ASIC design workstation

[Banykrk]

Hi All,

 

Pawel from SiCr speaking here (www.siliconcr.com). I'm mentioning this to be treated seriously and because I'm new to the forum. I'm not another internet troll posting about some ridiculous build that will never happen.

 

We are about to upgrade couple of our workhorses in company, so I will be happy to discuss proposed build:

 

Info:

-our software utilizes very, very expensive licenses that are limited to some certain number of threads and their cost is humongous compared to hardware cost so basically there is no cost limit for hardware, and we can even afford bricking CPU/GPU monthly. Let's put some example, not far from reality number: 50k USD/year/16thread license

-some of the software can utilize GPU cores for computing acceleration but scaling is weak so preferable is less, more overclocked cards, therefore sweet spot for us will be dual watercooled and overclocked 2080ti's. These will be faster than Titan's RTX, and just a bit slower than V100s but for a 10x lower price... cards unfortunately have to be overclocked by vendor cause this will operate under linux where there is no nice way of OC other than flashing card BIOS

-server grade components are out of discussion, as I mentioned before harware cost ~nothing in compare to software so I prefer 16cores@5GHz than gazillion cores@3GHz like in server grade CPU's

-memory: it does not need to be ECC, it has to be fast and at least 256GB so looks like we are limited to 32GB dimms and TRX40 platform

-this has to work with 24/7 loads, and we successfully did that with other top tier 'consumer grade' components so no worry

-does not need to be quiet or pretty

-we will build initially one or two of those machine with maybe doubling them in next quarter

 

Config so far then:

motherboard: Asus Zenith II Extreme or Aorus TRX40 Extreme, based on internet Asus has better colling solution for VRM and lower VRM temps, Aorus has higher current output and more stable VRM and CPU heats up less but VRM temps are much higher. On the other hand World Record has been made with MSI board....

cpu: AMD 3970x to be overclocked > 4.8GHz all cores so we are talking about ~600W and it will be pushed to the limits

memory: 4 kits of Corsair Vengeance 2x32GB 3600MHz CL18 or ??? looks there is no other kits for now to my knowledge that can reach 3600MHz with 256GB

case: ???

gpu: 2 x Aorus 2080ti Waterforce or .... Kingpin 2080ti??

cooling: custom WC with...  480mm/60mm(1200W heat dissipation) or more?.... maybe some 1kW aquarium water chiller can be added into the loop. Waterblock is ofc EK-Velocity sTR4 or maybe there is something other existing?

supply: 2 x Seasonic Prime Ultra 1200W? we have 1200W to dissipate/lets say 0.9 efficiency then supplies peak efficiency is in 40-60% load range so 1200W/0.9/0.6=~2220W needed for 24/7 operation

hdd/ssd: don't care mostly

 

Cheers

-Pawel

[Juular]

Quote

cpu: AMD 3970x to be overclocked > 4.8GHz all cores

AMD CPUs don't do that under water yet, you'll have better luck with binned i9 9900KS which seems to be an ideal candidate for you, OC'ing to 5.2GHz easily, might be around 5.3-5.5GHz with some luck, especially if you have only 16-thread license.

[Princess Luna]

2 minutes ago, Juular said:

AMD CPUs don't do that under water yet, you'll have better luck with binned i9 9900KS which seems to be an ideal candidate for you, OC'ing to 5.2GHz easily, might be around 5.3-5.5GHz with some luck, especially if you have only 16-thread license.

Actually given how OP wants to use Linux based OS and needs an overwhelming amount of memory and PCI-e Lanes and all while having funds apparently, the best alternative for him would be the i9 10980XE here.

 

An odd case where it's the best alternative.

[Banykrk]

4 minutes ago, Juular said:

AMD CPUs don't do that under water yet, you'll have better luck with binned i9 9900KS which seems to be an ideal candidate for you, OC'ing to 5.2GHz easily, might be around 5.3-5.5GHz with some luck, especially if you have only 16-thread license.

-we need CPU that supports at least 256GB of ram, our existing configs are either 7980XE@4.8GHz with 64GB or 2990WX@4.1GHz with 128GB, we need more now

-we need CPU that has at least 16 physical cores, HT/MT is useless in this type of software

[Juular]

And your calculations for PSU requirement are wrong, this system will consume around 1200W yes, but you need 1200W PSU for it because if PSU rated at some value then it will definitely deliver it, and with modern high-quality units there's actually pretty big over-building margin so say, 1200W unit will actually deliver up to 1600W on short-peaks and around 1400W sustained. And i'd recommend some multi-rail unit instead of Seasonic (which are all single-rail), smth like Corsair AX(i)\HX(i)\RMi, be quiet! Straight Power 11 or Bitfenix Whisper, if you don't need quiet operation then 1.2kW unit would be enough but you can go all in and get like Corsair AX1600i.

