Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Coolers came in yesterday. They were a bit beat up (bent fins, easyish fix), but indeed brand new rebadged cooler master TX3s... with all the accessories. Other than saying "rocketfish" instead of "cooler master", they're the exact same thing as the first revision of the TX3.

Apparently the seller figured it out, and hiked the "sale" price up ($13 -> $19) for the two they still have available. Still a great deal if anybody needs a new TX3 clone and doesn't care about aesthetics:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rocketfish-...72.m2749.l2649


Installed:



This was posted from it... boy genius here manged to temporarily kill one of his bench workstations, and the other is an unstable BSOD-happy mess. Until MS shuts me down for unactivated windows 10, I'm rocking it...

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Single GPU system (the mismatched evga gtx 970 SSC) for comparison (dual low voltage xeon hapertowns):



SLI is indeed working... almost double in the gpu parameters. Yay?

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Was finally able to run catzilla…

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Possibly wrong/corrupted VBIOS. TechPowerUp possibly can save your bacon!

Nope, problem didn't follow the card.

Something with my westmere system is FUBAR... I'll move the discussion to it's thread:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?p=901476

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Possibly wrong/corrupted VBIOS. TechPowerUp possibly can save your bacon!

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Semi-off topic tangent:

PCIe power adapter came in... no change.

From what I'm reading ASUS Strix cards can be a bit fickle... supposedly obscure BIOS settings can cause it to bottleneck hard. Something is bottlenecking the card; I tried playing with the power optimization settings; such brought up the clockspeed, but not the FPS in novabench.

I've also having some weird mouse and keyboard lag... on par with the crap I see on virtual desktop connecting to work. Something is terribly up here. Worst case, I might play musical cards again to see if the issue follows the card or the workstation. Or at least move the card to the other PCIe 16x slot. Yeah, I'll try that

Edit- moves slots, no change. Still a laggy mess. Might play musical cards later... this sucks.

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

I think I figured out why my westmere system did so poorly. Per the ASUS TweakII tool, the GPU isn't ramping all the way up during the benchmark (only getting to about half speed)... which leads me to think the issue is that I'm only feeding it with a single 6 pin, and instead of throwing an error like EVGA cards, it's limiting itself due to the perceived lack of available power. Once my 6 to 8 adapter comes in (or a cheat and jumper it directly), I'll retest.

So, for whatever, reason, on the test rig, SLI didn't do diddly squat despite being enabled. Although I'll leave that an open issue until the rig is actually built with an activated copy of windows and all my ducks in a row (not just jerry rigged mess like I have now).

---

Ordered more parts today. Mainly, the parts needed to make card reader cables (you'll see later when I actually build it), and the HDDs. Through two Ebay lots, I was able to get 8 147GB 15K SAS drives for about $52 after shipping and tax.

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

I ran it last night, I wanted to see how different my score was from the number on the Novabench site as your GPU numbers seemed low.

The tests you have done since seem to confirm this.

Yeah, IDK. Maybe a windows update related issue? I used a fresh windows 10 image... weird.

Edit- tried to re-run, crashed during the 3d test. System completely froze. Hope I didn't fry something

Also forgot to mention: windows 10 wasn't activated... and geforce experience wouldn't install either.

[diif]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

How long ago? Seems that they changed thier tests and scoring. For a while it wasn't even downloadable.

I ran it last night, I wanted to see how different my score was from the number on the Novabench site as your GPU numbers seemed low.

The tests you have done since seem to confirm this.

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

The final GTX970... in the sleeper build pocket rocket:



Another killer GPU score... Which makes me think SLI isn't doing jack shit on the new build, and for whatever reason my "fastest" system is getting bottlenecked. It's not the GPU; I ran novabench a year ago on the pocket rocked back when said GPU was installed in it:



Alternatively, novabench is an unreliable pile of dog crap, and should be renamed novabust. Other than catzilla, any other suggested free benchmark software I should try?

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Something else may be going on here...

Just ran it on the second fastest system currently built (what the new build will replace for my wife's main rig)... and got this result:



Sure, it has a factory OC'd Zotac triple fan monster... but it's yet another 4GB GTX 970 (I currently own 5 of the damn things)... No way it scored so high.

My last build with a GTX 970 (where the $85 EVGA card I recently bought ended up) is being gamed on right now... when it frees up I'll run it there for another datapoint.

PS-I tried running it on my other dual opteron (twin Opteron 285's with dual SLI'd GTS250's )... the 3d test program crashed no matter how I set it in the Nvidia 3d settings. It and novabench don't get along.

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

I have a GTX 460 and get a GPU score of 331 in Novabench.
I'm not disputing that it's not working, it's just the score seemed low.

P.S. Loving the ghetto, I used to have two supplies in one PC to power all my bits back in the day.

How long ago? Seems that they changed thier tests and scoring. For a while it wasn't even downloadable.

---

For reference, I'll run the latest novabench on my other rigs, and see what we get.

Booted up my old dual irwindale (netburst!) rig, and now with reseated memory, actually ran for more than 5 minutes without a BSOD.



Not bad for an old 9800...

