Planning. Opinions welcome.

[AlienALX]

Indeed. The issue was that it was a very frustrating build (the modded Alienware) and I had a couple of issues that made me have to remove the board twice etc. So I installed Windows on it, then tried to RAID it. Which apparently isn't a good idea. I had to replace two of the NVME controller drivers with AMD's, but by that stage I had about 10 SSDs in there and it wasn't clear what drives I needed to change.

At which point I feared data loss, so just left it.

I am hopeful that the NVME RAID on Intel is like the SATA RAID on Intel. IE - extremely easy, even for morons like me.

 

[Bartacus]

Oh yeah, you TOTALLY need to do that stuff from the ground up. Trying to RAID after installing Windows is an exercise in futility, LOL! But mine still works, even upgraded the rig to Windows 11 over top, seems to be fine, triple 2TB ADATA SX8200's in RAID0. Once I found the proper directions on AMDs website it was fairly easy. Hopefully Intel will be easier, it used to be in the old days, I haven't touched blue team since x79.

 

[AlienALX]

I don't think I have used RAID since X79, tbh. I bought four cheap AF 32gb Intel drives for a hackintosh and RAID 0 them. They bloody flew lol. Then I got some cut price 60gb Corsairs (four) and put those in RAID 0 for my big purple rig. Again, was awesome.

I think the problem for me was there was no specific RAID building "app" within the BIOS like I am used to. So you need to do it all through Windows, which I have no experience of at all.

Gotta say I love this new board. It's absolutely gorgeous. Gigabyte have dialled it back a bit and you can barely even make out the hawk of ghey or whatever the bloody hell it is. I really don't want to see childish attire splattered all over boards (did you hear that MSI and Asus?).

It's bloody heavy too.

I'm really excited. Mostly because I have put Windows 11 off for now and not adopted that too early either. With this I waited for the DRM issues and Battleye issues with PUBG to be fixed and avoided the train crash that is currently DDR5 also.

 

[Dawelio]

My buddys have been ribbing me about temps on AL. I was going to fit a H100i RGB Platinum, but it's "only" 240mm. I then realised that fits my Threadripper board

Isn't the block on the H100i RGB Platinum too small for the massive IHS on the Threadripper though? Seeing as they are more for the mainstream platforms.

 

[AlienALX]

Isn't the block on the H100i RGB Platinum too small for the massive IHS on the Threadripper though? Seeing as they are more for the mainstream platforms.

No idea yet. It goes on there that's for sure. I have the brackets.

Do bear in mind it will be in a server though. So won't be tasked anywhere near as hard as if you were gaming or maxing it out with blender or etc.

 

[Dawelio]

No idea yet. It goes on there that's for sure. I have the brackets.

Do bear in mind it will be in a server though. So won't be tasked anywhere near as hard as if you were gaming or maxing it out with blender or etc.

Yeah, apparently Corsair has included brackets for it, but according to online searches it's what I thought. It doesn't even cover half of the IHS of Threadripper and hence has less than average performance.

For your use case however though, probably will be fine

 

[AlienALX]

From what I can tell it should be fine yeah. This is how it looks with the brackets on. The cold plate is ever so slightly bigger (as the brackets go into the pump head).

And the die layout inside.

So the cold plate should cover those nicely.

 

[Dawelio]

Ohh to me, that's barely covering 50% of the total die layout to be honest... And using a Threadripper for home server is overkill in itself ^_^

 

[AlienALX]

Your perspective is off dude. The dies look like they are much bigger than they are. Look to the ends of them to see how much PCB is left over. Then realise that the entire top PCB is covered. And then like I said, the pump head comes out past those "blade" things. They go inside it.

As for using TR on a home server and it being overkill? absolutely not. That is one of the things it was actually designed for. Oh, and lanes. 64 lanes. Meaning NVME and RAID cards out of the ass without running short.

 

[Dawelio]

Your perspective is off dude. The dies look like they are much bigger than they are. Look to the ends of them to see how much PCB is left over. Then realise that the entire top PCB is covered. And then like I said, the pump head comes out past those "blade" things. They go inside it.

