Sabertooth X58 - 2 Questions

[Illydth]

New poster, you have my apologies if I break posting law on these forums.

I will be building a new PC in about 2 weeks (+ or -) and ordering the parts.

I've decided to go down the ASUS Sabertooth X58 / Intel i7 - 950 route with Dual NVidia SLI.

I'm specing a 60G OCZ SSD (Sata II) for the boot drive and two 500G WD Black 6G/s SATA III drives that I intend to raid (Mirror, I keep forgetting if this is 0 or 1...).

So, I have three questions.

*** First question***: Can I setup this configuration? OCZ will be on the SATA II connector and the 2 WD Blacks on the SATA III.

Can I setup the OCZ as the boot and yet raid the two blacks as "secondary" drives? I've been running raid forever, and SATA raid for a while, but I've never tried to get a MOBO to boot from non raid on one controller while raiding on another. Problems I'm going to run into?

*** Second question ***: This one is MUCH simpler. Anyone with a Sabertooth X58 MOBO that can tell me how long the SATA cables are that come with the MOBO? I ask because I'm working off the Antec DF-85 Case and that sucker is BIG, I'll need 2xSATAII that stretch from almost the bottom of the case (SATA Controllers on the MOBO) to the top of the case for the two Optical drives (one blueray, another regular). I have cables speced out, but I'm pushing $1800 on the build and I'd prefer to cut what I can...$40 in SATA cables may be unnecessary if the ones shipping with the MOBO are long enough.

And Lastly:

*** Third Question ***: I've got very little experience with SSD: Am I moving the Windows Swap partition off to the raided drive? Huge speed decrease but am I worried about number of disk writes on SSD? Obviously all of my data directories get moved to the RAID for protection, but what ELSE should I be worried about?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to respond to this post...and again, I apologize if this sounds pretty noobish. I've been building PC's for 15+ years or so, but it's been over 5 since my last build...LOTS of new technology since then.

--Illydth

 

[Illydth]

No one? Even on the Raid/SSD questions?

 

[Aurus_OC]

No one? Even on the Raid/SSD questions?

I would say it should, just change the SSD to JBOD install your OS and then set up the raid.

Concerning your other question,

I have an Asus Motherboard myself (Sandy Bridge one though) and the Sata cables are long enough to reach from the buttom (where the SATA connectors are) to the top (for my optical drive). I have the Bitfenix Colossus, which is pretty big aswell, so I would figure they are long enough for the DF-85 that you want.

 

[ShortAlieN]

good questions. I have the Sabertooth x58 board.

#1 Yes you can set up that system. I recommend using your boot drive on the Intel controller. I have set this board up many different ways and the Intel controller works great. I set up a RAID 0 on the 6gb Marvell controller, but that has a terrible controller. ended up switching from the Marvell 6gb controller to the Intel 3gb and it worked much much better. As for just a storage setup, the Marvell controller should work fine. just don't expect too much speed out of it.

#2 Comes with 4 18" cables. Not really sure how big your case actually is, but they are plenty long for my phantom. not a really large case though.

#3 Not much experience with SSD's currently so cant really help there.

The board is great but make sure to flash your bios to the current one. makes it much more stable. my northbridge temps were kind of high after I put in a H50 so I stuck a 40mm fan on there and it works well for cooling.

Depending on your video card choice for your SLI setup you may have to have a fan to get some of the heat away from the cards. they are right on top of each other and the top card does get warm. I have a 120mm fan pulling hot air away from the cards and pushing it out the side panel. That's with dual MSI N460GTX Hawk cards with the TwinFrozrII heatsink and the heat is pretty much all exhausted inside of the case.

That should get you started at least so good luck.

 

[Illydth]

good questions. I have the Sabertooth x58 board.

#1 Yes you can set up that system. I recommend using your boot drive on the Intel controller. I have set this board up many different ways and the Intel controller works great. I set up a RAID 0 on the 6gb Marvell controller, but that has a terrible controller. ended up switching from the Marvell 6gb controller to the Intel 3gb and it worked much much better. As for just a storage setup, the Marvell controller should work fine. just don't expect too much speed out of it.

