Dimension one. So I ordered a Rosewill 600 watt that was also on sale for about 40 bucks I think. A few bad reviews about a swicth on the back but some very good reviews also.

I also ordered Windows 7 Home Premium for system builders at a cost of $95, with free shipping... also from Newegg.

If all goes as planned, I will use this machine for editing on Adobe CS5 Premiere Pro. I will copy that edit onto an e-sata docking station hdd, then take docking station and all to my dual quad Xeon core Dell server turned workstation, and use that machine as a render machine only.

I don't know if this is going to work because I don't even have all the parts yet... but if it does, this will have one pro of being inexpensive. And I'm sure that there will be many cons that posters on here will find with this setup. Please voice them so anyone reading this will not try the same thing unless they are willing to risk ending up with a possibly useless machine, even for doing small jobs on the cheap.

Jay, I 'm not trying to hijack your thread, but am instead trying to add to it by showing the other end of your very enviable build.

[Jay A. Kelley]

That's cool.. As long as my questions get answered!

I also do a lot of work in Lightwave, and this system will be like having a 24 computer render farm... Not bad.. But first I need Jeff or somebody to keep helping me out here!

Jay

[Elsie N]

That's cool.. As long as my questions get answered!

I also do a lot of work in Lightwave, and this system will be like having a 24 computer render farm... Not bad.. But first I need Jeff or somebody to keep helping me out here!

Jay

Understood and will remove my post.

[Jay A. Kelley]

HEY! You did not need to do that! I was messing around!
I think choices are GOOD.. But I am stressing out right now cause I am TRYING to get this thing built and don't want to make any serious mistakes.

Jay

[Elsie N]

HEY! You did not need to do that! I was messing around!
I think choices are GOOD.. But I am stressing out right now cause I am TRYING to get this thing built and don't want to make any serious mistakes.

Jay

O.K., I put it back up... (Jay, you are makin' me crasy)