What's new
  • Please do not post any links until you have 3 posts as they will automatically be rejected to prevent SPAM. Many words are also blocked due to being used in SPAM Messages. Thanks!

Work in progress [PROJECT]: I ain't gonna work on DT's farm no more

Dead Things

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
2,043
Location
Periphery of the Universe
Hello friends! I have many updates!

Let's get started with the most interesting so far. This past weekend, I scheduled downtime for BOSServer for its rebuild. Like Rexy before it, the BOSServer rebuild was successful and largely uneventful. If Propagandhi were here, I'm sure they'd say "less talk, more rock!" So let's get on with the show, shall we...

BOSS-Update01.jpg


Here's an early stage photo of putting BOSServer together. I'm using a Cosmos S which I originally modded three years ago. The worklog from back then can be found here. No new mods are being made to the case - just changing up the innards some.

Now, the RAM I'm using is this stuff. It's low profile and it has no heatsink. It ain't what you might call pretty. So I thought I would put some heatsinks on them to pretty them up some. There's also a heat dissipation benefit, obviously. It's always nice when aesthetics and functionality can work in unison like that. So here's what they look like with the heatsinks installed.

BOSS-Update02.jpg


An improvement. The heatsinks were a bit tricky to install because it was low-profile RAM. This left less surface area for adhering the sinks to the sticks. That's what my shaky-ass hands are attempting to illustrate below. But hey, it got done and I'm pleased with the result.

BOSS-Update03.jpg


Below is BOSServer in the stark daylight, completed and just finished passing an uneventful leak test. One more thing I'd like to mention is the faux-sleeving job on the 24pin cable. That's one of these 310mm extensions from Dazmode. Anyone familiar with the Cosmos S knows the silly power switch tripping implementation used. So this was a nice, cheap and easy way to hide that hideous power switch extension.

BOSS-Update04.jpg


Okay, onto the hardware porn shots...

BOSS-Update05.jpg


BOSS-Update06.jpg


BOSS-Update07.jpg


BOSS-Update08.jpg


I must admit, I do love the interplay between the chrome Bitspower compressions and the chrome LGA1366 hold-down plate on the old school Apogee GT's. But anyway, that's BOSServer for you.

Now, I do have a couple other things to mention. First, Twofour's mobo is here now.

Twofour-Update01.jpg


I am actually using the case right now that Twofour is supposed to go into because I had to build a temporary replacement rig ton handle BOSServer's tasks while it was under the knife. The replacement rig is no longer needed, though, so building Twofour can pretty much start whenever I get around to it. Here, incidentally is a naked photo of the Z8NA-D6C. It really is a capable little workstation board and real pleasure to work with. That's not something that I can say about any other MP board with which I have direct experience.

Twofour-Update02.jpg


The other update - and this is a biggie for me... I got my refurb's S4985 back from Tyan on Friday! So while I was leak testing BOSServer, I quickly put together a test rig to try out the 8439SE's once and for all. I even managed to cobble together some decent scores in wPrime 32M and wPrime 1024M. Anyway, here is the very first photographic evidence I have of the new Istanbul-flavoured Leviathan. More to come soon!

Leviathan-Update01.jpg


That's all for now. Punk. :punk:
 

Dead Things

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
2,043
Location
Periphery of the Universe
I should mention that some specs have either changed or been finalized since they were originally posted on the first page of this thread...

- The Q3QS's will indeed be used with the SR-2 in Shoebox, while Twofour will get the E5645's to go with its Z8NA-D6C.

- I decided against including a CUDA GPU in BOSServer. Didn't want to waste the watts.

- I went with Samsung 750GB F1's in both Leviathan and Ziz instead of the Seagate 320GB 7200.10's. Both are bigadv machines, which means they both will have large sequential reads when it comes time to submit a work unit, and the Samsungs are faster than the Seagates in this regard. I realize this change is largely irrelevant and will not really have any impact on PPD, but hey - why not put your best foot forward, right?

- I will not be using the H70's in Twofour. Instead, Twofour will get a pair of boring ol' Xeon box coolers. The non-overclocked E5645's at 80w apiece just don't get very hot, especially in a case with as much airflow as the HAF922. So I've decided to hold the H70's back and use them instead in a couple more boxes which will be used for GPU folding.

- A couple more boxes means two more machines to add to the to-do list. Still planning them out in my head, though, so I won't divulge much on either as of yet except to say that they will be GPU folders.

So those are the main changes from the original specs so far. I have been working on both Leviathan and Twofour over the past few evenings, so I will be able to update on progress with both soon.

Cheers!
 

