Which Asus Z87 mobo for heavy data processing / statistics software workstation build?

mayan50

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About to do my next build and need help choosing my Asus Z87 mobo.

I am NOT a gamer. This will be my workstation for heavy statistical analysis (STATA multiprocessor, SAS), and productivity.

I will be going with the i7 4770k, and with 4 sticks of fast 8gb ram, and I will be using the integrated GPU.

I love Asus, and want to select a Z87 mobo, but the comparison specs are dizzying. What would be the best choice? I need speed.

Thanks!!!
 
Solution
I would use the Z87-A, I've done dozens of builds with them and they have everything that you need. You have no need for any of the bells and whistles that come with the other models. And buy your memory as a matched set of 4 x 8GB, preferably 1866 or higher.

RealBeast

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I would use the Z87-A, I've done dozens of builds with them and they have everything that you need. You have no need for any of the bells and whistles that come with the other models. And buy your memory as a matched set of 4 x 8GB, preferably 1866 or higher.
 
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mayan50

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Thanks. Two off-topic follow-ups:

I will be running a 4-core version of STATA (econometrics software). STATA loads entire datasets into ram (if available). Then there is a lot of reading and writing of datasets to storage.

1. Would installing a graphics card help with speed (i.e., by alleviating load on the CPU)?
2. I can definitely see how ram speed is critical, and I will indeed go matched (I gravitate toward Corsair). But for read/writes, is SSD the way to go over HDD)? I always do SSD for OS, programs etc., but how fast would I destroy a SSD? Other options? Thunderbolt?

Thanks again!
 

Tradesman1

Legenda in Aeternum
I'd look to more DRAM and simply eliminate the reads and writes to disk, plus writes to SSDs are still their bane (much better than it used to be, but still can shorten the life of them). I'd look to 32GB of 2133 or so, there you gain the speed of the DRAM itself and also gain even more by eliminating the reads/writes
 

RealBeast

Titan
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If you are looking for 8GB I would go with the CORSAIR Vengeance 2133 or 2400 like THIS or THIS, but I would try to get them on a sale.

Like Tradesman1, I usually use 32GB, but my reason is that I run a lot of VMs. The price of ram is still pretty high, so unless you need it, I would go with 8GB or 16GB unless you see a real good sale on 32GB. I'm still trying to wear out my first SSD (an early X25-M that has around 250TB of writes and shows 100% life), it now lives as an Adobe Premiere scratch disk, so I don't worry much about SSD writes.
 

RealBeast

Titan
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Yeah, I had that discussion a few months back regarding hard drives with a group that uses lots of drives, the problem with sampling bias. I've used many hundreds of sticks of G.Skill the last few years and had one bad stick, which was a shipping problem.

 

mayan50

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mayan50

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Trademan1 and RealBeast... if you are still reading, another question:
I'm finally getting around to doing this build using i7 4770K on a Asus Z87-A, with 32 GB ram. I keep readying conflicting info on the voltage thing. If I'm buying 1.65v 2400 ram, is this a problem for either the mobo or cpu (i.e., versus 1.5v)? I am still looking at the Corsair Veng Pro http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GM83C86/?tag=pcpapi-20

If I will end up running these at lower freq/voltage anyway, I might as well buy lower.
Thanks much!!!
 

mayan50

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Hi.,

I'm now considering the exact setup that you have: i7 4770k on Maximus VI Hero with 32GB of Trident. May I ask you 2 questions:
1. Do you have a (big) CPU cooler (e.g., CM Hyper 212 EVO) and if so, is there enough clearance?
2. Any issues running your 1.65v ram at 2400?

Thanks much!
 

mayan50

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Thanks, sorry our posts crossed paths.
 

Tradesman1

Legenda in Aeternum
Hyper 212 will work fine up to a 4.5 OC, (used one while waiting for the GTS V8 to be released (had already pre-puchased it) and it's fine (the fan height is adjustable), and no problems, the bulk of my builds going back to 2011 have been with sticks 2133 and up, most all at 1.6-1.65, my SB 2500K, started with 1866/1.6 and moved to 32GB of Ripjaws X at 2133/9 soon after, my IB 3570K runs 32GB of 2400 Tridents and have 32GB of Tridents in 2666 on the Haswell ;)