Budget approved!

[JDub]

Built Log

I realize that a traditional build log aims to chronicle the progression of a build from concept to completion. However, given the unpredictable nature of budget requests for misunderstood necessities (like the replacement for a 6 year old workstation), I didn’t want to begin a log only to have it sit in limbo while I waited for approval that, in this economy, might never come. So, when my 7 month old request was suddenly green-lighted earlier this month I had to pull the trigger quickly.

I had about 10 days of down time between projects and needed to move quickly. 90% of the gear arrived on Friday the 14th and the rest the following Monday and Tuesday. The need to have the rig up, running (and relatively stable) before my next project came in was paramount and so my opportunity to craft an awesome build log was lost.

Since I have been lurking on this forum for nearly a year, soaking up as much information from all of you as I could, (thank you) I wanted to post the end result here. I hope that you don’t mind.

Timeline

Budget Request Submitted – Late September 2012
Budget Request Approved – June 10th 2013 a.m.
Parts Order Placed - June 10th 2013 p.m.
Bulk of Parts Arrive – June 14th 2013
Build Started – June 14th 2013
Final Parts Arrive – June 18th 2013
Build Completed – June 19th 2013
OS & Drivers Loaded and Patched – June 20th 2013 a.m.
Testing and Mild Burn-In Completed – June 20th 2013 p.m.
Stability and Temperature Burn-In, Software Loaded and Patched – June 21st through June 24th 2013 a.m.
Mock Editing and Animation Workflow Simulation – June 24th 2013 p.m.
10 hours of XDCam HD Footage Arrives to be Cut Down to 8 Min Including Titles, GFX and Logo Animation – June 25th 2013 (Today)
Fingers Crossed – Now

Overview

Though my trusty old HP xw8400 workstation had served me well for the past 6 years, her dual quad-core Xeon’s and DDR2 were definitely showing their age. After Effect render times were getting out of control and as predominately standard definition duty transitioned into predominately 1080p at insane bit rates, it was clear that I needed an upgrade. Having built computers from the ground up before, I decided that I would forego the 15 to 25 percent additional cost of an HP or Dell logo. My goal was silky smooth timelines in Premiere Pro and fast renders out of After Effects, Encore and Media Encoder. All while remaining reasonably quiet.

My initial thought was a custom water cooling loop. I had never done a custom water loop before and became nearly obsessed with the idea. I studied it, read about it, watched hours of YouTube and felt that I had acquired enough armchair knowledge to pull it off. Unfortunately, as I stared at the $1,900 worth of liquid cooling awesome in my Frozencpu.com “wish list”, I realized that it was going to put me woefully over budget and I wasn't about to trade “go fast” parts for bling regardless of how epic it would have looked in the production suite. (Though it really would have looked exceptionally badass)

So I went with a pair of AIOs from NZXT.
Besides, I might be able to swing a cooling “upgrade” at some point in the future.

Though I must say that the Kraken x60s are doing a remarkable job thus far.

Gear

Case – NZXT SWITCH 810 Gun-Metal
CPUs – dual Intel Xeon E5-2687W Sandy Bridge-EP 3.1GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 20MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 150W 8-Core
Motherboard – ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 SSI EEB Intel Motherboard
GPU – EVGA GeForce GTX Titan
Memory - 64GB [8 x 8GB] CORSAIR Dominator Platinum DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133
PSU - EVGA SuperNOVA NEX1500 Classified
Storage -
OS Drive: SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 512GB SATA III SSD
“In-Box” Drive: RAID0 2x SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 256GB SATA III SSD
“Out-Box” Drive: RAID0 2x SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 256GB SATA III SSD
Media Cache/Scratch Drive: SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series 256GB SATA III SSD
Near-line Project Storage Drive: eight spindle RAID5 24TB gigabit Q-Nap NAS (preexisting)
Near-line Media Storage Drive: twelve spindle RAID6 44TB gigabit Dell PowerEdge server (preexisting)
LG Black 14X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 12X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner with 3D Play Back
Cooling -
2x NZXT Kraken X60 280mm Ultra Performance Liquid CPU Coolers
11x XIGMATEK AOS 140mm Ultra Quiet Copper Bushing Axis White LED Black Case Fans
Audio Interface -
Lexicon I-ONIX U22S
Speakers -
KRK RoKIT 5 near field monitors
Tannoy System 800 studio monitors


Pics

 

[Mark3Max]

Good lord , That's a beast of a system. It looks great , good job.
Just out of curiosity , what do you do with your system ?

 

[vorticalbox]

what are the x60's like for cooling? but f***ing awesome looking rig.

 

[JDub]

Good lord , That's a beast of a system. It looks great , good job.
Just out of curiosity , what do you do with your system ?

Thanks, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I edit video and audio and create graphics and animations for large corporate meetings. The company for whom I work is a Sound, Light & Video Staging company based out of Indianapolis, IN.

Think of the sound system & lighting rig and video screens at a U2 concert. Then imagine that, instead of Bono on stage, it's some corporate CEO (who thinks he's Bono) that's what we do.

So I either create content for show and/or take the camera footage recorded at an event and edit down to a "Didn't we have an awesome time at the Q4 Sales & Marketing Meeting?" video montage.

Not uber glamours, but it's always different and I do enjoy it.

what are the x60's like for cooling? but f***ing awesome looking rig.

Since the 2687's are locked, I obviously never intended to OC them. My goal was to just be able to have fans turning slowly (quietly).

For my goal, the x60s are doing a great job. as I look right now they are hovering at about 40c and the fans are dead silent 3 feet from my right ear. (minimum temps have one core at 30c with most around 32-35c min) I've installed it but haven't tweaked the Kraken software yet. I'm trying to figure out how/if I can control 2 Krakens in the same rig. When I've got all 32 threads on boil the stock curve on the x60 spools the fans up when temps get above 60c but Iv'e not seen them go above 65c yet (Prime95 during initial testing burn in)

If it's possible to control both x60s (either individually or simultaneously) I would like to play with the temp/fan curve and see if I can keep the CPUs at a decent temp (under 85c?) with even less fan speed.

Since I had to bust this rig out between jobs, I haven't had much play time with it. Once I get this project done, I hope to do some actual bench-marking and digging around for info on multiple Krakens in one PC.

Thanks for the replies

 

[iiBetrayforAR]

Very nice, very budget approved!

 

[demonking]

wow very jealous
if only i didn't have kids.... anyone wanna trade lol

 

[You_What?]

Me like this!

 

[TheRamJam]

That's some kit dude, wish I had a budget like yours

Nice build and the NZXT 810 in gunmetal looks lush!!

btw is that your car on the desktop too

 

[wassupdoc]

Holy... Lost for words that aren't expletives dude :drool:

 

[Retell]

Looks epic man! Sooooooo much NZXT! The cell phone pics don't do it justice!

 

[BileMonkey]

As far as I can tell running 1 Kraken, once you've set it up in software it stores the settings internally and you only need to use the USB header to change those settings. So you can just plug one in, set it up, then unplug it and and repeat for the other one. Once you're happy with the profiles you can leave both unplugged if you need the USB headers.