#2 Comes with 4 18" cables. Not really sure how big your case actually is, but they are plenty long for my phantom. not a really large case though.

#3 Not much experience with SSD's currently so cant really help there.

The board is great but make sure to flash your bios to the current one. makes it much more stable. my northbridge temps were kind of high after I put in a H50 so I stuck a 40mm fan on there and it works well for cooling.

Depending on your video card choice for your SLI setup you may have to have a fan to get some of the heat away from the cards. they are right on top of each other and the top card does get warm. I have a 120mm fan pulling hot air away from the cards and pushing it out the side panel. That's with dual MSI N460GTX Hawk cards with the TwinFrozrII heatsink and the heat is pretty much all exhausted inside of the case.

That should get you started at least so good luck.

Thanks to both of you VERY MUCH for the replies.

Re: Marvell Controller, yea, I've read on here a few times people unhappy with the performance of the Marvell Raid (I think you were one of them). I assume it should be ok for a data drive only if I've got apps installed on the SSD.

Re: Cable Length: That's exactly what I needed to know. I'll have to figure out if 18" is enough but I think I'm looking at two 24" to get to the top of the case (the case rates from top to bottom somewhere around 24" means the top most sata controller is going to have to sit AT MINIMUM 6" off the bottom of the case...and even then that's stretching the cable to connect. Sounds like I can get away with what ships with the board however for the HDDs and SDD however, so I'm good with that.

Link to the case if anyone cares: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129087

Re: General:

Thanks for the advice, I'll make sure the first thing I do after the OS install is a BIOS flash. I plan on adding a side fan which should blow right onto the graphics cards. With the number of fans in the case I suspect I will be fairly cool in the case (3 on front, 120mm on top, 2 on back and one in the PS...).

Looking at 2 MSI N460GTX Cyclones as my SLI setup. The military grade components on the video seem to match the military grade components on the Sabertooth to, hopefully, make a pretty darn stable system.

Link to the Graphics Cards: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127510

I assume two of those puppies will fit on that motherboard?

--Illydth

 

[Mumbles37]

As far as the SSD stuff goes, there are several tweaks and things you can do to minimize the amount of writes aside from the page file. Not only that, but every year that goes by the technology is getting better and their life spans are increasing. Here's a link with optimizations for SSDs in Win7: SSD Tweaks and Utilities

If you're still concerned about it, you can do what I've just done--put my RAM up to 12gb and completely turned off the page file. Some people don't like doing this but I haven't had any problems yet, my system absolutely flies, and best of all I don't have that worry in the back of my mind that my SSD is getting worse with every passing day.

 

[michaelah500]

So, I have three questions.

--Illydth

I joke, I joke

 

[Illydth]

LOL, yea, I wrote the thing with the first two questions in mind (length of cables and SSD+Raid) and then decided to shamelessly abuse my newbie status on the board here to steal more of your precious time by asking a third.

Thanks again folks for the questions, and especially for the links. You guys are great!

--Illydth

 

[ShortAlieN]

yeah that looks like it will be a great setup. If the cards start to get hot, flip that side fan around and pull the hot air away from the cards. cant wait to see the finished product. good luck.

 

[darkshadow]

Well I don't think you should get those graphics cards though. In my opinion you should just go for one gtx 560 ti, preferably the msi twin frozr II one. Those would be a better investment, especially since you can upgrade to this card in sli, overclock both of them into 1ghz,(especially with the superior airflow with your case), and get beat the performance of an overclocked gtx 580. I have the asus sabertooth x58 too. Great board.

link to gtx 560 ti http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127565&Tpk=msi gtx 560

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-sli-review/7

check out these benchmarks dude

P.S. i just built my computer yesterday.

asus sabertooth x58

i7 950

msi gtx 560 ti

750w thermaltake 80 plus bronze psu

nzxt phantom black case

 

[ShortAlieN]

aye, the 560 is a good card. but it's also $50 more each. the 460 is still extremely nice, and in SLI they are stompers. I can't recommend against them at all.

