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Geek Culture / what kind of computer should i build? (in an industrial server case)

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 15th Jul 2011 03:22
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So i have this awesome industrial 4u rackmount ATX case. I have been wanting to build soumething in it for a while, And now i got some money i started thinkingon what to build. I could build a gaming rig based on a core i7 990 extreme (top of the line i7 six core). it would be cool but kinda boaring. Then i started to think, maybe i should build a dual top of the line hexacore xeon system with ridiculous specs and just to be a jerk use the system to play games.

the top xeon CPU is just slightly better than the i7 990X but unfourtunatley, there are no boards for dual i7 systems (unless i7s would work on the xeon server board since both xeons and i7s use the LGA1366 socket.

Another idea i had fir an interesting computer setup (possibly something i could do with a good xeon system). Put 2 videocards in the setup but not like SLI or xfire, Mine would have one card for gaming purposes (radeon or geforce) and another card for 3d stuff, photoshop, design, 3d modelling etc, THe secong card would be like a quadro or fire GL. Maybe i will have to dual boot it for 1 OS for games and another fordesign and just switch the cable to another card every time or have 2 monitors one on each card.

Anyway, does anyone have any other cool ideas on what kind of mashine i can build in this hardcore industrial rackmount server case?
i feel like this case deserves something awesome,powerful and out of the ordinary.

so any ideas?

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bitJericho
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Posted: 15th Jul 2011 20:26
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Quote: "just switch the cable to another card every time or have 2 monitors one on each card."


A KVM switch would work better.

I'd say go for a watercooled setup. A watercooled rackmount server, that would get you on HN

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 15th Jul 2011 21:31
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I think a dual-socket is a must. There's a reason i7s can't be run side-by-side, I think it's something to do with their architecture compared to a Xeon - can't remember the specifics though. Check out the Evga Classified SR-2 - I think it fits the bill perfectly.



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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 15th Jul 2011 21:37
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I don't know bro. But whatever it is, can it play Crysis?

What is all the fuss about anyway?
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crispex
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Posted: 15th Jul 2011 23:34
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Quote: "I don't know bro. But whatever it is, can it play Crysis?"


My old Pentium 4 2.4 GHz could run Crysis (on low of course). I'm sure this will do fine.

I just now realized I've had a typo in my signature for the past 3 years.
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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 16th Jul 2011 00:43
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Wait... motherboards have fans now?


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 16th Jul 2011 05:37 Edited at: 16th Jul 2011 05:45
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yeah i looked at that mobo a while back. i like the watercooling xeons idea. Also, as far as i know, the top of the line 6 core xeon, has the same core as i7 990x extreme. I thought because of that, you could possibly run dual i7s. from what i remember, the difference between a hexacore xeon and hexacore i7 990x is the i7 has more bells and whistles than the xeon. but xeon is more expensive, i still have a hard time figuring out the difference between the 2. both are 6 core, both are 3.3ghx both have 12mb cache, and the i7z have the sse1,2,3,mmx, and al the stuff. Will anyone tell me the actual difference between them? the difference that matters and what its thing is?

also i dont know how good is this evga board, but i am looking at a bunch of supermiro boards, they seem to specialise in server boards. I just wonder how a gaming graphics card will run on one. I think a 3d design card would run fine tho, its made for stuff like this

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bitJericho
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Posted: 16th Jul 2011 15:10
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http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?s=64ed9ff03f4fb974010f3543cd29a35f&p=7235508&postcount=21

It sounds like the difference is the number of QPI links and ECC error checking. Check the above link. I don't know how accurate his claims are.

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 16th Jul 2011 19:33
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from a few other things i read, i make it that i7 990x and x5690 are pretty much identical (i think i7 is based off x5690) the only difference is xeons can do dual socket setup like jerico said above.

there might be a few other small differences.

anyway, i am starting to get an idea here of what to build.
betcha never seen a watercooled Xeon!.... how about 2 watercooled xeons? how about 2 hexacore 3.3ghx watercooled xeons? Inside a beige bulletproof industrial-grade 4U ATX rackmount server case with 4 cool looking mobile racks with little lcd displays on them

the watercooled xeons is a pretty cool idea. I was thinking of building a hybrid computer that can function as a server, 3d design/ modelling/ cad (ati fireGL or nvidia quadro) as well as having an ability to be a good gaming mashine if switched to the second videocard (radeon/ geforce) i dont know how overkill this might be for games or if xeon x5690 is even good for games (if they say its almost identical to the 990x it should be ok right?) Also not sure how ECC memory will work with games too. I was also thinking of experimenting with different types of harddrives. I really I really wish i could digg up some top of the line fibrechannel harddrives on a 8gb/s FC adapter. but even tho fiberchannel is dying, top of the line FC stuff is still expensive. I will also need to find an FC array case for them as they are made in a way that has to have them hook up externaly to the computer. also to take the actual advantage of fibrechannel i would need to buy at least 3 arrays and FC networking equipment for fiberoptic direct hdd to hdd data transfer. and the actual FC routers/ switches are really expensive. Thats why i was thnking of trying SAS drives (serial attached scsi). they are not as fast but they are cheaper and more in demand and you can hotswap them.

