Number crunching expandable system <$4000

[surfydell]

I am looking to build a powerful dual cpu number cruncher for some digital photo based landscape geometry reconstruction and need some advice. I have been trawling the folding sites and overclocking forums for some pointers and have settled on a loose configuration.

As a base I need a 2 cpu motherboard along the lines of the Asus Z9PE-d16. I need high CPU speed so a single Xeon E5-2643 at 3.3 GHz seems best bang for buck to start with. I will need at least 64 gig RAM initially before expanding to 128 with the second CPU. I was hoping to use non ECC RAM such as 8*8 GB ripjaws but they only seem compatible with the Z9PE-d8 (8 dimm equivalent motherboard). GPU will be a GTX 580 or 680 to start with for the high CUDA cores for GPU processing, before a second is added. The rest is incidental for me as I will scavenge from my old machines. Has anyone had experience with such a system or this motherboard, and can it support the non-ECC RAM.

I have also noticed a few people are running windows 7 64 on the motherboard can anyone confirm if this is possible. Have no issues with running Linux but have heaps of GIS based software packages that will make this problematic.

Many Thanks

 

[allanitomwesh]

it supports unbuffered memory according to the Asus site, upto 8gb sticks.

 

[Nw333]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/eLYd

Couldnt find a Xeon so just went for the 3960X.
2 way SLI 680s for awesome performance.

This is my try at a ~$4000 system.

 

[allanitomwesh]

I'd go with 670 instead, in three.

 

[Nw333]

I'd go with 670 instead, in three.

Mobo doesnt support 3-way.

 

[allanitomwesh]

Oh. Hadn't checked...
*edit* it actually has 6

 

[Nw333]

Oh. Hadn't checked...
*edit* it actually has 6

O.O

Thought it was 2. PCPartPicker had no more options to add in another GPU.

 

[allanitomwesh]

Three 670's would work better.Should cost about the same.

 

[surfydell]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/eLYd

Couldnt find a Xeon so just went for the 3960X. ---> I am looking to use two processors and expand the RAM out to 512 GB I cant do that on a 3960X
2 way SLI 680s for awesome performance. ----> 670 seem to be the sweetspot for price/performance

Thanks


This is my try at a ~$4000 system.

 

[surfydell]

After hours trawling through the net I decided to go down the Supermicro route for the machine.

X9DAI LN4F+ motherboard
2 * Xeon E5-2643 (used cpus only way I could get below 4K)
ASUS GTX 680 CUII
1200 W Corsair PSU
4 * 16 GB ECC 1600 RAM
256 GB Samsung 830 SSD
Lian Li PC-V2120 Case
2 * Noctua NH D14 coolers

Thanks for your Help

 

[surfydell]

Best answer selected by surfydell.