I'd like some feedback on a system with:
i7 920 (overclocked to ~3.6 GHz)
P6T deluxe (or P6T)
500GB HD
12GB 1600 C8D (or 1866 C9D as I'm having trouble getting the 1600)
basic video card
Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme CPU cooler
This machine will be running the CPU full load 24/7 crunching numbers, for months on end on a single calculation. It'll be running linux, mostly accessed remotely. Reliability, cost, and low power are my main concerns (in that order). Quiet is coming last for this machine.
Is there any advantage of the deluxe over the plain P6T for reliability or overclocking purposes? I don't need any of the published spec differences like double LAN ports etc.
Any suggestions about CPU coolers? Case? PSU? Does anyone have any idea how much power this is likely to use?
overclocked i7 920 system
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
-
protellect
- Posts: 312
- Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:57 pm
- Location: Minnesota
Re: overclocked i7 920 system
Are you sure you're in the right forum?mimwdv wrote:Quiet is coming last for this machine.
Right.mimwdv wrote: This machine will be running the CPU full load 24/7 crunching numbers, for months on end on a single calculation....
Overclocking, in my mind doesn't equate to reliability. Neither does single hard drive. Maybe consider some RAID1 500GB drives? i7's are indeed pretty powerful/watt, but also use a fairly significant amount of power, being 110W TDP.mimwdv wrote:Reliability, cost, and low power are my main concerns (in that order)
I would say no.mimwdv wrote:Is there any advantage of the deluxe over the plain P6T for reliability or overclocking purposes?
I've heard good things about the Noctua NH-U12, friend using one. Two fans on it would also increase your uptime.mimwdv wrote:Any suggestions about CPU coolers? Case? PSU? Does anyone have any idea how much power this is likely to use?
Case? I don't think you can ever go wrong with a P182 for something like that.
PSU? Corsair VX450, or better.
Wattage? I'm going to guess 150W-175W at full load, since you're not using much of a video card or other things. I believe the X58 chipset is moderately power hungry. Two hard drives is fairly minimal.
I'm curious if you have looked into dual-quad-core solutions, or AMD's 4x quad-core if you're doing straight number crunching? Have you thought about cluster computing? There are a few good clustering projects that you might look into if you're just doing number crunching. Cluster computing also reduces you for points-of-failure. They are restricted somewhat by the programming language you use [I believe the one I've played with could use C++ and Fotran77 or Fotran90] If you're curious about it, let me know, I can dig up the names.
Thanks for the feedback. I asked here because I trust the advice - and you guys know cooling, without going over the top 
Yeah, overclocking and single HD aren't as reliable as other options. But we're not looking for 5 years of reliability, just 6-12 months 'till we're done. The HD is going to get little use (the whole calculation is loaded into RAM), and we'll only overclock to where it's rock-solid stable, not push it to the edge.
As to the clustering, or dual quad-core solutions - I don't know. I had the basic specs given to me by a couple of programmers at work - I'll pass on the suggestion, though. I do know that grid computing won't work - we're using that for a different part of the job and it isn't suitable for this one. We've been trying to run this on a C2D E6600 with 4GB of RAM which is unworkable because it keeps sending stuff to the pagefile.
I'll look at the Noctua and P182. As to PSU - thanks for the confirmation that I won't need anything enormous - no point spending big $ on a huge supply that'll only be less efficient at low W.
Yeah, overclocking and single HD aren't as reliable as other options. But we're not looking for 5 years of reliability, just 6-12 months 'till we're done. The HD is going to get little use (the whole calculation is loaded into RAM), and we'll only overclock to where it's rock-solid stable, not push it to the edge.
As to the clustering, or dual quad-core solutions - I don't know. I had the basic specs given to me by a couple of programmers at work - I'll pass on the suggestion, though. I do know that grid computing won't work - we're using that for a different part of the job and it isn't suitable for this one. We've been trying to run this on a C2D E6600 with 4GB of RAM which is unworkable because it keeps sending stuff to the pagefile.
I'll look at the Noctua and P182. As to PSU - thanks for the confirmation that I won't need anything enormous - no point spending big $ on a huge supply that'll only be less efficient at low W.
-
protellect
- Posts: 312
- Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:57 pm
- Location: Minnesota
Sure thing.
If you're hitting page file on 4GB, have you considered something that speeds up a page file? I'm sort of hot for these A-Card 9010 DDR2 based SSD.
I'm probably going to pick up the 9010B [maybe two] with 12GB of ecc-DDR2 and use it for my system drive, and use my gigabyte i-ram for swap.
I've shopped around and gotten it down to 380$ for the 9010b box + 12GB of ECC-unbuffered [which gives you a full 12GB]. I think I can get XP 64 on 12GB np if I mount program files on a hdd [or more likely an intel ssd]
It's kind of a toy, but kind of not.
If you're hitting page file on 4GB, have you considered something that speeds up a page file? I'm sort of hot for these A-Card 9010 DDR2 based SSD.
I'm probably going to pick up the 9010B [maybe two] with 12GB of ecc-DDR2 and use it for my system drive, and use my gigabyte i-ram for swap.
I've shopped around and gotten it down to 380$ for the 9010b box + 12GB of ECC-unbuffered [which gives you a full 12GB]. I think I can get XP 64 on 12GB np if I mount program files on a hdd [or more likely an intel ssd]
It's kind of a toy, but kind of not.