As for using TR on a home server and it being overkill? absolutely not. That is one of the things it was actually designed for. Oh, and lanes. 64 lanes. Meaning NVME and RAID cards out of the ass without running short.

Perspective or not, at the end of the day, it's your build and not mine. No need to explain yourself or it to me, as I don't really care if it's covering or not.

Was just basing off the images and to potentially give you a heads up, but you seem to be on top of it anyway

 

[AlienALX]

Perspective or not, at the end of the day, it's your build and not mine. No need to explain yourself or it to me, as I don't really care if it's covering or not.

Was just basing off the images and to potentially give you a heads up, but you seem to be on top of it anyway

Cheers

From what I recall Alienware used a 120mm Asetek AIO on theirs when it launched. That was actually useless. Thankfully the Corsairs use a Coolit plate and it's square and not just the small round thing. The EK one I got for this is enormous, with the burliest pump guts I've ever seen.

TR is quite well mannered until you overclock it. I had the other one I had with an MSI Carbon and it did 4.2ghz. Catch was you needed 480mm of rads to cool it enough

 

[AlienALX]

OK some news.

I gutted the PC-012 yesterday. Had to rewire a lot of it as I used the third fan space to hide wires. Obviously with a 360 going in I had to sort that out.

It all went very well. All M2 slots are now filled and the board is in. I also removed a load of wiring from the bottom and routed it properly so that the 8+4 power cables are super neat.

Sadly I can't upload the pics easily as I'm now down to my phone bit will get those up tomorrow.

The EK arrived at mum's this morning, so when I return I will be good to go. I have to do a CPU swap when I get there but that shouldn't be a major pain.

It looks really nice now. The new board goes so well with the carbon Cablemod cables

I've also finalised my ideas for the TR server, which if all goes to plan will be great fun.

Btw the pump head is way bigger than those mounts look.

 

[AlienALX]

Progress.

Ignore the sticker. It's sure better than the down to metal gouge that it covers

This is why I chose that cooler over anything running an Asetek. On the left is the Asetek motor windings for the pump. On the right is EK's.

 

[AlienALX]

All done. Windows is on, pain in the bum that was. Changed out the sound card.

RAID works

 

[AlienALX]

Last thing to do was sort the memory speed. I've heard getting 3600 is hard, which kinda bummed me out because I bought 4133 all that time ago and couldn't use that speed on Ryzen. I was hoping to now, but didn't have much hope.

So I tried 3600. Continual power on/off. Bugger ! changed it to 3200 after a CMOS reset, same. Kept power cycling. I felt a bit sick at this point.

Then I decided to take the pee a bit and just enable XMP lol. What can go wrong right? Sure enough it picked up the 4133 RAM, but set it to 4000. This is because the second set are 4000. Booted into Windows "Steam can not start and needs reinstalling". Uh oh. Sure enough about 5 seconds later BSOD. DANGIT.

I tried loads of other speeds, settings etc. None worked. So I enabled XMP again. This was when I realised that the board was trying to run it at 4133 with 1.2v. Now I already knew that as soon as you step over 2666 on this RAM it needs 1.35. So I shoved that in.

Incredibly it worked !

Hammered it with AIDA a few times and sure enough, rock solid. Then hammered writes.

Chuffed would be an understatement.

 

[Dicehunter]

4133MHz is nuts !

 

[AlienALX]

4133MHz is nuts !

I thought at the time I'd been dumb tbh. I really had no idea 3000 Ryzen wouldn't support it. All I'd heard was "3000 series memory support is amazing etc". So with the first 16gb set costing £125 on sale I figured it would be great. Little did I realise when you set XMP on AMD it would not even power on. That was the baptism of fire and I then found out 3700 was the limit.

Second set came up cheap. About £80 IIRC.

Again I thought it would just work. Again didn't realise that getting 3600 on AL was really tough right now.

Stunned it works tbh. All I had to do was punch in the correct voltage.

Really wanted to see if I get more FPS in PUBG than the 3950x, but it's offline for 36 hours lol. Typical !