I would like to have a go at replacing my four-year-old+ Dell XPS 435 with a home-built (i.e. me-built!) system. The Dell has but one PCIe x16 socket and I have a spare GPU that's sitting in its box doing nothing.

This is new territory for me but here is what I think I need:

* A mother board that supports two wide Nvidia GPUs and a fast Intel i5 processor. Initially the GPUs will be modest but, as funds become available, I would replace them with the latest whiz-bang Nvidia offerings; GPUGrid is my priority.
* Two hard drives, two DVDs and an SSD for Windows (7...)
* A PSU to support the above
* A box to put it all in, with minimum two USB ports on the front (lots on the back!) and great cooling!.

I live in France so parts sourcing would have to be Europe.

I do hope this hits many of you who have been down the home-grown path before!

Thanks, Tom

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I just built a new system, based on AMD FX 8350 8 core CPU. It uses an ASRock 990FX Extreme3 with 3 PCIe slots (two @ 16x and one @ 8x). I use my older GTX 560 and GT 440 cards but only the GTX 560 crunches for GPUGRID as the 440 is somewhat underpowered, though it crunches Milkyway and Einstein. I live in Belgium and payed for the mobo 100€ while the CPU costs me 188€. PSU, HDD, Case and DVD come from my old system so I just reuse them

I have little experience with modern Intel CPUs so can't comment on them much. What I do know is that the AMDs are better at multi-threaded tasks. So if you use them, like I do for audio/video encoding besides number crunching, AMD will not only be 10-15% faster but also a lot cheaper.

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Team Belgium

Here is a lot of information, if you like some reading.

BTW: Amazon.de is some nice prices for parts, I bought a few there and via the link of this site you fund the project a little as well.
I guess you have a link to Amazon.fr?

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Greetings from TJ

We can give better advice if we know what you intend to use your new system for. So far you have told us you will be using it to crunch mostly GPUgrid. What else do you intend to use it for? Do you do video/photo editing? Gaming? Develop software? Compose music (MIDI stuff or whatever they do these days)?

I ask because if it's for general web surfing, email, skype then why do you need 2 HDD, 2 DVD and an SSD? Unless you intend to keep lots of files and need super fast access maybe you don't need that. Do you intend to burn lots of music files and duplicate DVDs? If not then why 2 DVD?

Cooling.... If you install a video card that vents hot air into the case you create big cooling headaches. Select a GPU that vents the hot air out of the case. You'll spend a lot less on additional case fans and other cooling solutions if you do it that way. If you decide to go with a card that vents air into the case then buy a case that already case holes drilled and grills for additional fans because you'll need them. Or maybe you have the tools to cut and drill the holes yourself.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Humble apologies! I subscribed to this thread but have yet to get any email notification of your postings! Sorry.

First, your questions / comments:

Yes - I use Amazon France (free shipping!) but I'll certainly check out Amazon Germany.

No - nothing I run, apart from BOINC, puts a great demand on the processor. I do a bit of Office, email and lots of surfing. I like two hard drives so I can clone C: every night but two DVD drives is a bit over the top. And an SSD is a nice-to-have only.

I came to the conclusion that AMD offers a better bang for the buck so that's what I've looked at.

OK, here's what I've been thinking these past 10 days:

I want to do more for GPUGrid. Right now my ASUS GTX 660 does two long runs every 24 hours. I have a GTX 460 sitting its box that will do one in 24 hours but I only have one PCIe x16 slot. Over time I want to invest in more powerful GPUs so the plan is to build a system that has enough oomph for that future.

My thoughts at the moment are:

1. AMD rather than Intel; better bang for the buck.
2. Mobo with four PCIe x16 slots
3. A case that fits under my desk and will support water cooling (if needed...)
4. 1000W PSU

Here's my first stab at a configuration with parts from Amazon France:



Not cheap!

I have a GSO 9600 somewhere. Perhaps, for starters, I could use that for the video and, if I can keep the total spend to €1,000 I could add a second GTX 660 (€159). That would let me do five WUs/24 hours. To do that I would need to cut back on the configuration:

1. The case is a given, methinks
2. A more modest CPU?
3. Fan rather than water cooling?
4. A less powerful PSU?
5. Slower RAM?
6. Perhaps there's a more modest mobo that would still deliver for three top-end (future...) GPUs.

