Crazy build - advice needed!

[noetus]

This is my first time here - thanks to everyone for helping to provide a great forum!

It's been a loooong time since I've built a PC, so it took me a while to catch up with the latest spec and hardware. I want to build a crazy-fast system as a workstation (no games), database, graphics/imaging and document related stuff (e.g. OCR). Part of the fun of it is seeing what sort of a fast build I can put together for $3000 (my budget, not including monitors, keyboard, mouse, and sound, and one of the video cards, which I already have). It's a bit of an experiment, and once it's done I'm happy to run tests and post the results here for anyone who's interested (some guidance might be needed for what tests to run). Once the system is built, I may experiment with some overclocking. First though I invite feedback/criticism on my choices so far.

Motherboard
DFI LanParty UT P35 T2R LGA 775 P35

CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz G0
CPU Cooling:
Zalman CNPS9700-NT

Memory (4GB)
Geil Esoterica 2x2GB DDR2-800 CAS 5.4.4.12 Dual Channel

Video cards (2)
(1) ATI 100-505157 FireGL V5200 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Cooler for ATI card (stock cooler removed):
Zalman VF900-CU Video Dual Heatpipe Fan
(2) GIGABYTE GV-NX84G256H GeForce 8400GS 256MB HDCP
(Note: This is ONLY for sending video to a HDTV; needs to be HDCP)

Hard Drives (6)
(1) For OS (dual boot W2K3 32-bit and Vista 32-bit):
RAID 0 of 3 Fujitsu MAX3036RC 36.7GB 15K 16MB SAS drives
Total of 102GB real-world, divided into two 51GB boot partitions. Attached to
Adaptec 8405 PCI-e SAS Controller
(2) For user data (one partition) and Windows pagefiles (two 4GB partitions):
RAID 1 of 2 Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10K 16MB SATA drives
on motherboard RAID controller, total of 136GB real-world
(3) For additional user data:
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 500GB SATA

Optical drives (2)
HP 20X IDE DVD Burner with LightScribe DVD1040i
LITE-ON Black SATA Combo Drive SHC-52S7K

Sound Card
Will use on-board sound for movies/video editing and Scott Nixon USB Tube DAC (already own) for listening to audio

Floppy/Card Reader
Koutech IO-FPM220 3.5" Floppy Drive & Card Reader

Fan Control
Zalman ZM-MFC2 5.25" LCD Fan Controller

Power Supply
Corsair HX620W

Case
Antec P182 with AcoustiPack Deluxe V2 sound insulation installed and 3x Zalman Black and White 120mm non-stock fans
(Scroll down the page to see the options of adding the insulation and non-stock fans)

Uninterruptible Power Supply
CyberPower CP1200AVR 1200VA 720W 8 Outlets

(Components I have already: 2 x 24" Sony FW-900 WUXGA monitors, MS Wireless Keyboard, Logitech Wireless Mouse, Scott Nixon USBTD for audio, and ATI V5200 video card.)

OK, now some questions!

(1) Is that power supply going to be beefy enough? There are two video cards, a PCI-e SAS controller on the third PCI-e slot, and 6 hard drives. The extra components are all fairly low wattage, so I figured I'd be all right.

(2) Will cooling be ok?

(3) Am I running a big risk by having 6 hard drives of 3 different hard drive speeds mounted in the same case? I am hoping that if they are mounted with silicon-rubber grommets vibration will be reduced. I guess I am increasing the risk of drive failure somewhat?

(4) The motherboard looks solid and stable (important to me) but perhaps I am better off going for the DFI with the nVidia nForce 680i LT SLI Northbridge instead of the P35 - that will give me more PCI-e slots running at higher speeds (as it is the second video card is running on a x1 lane, though this is enough for HDTV I believe).

(5) Any other feedback? Is it daft?

[flanzig1]

Unless your looking for quiet, use the stock HSU. The Zalman doesn't say that it supports quard core Intels.
A thought on the HDs, the Seagate 7200.10 16m cache units will be almost as fast as the 10k units and get more gigs per dollar.
The PSU is probably plenty, don't know the currant draw of the FireGL video cards.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by noetus (1) Is that power supply going to be beefy enough? There are two video cards, a PCI-e SAS controller on the third PCI-e slot, and 6 hard drives. The extra components are all fairly low wattage, so I figured I'd be all right.

