Michael Tebinka September 7, 2016 Share September 7, 2016 Hi all, With 993 days since the last update of the Mac Pro I am now in the process of purchasing components for a PC-build which essentially means that I will shift much of the heavy lifting to a Windows-based platform. Not having built any PC's in the last years I can see there is a wealth of interesting components to choose from. I have been compiling a list of parts that seem like a good fit but would like to hear your recommendations based on experience. At the moment I am looking at a full size ATX motherboard, a Xeon-processor, internal storage (expanding to external storage later) and good GPU for Davinci Resolve and some Assimilate Scratch work when needed. Motherboard: ASUS X99-E WS/USB3.1 http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/X99E_WSUSB_31/overview/ CPU: Intel Xeon (good enough to do heavy lifting (together with GPU) of raw codecs such as RED / CinemaDNG etc)) Memory: 64GB ECC (expandable to 128) Storage (system + work): Intel PCI-E SSD 750 series https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/se/sv/solid-state-drives/solid-state-drives-750-series.html (2 in RAID?) GPU: Nvidia Titan X or Z ? All recommendations are greatly appreciated! Many thanks Michael Link to comment Share on other sites
Nicolas Hanson September 7, 2016 Share September 7, 2016 3 hours ago, Michael Larsson said: I am now in the process of purchasing components for a PC-build which essentially means that I will shift much of the heavy lifting to a Windows-based platform. Great choice! Link to comment Share on other sites
Bruno Mansi September 7, 2016 Share September 7, 2016 Given that your going to spending quite a few thousand dollars/euros on this setup, apart from sheer pleasure(?), is there any reason you're choosing to build rather than buy a ready made system? The HP Z workstations seem to be the 'no-brainer' choice throughout the industry - designed to run 24 hours a day without problems, plus you get their 3 year on-site warranty. Videoguys have an interesting article which goes into some detail about moving over to HP workstations which you might find useful. http://www.videoguys.com/blog/videoguys-guide-to-hp-z-workstations-the-video-editors-best-choice/ It's a little out of date, so the info doesn't factor in the newer Pascal GPU architecture, or the latest SSD technologies, but it makes some good points on the advantages of going for the HP workstations. The article is aimed at building editing systems, but I think the basic arguments hold for whatever use you might have for a high-end system. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll September 14, 2016 Share September 14, 2016 Anyone can compare Supermicro and HP Z840? Link to comment Share on other sites
Frank Wylie January 5, 2017 Share January 5, 2017 I just upgraded my workstation with 4 x 1TB Samsung SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration for my main working storage and it is amazingly smooth and fast when scrolling down the timeline! The biggest problem we tend to have is running out of PCI-E slots for all the cards you need (based on your setup). Get as many PCI-E slots as you can or you'll have to invest in a Cubix PCI-E expander, as we did... Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 6, 2017 Share January 6, 2017 With a lot of gpus in some point you only not run out of slots but also cpu data lanes. See your cpu specs and see if that works out. Sometimes people miss that and this is where dual Xeon comes in. Link to comment Share on other sites
Alex Prohorushkin January 6, 2017 Share January 6, 2017 My choice is: MB: Supermicro X10-DRG-Q CPU: 2xXeon e26xx (12-14 core, 2.4-2.9) Mem: 64Gb ECC Registred 2400 (later up to 128Gb) GPU: 1080GTX (later up to second 1080Ti GTX) Storage: Raid 5 (16x4Tb WD Red) (LSI 9265-8i + Expander from Intel) Sys.Storage: 500Gb SSD Intel Case: LianLi D8000 Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 6, 2017 Share January 6, 2017 I have totally ned ideas for now and plan to go with 10 core i7 instead as single core clock speeds are faster that some of my apps need. Also Faster RAM and os on M.2 SSD should make a difference. Somehow it is hard to buy Titan Pascal around here but i plan to have two of them on X99-E-10G WS. Time will tell how that goes. If later needed i can go with proper RAID and ton of drives in the same case Alex is using. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