Note above that I have no ideas about the paste to use between the CPU and its cooler...

Tom

Just checked out Amazon Germany prices.

Total is €981.47 vs. Amazon France's €918.52. And I doubt I'd get free shipping from Germany!

Tom

Hi Tom,

I get free shipping from Amazon.de to the Netherlands.
A MOBO with 4 PCIe buses is expensive and in my opinion not handy. If you put 4 GPU's in , they will almost tough each other with heat build up.
I have a PC with the same AMD processor but used this MOBO:
ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 - Socket AM3+ - ATX with currently a price of 145 Euri in Netherlands.
I have never seen that one of my rigs has used more than 5GB of RAM, so I now use only 8GB (2x4) 1600 that is around 85 Euri, so you could safe there.
1000W PSU sounds good to me.

But wait to what others will advice you and chose what you like best.

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Greetings from TJ

You may consider the ASRock 990FX Extreme3. It costs 99.95 euro's (in Belgium) and has 3 PCIe slots. It's a very decent mobo in my experience, despite its "cheaper" price. Its UEFI BIOS is also nicely laid out. That mobo unofficially supports up to 64GB RAM. I say unofficially because ASRock says it needs to bring out a new BIOS version to support that much memory, but it's only willing to do so when 16GB modules become available so it can verify they are compatible. Without a new BIOS, the mobo officially supports 32GB.

Also, good choice on the FX 8350. I have exact the same one :)

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Team Belgium

Tomba,

I'm not sure how much of the following info you are already aware of but I have explained in some detail so that other crunchers who are as new to this game as I am can learn too. As always, i hope the gurus are checking the details so that I can verify whether or not I have actually figured this stuff out correctly, especially how the PCIe lanes work.

The easy stuff first... the paste. AFAIK, the best paste these days apparently contains silver. Silver is expensive but since it's the least expensive part of building a rig and a small tube goes a long way it probably makes sense to buy the best. I use whatever I can find when I need it even if it's the cheapest stuff on the market because it works well enough for me. Remember the best paste in the world is no better than cheap paste if your cooling system is poorly designed to begin with. If you understand and use the implications of the Laws of Thermodynamics you'll get excellent results even with cheap paste.

I was preaching the benefits of a future proof system a couple weeks ago but as usual skgiven has given me good reason to rethink that. I didn't realize just how expensive future proof can be. Also, since then I have been monitoring resource usage on my two rigs and I see now that what skgiven has repeated frequently is true... today's GPUgrid tasks don't need massive CPU power, fast PCIe or lots of RAM on the GPU card. What they do need is good cooling. The two mobos I am using are old and have only PCIe generation 1.0 but my tests have shown that two GPUgrid tasks running simultaneously on my GTX 660TI pin the GPU to 99% usage continuously but never use more than 40% of the PCIe capacity! So, IMHO, unless you plan on 3 X GTX 690, PCIe gen 2.0 is more than adequate and PCIe gen 3.0 is expensive overkill at this time and may very well be for several (?) more years. When PCIe 2.0 becomes inadequate and PCIe 3.0 is a necessity, mobos with 3.0 will probably be much cheaper than they are now. But who can be certain of the future?

Here is the important part for you (possibly)

You've stated you want a mobo with 4 X PCIe X16 slots. The ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z you are considering has four slots that will accept PCIe x16 cards but only three are double width slots which means you would be able to put only three GTX 660 (or similar vintage) cards on that mobo. If you were to put a GTX 660 in the third slot it would cover the fourth slot. That is apparent from the picture of the mobo at the above link.

Not sure if you're aware of this next part. If you are then maybe it will help somebody else. The PCIe specs for the ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z state:

3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (dual x16 or x16/x8/x8)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x1
1 x PCI

The dual x16 means if you install only two x16 cards then those two slots will be assigned 16 lanes each. The x16/x8/x8 means if you install three x16 cards then one slot will be assigned 16 lanes but the other two will be assigned only 8 lanes each. A PCIe lane is similar to a lane on a roadway. A road with one lane can carry a certain amount of traffic, a road with four lanes can carry (theoretically) 4X more traffic, sixteen lanes means ~16X more traffic. More PCIe lanes means more data can flow from the GPU to RAM/CPU/disk in the same amount of time. The point is this... though that mobo can accept four cards that can use sixteen lanes each, if you install three such cards only one will be able to move data at x16 speeds, the other two will be reduced to half speed (x8). Pray the gurus correct me if I am wrong about that.