 

[adamjamesroe]

I realy would NOT going for the GTX 460 SLI, if you can afford it your always better off going for the fastest single card you can aford at the time, so somthing like a GTX 570 and then SLI in the future if you need to becasue once you go SLI with the GTX 460's you have no further to go, can;t increase the performance anymore without selling both the cards and getteing a new one.

alwasy go for the fastes single GPU solution you can aford.

 

[ShortAlieN]

I realy would NOT going for the GTX 460 SLI, if you can afford it your always better off going for the fastest single card you can aford at the time, so somthing like a GTX 570 and then SLI in the future if you need to becasue once you go SLI with the GTX 460's you have no further to go, can;t increase the performance anymore without selling both the cards and getteing a new one.

alwasy go for the fastes single GPU solution you can aford.

I can't agree with that. yes a single card is going to be great, but by the time you are ready to SLI it you probably would rather just buy the new stuff that is on the market. Dual 460's or 560's right now are better than a single card hands down, and the cost difference between a single 570 and dual 460's is quite small, but the performance difference is amazing.

 

[TMaksimov]

I'd suggest you go for an UD3R V2 instead of a Sabertooth, mate. Wish I did as the NB gets really really hot under pressure and BSODs like a mad boob as it gets no air near it with a twin-tower cooler.

 

[ShortAlieN]

I'd suggest you go for an UD3R V2 instead of a Sabertooth, mate. Wish I did as the NB gets really really hot under pressure and BSODs like a mad boob as it gets no air near it with a twin-tower cooler.

I havent got a BSOD from the NB. but i did put a small 40mm fan on mine to keep the temp down. works like a charm.

 

[Illydth]

As always, I'm EXTREMELY grateful for the posts folks, I appreciate the advice. Looks like I'm T-4 Days to parts order, and 3 more days to system setup.

Re: 1 vs. 2 Video: I completely agree with you guys on the better off 1 vs 2 video cards for expandability, that said my finances work a little differently than most. Having a wife and kids, my system upgrade ability gets pretty limited pretty quickly (the Exchecker tends to give me the evil eye if I start talking multi-hundred dollar upgrades). I managed a hell of a bonus this year and my current system is > 5 years old at this point, so it was time.

Basically what I'm saying is system upgrades are limited to about $200 components on a regular basis. There's almost no way I'm looking at EITHER replacing both 460s in SLI or adding an additional 570 for SLI before both sets of cards are obsolete. My goal with this system is not so much expandability as performance "now" under a budget I think I can get away with. IMO I believe SLI on the 460s is going to beat out a single 570...thus my choice.

ShortAlieN: Recommendations or information on how you fanned up the NB chip I'd appreciate. Did you end up personally modding your case to attach the 40mm or how'd you get it secured somewhere?

 

[ShortAlieN]

ShortAlieN: Recommendations or information on how you fanned up the NB chip I'd appreciate. Did you end up personally modding your case to attach the 40mm or how'd you get it secured somewhere?

I got a small 40mm fan from the computer shop here in town and there is one threaded hole on the NB heatsink. Found the proper screw for it at a hardware store and there ya go. At work right now, but I will take a picture of it when I get home and post it up for you. Pretty simple and there is a fan header that is marked NB right on the board, so you're set.

 

[Illydth]

I got a small 40mm fan from the computer shop here in town and there is one threaded hole on the NB heatsink. Found the proper screw for it at a hardware store and there ya go. At work right now, but I will take a picture of it when I get home and post it up for you. Pretty simple and there is a fan header that is marked NB right on the board, so you're set.

Yea, Post a pic up for me if you can, thanks VERY much for the advice.

 

[ShortAlieN]

Ok, sorry about the late post on the pic. busy day. but anyway. here ya go.

Top left corner of the fan is the one screw I used to hold it in place.

Its just a 40mm x 10mm fan, nothing special. just keeps the air moving over the heatsink.

Just a different angle

 

[TMaksimov]

Well I have a slightly larger fan blowing at it from the side. The problem is the big bit of the heatsink (green one) is not on top of the chip itself. The black one is and it seems to be insufficient to cool it when the ram is working at 2,000 mhz and you've got SLId 460 under it. Just get a UD3R v2 for the extra slot between the gpus as well. My ones are literally stuck to each other on the Sabertooth.