My next workstation for graphic design and 3D

[bographics]

Hi,

 

Here is my next workstation that I have "under construction":

Case: Thermaltake Core X71 Tempered Glass Edition

CPU: Intel i7-6800K 3.4GHZ/3.8GHz, 15MB

Water-cooling: EK WATER BLOCKS EK-kit X360 Starter Liquid Cooling kit Extreme 360

Power supply: Corsair HX850i 850W

HDD: 2 x WD Gold 2TB 7200 RPM SATA3 128MB wd2005fbyz

SSD: Samsung 960 PRO 512GB, M.2

Main-board: MSI X99A SLI ATX

RAM: Corsair Vengeance Blue LED 3000 MHz, 64GB, CL15

LCD Display: BenQ PD3200U LED 32 IPS UHD 4K

Blu-Ray RW: LG BH16NS55R

Mouse: Logitech MX Master, 1600dpi

Other: EK-Vardar F3-120 (1850 rpm), EK-Ekoolant EVO UV Blue 1L, Nanoxia Rigid LED 30cm UV

Video card (for the moment): ASUS GeForce GTX 960 STRIX, 2GB, GDDR5, 128 bit

Keyboard: Logitech G15 (1st gen.)

Fan controller: Zalman ZM-MFC1 Plus (6 Channel Fan controller for 5.25")

[Rohime]

1 minute ago, bographics said:

Hi,

 

Here is my next workstation that I have "under construction":

Case: Thermaltake Core X71 Tempered Glass Edition

CPU: Intel i7-6800K 3.4GHZ/3.8GHz, 15MB

Water-cooling: EK WATER BLOCKS EK-kit X360 Starter Liquid Cooling kit Extreme 360

Power supply: Corsair HX850i 850W

HDD: 2 x WD Gold 2TB 7200 RPM SATA3 128MB wd2005fbyz

SSD: Samsung 960 PRO 512GB, M.2

Main-board: MSI X99A SLI ATX

RAM: Corsair Vengeance Blue LED 3000 MHz, 64GB, CL15

LCD Display: BenQ PD3200U LED 32 IPS UHD 4K

Blu-Ray RW: LG BH16NS55R

Mouse: Logitech MX Master, 1600dpi

Other: EK-Vardar F3-120 (1850 rpm), EK-Ekoolant EVO UV Blue 1L, Nanoxia Rigid LED 30cm UV

Video card (for the moment): ASUS GeForce GTX 960 STRIX, 2GB, GDDR5, 128 bit

Keyboard: Logitech G15 (1st gen.)

Fan controller: Zalman ZM-MFC1 Plus (6 Channel Fan controller for 5.25")

 

An overclocked Ryzen 1700 with Mobo is probably much better bang for buck.

[pelark]

What will you use it for?

[bographics]

Just now, pelark said:

What will you use it for?

For graphic design and some 3D work. I will use it also for some gaming from time to time

[pelark]

1 minute ago, bographics said:

For graphic design and some 3D work. I will use it also for some gaming from time to time

Definitely a solid build. Have you looked into ryzen or even Xeon for your needs? Just wondering if you decided on the 6800k for a particular reason

[bographics]

2 minutes ago, Rohime said:

 

An overclocked Ryzen 1700 with Mobo is probably much better bang for buck.

I have purchased the 6800K just before AMD Ryzen release, but I've got it for a good price in my country (the same as Ryzen 1700). Also I think Ryzen is too new and I don't want to risk something...

[bographics]

1 minute ago, pelark said:

Definitely a solid build. Have you looked into ryzen or even Xeon for your needs? Just wondering if you decided on the 6800k for a particular reason

I wanted more cores than the "usual" 7700K, but not at the expense of a 6900K!

[pelark]

1 minute ago, bographics said:

I wanted more cores than the "usual" 7700K, but not at the expense of a 6900K!

Would you consider Ryzen? The 1700 for example has 8 cores, 16 threads and comes in at a mere 329$ plus it has much cheaper mobos than X99

[scottyseng]

3 minutes ago, bographics said:

-snip-

I'd also second rethinking ryzen...but it's harder now since you already own the CPU.

 

Anyway, are you sure about the WD Gold drives? Note that they are enterprise drives and not that quiet. You might look into the Reds or the Red Pros.

[pelark]

Oohh you already have the CPU, sorry

 

[bographics]

2 minutes ago, pelark said:

Would you consider Ryzen? The 1700 for example has 8 cores, 16 threads and comes in at a mere 329$ plus it has much cheaper mobos than X99

I don't know. The performance of Ryzen seems to be better than 6800K, but most of the applications are still optimized for Intel. Also I don't think that I will feel the difference between them, especially that I will overclock the 6800K at 4.2 GHz.

[pelark]

Just now, bographics said:

I don't know. The performance of Ryzen seems to be better than 6800K, but most of the applications are still optimized for Intel. Also I don't think that I will feel the difference between them, especially that I will overclock the 6800K at 4.2 GHz.

Agree, the intel has better single threaded performance plus the overclock should help you quite a lot in terms of gaming.

[bographics]

2 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Anyway, are you sure about the WD Gold drives? Note that they are enterprise drives and not that quiet. You might look into the Reds or the Red Pros.

I want a reliable drive, for RAID 1. I have lost some drives in the past and I don't want that risk again.

 

I've read that the Re or Gold edition from WD is basically the same as Black, but with some tweaks for server use and better reliability (vibration protection, etc). Am I right?

[bographics]

1 minute ago, pelark said:

Agree, the intel has better single threaded performance plus the overclock should help you quite a lot in terms of gaming.

For gaming yes, but also the 6 cores should be good for some rendering too I don't need nor have the budget for dual Xeons or something like that.

[scottyseng]

12 minutes ago, bographics said:

I want a reliable drive, for RAID 1. I have lost some drives in the past and I don't want that risk again.

 

I've read that the Re or Gold edition from WD is basically the same as Black, but with some tweaks for server use and better reliability (vibration protection, etc). Am I right?

Ah, okay. Well, when you get any drive, be sure to fully test it. Run WD Lifeguard Diagnostics (Extended Test) on the new WD drives.

 

I'd consider the Red Pro to be similar to the WD Black. The Gold is a step above that (lower error rate / extreme vibration resistance). Well, if you know and are fine, they are great drives.

 

I have the older WD RE drives and they still work fine for me. Just running a defrag gets a bit noisy though.

[bographics]

2 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Ah, okay. Well, when you get any drive, be sure to fully test it. Run WD Lifeguard Diagnostics (Extended Test) on the new WD drives.

 

I'd consider the Red Pro to be similar to the WD Black. The Gold is a step above that (lower error rate / extreme vibration resistance). Well, if you know and are fine, they are great drives.

 

I have the older WD RE drives and they still work fine for me. Just running a defrag gets a bit noisy though.

Cool

Some say that WD RE is not good for home use because are optimized for datacenters and the heads are constantly over the platters (are not parking). Should this be a concern?

[scottyseng]

Just now, bographics said:

Cool

Some say that WD RE is not good for home use because are optimized for datacenters and the heads are constantly over the platters (are not parking). Should this be a concern?

Hmm, they do park, just far less. It's not like a WD green where it parks too much so it's not good for RAID arrays. It's a good drive though.

 

I haven't had any issues with using RAID ready drives such as WD Reds or Re drives as regular drives. However, I have quite a few of them in a RAID for my home  NAS.

[bographics]

3 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Hmm, they do park, just far less. It's not like a WD green where it parks too much so it's not good for RAID arrays. It's a good drive though.

 

I haven't had any issues with using RAID ready drives such as WD Reds or Re drives as regular drives. However, I have quite a few of them in a RAID for my home  NAS.

I just want the most reliable HDD I can get, so the risk for loosing data again will be at minimum. I know that there are also other risks, so I need to get good backup of valuable data, but I want to eliminate the risk of HDD failure in the future. This is why I want to put 2 drives in RAID1. I hope this will be enough.

[scottyseng]

Just now, bographics said:

I just want the most reliable HDD I can get, so the risk for loosing data again will be at minimum. I know that there are also other risks, so I need to get good backup of valuable data, but I want to eliminate the risk of HDD failure in the future. This is why I want to put 2 drives in RAID1. I hope this will be enough.

Yep, it should be great for you. But just as I said before, make sure you test the drives first. Depending on how happy the mail people that day, your drives might arrive dead...yeah, I've had several DOA drives...mostly due to shipping.

[bographics]

3 minutes ago, scottyseng said:

Yep, it should be great for you. But just as I said before, make sure you test the drives first. Depending on how happy the mail people that day, your drives might arrive dead...yeah, I've had several DOA drives...mostly due to shipping.

Good to know. Thanks!

[bographics]

I am a little concerned about the mainboard I've chosen: MSI X99A SLI. Is there a better solution for OC, dual SLI, M.2 SSD and RAID? Thanks!

[bographics]

Do you think that worth buying memory higher than 3000Mhz?

How well I can OC the Corsair Vengeance modules?

[hueLholter]

On 3/13/2017 at 5:26 AM, bographics said:

For gaming yes, but also the 6 cores should be good for some rendering too I don't need nor have the budget for dual Xeons or something like that.

I purchased a matched set of E5-2680's for ~290 on eBay - you might want a newer or more powerful CPU set than that, but all in all for the power you get the price is nice - I made the mistake of wanting to put my setup in a MacPro case, but it CAN be done cheaply, it's just what you make of it.

[bographics]

On 3/15/2017 at 7:34 PM, hueLholter said:

I purchased a matched set of E5-2680's for ~290 on eBay - you might want a newer or more powerful CPU set than that, but all in all for the power you get the price is nice - I made the mistake of wanting to put my setup in a MacPro case, but it CAN be done cheaply, it's just what you make of it.

In my country, one new E5-2680 costs ~2400 USD! This is almost as much as my entire system :)))

[brob]

 

On 3/13/2017 at 6:56 AM, bographics said:

I just want the most reliable HDD I can get, so the risk for loosing data again will be at minimum. I know that there are also other risks, so I need to get good backup of valuable data, but I want to eliminate the risk of HDD failure in the future. This is why I want to put 2 drives in RAID1. I hope this will be enough.

 

If Hitachi (HGST) hdd are available you might look at their Deskstar NAS line. These drives are designed for "desktop" NAS and are likely more suited to a relatively light use array than units designed for data centers.