My gut feeling is you'll want a little more power for a little extra headroom...just in case.

Originally Posted by noetus [B][SIZE="4"](2) Will cooling be ok?

It should be okay.

Originally Posted by noetus [B][SIZE="4"](3) Am I running a big risk by having 6 hard drives of 3 different hard drive speeds mounted in the same case?

No, I don't believe so.

Originally Posted by noetus [B][SIZE="4"]I am hoping that if they are mounted with silicon-rubber grommets vibration will be reduced. I guess I am increasing the risk of drive failure somewhat?

Why? As long as you have adequate cooling for each HDD I don't see a problem. And I don't forsee a problem as far as vibration goes...modern HDDs don't vibrate that much.

Originally Posted by noetus [B][SIZE="4"](4) The motherboard looks solid and stable (important to me) but perhaps I am better off going for the DFI with the nVidia nForce 680i LT SLI Northbridge instead of the P35 - that will give me more PCI-e slots running at higher speeds (as it is the second video card is running on a x1 lane, though this is enough for HDTV I believe).

DFI is not the brand to use if you're concerned with solid stability...don't get me wrong, you can get them to run solid and stable but it takes a lot of fiddling to do so. They're fussy motherboards that need extra attention to get just right. Personally, I'd use a ASUS motherboard with a Intel P35 chipset.

Cricket

[noetus]

Regarding DFI versus ASUS, I did have a look at a lot of ASUS motherboards before plumping for the DFI LanParty P35 because, as far as I know, it is the only P35 motherboard that will get me 3 PCI-e x16 PEG slots - I will be using 3 PCI-e cards, one x16 for primary video, one x16 card that I don't mind running at x1, and one x4 for the SAS controller, which since there are very few x4 PEG slots will require a x16 PEG. OK, so I could use one of the x1 slots on an ASUS motherboard with an expander for the second video card, but that seems like an awkward solution (and I'm not even sure it will work). The DFI is a very new card so it is hard to find online reviews, but the Newegg customer comments seem very positive.

Also, though you say ASUS cards are very stable, online reviews suggest otherwise - though many of the problems with ASUS cards seem BIOS related (the early revision BIOSes seem of particularly poor quality). And the top of the line Asus Extreme P35 uses an analogue voltage controller, whereas the DFI uses a digital. Also ASUS boards can run very hot, especially when overclocked, which leads to instability.

After some more reading of online reviews, it does seem best to go with the P35 chipset because it gives better memory bandwidth and deals with the SATA controller better for improved IO count (with less CPU usage, too).

So for the moment I am sticking with the DFI... unless you can point me in the direction of a better alternative that has the 3 x16 PCI-e lanes.

I DO want a quiet system, which is why I chose the Zalman 9700 cooler, the guy at endpcnoise.com assured me it word work with the quad processor. Perhaps I should use a Scythe instead though?

As for mounting all those hard drives together, I am glad to hear that it won't be a problem. I read an Adaptec 3405 SAS contoller review where the reviewer mentioned that HDD manufacturers recommend not installing HDDS of different rotational speeds together, which I guess could set up standing reverb waves (this is my guess) that stress the moving components. Perhaps then this is just wrong. Glad if it is.

A thought on the Raptiors. I don't agree that a 7200 rpm unit is going to be like anything as fast as those Raptors. The specs on seek and latency are much better, and review after review confirms they are faster in real-world usage, too, by a large factor. Reviews on storagereview.com strongly suggest that for single-user use the Raptors can even beat out the best 15K drives for IO count in real-world usage, because despite the longer seek and latency times, their read-write algorithms are optimised for local seeks on the drive, while the enterprise 15K (and 10K for that matter) drives (which inherit the SCSI heritage) are optimised for random seeks across the drive surface, which is better for multi-user environments. Part of the reason I want to get both high-end 15K units and the Raptors is to be able to test this claim (though I won't be able to properly test it without upgrading the SAS adapter to an Adaptec 3805, which is considerably more expensive but allows for more channels, because on my current proposed setup the Raptors will be penalized by being on the motherboard SATA controller).

