[Solved] OMG, what have I got myself into? The New Build...

Forum Overclocking : General Discussion [Solved] OMG, what have I got myself into? The New Build...

Hi Guys,

I was wondering if anybody had experience with a system similar to the one below and if they encountered any problems or issues with compatability, the installation process, overclocking, ect.

I have build PC's before (3 from scratch, 4<6 upgrades/frankensteins, over 10 years), however never OC'd so have gone for sub-top-of-the-line processor and graphics, just in case... I'm planning to upgrade to Ivy Bridge and more powerfull graphics at a later stage ( so if their is anything your expert foresight can predict being an issue in this regard, let me know, any suggestions on resolving those issues would also be welcome. )

Here's the Speccy...

- Processor - Mobo - Ram - Graphics -
Intel I5 2500K
Asus P8Z68 V Pro Gen3
16GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 C9 (CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B)
Asus GTX560 Ti Top

- HDD - SSD - Optical x2 - Monitors
Western Digital 2TB SATA3 Green
Revodrive 3 2X 240GB
LG Blu-Ray Burner BH12LS38 + LG Blu-Ray Combo CH12LS28
2x LG 24" LED-LCD (E2441V-BN)

- Case - PSU - Heatsink - Thermal Paste
Corsair Graphite Series 600T Mesh
Corsair HX-650W
Corsair Hydro H100
Arctic Silver 5

- UPS + Other peripherals sucking juice from the ups + Absolute Maximum Wattages
Value GP LCD 2200VA / 1320W

The PC ( ok this is a given ) - 650W
The 2 aforementioned 24" monitors @25W Each - 50W
Existing XBox slim - 100W
Existing Panasonic Vierra 36" Plasma - 350W
Existing Creative Inspire 5.1 - 80W

Comes to..... Max 1230W, so 90W spare, phew...

WHY?
Because my current POS PC has now consumed its 4th PC Soul and im beginning to wonder if im ever going to get a new one.
evolution: Dinosuar (New as of 2001): Caveman (Updated 2005): Frankenstein (Merged with a mates dead pc for a case of beer, 2007): Darth Vader( new graphics, + ram 2010)

Whats it going to be doing?
I want to be able to learn CUDA on this thing, and do any relevant 3D modelling, 2D Textures, Related Programming, Databases, etc. ( at least to a certain degree before upgrading graphics cards and processor down the line. )
Possibly host some small development websites ( hopefully to the point that if/when it exceeds my ability to host it myself, then it's worthy of getting paid hosting for. )
Gaming ( New Titles; Fast Responce over graphics quality, I'm competitive, but It's not my life... )
Networking, on occasion the box will visit and be visited by friends of said box.
Your usual browsing, document creation, etc.
The TV will link to the Mobo Via HDMI, It would be great to be able to run CPU Graphics on TV and GPU Dual Monitor Simutaniously .?.?.
I would like to reach 4500Mhz+ on the CPU (looking for 4400-4600Mhz base clock with the +1,+2,+3,+4 Turbo Enabled ? Is this right ?)

Oh, I am actually a Programmer / Graphic Designer by trade, but in saying that, CUDA and advanced 3D IS beyond my current grasp, I have done some assembly and 3D modelling in the past however.

Question I have?
The H100 Mounted on the top of the case, Fans on the outside, In suck configuration, negative pressure in the case, Sucking in cool air through that mesh? or in blow configuration, sucking cool air in throught the radiator, and blowing that heated air onto the ram and graphics, with positive case pressure, blowing out of the side mesh? I think the former. But don't really understand why.

Would love to OC the Graphics and Ram also, or at least tweak it somewhat, but im not really 100% sure of my headroom here.
What sort of headroom do I have in regard to the overclock ability of the ram and graphics in this case, and with the config options above? What about with heatsink fans on the ram?

Is it worth getting a smaller Sata3 SSD or setting up a ramdisc for pagefile/scratchdisc purposes?
or can you setup a ramdisc as a cache for the revodrive? similar to how a SSD can cache for a HDD?

I'm so far out of my initial budget its scary, but I've spent a month+ relearning the new hardware available and have spent $0 elsewhere & can somehow now actually afford this build. 8-)
1 thing im pretty set on is the revodrive, I dont see Sata4 coming out any time soon with 4x the speed of Sata3, + I dislike RAID configs. Plus really, who doesn't want that speed?

Anyway, any opinions welcome, ideas, feedback etc. I dont seriously expect anyone to answer all the question above, all i can do is put it all out there, but if you can only answer 1 it would be this: Does it sound like a decent build that would OC well?

Cheers for any feedback in advance.
Thanks.

Reply to kAzure

Okay, I'll address of few of these.

First, do not worry with a RAM disk. Your Revo drive will be really fast and just keep the paging file on it. Any theoretical speed increase would not be worth having to set up a RAMdisk after reboot, because they would be so small. Just get enough RAM so you don't have to use the page file so often.

Second, you can't run anymore than two monitors off that graphics card. Can't use the onboard with it at the same time. The Virtu technology allows you to use the built in graphics or the graphics card, but not simaltaneously. If you get another matching video card (or switch to AMD, but then you lose CUDA) you can run three monitors.

Third, do not get heatsink fans for the RAM. They're purely cosmetic, they don't actually do anything.

Fourth, don't overthink airflow. Just have enough fans and not too much cable clutter and things will be fine. All in all the air has got to come from somewhere, so I don't really see a real difference between positive or negative pressure.

Fifth, if you really want to run this as a server then maybe think about an i7 instead of the i5. The i7 gets 8 logical cores (which helps server type computations), but using hyper threading lowers overclocking ability because it adds heat.

Reply to jsrudd

Don't bother overclocking the RAM. It won't get you much. The 1.5 volt spec is more important.

I do not see any reason to plug the television into the UPS and long as you have another monitor connected.

Reply to jsc

Best answer

My system is pretty similar to yours and I doubt you’ll run into any hiccups with compatibility. I haven’t built a machine in 10 years and I was actually almost disappointed in how easy it is to do so now days. No dip switches???

The 600T is tricky to cool well. In stock configuration without a side mesh panel it develops hot spots down low by the power supply, especially with powerful GPU(s) installed. I've tried a lot of combinations of intake and exhaust on mine and what I found works best is using the mesh side panel as much as I hate them (had to buy mine extra since it didn't come with it). So, here’s what I found works best over the course of a couple of weeks and a lot of rearranging and testing.

Front: Stock 200mm fan as intake.

Top: Install your H100 in push/pull configuration as an intake on the top panel as you’ve already noted. All four fans should be powered by the H100 fan hub for automatic control. You may optionally want to purchase some fine mesh window screen (preferably plastic since it’s finer) to cut and install on the inside of the removable top panel to act as a dust filter similar to the front of the case.

Side: 4x120mm fans as exhaust. Hook these up to the stock fan controller. If you don’t mind a bit of work you can play with mounting the stock 200mm fan from the top of the case on the side.

Rear: 120mm fan as exhaust. Hooked up to MB fan header (set for low speed quiet operation in BIOS).

With this arrangement, depending on your side fan choice you can you can basically turn your machine from a negative to positive pressure arrangement based on the speed of the side exhaust. You can actually test positive and negative case pressure by getting a small piece of tissue (maybe ½” x 2”) and holding in front of case seams to see if it’s attracted or blown away from the seam. I’ve found this works quite well both for quiet everyday use and for gaming.

Reply to 87ninefiveone

@jsrudd - Yeah, i think a can do without the Plasma as a monitor for the time being, it was overkill anyway, would have been nice though.
Regarding the ramdisc, it was an idea to reduce writes on the revodrive, but considering the mean time to fail i think i should be fine without it.
I'll still be sticking with an I5 though as, A, ive not overclocked before, and dont want to destroy an i7, or have to disable HT to get it to go faster, and im planning an upgrade later on and one of the items on my list is the processor.
On the heatsink fans though i was unaware they were mostly cosmetic, thanks for the heads up.

@jsc - I'll still have a look at optomising the ram timings, but i figure that if i really want the extra speed here i should probibly just buy the faster ram.
The TV on the UPS is mainly for if im on the Xbox and TSHTF. I generally don't have everything running at once, and turning the tv off if other stuff is on during a problem is a 2 second job.
plus if the tv is connected to the pc via a hdmi (but not to the ups) and is playing a video and the power spikes, cannot the current run through the tv to the pc via this cable? Will consider a power board with spike protection as an alternative now though, as TV's arent covered by any sort of insurance without adequate power protection anyway ( at least i know mine isnt, it says so in the manual. )

@87ninefiveone - Yeah sweet man, I'll take that into consideration as the revodrive will be on the lowest pci-e slot neer that hotspot are you are talking about. The idea with the side fans connected to the dial on the case header is good. I'm going to get some fine wire screen for that top mesh too, ( just brushed the top of my current pc with my hands and their's enough dust there to think it worthwhile. )

I know that the usb3 headers on the mobo are disabled when the 4x pci-e slot is used, but the case has a pass through usb3 to the back, so i'm not really fussed in that regard.

Is the 650w PSU enough for this? Looking at the stats here (funnily enough its the acutal one listed), i'm not sure if 24w to the 3.3v is 'normal' as the others that are compaired are a little higher ( 25w ) yet the Max +5 V/+3.3 V is highter than all but the 1200W PSU???
Any know what the deal is with this?

Cheers for your feedback guys.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to kAzure

kAzure wrote :

Is the 650w PSU enough for this?

650 watts is plenty. A good 500 watt PSU would be enough.

kAzure wrote :

Looking at the stats here (funnily enough its the acutal one listed), i'm not sure if 24w to the 3.3v is 'normal' as the others that are compaired are a little higher ( 25w ) yet the Max +5 V/+3.3 V is highter than all but the 1200W PSU???
Any know what the deal is with this?

I'm not sure what you are asking here.

The max combined 3.3 and 5 volt ratings are pretty much meaningless in a modern system. The 12 volt output does all of the heavy lifting.

Reply to jsc

Yeah sweet, I figured it would be fine, just making sure its not an abnormal specification or something that will interfere with any of the power controls on the mobo.

The site I used to generate the system power usage said 480w max, 500 - 550w psu recommended, so I gave it ample headroom, as to not stress it out. just wanted to check with a real person before trusing an automated web based app.

For that answer uz can haz beer. 8-)

Cheers guys, if anyone has any other comments I'd be happy to hear them, otherwize i'm placing my order on monday.

Looking forward to putting this thing together!

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by kAzure on 12-17-2011 at 04:56:01 AM

Reply to kAzure