[diif]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

I have a GTX 460 and get a GPU score of 331 in Novabench.
I'm not disputing that it's not working, it's just the score seemed low.

P.S. Loving the ghetto, I used to have two supplies in one PC to power all my bits back in the day.

[Topcat]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Not bad!

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Your GPU score seems low, have you enabled SLI ?
It seems so but Novabench has a pair of GTX 970 at and average of 832.

The Westemere system is single GPU, score of 211
The Opteron system is dual GPU SLI'd, score of 523.

All GPUs here are 4GB GTX 970's. Probably different clockrates, I'd have to look it up.

Over double the score leads me to believe SLI is working... not to mention nvidia (and novabench) both say it is.

[diif]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Your GPU score seems low, have you enabled SLI ?
It seems so but Novabench has a pair of GTX 970 at and average of 832.

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Point of comparison: Ran Novabench on my current fastest rig (with the "new" rig's benchmark to the right):



(the new rig was on my 24" FD Trinitron, which is why the resolution of the screenshot is bigger)

That's with the ASUS Strix GPU installed. Sure, this one crushed it in terms of CPU performance (it's got twin hyperthreaded hex-core westmeres, double the threads) and RAM speed (triple channel DDR3 vs dual channel DDR2)... but that was expected. GPU wise, SLI is indeed working (novabench even prompted me to customize the app-specific SLI config in the Nvidia settings). For gaming (what my wife will be doing with it), this should be a good setup as far as my workstation builds go (not to call it a "gaming" rig... it's not!).

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Just got done with benchmarks... posting from it again.

Novabench result:



The HDD is abysmal... you'll see why below. Otherwise, not bad?

Catzilla crashed 2/3 of the way though... I'm guessing something overheated. Once I have this is a proper case with proper cooling that should hopefully resolve itself.

The setup: These pics are from yesterday, when I was trying to make it run on 8GB of old RAM I had in the drawer... which was not successful due to the CPU2 issue mentioned previously (didn't discover it until today). But the idea is the same.

SLI'd GPUs and a 500GB clay pigeon:




As shown, I'm running off two PSUs right now, since neither my Antec 650 nor my ultra 600 have enough PCIe plugs to run both GPUs. Since I didn't happen to have a dual PSU adapter, I ghetto'd it with some jumper wires.

To start, I backplugged the soft-on from the "primary" PSU (the Antec Earthwatts 650):



… and ran that wire to the soft-on on the secondary PSU (modded ultra Xfinity 600W):



Finally, I jumpered the grounds together:






Ghetto? Yep. Functional? Yep.

Other than the catzilla crash, I'm calling this a successful test. Other than sourcing actual HDDs (8x 15K SAS drives) and finalizing coolers, until I meetup with Topcat, this rig is as far as I can push it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

Posting from it now in a bench test configuration... Been a rough ride. To put a long story short, the bottom of one of my CPUs was dirty and was causing windows 10 to not want to boot up.

SLI does indeed work... will be running a benchmark. Will post results in a bit.

In the mean time, yay!

[ratdude747]

Re: Yet another RD workstation build... Socket F Fun!

2nd GPU came in... turns out it's a different SSC model, one that requires both a 6-pin and an 8-pin PCIe to run (and from what I read online, will not SLI with the model I already have two of). Both of my Current SM chassis only have 6 pin PCIe (4 of them) and I tried, it gives me an error message to connect the power cables when used with two 6's. However, I do have a system with compatible power connections, and was able to install this card there, and pull the ASUS strix (yet another GTX 970) from it to the system that has the 2nd of my dual matched GPUs. The strix just takes an 8 pin power... but so far (and posting from it), it's not detected or complained about being fed with such . Dunno if it auto-downclocks if used with such, but ASUS's manuals make no mention of power. I might slap in a cheap 6 to 8 adapter; my hotswap PSU VRM is more than capable.

Edit: The "new" GPU came in an ASUS Strix GTX970 box... which was very ironic, considering how my aformentioned Strix was sent to me. If I ever get rid of the card, I now have "an" original box, even if it isn't "the" actual box... shh...



I did find an old pair of socket 940 coolers (stock with 5K RPM PWM HP workstation fans slapped on) on my shelf... which is good for testing, but not what I'll want to use for the actual build. I'm gambling on the afomentioned rocketfish coolers, of which I bought two:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rocketfish-...QAAOSw0YxdlBHR

They are from all I can tell rebadged Cooler Master TX3's, which due being able to mount 4 directions, not 2 like most clip-mount AMD coolers of this style (important, since the "normal" mounting is no good for my board in the chassis I'll be using). Since they still have the manuals, I'm betting that the clips are there too (open box items marked as "used", not "new, other"); the freaking protective film is still on the mating surface! Also, the seller seems to have a lot of "used" items that are still in new condition (factory twistie ties on cables, etc.), which makes me think that they treat open box items as "used". If the clips are missing, I'm out less than $30. I can get these (both the rocketfish and cooler master versions) for around $20-$30 shipped... slightly more expensive than I feel like spending. Plus, what fun is merely buying stuff? :p

RAM will be in tomorrow, so with the junk coolers, I should be able to start bench testing what I have.