I really enjoy unique projects like this one.... I like people buying used/old stuff and building beast computers.... It gets old and repetitive to see everyone building x99 builds with sli 980's and such.....
Note I said bargain and not low budget, I got quite lucky with some of this.
I've always wanted to build a workstation class machine, dual CPUs and a ton of RAM in a utilitarian case but I don't have a lot of money, even if I did I couldn't justify spending it on something I wouldn't make good use of. However I spotted this case and motherboard combo on Ebay with no bids at a decent price and minutes to go and I just couldn't resist.
So, to kick off this project I grabbed a Lian Li PC70 and an Intel S5520SC for £180. Now, brand new that case would've been around the £300 mark (I think that was converting from some Canadian pricing I found) so a good deal on that alone, but then the motherboard would've also been many hundreds too (I've found similar ones on Ebay going for around £200). This particular case is at least 11 years old as it still has a PAT sticker from October 03 on it (which I'll leave on), no idea what would've been in it back then but it was likely more conservative.
When it arrived. An old 6870 to get some video output for testing purposes instead of paying a tenner for Intel's VGA header thing, a 4GB ECC stick I bought to test.
Compared to my old build, that build log was deleted a while back but some of you may remember it.
Next on the list was the CPUs, there was quite a large selection of Xeons and again I ended up getting an absolute bargain with two X5560s for around £50 from America. Remember that when I get to benchmarks later.
Initial test setup, only one heatsink and a low end PSU meant it'd be one CPU for a while. Had some issues with drives but nothing major.
And so it was time to transfer some parts from the old build, drives, PSU (still not enough for the second CPU), graphics card and liquid cooling, and RAM. Despite no mention of non-ECC RAM in the motherboard manual it works fine, so I took the 2x8GB from the old build and scooped 3x4GB I had laying about.
The PC75 isn't a case with liquid cooling in mind so I had to get a little creative. It has plenty of room but the only fan mounts are six 80mm's, but it was fairly easy to knock up a simple bracket to hang my rad in the 5.25" bays (perfect fit for a 240mm).
Not pretty, but you'd never know when it's hidden behind 30 quids worth of vented bay covers (to be fair that's with 2 covers to spare). The LCD is for a temp sensor jammed in the rad fins, more than anything it's to fill in for the missing 3.5" bay cover.
Those purty Noctuas hidden away inside.
One thing I did miss from the old build that couldn't be carried over was the Bluetooth, but the Intel board has a handy internal USB port and I had a dongle laying about.
After everything was all up and running it was time to order a new PSU and another heatsink so I could get that second CPU in there. Ended up going with an 850w Seasonic (plenty for the specs which I'll list at the end, even when I end up getting a second graphics card) and a 212 Evo to match. Regarding the heatsink, this board uses server backplates that are threaded like 2011, however they've just studs that were easily pressed out and then luckily the 212 stand offs go right through the holes. If I ever go with different coolers/water blocks I'll simply cut the back plates down.
Beautiful, in its own way.
The most recent addition, some 80mm Shadow Wings above the PSU to suck some of the hot air from the rad so it's not feeding the CPU heatsinks as much. These things are great, quieter than the crappy things that came with the case even when they're on low voltage adapters and they push a lot more air. Already ordered another 4 to kit out the whole case.
And one last closer shot of the main attraction.
Specs:
Case: Lian Li PC75
Motherboard: Intel S5520SC
CPU: 2x Intel Xeon X5560 2.8GHz (3.2GHz turbo) 4 cores/8 threads each
CPU heatsink: 2x Cooler Master 212 EVO with Swiftech fans
Memory: 2x8GB and 3x4GB
Storage: 128GB Samsung 840 SSD and 2x2TB Samsung Spinpoint
Power supply: Seasonic 850w M12 II EVO
Graphics card: Sapphire R9 290 reference
Cooling loop: Rad and res from a Swiftech H220, EK full cover water block, two Noctua NF-F12s, Phobya DC12-220 pump, Masterkleer 13/10mm tubing, one Alphacool swivel fitting and the rest some cheap copper compressions
As for benchmarks, so far the best representation is from running Cinebench (Geekbench only runs in 32bit and I'm boycotting buying it, Passmark gives me such silly results for the graphics card that I don't trust anything else it says) where I got 885 on the CPU and 71.17fps on the graphics card with a mild ~100MHz overclock. For reference a 4770k gets 822 and a 3930k gets 1096 (£250 and £450 respectively), so I don't think I've done too bad for 50 quid. I'll update this once I've ran some more benchmarks, recommendations welcome (bought Catzilla a while back and going to do Valley as well).
Future plans:
-Get another 290 and liquid cool that, likely put a larger rad in top of the case (with some modifications). A 480mm would fit but would mean removing the front rad of switching it for a 120/140mm, a 420/360/280/240mm would likely fit with it still in place.
-Might get another 8GB stick of RAM to make things even. Not sure if that would also make it run in triple channel, does each group need to be the same size?
-Considering getting some more NF-F12s for the CPU heatsinks, they're currently the loudest thing in the system (should be a little quieter once I've swapped out the 80mm fans), or maybe adding them to the loop depending on how much rad I end up fitting
-Need to order a SATA III expansion card as this board only has SATA II, I might get another SSD too and then RAID 0 or 1 them
The honest answer to that is that I don't know Thanks for pointing that out, I will rectify it. Although on PCPartPicker they are more expensive I know i can find them for around £240 on the websites that it doesn't pull prices from. OfficialJsP is right but now that I've looked elsewhere I can see your point. Cheers
I will not attend Runefest but i've played RS since 2004 quitted in 2009 when i got banned and since then i've been playing on and off on a new account.... i'm a member and i play both oldschool and RS3 like once a week.
add me if you want RSN: YoyiSkill
I like your idea very much.... I recommend you buying this wireless keyboard that has a built in touchpad which i have and use on my Media computer
Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/wireless-touch-keyboard-k400r
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