You said eventually you want to put high power GPUs on the mobo. The question is... How "big" or "powerful" could you go with that mobo. The future is hard to predict but with the demands of current GPUgrid tasks, IMHO, you could install 3 X GTX 660TI or even 3 X GTX 680 cards and get excellent results. If you want to eventually put 3 X GTX 690 then you might need all slots to run at x16 speed to prevent a bottleneck on the PCIe "bus". Probably someone with more experience should comment on the feasibility of 3 X 690 on that mobo, current feasibility as well as future feasibility.

There are mobos that have four double-width x16 slots that will all run at x16 speeds but they are bloody expensive. IIRC, over $400 CDN for such a mobo. On top of that you need a CPU that has, IIUC, 4 X 16 = 48 PCIe lanes else some slots will run at less than x16 speed. As you can imagine, the more lanes a CPU has the more it costs. Intel CPUs with 48 lanes are bloody expensive and limited only to Haswell (?), not sure about equivalent AMD models.

The CPU

IMHO, a four core CPU running at a reasonable clock speed is more than sufficient for 3 X GTX 680 running GPUgrid tasks. Again, not sure about 3 X GTX 690.

RAM on mobo

I also doubt you need 16 GB but RAM is relatively cheap so maybe 16 is not a bad idea. But remember the mobo has four RAM slots. You could start with 8 GB and wait for a really got deal on another 8, if you think you need it.

Cooling rant continued

Liquid cooling isn't worth the price or hassle, IMHO. Pumps wear out, hoses leak, if you use the wrong fluid or combination of metals the radiator corrodes and leaks... who needs that? Also, there was a cruncher here a little over a year ago who thought he had it all wrapped up with expensive liquid cooling but he put the machine under his desk as you plan to do, Tomba. Bad move. He fried the CPU (possibly GPU too, can't remember) because the hot exhaust built up under his desk and the whole works overheated. Apparently the thermal protection system in the GPU/CPU didn't function correctly or something like that. The good news is it kept his toes warm, for a while. Anyway, forget all the hype in the ads, a shiny new "game changing" liquid cooling system with "jaw dropping" cooling specs won't work worth a damn if the ambient temperature is too high. In geographical locations that get fairly warm in summer, the smart way to cool rigs that generate a lot of heat is to expel the hot exhaust to the outdoors or at least into a different room in the house. Or, if you can afford it, crank up the air conditioner. If I were to put liquid cooling on 3 GPUs I would run the coolant lines out of the house and situate the radiator outside otherwise it's a bad waste of good money. I would also devise a way to move the radiator indoors for the winter so the rig can help heat the house. That additional flexibility requires only two additional hose couplings. Under no circumstances would I situate the radiator under my desk without an additional, large, mains powered fan (about 25 cm?) to move the hot air out from under the desk.

PSU

Google 'psu calculator'. I've heard the "eXtreme site" is very good, YMMV. Enter your system specs and get the answer.

Case

Think outside the box, literally. Three cards on a mobo that is oriented vertically is not a good idea, IMHO, unless you're willing to install several additional case fans. If you orient the mobo horizontally and leave the top open, you get the benefit of convection (hot air rises all on its own) which means fewer additional fans and less noise. Also, with three GPUs on one mobo I would go for cards with the single blower type fan which are louder but move more air than blade fans. The main benefit of the blower fans is that they push the air out the back of the card and away from the other cards rather than out to the edges of the card and onto adjacent cards as is the case with dual bladed fans. Others may disagree but I think for a three card setup that is very important.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

A good sum up Dagorath but I have some comments.
A GTX690 has 2 processors so it is in fact a dual card. With Windows you can only run 2 of these (4 GPU's in total). For more you need to go to Linux or something else.
With 3 cards you need to alter the BIOS first, on most MOBO's.

A lot of people suggest to use an open case. I do not agree. If you have a close case (side panels on) that will work as a funnel. Dell workstation have even an extra device over the processor with a fan that is a close system and works as a funnel with a sort Venturi effect. There is only a heat sink mounted on the CPU's (mostly two Xeon's) with only one fan and operates cooler and more silent then some rigs I built myself. I have checked it with a special thermometer with multiple sensors. A close system is cooler, especially when ambient temperature is high.
If you open the case and place a blower at it, then it will become another story.
By the way; most of my rigs stand under my desk with no problems.