[Juular]

1 minute ago, Banykrk said:

-we need CPU that supports at least 256GB of ram, our existing configs are either 7980XE@4.8GHz with 64GB or 2990WX@4.1GHz with 128GB, we need more now

-we need CPU that has at least 16 physical cores, HT/MT is useless in this type of software

Hmm, yes, then i9 10980XE is your choice as @Princess Luna have said.

[Banykrk]

3 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Actually given how OP wants to use Linux based OS and needs an overwhelming amount of memory and PCI-e Lanes and all while having funds apparently, the best alternative for him would be the i9 10980XE here.

 

An odd case where it's the best alternative.

-i9 10980XE is to be considered and I know I can easily bring it to 4.8GHz all cores, although we have many scenarios where 32core job can save some time and 32core CPU will be more suitable for future needs

-xeon w-3175x can be there and option if can be overclocked more that TR3 https://www.anandtech.com/show/15044/the-amd-ryzen-threadripper-3960x-and-3970x-review-24-and-32-cores-on-7nm/5

[Juular]

6 minutes ago, Banykrk said:

-i9 10980XE is to be considered and I know I can easily bring it to 4.8GHz all cores

Thing is that you will not reach 4.8GHz on AMD Zen 2 TR all core, around 4.5GHz with some luck and sky-high voltages may be.

Also it really depends on the software you use, since you're spending thousands dollars on this it might be actually viable to get both platforms anyway and compare them in OC potential and performance difference.

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Banykrk said:

-xeon w-3175x

I mean that's a way more pricey platform to mess around, I reckon that with a high end cooling setup... with at least the best 360mm money can buy you can get it to 4ghz and custom cooling likely 4.6ghz on this processor is as high as it goes... Intel only managed 5ghz on it using a chiller. It'll be toasty but it works and well it's almost the double of cores.

 

Is the frequency or the core count more important? I still stand by the i9 10980XE because you can get it to 5ghz with high end cooling, allied to a Mesh OC that processor is a beast on it's own right.

 

The main issue here is that the W-3175X processor costs 3 times what the 10980XE costs and it's motherboards are also extremely expensive.

 

But yeah the performance is there, the W-3175X without doubt puts up a much more meaningful fight against the TR 3970X, but it's hard to justify unless your business really have the funds and uses for it.

 

GPU wise it doesn't really matter what you pick, if you want to make custom liquid cooling with waterblocks just pick the Founders Edition straight from nVidia, otherwise any should work pretty much the same.

[Banykrk]

11 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

I mean that's a way more pricey platform to mess around, I reckon that with a high end cooling setup... with at least the best 360mm money can buy you can get it to 4ghz and custom cooling likely 4.6ghz on this processor is as high as it goes... Intel only managed 5ghz on it using a chiller. It'll be toasty but it works and well it's almost the double of cores.

 

Is the frequency or the core count more important? I still stand by the i9 10980XE because you can get it to 5ghz with high end cooling, allied to a Mesh OC that processor is a beast on it's own right.

 

The main issue here is that the W-3175X processor costs 3 times what the 10980XE costs and it's motherboards are also extremely expensive.

 

But yeah the performance is there, the W-3175X without doubt puts up a much more meaningful fight against the TR 3970X, but it's hard to justify unless your business really have the funds and uses for it.

 

GPU wise it doesn't really matter what you pick, if you want to make custom liquid cooling with waterblocks just pick the Founders Edition straight from nVidia, otherwise any should work pretty much the same.

-chiller is considered

-single threaded performance > multi threaded performance, performance scale with ~log(N), altough time is also a cost. Lately limitation was 64/128GB cap in last HEDT generation, and server grade way too behind in single threaded performance.

-business is good, we can find some funds

-what about VRM's on Founder's Ediditon and also GPU OC under linux? VBIOS has to be updated, right? I do not have experience in GPU OC

[Princess Luna]

2 minutes ago, Banykrk said:

-what about VRM's on Founder's Ediditon and also GPU OC under linux? VBIOS has to be updated, right? I do not have experience in GPU OC

The Founders Edition VRM are perfectly fine, it also only uses the best GDDR6 memory bins but mostly important do recall that nVidia is the owner of all the silicon manufactured before selling it to the AIB partners.

 

They always pick the very best GPUs, the very highest binning for their in house Founders Edition cards, they always overclock like a dream... the same level of binning can only be found on the KingPin ~ Hall of Fame tier of video card and even then I'd trust the FE more personally.

 

No need to touch vBios but I cannot go through the specifics on how to OC it on Linux for you since I'm a Windows only user [:

[Banykrk]

So looks like surprisingly i9-10980XE will be a winner here. It's last second support for 256GB DDR4 has changed a lot.

Does anybody know if IHS is really soldered here?

 

Then which motherboard: Asus Rampage VI Extreme Omega or Gigabyte Aorus X299X Extreme Waterforce. I saw that VRM temps with Aorus are much much lower but on the other hand Asus VRM temps are well within power stages operation margin.