Dead Things

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
2,043
Location
Periphery of the Universe
Oops - sorry. I forgot that I had promised a pic of the completed Ziz. Here it is.

Ziz_complete.jpg


I did actually make one other change since that photo was taken. I put an 80mm fan on the nForce Pro 2200 and 2050 chips (as seen in this photo by the two black heatsinks below the bottom-right CPU socket). I'll be doing the same thing to Leviathan, so I'll snap a photo of it then.

Talking about Leviathan, both it and Twofour are nigh completion. Should have updates of those two soon as well.

edit - This was my 1,000th post on HWC! Let the induction ceremony begin!
 
Last edited:

Dead Things

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
2,043
Location
Periphery of the Universe
Noise is really just such a subjective thing. And I'll be honest with you - it's not something that rates highly on my list of priorities when designing rigs for myself. 99 times out of 100 I will gladly sacrifice silence for the sake of performance. I can tell you, though, that Ziz is dead silent in comparison to the A/C unit that is literally two feet to my right. :haha:

In reality, though, Ziz and Leviathan are neither my noisiest nor quietest rigs. The 90mm fans on the TX3's are set to 100% at all times. So, despite being fairly quiet, they are nonetheless audible. The rigs also have the two big 230mm fans, two 120mm R4's mounted to the roof, another 120mm mounted in the 5.25" drive bays, a 140mm rear exhaust, a fan in the PSU, and an 80mm on the chipsets. All told, that's a lot of fans - so you gotta figure they'll make some noise. No 3k Ultra Kaze's though - so in my world, that's silent.

And an update... I've completed Leviathan and boy oh boy... for less than $800 this thing sure can fold! So far, it has completed two P6904's and a P6903 to the tune of 225,000 PPD and 200,000 PPD, respectively. Yes, this is the end of the upgrade path for Leviathan. And yes, running Linux means software overclocking through ntune is unavailable (I tried running it under Wine - no dice). But hey, that's plenty fast enough for me.

I also note that Leviathan is about as productive as Shoebox in terms of PPD. While Leviathan has 24 physical cores at 2.8GHz in relation to Shoebox's 24 logical threads at 3.8GHz - the PPD is comparable, with Shoebox only netting an additional 5k PPD or so. I know I've said it before, but let me say it again... cores > threads in symmetric multi-threaded processing tasks.

Anyway, without too much more lallygagging, here is the finally completed Leviathan. It took some time and some doing, but it got done! Also, note the 80mm Zalman fan mounted below the lower-right CPU socket. This is the fan used to cool the nForce Pro chipsets I described above. Them chippies get hawt!

Leviathan-Update03.jpg
 

dragoonxx

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
628
Location
Medicine Hat
Have you tried using enzotech low profile copper heatsinks on your tyan 4P boards? I've got copper sinks on mine and a antec spotcool, without that spotcool, they get pretty roasty to the touch, even with the copper sinks
 

Dead Things

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
2,043
Location
Periphery of the Universe
Have you tried using enzotech low profile copper heatsinks on your tyan 4P boards? I've got copper sinks on mine and a antec spotcool, without that spotcool, they get pretty roasty to the touch, even with the copper sinks
No I haven't. The TX3's were part of the original design specs for both rigs, and since they've been so effective I never saw fit to try anything else. Also, the outgoing Opteron 8354's and 8356's were rated at 75W ACP / 115W TDP, whereas the new Opteron 8393SE's and 8439SE's are rated at 105W ACP / 137W TDP. And by convention, TDP is usually 20% to 30% lower than the actual maximum CPU power dissipation at +0 VID. That means more heat, and the new chips definitely need some solid active cooling.

I'd also like to take this moment to say thanks to AMD for publishing two different power consumption metrics, to make sure nobody has any clue what's going on!
 

dragoonxx

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 19, 2008
Messages
628
Location
Medicine Hat
Yeah, I <sarcasm> love the thermal specs, I've got TX-3s on my 8347s, and even with the fans at a 60% duty cycle, they barely get warm, its just the Nforce bridge chips that get roasty toasty hot
 

Dead Things

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
2,043
Location
Periphery of the Universe
Nice farm on the go there DT!

Got some PPD numbers yet?
Yeah, I got some. But I'm saving them for a big ol' roundup at the end once the worklog is complete. Gotta keep 'em interested.

By the way: new development... I *may* have found a Xigmatek Elysium. I've got my fingers crossed.

Xigmatek%20Elysium%20Big-Tower%20-%20black%20Window.jpg


*sigh* Isn't she dreamy?
 

Latest posts

Top