Finally there is a lot written about single and dual (or triple) GPU fans. I have a 770 which has two fans. So one troughs heat out and the other puts it into the system. This card however runs GPUGRID at 63°C (or lower).
In the same system I have a 780Ti with one fan. This one runs at 72°C because I have set the maximum temperature to 72°C with GPUTweak. If I don't do that it goes to 80°C easily (what I don't like). So from experience next time I will buy a EVGA 780TI with two fans.

This is however my opinion. But same as you I like to learn as well. So I will read other posts with great interest.

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Greetings from TJ

Good points TJ :)

Funny, as I was composing my previous post and recommending an open case, I was thinking of Dell machines. I have peeked inside several different Dells and have come to admire the engineering in their cooling system. I agree, the funnel/venturi is an excellent idea and so simple. I don't know why other manufacturers haven't imitated it. Patent maybe?

A similar idea to Dell's... back in the mid 1990's one could buy well made, flexible plastic duct with flanges, mounting holes and screws all correctly sized for standard computer fan dimensions. The idea was to attach one end to the fan on the CPU heatsink and the other end to the case to provide a constant flow of cool(er) air directly onto the CPU with no mixing of the cool(er) air with hot air in the case. For some reason that idea didn't seem to catch on and I haven't seen those ducts anywhere for years which is sad. I would buy several if I knew of a source. I don't like having my case open either but I prefer to build my own rigs as opposed to buying pre-built so an open case is an easy/inexpensive option.

Thanks for your comments on GTX 690. I knew they were a dual GPU design (2 X 680 I believe) but that's about all I knew. Your comments fill in some missing information which is good because my ultimate goal was to have 4 X 690 on a single mobo. Seems I must lower my expectation to only three though they'll probably be up to 990 or 1090 before I can afford it.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Many many thanks for all the insights you guys have provided. I'm grateful.

My planned configuration has changed! See the blue rows. Only the case and PSU are as before.



Mobo: I took heed of the warnings about four GPU slots; their performance and cooling. I'm now at three.

CPU: I'm down from 4.0 GHz to 3.5 GHz. The price drop was worth while.

CPU Cooler: Now a fan rather than water cooling. The one I chose was not the cheapest but it gets excellent ratings.

RAM: Down from 16GB to 8GB.

Paste: Added the most popular one.

GPU: I ADDED a new GTX 660.

I ran the PSU calculator (good tip!). With three modest GPUs I got 700W. Replacing two of them with top-end GPUs I got 876W and a recommendation for a 1000W PSU. Spot on!

So - I went from €925 to €845 AND I get another GTX 660! Can't be bad...

Thanks again everyone. Tom

An air duct, that was the word I was thinking of but could not get into mind. So thanks Dagorath. The Alienware now from Dell has such an air duct over the GPU's. Only two will fit and then with a front fan it blows directly into the duct while another fan cools the rest of the case

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Greetings from TJ

One more thing Tom,

Amazon.fr is indeed a nice place to buy, but I have seen that some things at Amazon.de are more expensive then some dedicated computer hardware internet shops. So I compare with a few large one in the Netherlands. Do not know about these in France but they must exists. Perhaps you can check a few, and a 660Ti might be available for the same price and is faster.

Good luck with your new machine.

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Greetings from TJ

One more thing Tom,

Amazon.fr is indeed a nice place to buy, but I have seen that some things at Amazon.de are more expensive then some dedicated computer hardware internet shops. So I compare with a few large one in the Netherlands. Do not know about these in France but they must exists. Perhaps you can check a few, and a 660Ti might be available for the same price and is faster.

Good luck with your new machine.

Hi TJ,

Thank you for that. Good idea to check other suppliers in France and I will, though there are pretty good reasons to give Amazon France the business.

Except for the CPU cooler, which will come from an Amazon trader, I can put all the bits one one order. I can specify on that order to ship only when everything is available. That means they won't take my money till then, and my 30 days "Return to Amazon" guarantee starts at the same time for all components.

