Adobe After Effects beast machine - I don't want earmuffs

[oblong1]

hi folks,

I have been reading the forums and I can't quite find what I am after. It may be because I am a moron.

I am making a machine that will handle Adobe After Effects.
I have settled on an ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS Dual LGA 2011 motherboard - it is E-ATX. I'll be putting two XEON e5 2630s onto that mobo.
8 x 8gig of RAM (whatever the mobo reccomends) and a corsair 512 SSD
Nvidia gtx 680

I have been recommended the SeaSonic X-SERIES X-1050 1050W for a PSU.
I have thought about getting a pair of corsair Hydro Series H80 - one for each cpu. And haven't looked into ways of quietening the GPU yet

I live in Australia so it can get warm to hot in the summer, and when I am rendering out large files with no Air con I have worried that the whole project will stop from overheating.

Appreciate any thoughts

lloyd

[ces]

1. You are asking for trouble using two PSUs. Use just one.

2. Noctua has a high performance after market cpu cooler designed specifically for dual Xeon setups, the NH-U12DX
http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=prod ... =19&lng=en

I find it difficult to believe you will find anything better for your specific application

[oblong1]

cheers,

checking that out now. Do you think that will be quieter than the hydro series? I always thought that liquid cool was quieter and cooler.

do you think having two cpus will make it sound like an aircraft taking off?



I would really like some advice on the case. I had been looking at a cooleraster HAF 932? i think? with vents at the top - as it seems to me that heat rises and what quicker way out than up, but after reading here I am not so sure - problem is having the e-atx board seems to limit case choice.

[oblong1]

I checked out those Noctuas, but i think they are for the previous series of xeons. The cpu's I am looking at are socket 2011, the motherboard will be compatible with the ivy-bridge processors when they come out.

I was thinking the hydros, the ssd, and the 1050w seasonic would have an impact on the noise level.

Hoping to get a case with sound dampening and a clear flow for air. It seems there are a lot of mesh cases that would make airflow inefficient by haviing half the case just mesh.

[ces]

I always thought that liquid cool was quieter and cooler...

This issue has more dimensions than that.

In both types of cooling, one source of noise is the transfer of heat from the heatsink / radiator to the ambient air. In both instances you have a fan pushing air into a heatsink / radiator and this makes noise. All thinks equal a water radiator is almost certain to make more noise than a simple heatsink. They both use fins to transfer the heat, but water-to-air radiators tend to be more restrictive to airflow, presenting more impedance to the airflow, therefore making more noise.

Water coolers also have an additional source of noise. The heat pipes of an air cooler do not make any noise. The water pump of a liquid cooler is an additional source of noise.

That being said, an air cooled video card is likely to be your greatest source of noise... and heat. So if you are able to cool it with a liquid cooler, that is likely going to be the lowest overall noise cooling solution for your application... But even then, you want to pick the right water cooling components to make sure they are quiet ones. I am not a water cooling person, but my understanding is that there are substantial differences in the sound performance of different water cooling components.

[ces]

... as it seems to me that heat rises and what quicker way out than up, but after reading here I am not so sure...

Even a super slow 500 rpm fan easily over powers convection. Given the amount of heat it appears you will be dealing with... convection is likely irrelevant to anything you are doing.

[ces]

There is something that is not so clear to me.

It would seem to me that the gating factor in performance of your key application would be the video card.

If that is so, you should be spending your money on dual (or triple) video cads instead of dual CPUs. And in such a case you most definitely want to water cool your video cards.... and a single 1155 CPU should do just fine

[boost]

What PC to build on Adobe forums
Your spec doesn't include much disk space, only 512GB for serious video editing?!
I don't really know if spending money on a CPU or graphic card will bring bigger gains.
I'm not even sure the usual recommendations on this site apply for a high power system that runs at 100% for hours, i.e. the cases from the thread at Adobe are optimized for airflow, not noise.

[oblong1]

Thanks for all your replies.

The single ssd was just for the operating system and the programs. But I don't think I need as much as 512gb for that. Made an error in my calculations. Adobe master suite takes up about 30g, plus windows, plus whatever 3dsmax and a few other programs, and head room for windows. A 120 would be enough, but I think I will go with a 240gig mushkin with faster read and write than the crucial.

I think multiple video cards are really for gamers. And like you have pointed out - they really are quite noisy. So I don't think I will get any significiant benefit out of two. I use After Effects 90% of the time and it uses CPU and RAM - not all the features use the GPU, thus it is actually slower to use the GPU in After Effects.

I looked at the Raven cases and the Raven 3 fits the board but not my lovely seasonic 1050w PSU. I think the Silverstone TJ10 seems to have been built with better airflow in mind and fits the eatx board and the psu. The silverstone has rubber to hold the drives (oh! which i think I will have about two HDDs , or maybe up to 4HDDs ) -seems I am a bit hemmed in with my dual xeon motherboard - like a ripple effect on all subsequent choices.

I have a feeling that maybe my questions are too much in the realm of the speculative at this stage. That some of my parts I really want, and what I might do is get them and fit it together, and then look at some heat sinks that will fit on two 2011 cpus, and what can be done about the GPU.

[CA_Steve]

I estimate your worst case load power to be in the ~400W AC range. No need for a 1000W supply and you might want to move up to platinum level efficiency for less waste heat/cooler PSU and system. Take a look at the Kingwin LZP series. It has a fan switch so you can run passive in the winter and quiet in the summer. If you got the 850W version, it wouldn't even ramp up the fan at full load..but the 750W is going to be quiet, too.

After Effects CS6 is increasing it's use/fixing gpu acceleration...but, I doubt you need a lot of horsepower for the GPU compared to CPU....and you only need a CUDA based GPU for ray trace rendering - everything else is OpenGL 2.0 or less.

Did you see the Silverstone Fortress FT02 review? EATX, great cooling. Don't know if mounting a radiator will interfere with video card...

[oblong1]

Thanks

I will check out the case.
Is 400 watts enough? I ask because I really don't know. I thought I might be able to step down to 850w. But 400 seems to low. I don't understand the power usage. I used the power guage selector on the asus site to come at 1000w. I thought the Seasonic Gold only drew as much power as it needed, so it would only be using 400watts if that is all it needed - and being good parts and quiet - I thought it would stay quiet.

I will check out the platinum and the case. I was looking at the silverstone tj10 case. Looks to be made with rubber grommets, good feet, good airflow, etc in mind.

cheers

[CA_Steve]

To clarify - I'm saying your max power draw is probably around 400W. The next step is to find a supply that can easily handle that and be quiet enough for your needs in the summer. That's why I was aiming you toward the 750-850W range of supplies and I think the 750W is probably good enough*.

* 400W AC -> 360W DC @ 90% efficiency. Most recommended PSUs don't ramp up their fans until they reach 50% load.