Ratdude's main rig V5.0

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Posting to myself again (unless everybody is just quiet around here?):

Did more research, the GTX960 isn't such a hot card after all. Barely better performance than the GTX760 it replaced... sadly though, the GTX760 goes for about the same price (yay supply and demand).

Also, from what I'm reading my PCIe 2.0 bottleneck is less restrictive than I though:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/ar...rformance-518/

So AMD cards might be worth considering. Yeah they run hotter, but I have a 920W PSU and if needed I can beef that to 1840W quite easily (PSU module #2). Wall energy isn't all that expensive...

Re-asking for suggestions... Probably not a GTX 1060 simply because of sticker shock, perhaps around $100ish? (It doesn't help that ebay stuff is more or less "here today, here tomorrow" with such cards).

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Made the order. For 8.50 per drive shipped, I'd be a fool not to...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Another upgrade path:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-26K5842-...0AAOSwrklVf0Xx

Idea being I buy all five and upgrade/redo my RAID 10 array with 8 drives instead of 4, with the 5th being a spare/testing drive.

[EDIT- thought there was a model mismatch, which upon further review is not the case as the seller listed a different number. They are indeed 39R7350 drives. Waiting on yay/nay from the wife]

Thoughts?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Updates:

I've been thinking of some future upgrades for this system:

-Nvidia GTX 960 ACX2.0: I've been eyeing one of these for months, but the $120 bare bones used price is just a bit too high for me to jump. The 960 seems to be a good balance of power and cost, as the 950 seems to be less bang for buck, and the 970 just costs too much. AMD cards aren't of interest as the last two NVIDIA generations are less CPU dependent, which leads me to believe that on a relatively older motherboard such as mine that the Nvidia cards will be less bottlenecked by my PCIe 2.0 slot.

-USB 3.1 card: I'm finally seeing USB 3.1 cards with headers show up:

http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...id=657&area=en

While this would use more the 16x slot's bandwidth (better utilization of resources), from what I've read that USB 3.1 chip may not be full speed, and a lot of these combo cards (3.0 + 3.1) only use 1 lane per chip, which limits me to ~5Gbs as I'm only on PCIe 2.0. Not to mention that to use the USB 3.1 chip, I'd have to use the Type C port... Hence why I'm shelving this idea.


-New Card reader: Since I built this, AFT has come up with, among other things (such as safety hammer usb chargers) a 5.25" USB 3.0 card reader with a USB 3.0 Hub built in:

http://www.atechflash.com/pro-77u

What I like is that it has 4 USB 3.0 ports as opposed to the one measly port my current reader (Pro-37U) has. What I don't like is the lack of an XD port, which I do use a lot with my old fujifilm cameras. However, I've already fixed that by ordering a pair of these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330663967719

(I'll for sure use one with my main laptop which is SD only).

This reader upgrade will likely be the next one to happen, as I do move files between USB 3.0 devices a lot (just did tonight) and crawing under my desk to get to the USB 3.0 ports on my card is a bit of a pain.

---

All three (well, the first and last ones at least) are delayed because while I have the means, I'm saving up for the down payment on a future house. I got a somewhat hefty bonus (for an entry level engineer) but that went straight to savings. My wife didn't get me a "proper" Christmas present, but I didn't for her either, so that excuse is out too. I'm afraid to spend money! (Who would have thought?)

Thoughts on any of these upgrades?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

My Gigabyte FM2+ motherboards have the same kind of temp readings for one of the sensors! The GA-F2A68HM-H literally did have blazing MOSFETs!
The beefy GA-F2A88X-D3HP has a MOSFET heatsink block. But still has a sensor with insanely high temps!

Just a heads up with socket FM2 motherboards!

And this is with a low wattage CPU!

Holy thread revival Batman!



FBDIMMS do run hot... that's because the central chip is effectively a serial encoder, as FBDIMMS use differential pairs for communication while DRAM chips use traditional parallel data/address lines for communication. Just think how fast that chip has to run...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

PSU and fans came in. The good news is that the temps are down... the bad news is it will still be loud... And you in the back whose screaming "look how easy my i5 was to set up and it's faster...", this thread isn't for you

New PSU:



New Cooler fans:



Fans installed (the front stickers don't match but they're the same fans):



Coolers installed:



Air dam installed, final shot of the guts:



Not sure if it shows, but the case included a molex extension that was perfect for zip tying to the USB 3.0 cable... less mess that way.

Butt Shot:



Front of the unit (yes the drive order is odd, it made the cable lengths work out better)



It's running cooler but on "superquiet" mode the temps are climbing a bit high... it's finally settled out with the hottest FBDIMM running at 89C. Not sure if it's bad as it's neighbors are running about 6C cooler:



What is a safe running temp for FBDIMMs?

I'm out of here for a bit... better reboot and turn up the fans a notch...

My Gigabyte FM2+ motherboards have the same kind of temp readings for one of the sensors! The GA-F2A68HM-H literally did have blazing MOSFETs!
The beefy GA-F2A88X-D3HP has a MOSFET heatsink block. But still has a sensor with insanely high temps!

Just a heads up with socket FM2 motherboards!

And this is with a low wattage CPU!

[TechGeek]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Topcat, you should run Badcaps on this server of yours.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Welcome to fully buffered memory.

Luckily, I never had temps like that, even with mixed sticks and the VDIMM bumped to 1.90 V for a precaution... (DDR2)

I can do mixed sticks of PC2-5300 (333 Mhz) easily. That's of course because all the sticks were assured by the manufacturer to do 333. (666) Seems that only higher clocks would possibly cause instability with settings I tried...
That was how I got 8 GB with DDR2... I ran a ton of tests and zero signs of corruption...