Tom

A GTX690 has 2 processors so it is in fact a dual card. With Windows you can only run 2 of these (4 GPU's in total). For more you need to go to Linux or something else.
With 3 cards you need to alter the BIOS first, on most MOBO's.

You should ask Firehawk on how to put 3 GTX 690's in a single PC with Win7.

Finally there is a lot written about single and dual (or triple) GPU fans. I have a 770 which has two fans. So one troughs heat out and the other puts it into the system. This card however runs GPUGRID at 63°C (or lower).
In the same system I have a 780Ti with one fan. This one runs at 72°C because I have set the maximum temperature to 72°C with GPUTweak. If I don't do that it goes to 80°C easily (what I don't like). So from experience next time I will buy a EVGA 780TI with two fans.

Blower type (single radial fan) GPUs are better when there are more than 1 GPU in a close case, as the blower type fan directly blows the hot air out from the case on the back side, except the GTX 690, which has the fan in the middle of the card, so half of the heat stays in the case (unless you have some special front fans). The multi-fan (axial fan) coolers are always blow the hot air inside the case (only a small amount goes out on the rear grille), so if you put more such cards in a close case they will heat each other (especially the upper ones gets hotter). I recommend not to put any GPUs next to the other, at least 1 slot space should be left empty between the cards to have adequate airflow. So you should buy a MB with 2 slots between the PCIe x16 slots. (The Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 is such an MB). I'm using motherboards with 4 (equally spaced) PCIe x16 slots, but I'm using 2 slots only so I have 3 slots between the used PCIe slots, to have 2 slot room for the airflow between the cards.

@TJ:

That's another good example of good Dell innovation and engineering. I hope it sells well for them. I agree with your recommendation of 660TI over 660. For just a little more money you get a big increase in performance.

@tomba:

Consider saving the cost of Windows and install Linux instead. Linux will give you 11% shorter run times compared to Win 7/8. If you intend to keep your current Windows rig you could use it for web surfing and non-crunching activity. I'll guide you through the installation, setup and configuration every step of the way and I'm sure other Linux users will help too. It's not nearly as difficult as many people think. Eventually you'll get rid of Windows completely and wonder why you didn't do it sooner. You might be able to get a nice UPS for what you would spend on Windows.

@Retvari:

Thanks for sharing your considerable wisdom with 690 cards and the problems associated with different fan types. I spent many years as a welder where I built numerous different things, from metal and glass furniture to bridges. I love building custom solutions for problems that don't have a solution one can purchase off the shelf. If I had 4 X 690 on one mobo, each with a radial fan between the two GPUs I would fashion a custom duct out of thin cardboard that would fasten to the back side of each card to collect the hot air from all of them and carry it outside the case. The proper name for such a structure is "exhaust manifold" and of course every gasoline/diesel powered vehicle has at least one. A manifold could also be made out of the thin, flexible kitchen cutting boards one can find in stores. I am a fanatic about not allowing hot air to escape into the case. Collect it ASAP and send it out the case. Balsa wood is another material that is very easy to cut and fashion into small shapes. My friend makes amazing shapes out of paper that he later coats with epoxy to give it strength and rigidity.

Send me a photo and I'll tell you what to measure and how to measure it. Or send me a dimensioned drawing. I'll make you a custom manifold out of plastic, steel, aluminum, wood, leather, fiberglass, epoxy reinforced paper, anything except concrete. I hate concrete.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

@TJ:

I agree with your recommendation of 660TI over 660. For just a little more money you get a big increase in performance.

Here I read that the 660TI is but 4% points better than the 660:



Given that Amazon France's 660 is €165 and the TI version is €255, for a 4% improvement I'll stick with the non-TI version (me thinks...). It's hardly a big performance increase and it's not a little more money.

Tom

Here I read that the 660TI is but 4% points better than the 660:

I think that was quite accurate about a year ago. But since then, the work units have gotten harder. My own tests on the GTX 660 Ti indicate that it is maybe 15% faster than the 660 now. And the power useage is slightly less, so it has close to a 20% improvement in points per day/watt. I don't think that is necessarily enough to overcome the big price advantage that the 660 enjoys (about $100. in the U.S. at the moment, maybe more), but it is worth mentioning.

I often go looking for bargains - earlier this year I acquired 2 Crosshair IV Formula motherboards for less than the price of one more recent Crosshair V.