Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

Would this be a good build for machine learning?

Tags:
  • Macbook Pro
  • Workstations
  • Build
  • Components
Last response: in Components
Share
September 6, 2014 1:43:26 PM

Hey all. I am building my first workstation for the purposes of machine learning (MCMC, machine vision, etc.). Needless to say, this work imparts heavy computational stress and my macbook pro (which I adore) cannot handle the work in respectable time frames. The focus of the build will be highly parallel GPGPU, hence the heavy gpu focus. Since I'm relatively new to the hardware world, I would really appreciate the advice of this community on the central parts that I have chosen.

The chosen parts are as follows:
CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1230v2 Ivy Bridge
GPU: 4x (for sli) GTX Titan Black (addendum: I know that the 780ti is comparable in single point precision for 300 dollars less, but I'm a sucker for the dfpp that Titan offers).
Mobo: Asus p7x79-e ws
RAM: 32gb ecc

Additional questions:
SSD or HDD?
What kind of power supply would this build require (in terms of watts)?

More about : good build machine learning

September 6, 2014 1:50:13 PM

You must have a really high budget! Anyways, there is a better processor than the Xeon, and that would be one of the new Haswell-E 8-core 16-thread i7 processors (which might require a different motherboard with the 2011-3 socket). But anyways, considering you are maxing out pretty much everything, get an SSD and as for power supply you will need something like a 1500 watt I'd guess. Make sue this rig has good cooling also, really good cooling, particularly a custom water loop.
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 1:53:57 PM

turkey3_scratch said:
You must have a really high budget! Anyways, there is a better processor than the Xeon, and that would be one of the new Haswell-E 8-core 16-thread i7 processors (which might require a different motherboard with the 2011-3 socket). But anyways, considering you are maxing out pretty much everything, get an SSD and as for power supply you will need something like a 1500 watt I'd guess. Make sue this rig has good cooling also, really good cooling, particularly a custom water loop.


Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I need a lot of muscle on the computational side of things. I was originally going to build a distributed cluster out of cheaper parts, but paradoxically that would have been more expensive.

My main concern is that all of that gpu heat isn't going to melt right through the casing.
m
0
l
Related resources
September 6, 2014 2:00:55 PM

nickhockey19 said:
turkey3_scratch said:
You must have a really high budget! Anyways, there is a better processor than the Xeon, and that would be one of the new Haswell-E 8-core 16-thread i7 processors (which might require a different motherboard with the 2011-3 socket). But anyways, considering you are maxing out pretty much everything, get an SSD and as for power supply you will need something like a 1500 watt I'd guess. Make sue this rig has good cooling also, really good cooling, particularly a custom water loop.


Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I need a lot of muscle on the computational side of things. I was originally going to build a distributed cluster out of cheaper parts, but paradoxically that would have been more expensive.

My main concern is that all of that gpu heat isn't going to melt right through the casing.

Isn't or is going to melt through the case? Anyways, make sure your motherboard supports 4 graphics cards and you will want to water cool your GPU and get a good large case with as many possible fans. I don't know much about water cooling but you will need a custom loop of some sort that can cool all the GPUs.
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 2:01:31 PM

nickhockey19 said:
turkey3_scratch said:
You must have a really high budget! Anyways, there is a better processor than the Xeon, and that would be one of the new Haswell-E 8-core 16-thread i7 processors (which might require a different motherboard with the 2011-3 socket). But anyways, considering you are maxing out pretty much everything, get an SSD and as for power supply you will need something like a 1500 watt I'd guess. Make sue this rig has good cooling also, really good cooling, particularly a custom water loop.


Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I need a lot of muscle on the computational side of things. I was originally going to build a distributed cluster out of cheaper parts, but paradoxically that would have been more expensive.

My main concern is that all of that gpu heat isn't going to melt right through the casing.


Instead of getting 4 GTX Titan Blacks, you can get a 2 GTX Titan Z, or 2 R9 295X2 (But I would suggest getting a seperate PSU for that card, its really power hungry, same with the Titan Z)
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 2:02:33 PM

M0j0jojo said:
nickhockey19 said:
turkey3_scratch said:
You must have a really high budget! Anyways, there is a better processor than the Xeon, and that would be one of the new Haswell-E 8-core 16-thread i7 processors (which might require a different motherboard with the 2011-3 socket). But anyways, considering you are maxing out pretty much everything, get an SSD and as for power supply you will need something like a 1500 watt I'd guess. Make sue this rig has good cooling also, really good cooling, particularly a custom water loop.


Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I need a lot of muscle on the computational side of things. I was originally going to build a distributed cluster out of cheaper parts, but paradoxically that would have been more expensive.

My main concern is that all of that gpu heat isn't going to melt right through the casing.


Instead of getting 4 GTX Titan Blacks, you can get a 2 GTX Titan Z, or 2 R9 295X2 (But I would suggest getting a seperate PSU for that card, its really power hungry, same with the Titan Z)

That's actually a very very good idea. Another huge benefit is that there (I think) would be less heat from 2 GPUs.
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 2:07:55 PM

turkey3_scratch said:
M0j0jojo said:
nickhockey19 said:
turkey3_scratch said:
You must have a really high budget! Anyways, there is a better processor than the Xeon, and that would be one of the new Haswell-E 8-core 16-thread i7 processors (which might require a different motherboard with the 2011-3 socket). But anyways, considering you are maxing out pretty much everything, get an SSD and as for power supply you will need something like a 1500 watt I'd guess. Make sue this rig has good cooling also, really good cooling, particularly a custom water loop.


Thanks for the advice! Yeah, I need a lot of muscle on the computational side of things. I was originally going to build a distributed cluster out of cheaper parts, but paradoxically that would have been more expensive.

My main concern is that all of that gpu heat isn't going to melt right through the casing.


Instead of getting 4 GTX Titan Blacks, you can get a 2 GTX Titan Z, or 2 R9 295X2 (But I would suggest getting a seperate PSU for that card, its really power hungry, same with the Titan Z)

That's actually a very very good idea. Another huge benefit is that there (I think) would be less heat from 2 GPUs.


Two Titan Z's output less gflops than four Titan Black's and its more expensive. Its cheaper to just buy the extra cooling. Also both GPUs are roughly as efficient as each other. The Black outputs approx. 20 gflops/watt while the Z outputs 21 gflops/watt.
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 2:09:32 PM

So what really else do you need to know info-wise?
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 3:09:51 PM

Can you spend $4k ?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($389.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Swiftech H220 55.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($100.00 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X99-GAMING 5 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($293.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($449.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($118.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.00 @ B&H)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 295X2 8GB Core Edition Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($999.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 295X2 8GB Core Edition Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($999.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Rosewill THRONE-Window ATX Full Tower Case ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 1600W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($338.23 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($15.00 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $3993.14
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-06 18:16 EDT-0400
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 3:12:04 PM

^^^ How sure are you that you really need 4 GPUs?
m
0
l
September 6, 2014 3:22:51 PM

Thanks for all the feedback. I wasn't looking for a particular build. I just didn't want someone who knew hardware to look at the build and say something like "bad idea, it'll blow up" (exaggeration intended).
m
0
l
!