Michael Tebinka January 6, 2017 Author Share January 6, 2017 Looking forward to hear how your machine performs Margus. Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 7, 2017 Share January 7, 2017 Lets see when i get my components. For now it seems tricky to get Titan X new models to Estonia somehow. There is no online store from Nvidia that sells them here and i'm still in talking with them if that would be possible at all. Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 16, 2017 Share January 16, 2017 My setup is slowly coming together. I'm still missing Titan as for some reason Nvidia is not selling those to me by my location which is stupid. Some parts are delayed but i hope they start moving to me in the end of the week. My problem is now with Nvidia and new Titans. Currently online store does not sell in my location and it has been pain to locate reseller here. Now it is second week on phone and emails and it is killing me. It that does not work out i will start looking of other options how to buy them. Want to do it properly but seems that Nvidia wants us here to find them under the table which is sad. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 20, 2017 Share January 20, 2017 I wonder if any public Helium material floating around for testing ? Link to comment Share on other sites
Scott Stacy January 25, 2017 Share January 25, 2017 As Margus has mentioned, the i7 6950x (overclocked) is going to be faster in Resolve than Xeons. I looked at the HP solution and it just was not compelling to me as a grading machine and expensive and actually perhaps slower for some data crunching maneuvers. I went with an ADK Video build (excellent reputation and service with a nice warranty and lifetime tech support). I think that Margus and I have a very similar build. i7 6950x (overclocked) ASUS x99-E WS Motherboard 128 RAM Samsung 960 1TB OS Drive Samsung 850 Pro 2 TB RAID 0 Cache Areca12 Gb/s 48TB RAID 6 SAS Tower and Areca 12Gb/s RAID Card 2 Titan X GPUs 12TB Pegasus TB RAID 5 Back-up 3 Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 25, 2017 Share January 25, 2017 Soon we will do this "pissing in the wind" contest i.e. benchmarking then 2 Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 29, 2017 Share January 29, 2017 My setup is rather similar but there are some differences: i7 6950x (overclocked) X99-E-10G WS Motherboard 128 RAM (3333 mhz native sticks) Samsung 960 2TB OS Drive / cache drive 2 Titan X GPUs 27" UHD display 1700 W PSU This is my first wave of setup Second wave has in plans something like this: 20 x HDD (6, 8 or 10 TB) SAS RAID controller LTO7 As i keep my mac over dual 10 gig lan connected to my pc i can have my projects on my mac for starters and add array later. At least that is my plan if i find dual 10g nic for my 5.1 on Yosemite. Maybe that helps to get ideas going for other people. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites
Michael Tebinka January 29, 2017 Author Share January 29, 2017 Margus, what type of PSU did you go with and GUI monitor? Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll January 29, 2017 Share January 29, 2017 Dell Dell P2715Q and Enermax Platimax 1700W. Monitor i just got out of interest and PSU was the largest they had in that store. If all goes well i can manage with one PSU if not i will add another for drives and case will allow 2. Have some liquid cooling ideas also in my mind for gpu and cpu. Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll February 14, 2017 Share February 14, 2017 I just wanted to share i just did my first 5k render today DnxHR 444. Playback in 5k was good when just correction. If any OFX like grain then i did cache render as i have fast ssd average 2000/2000 read write or so. OFX some times dropped me to half speed like 15 fps at 5k (5120x2560) On the same node tree i have some masks with blur and grain etc. My i7 now runs @4ghz OC and i do not plan to bump it up before i get water cooling. It probably would help some but for now titans do all the heavy lifting. All 4k stuff runs as quicksilver. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll February 15, 2017 Share February 15, 2017 If we think of it win box is about the price of trashcan but runs faster and is cooler and is more expandable. Seemed like no brainer to me in my current demand of 4k and 5k delivery plus i have mu mac pro 5.1 still for prores conversion and dcp mastering. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
Lee Niederkofler February 27, 2017 Share February 27, 2017 On 1/29/2017 at 2:51 PM, Margus Voll said: My setup is rather similar but there are some differences: i7 6950x (overclocked) X99-E-10G WS Motherboard 128 RAM (3333 mhz native sticks) Samsung 960 2TB OS Drive / cache drive 2 Titan X GPUs 27" UHD display 1700 W PSU This is my first wave of setup Second wave has in plans something like this: 20 x HDD (6, 8 or 10 TB) SAS RAID controller LTO7 As i keep my mac over dual 10 gig lan connected to my pc i can have my projects on my mac for starters and add array later. At least that is my plan if i find dual 10g nic for my 5.1 on Yosemite. Maybe that helps to get ideas going for other people. How did you do the overclocking? We have a similar machine and I'd like to overclock it as well.. Link to comment Share on other sites
Margus Voll February 28, 2017 Share February 28, 2017 I did get some guidance from this video here: As i'm not that masterful yet i would leave interpreting to you to do so i can not give you detailed explanation as it is new path for me also to walk and i'm in the middle of the process still. Hope that helps. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites
