CPU heavy computing for lab

[Thomtcw]

Hello,

 

First time posting and looking for some parts recommendation to build a PC/workstation with pure CPU computing power for remote solving, storage least priority.

Optional part will be a GPU for GPU computing acceleration in matlab.

Lets say the budget is around 10k SGD,

Below are some random parts if picked from the website, have not build a workstation before and only have experience from build my own pc.

Let me know if there are any improvement i can make and the right GPU to use, motherboards for threadripper and ECC memory.

 

[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XDZm7T)

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [AMD Threadripper 3990X 2.9 GHz 64-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/KWmFf7/amd-threadripper-3990x-29-ghz-64-core-processor-100-100000163wof) | $3899.00 @ Amazon 
**CPU Cooler** | [Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/nCNypg/noctua-nh-u14s-tr4-sp3-1402-cfm-cpu-cooler-nh-u14s-tr4-sp3) | $79.90 @ Amazon 
**Motherboard** | [Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS MASTER EATX sTRX4 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/69848d/gigabyte-trx40-aorus-master-eatx-strx4-motherboard-trx40-aorus-master) | $479.99 @ Amazon 
**Memory** | [Crucial 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jgQG3C/crucial-16gb-1-x-16gb-ddr4-2666-memory-ct16g4wfd8266) | $104.99 @ B&H 
**Memory** | [Crucial 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jgQG3C/crucial-16gb-1-x-16gb-ddr4-2666-memory-ct16g4wfd8266) | $104.99 @ B&H 
**Memory** | [Crucial 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jgQG3C/crucial-16gb-1-x-16gb-ddr4-2666-memory-ct16g4wfd8266) | $104.99 @ B&H 
**Memory** | [Crucial 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jgQG3C/crucial-16gb-1-x-16gb-ddr4-2666-memory-ct16g4wfd8266) | $104.99 @ B&H 
**Storage** | [Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/JLdxFT/samsung-970-evo-10tb-m2-2280-solid-state-drive-mz-v7e1t0baw) | $169.99 @ B&H 
**Storage** | [Seagate EXOS Enterprise 16 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/TYcRsY/seagate-exos-enterprise-16-tb-35-7200rpm-internal-hard-drive-st16000nm001g) | $399.99 @ Newegg 
**Video Card** | [PNY Quadro K6000 12 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/2j3RsY/pny-video-card-vcqk6000pb) | $889.99 @ Amazon 
**Power Supply** | [Corsair HX Platinum 1200 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/f7L7YJ/corsair-hx-platinum-1200w-80-platinum-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020140-na) | $239.99 @ Best Buy 
 | *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |
 | **Total** | **$6578.81**
 | Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2020-03-17 00:42 EDT-0400 |

[seagate_surfer]

WOW! There is so much horse power here. The Exos HDD suits you well and the system requirements say that  4GB RAM per worker is recommended so you have capabilities for about 16 people. Then the general guidance says that for accelerating MATLAB you need to use Parallel Computing and NVIDia GPUs with compute capability 3.0 or higher, that's basically any current GPU.  

 

[LaPlume]

That's not the kind of builds I usually would feel comfortable giving advices on (I'm more into refurb servers for virtualization and gaming PCs / editing-cad-3D workstations.)

THOUGH, even if storage isn't your priority at all, I would give some thoughts about it:
- redundancy.

Even if storage isn't your priority, if a drive has an issue, ESPECIALLY since you said >REMOTE< solving, you don't want your stuff going down (even in general). A RAID1 or any kind of software mirroring with fail-over that would be still bootable-usable in case of one of the two goes down.

 

Also, IPMI or a KVM with IP connect could be a worthwhile investment for anything remotely remote.
Even though I wouldn't advice making them face the world wide web, just a pi running an openvpn server next to it could be secure enough.


PSU wise... during the past 5 years, I have had my fair share of friends going with corsair PSU that flat out crapped their configs. Be it regarding stability under load, or full on magic smoke.

Ram is really slow for zen2 tbh. Cooling, depends on the load, but seems light too.

If it was me I'ld stick to seasonic and cooler master.

[Meganter]

Hello,

 

You don't need such a big PSU, 850W should be enough (unless you plan to add a 2nd GPU).

 

I'd go with a bigger cpu cooler like the NH D15 or DRP4.

 

Go with memory kits and not seperate once, also 3600 is really better. 2666 is way too low.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Threadripper 3990X 2.9 GHz 64-Core Processor	$3899.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro TR4 59.5 CFM CPU Cooler	$89.90 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS MASTER EATX sTRX4 Motherboard	$474.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$325.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$169.99 @ B&H
Storage	Seagate EXOS Enterprise 16 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$399.99 @ Newegg
Video Card	PNY Quadro K6000 12 GB Video Card	$889.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair HX Platinum 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$184.99 @ Corsair
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$6434.84
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-17 04:31 EDT-0400

 

 

[seagate_surfer]

20 hours ago, Plouffe said:

Hello,

 

You don't need such a big PSU, 850W should be enough (unless you plan to add a 2nd GPU).

 

I'd go with a bigger cpu cooler like the NH D15 or DRP4.

 

Go with memory kits and not seperate once, also 3600 is really better. 2666 is way too low.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Threadripper 3990X 2.9 GHz 64-Core Processor	$3899.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro TR4 59.5 CFM CPU Cooler	$89.90 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS MASTER EATX sTRX4 Motherboard	$474.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$325.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$169.99 @ B&H
Storage	Seagate EXOS Enterprise 16 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$399.99 @ Newegg
Video Card	PNY Quadro K6000 12 GB Video Card	$889.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair HX Platinum 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$184.99 @ Corsair
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$6434.84
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-17 04:31 EDT-0400

 

 

Thanks for sharing, I think not everyone is used to builds like this and that makes it more difficult to help.

[Thomtcw]

On 3/17/2020 at 2:04 PM, LaPlume said:

That's not the kind of builds I usually would feel comfortable giving advices on (I'm more into refurb servers for virtualization and gaming PCs / editing-cad-3D workstations.)

THOUGH, even if storage isn't your priority at all, I would give some thoughts about it:
- redundancy.

Even if storage isn't your priority, if a drive has an issue, ESPECIALLY since you said >REMOTE< solving, you don't want your stuff going down (even in general). A RAID1 or any kind of software mirroring with fail-over that would be still bootable-usable in case of one of the two goes down.

 

Also, IPMI or a KVM with IP connect could be a worthwhile investment for anything remotely remote.
Even though I wouldn't advice making them face the world wide web, just a pi running an openvpn server next to it could be secure enough.


PSU wise... during the past 5 years, I have had my fair share of friends going with corsair PSU that flat out crapped their configs. Be it regarding stability under load, or full on magic smoke.

Ram is really slow for zen2 tbh. Cooling, depends on the load, but seems light too.

If it was me I'ld stick to seasonic and cooler master.

Thanks, i might consider a little redundancy. I only do not have the knowledge and experience to do so, ie the type of redundancy i require.

- Will i require another hdd and software, should i let the bios do the raid?

- Noted on the PSU.

- For the RAM ECC is not required?

[Thomtcw]

On 3/17/2020 at 4:31 PM, Plouffe said:

Hello,

 

You don't need such a big PSU, 850W should be enough (unless you plan to add a 2nd GPU).

 

I'd go with a bigger cpu cooler like the NH D15 or DRP4.

 

Go with memory kits and not seperate once, also 3600 is really better. 2666 is way too low.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Threadripper 3990X 2.9 GHz 64-Core Processor	$3899.00 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro TR4 59.5 CFM CPU Cooler	$89.90 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS MASTER EATX sTRX4 Motherboard	$474.99 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory	$325.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Samsung 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$169.99 @ B&H
Storage	Seagate EXOS Enterprise 16 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$399.99 @ Newegg
Video Card	PNY Quadro K6000 12 GB Video Card	$889.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair HX Platinum 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$184.99 @ Corsair
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$6434.84
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-03-17 04:31 EDT-0400

 

 

Wow thank you very much. I will consider this, if ECC memory is not required.

[LaPlume]

For the redundancy:

- Raid1 is the "simplest" kind, but with such large capacity drive, rebuild time would be a real hassle in case of one of the two mirrored drives going down. You would need 2 of the same capacity drives. For raid 10, you would need 4, to end with the capacity of 2.

- Raid6 could be an interesting alternative. Using smaller capacity drives (thus smaller rebuild times) , but in higher count, while keeping fault tolerance. There is also a performance advantage to it.

For the counts and capacity, Raid 6 asks for a minimum of 4 disks, but it's not interesting with such a low number, because you end up with the capacity of just 2 disks.

6x 4TB disks in raid6 would give you Fault tolerance of 2-drive failures with a total capacity of 16 TB, with 4x read speed and same write speed.

 

-Raid 5 would be the middle solution: 1 drive fault tolerance, 5 4TB disks would give you 16TB of storage at 3x the read speed, but keep in mind that rebuilding a failed drive puts a lot of stress on the whole array, increasing risks of an other drive failing, and there, you're foobar.

My personal go in that case would be raid6, but that has always been a fiery debate in front coffee machines next to IT rooms.

 

But no matter which you choose, you'ld probably prefer a real raid card to handle the matter, not the bios.
(software I would only advise in cases of going ZFS, or unraid-like arrays)

 

Because if you let the bios handle it and your motherboard dies, you might not be able to import it on a different board for a whatever fluke, and you might have to source the same you had just to get your data back.

 

If your raid card dies, usually importing it to an other of the same model shouldn't be that much hassle, and aren't too expensive to not keep a spare one just in case. 

+ if you're diagnosing suspected-hardware-related raid issues, it's always easier to swap a PCIe card than a motherboard. Flashing the firmware or even customizing it isn't as fiddly or risky as trying to wedge a custom bios or patch in a motherboard.

Some raid cards you can even be flashed with firmwares of other raid cards to unlock options or going around issues related to a peculiar brand or series of products.

It's just all around more serviceable.

For the RAM:

- you may or may not need ECC. My thing up until now would have been to say that you should go ECC whenever you can, but it's because I'm used to refurbished intel-based servers were ram speed isn't that crucial. For this one, it's trickier since slower ram would effectively be a notable performance hit.

- If you decide to go for ECC though, beware to stick to  2933 Mhz (which is the fastest I could find) and only Samsung B-Die ICs, which have better compatibility with AMD zen2.

 

 

Cooling-wise, I support the proposition of a Dark Rock Pro TR4. A Corsair Wraith Ripper would do the job too.