So, I should maybe upgrade the PSU (though I want a quiet one, and that Corsair got very good reviews for being quiet) and possibly the CPU cooler, but apart from that, I think I'm sticking with the above (so far, pending more comments!)

Can any suggest a faster build in the same budget (or modifying the above build to yield more speed). It seems to me that SATA/SAS HDD I/O is always going to be the bottleneck (especially when overclocking CPU & memory), which is why I'm prepared to go all-out in this regard.

[flanzig1]

With a complicated and expensive workstation that your doing, would take into mind that OCing a workstation that will be used for graphics/video work could invite data corruption. If your not worried about losing data from OC corruption and the possiblity of having the RAID 0 crash and lose everything in the RAID 0, go for the tweeks and hi-end parts.

[noetus]

OK, thanks for this. I guess I won't be overclocking very high, and also I'm not worried about data loss on the RAID 0 because that's just for OS and programs. Data is on RAID 1.

On second thoughts about the motherboard, I'm now leaning in the direction of 975X instead of P35 chipset, it seems to offer tangible advantages with no major disadvantages - seems as quick as the P35 on data I/O (both memory and disk) at any rate. I'm thinking about the Asus P5W64 WS Professional. It will give me PCI-e of 8x 8x 4x 8x.

[Katreat]

I was going to make the same comment about OCing a work station but that has been covered. Generally if you want a system to be stable you dont risk OCing.

As for on-line reviews, especially at the store sites, is that a good number of the people using the parts dont know enough about the part to review it. Asus sells alot more MBs than DFI I expect so they get alot more reviews. Also, I expect Asus gets many more first time builders who complain because they get it home and it does not just start. DFI has always been a board for serious OCers and even if it was the worst board in the world to set up they would give it a great review just because they OC so well. Basically, take on-line reveiws with a grain of salt and serch for reviews from computer sites. Overall I think you will find that Asus has about the best reputation going overall.

Finally, if you are worried about noise as you say, find someone who is running raptors and give a listen. I only have one freind who has buildt with them but his are the loadest hard drives in the world. They just scream when they wind up. This is not an official reveiw, I have only heard the two of them, but from my experience I would say not to worry about noise in the system if you are going to use raptors because they are so load you cant hear the rest of the system anyway. Hopefully that is not the case with all raptors, his are a year or so old and maybe they got the sound problem fixed, just a warning.

Kat

[noetus]

OK, thanks for this. I will try and see some Raptors in person before committing to them. And I will be wary about OCing - yes the stability takes priority.

Based on your comments I'm leaning away from DFI now and I am thinking about the P5W64 WS Professional motherboard which uses Intel 975X northbridge technology. It also uses a IDT 89HA0324PS PCI Express Switch to up the number of PCI express lanes, and I see that I can have 4 lanes of 8x,8x,4x and 8x, which is great.

So I have two questions, basically. First, is there any disadvantage with going with the slightly older 975X chipset of the Asus as opposed to the P35? I am talking about performance with the CPU (Q6600) here, and memory and HDD I/O operations - I'm not so concerned with future-proofing. My instinct is that I will not lose out on performance - is that correct?

If I would be better off with the newer P35, one problem is that it is hard to find P35 mbs with more than 2 full-width PEG slots. The only Asus one, the successor to the P5W64, is DDR3 memory only, and I'm not prepared to fork out for that. Also, a review I read suggested possible I/O bottleneck issues with that mb if more than 2 of the PEG slots are used.

Which brings me on to the second question. What is it like using the P5W64 board with four PCI-e devices attached, attempting to use all lanes at 8x,8x,4x,8x? Doesn't that invite bottlenecks? And does the PCI switch cause an efficiency lag / bottlenecks? (The DFI doesn't have this problem because it doesn't need to use a switch.) What about even with three, using 8x,8x,4x? Bottlenecks or not? It is one thing for a manufacturer to claim that there is all that bandwidth there, real-world usage is another thing.

One saving grace is that I won't be using the on-board SATA, except for a CD burner, so that should help to free things up a bit. Though probably only by 1 lane at the most.