3 of the DDR2 modules I have are also assured to to 400 Mhz (800) I have 1 that's only 333-rated.

That was with timings of 5-5-5-18, IIRC...

Was that a toasty room? Looks like it, easily 90 F or around 85 F for the room...

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Yikes! Looks just like someone desperately OC'ing a CPU to 5.0 Ghz on a standard room-temp air cooler for their e-penis! lol

With those kind of temps, it's usually throttle city!

Welcome to fully buffered memory.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Mine are nice & toasty too....

Yikes! Looks just like someone desperately OC'ing a CPU to 5.0 Ghz on a standard room-temp air cooler for their e-penis! lol

With those kind of temps, it's usually throttle city!

[keeney123]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Good score

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

PSUs came in:



I think I found the problem:



Gee, WFT happened here? Ouchie... nothing that can't be fixed with 5 minutes of plier work.

Anyway, I straightened them up, plugged the in and tested them by themselves and together... they both seem to work fine .

That was *ahem* easy... .

Running with two seems to not be too loud but I'll probably run it with one, just for power savings (since I have a blank cover for bay #2)... not to mention that SMBUS on this one is only showing one PSU... I'll have to see if that's a PSU issue (where the PCB got nailed?) or just an SMBUS limitation on my particular chassis.

EDIT- seems to be my PSU backplane that's the issue. Oh well, No biggie since I don't need two supplies here. Still a great score... That was like $27 per supply (normally $90+). Doesn't seem that much quieter (it's hard to tell), but the 200W is nice to have. May use less power too?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Scored the power supplies for $33 + shipping ($56 total) Not too shabby if I can get them fixed up... IIRC they're 80+ platinum... and 920W a pop (and I might end up with two units)... I hear they're really quiet; hopefully better than the 720W I'm using (which is still pretty whiney during operation). No to mention 200 extra watts is a lot more breathing room for more SAS drives and/or a beefier GPU (not that I will need it).

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Back to the first note, Looks like best buy is closeouting the R7 370:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/XFX-AMD-Rade...UAAOSwARZXkfON

Pending wife appoval and further research (reviews) I'm nabbing one.

Edit- Gonna wait for the GTX 950 to drop... as they're not priced much more and have more performance with less heat and fan noise.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

On a different note, look what I found:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SUPERMICRO-M...kAAOSwGXtXhvkB

Made an offer... as I could probably fix at least one of them. Beats $90+ for a single unit...

[dmill89]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

If you're looking for <$100 cards I'd keep my eye on what sales are going on for the GeForce GTX950 and Radeon R7 370, both can be had for not much more than $100 now and with a new generation of cards coming out I suspect they will be able to be had for less than $100 in the next couple months. I wouldn't bother with that GTX670, it barely outperforms a GTX950, uses nearly twice the power and costs more than a GTX950 does new (heck with the new GTX1060 and RX 480 out now, the GTX960 and R9 380 can be had for around $150 new and both will outperform a GTX670)

For sub $50 cards you are probably better off with a new(er) entry/mid-level card than an old (4+ generations back) used mid/high-end card. A GTX550 Ti only offers about a 18% performance boost over a GT740 while using double the power. Going up to the $50-75 range, a GTX 750 or Radeon R7 360 will give you nearly double the performance of a GTX550Ti or GTX460 while still using less power.

While CPUs have been stagnant for the last several years making even 4-5 generation old CPUs still competitive, GPUs have not so it really doesn't make sense to buy a 4-5+ generation old GPU from a price/performance/power-consumption perspective.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

^I was looking to spend under $200, and under $100 would be awesome.

I saw some decent fermi cards in the $50 range:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nvidia-Gefor...YAAOSwgtJXT5YW

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-NVIDIA-...gAAOSwqfNXjuSc

Shovenose suggested this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-NVIDIA-...0AAOSwRQlXgFsC

But that's a bit more than I was looking to spend. And slightly more power draw than I was looking for.

I didn't consider new cards as anything decent is going to hurt and due to my PCIe 2.0/2.1 limitation I suspect anything too fancy is going to be a waste.

That all said, the 1060 is a nice card... I may save up for that, perhaps. By then the price may drop a bit, too.

[dmill89]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

I'm for real looking for a video card (well, sorta for real) as I'd like to get V3.8 properly finished, which means freeing up the video card currently in this rig.

Suggestions? I know there were a few in here but I'm re-asking. I'd prefer a mainstream card as opposed to a workstation card as I won't be running CAD or the like on it. No low end shit cards either (as the build quality scares me no matter what the supposed benchmarks say).

What's your budget? Right now the new GeForce GTX1060 and Radeon RX 480 are probably the best cards for the money (currently in the $200-250 range), though they are sold out just about everywhere so you'd probably have to wait a few weeks for the new-release "hype" to die down. Unless you're looking in the <$100 price bracket these are probably the "way to go" since they match/beat previous gen top-end cards (GTX980/R9-390X) at a mid range price point. If you want to go really high-end (>$300) the GTX1070 and GTX1080 can't be touched right now (except by extremely power hungry dual-GPU last gen cards), AMD isn't expected to have a competitor to these until at least Q4.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

I'm for real looking for a video card (well, sorta for real) as I'd like to get V3.8 properly finished, which means freeing up the video card currently in this rig.

Suggestions? I know there were a few in here but I'm re-asking. I'd prefer a mainstream card as opposed to a workstation card as I won't be running CAD or the like on it. No low end shit cards either (as the build quality scares me no matter what the supposed benchmarks say).

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

http://www.ebay.com/itm/122019987077

I offered them 100...we settled on $129 shipped.

Ok, not worth my money then... Not this week anyway.