I can build myself this system, but pretty skeptical of 5690 xeons in terms of the price. I can buy them now and spend a lot of money or i can instead buy a cheaper dual xeon setup and later switch to the x5690. Another way is buy just one x5690 now (i think dualsocket motherboards can run a single cpu setup am i right?)

i i heard they will have a 4 cpu xeon boards when the x7000 series comes out. I am afraid that i will just not be able to afford it (as much as i want to! 4 x cpu makes dual cpu thing look completley lame) and there might be problems with trying to cool 4 CPUs...

waita minute!... if i watercool them it might be possible!!!

also maybe i could rent out this comps computional power or something.

so what do you guys think? I really liked watercooled xeon idea thats pretty unique. never heard of anyone watercoling a xeon before.

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 16th Jul 2011 19:53
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Quote: "I can build myself this system, but pretty skeptical of 5690 xeons in terms of the price. I can buy them now and spend a lot of money or i can instead buy a cheaper dual xeon setup and later switch to the x5690. Another way is buy just one x5690 now (i think dualsocket motherboards can run a single cpu setup am i right?)"

I think for the novelty factor you should go dual socket and fill them both. In all fairness I don't think it matters if you put two lower specced procs in as it will still be phenomenally powerful.

In terms of ECC memory it depends. If you are using this as a proper workstation too then I would definitely go for it - for things like CAD and modelling it's a must. Apparently the error checking actually decreases performance a little - but it should hardly make a difference.

I remember you mentioning your fibrechannel drives in a post where I mentioned my rackmount workstation complete with industrial case Personally I have no experience with anything other than ATA and SCSI. I would have a dedicated drive for: OS, games + media, work each with a mirrored backup drive.

I wouldn't bother with two separate cards (one for gaming, one for work) as unless you are doing uber-complicated CAD work, the difference between a high-end GPU and a workstation card will be cancelled out by the high premium you'd have to pay. If you were going to get a second card then I would just buy two identical cards and SLi (or xFire) them.

I'm sure there are people who need a lot more processing power for things like large renders etc. - so it's quite possible you could offer to do things like that for people. But I doubt you'll cover the costs of the machine. If it was me I'd put it to use folding when I wasn't using it, a machine like that would be extremely valuable.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 16th Jul 2011 20:12
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i am not sure if server boards suport xfire/sli. I guess ill get 1 card for now. Also i never owned a fire gl or a quadro. they say other than 3d stuff its amazing at video editing.

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charger bandit
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 08:14
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I would go for a decieving look. An amazing motherboard,then just a simple quad core inside,huge watercooling over,simple SLI and thats it.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 09:19
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its certainly affordable yes. I already have 2 quadcores built and i was hoping i can upgrade my laptop to a quadcore but a motherboard revision dosent support it.

i feel like experimenting with something ive never done before. Besides my style of decieving look is old looking case with powerful modern hardware. i have this 90s beige server (even left the tape drive in there) and its like a 3.4 gig phenom 2 quadcore (wanna upgrade it to a hexacore) 8 gigs of ram a 5870. and another one i have is a 1989 server tower (again 3.1' floppy drive is left in there) and that system is a qx9650 quadcore 3 gigs of ram and a gtx460.

and this industrial server, its also old looking beige and you definatley wouldnt expect a watercooled multiprocessor setup inside by looking at it. Besides the guy who sold me this case said it used to have a dual xeon setup, so i kinda wanna take it to a new level. I decided to wait till the x7000 comes out that support quad cpu and get 4 cheap xeons in there. and after a while, the hexacore might become cheaper and i might afford 4 used xeons. besides watercooling would work great on this because, you wouldnt fit 4 good heatsinks in there and server heatsinks are tiny blade type heatdinks s they suck.

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 18:16
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From what I remember, Quadro's don't work well at gaming due to lack of shader cores, so you'd end up with something excellent for video editing and heavy-duty simulation, but would struggle when you want to skive off and play Crysis

All of what I said came from my friend, blame him for how wrong it is


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 19th Jul 2011 23:23
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Quote: "From what I remember, Quadro's don't work well at gaming due to lack of shader cores, so you'd end up with something excellent for video editing and heavy-duty simulation, but would struggle when you want to skive off and play Crysis

All of what I said came from my friend, blame him for how wrong it is"


thats why, i think of having quadro AND a Radeon/Geforce, in there. When i wanna play a game i will just switch from a quadro to a radeon. but when i want to work on like a terrain for dark basic, the extra amount of video memory, on quadro will allow me to make really large terrains (i will grid slice them up into like 500 pieces to load em into the game like only 9 pieces at the time) and of course video editing or something

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 3rd Aug 2011 16:41
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Hey Pagan, how's the project going?


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 4th Aug 2011 14:26
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oh. Well i didnt start it yet because i started another project now. Its top secrect right now. All i can tell you is that its a lot cheaper than a quad xeon setup and in some ways even more awesome! And i am actually making a lot of progress on it and i expect to finish it soon. give it a few weeks- month.

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