[Build Log] King Ghidorah, 3 Gamers - 1 Threadripper

[Arkratos]

 

Intro

 

Now that the mainstream can get crazy core counts for not insane prices, I've been wanting to do a multi user system.  A workstation by day, LAN party by night.  I have 2 rx480s with copper blocks on them so far, I am in discussions to get a third.  So I'm thinking, a 3 headed monster with a dedicated server?  4 cores and 16 gb of ram each, with lots of watercooling!  I've narrowed down a few cases and designs, more to come on that later.  But right now, things are coming in... Let's do this!

 

First I must say a big thank you to AMD, Corsair, and V1Tech for sponsoring me with the cpu, motherboard, ram, case, powersupply, and custom aesthetic pieces.  I had just upgraded to Ryzen and I must say if that's the a powerhouse, then threadripper is a monster!  A Kaiju, if you will?

 

https://www.corsair.com
https://www.amd.com
https://www.v1tech.com/ref/Arkratos/?campaign=KingGhidorah

 

Table of Contents

Update 0: Intro/Initial packaging

 

MORE FINAL PHOTOS

 

Parts:

CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950x

Motherboard: Gigabyte x399 Aorus Gaming 7

RAM: 64GB of Corsair LPX 2933

GPUs: 3x RX 480 reference with EK copper single slot block.

SSDs: 3x Corsair MP500 240GB

Powersupply: Corsair RM1000x

Case: Corsair air 740

Monitors: 3x Acer KG221Q bmix 21.5"

 

Plan:

[X] Post check of components
[X] Monitor Mounting Design

[X] Watercooling Design

[X] Pass thru plate

[X] Rigid tubing

[X] Fill Watercooling

[X] Interior Photo Shoot

[X] Exterior Design

[X] Front Monitor Mounting

[X] Side Monitor Mounting

[X] VM Software

[X] Final Photo Shoot

[  ] Dreamhack Austin

[  ] PDX Lan 32A

 

UPDATE 0

And look at that packaging, I've never been so in awe upboxing something...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FloRolf]

Interesting! 

Didn't know it was possible to switch between having the system devided into multiple systems and a single system. I'll follow this topic and then do it myself as well

[Arkratos]

50 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

Interesting! 

Didn't know it was possible to switch between having the system devided into multiple systems and a single system. I'll follow this topic and then do it myself as well

So all you have to do is boot from a different drive.  I plan to use Xen on Linux to host my VMs.  To run as a workstation I could either: 1) boot from a windows drive or 2) spin up a VM with all three GPUs passed through.  I'll probably go with option 1, that said the purpose of the build will be the LAN party set up, as I plan to mount monitors to the case and everything.  Just with threadripper being the monster that it is, I could easily still use the 16 cores for workstation tasks.

[chilicheeseburger]

Subbed, this should be interesting.

[Arkratos]

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I updated the intro and will be doing some performance testing this weekend since I now have a test bench up and running.  Pictures and goodies coming soon!

[Arkratos]

Hey everyone sorry for the delay.  I got sick one week and had to figure out the other parts, most importantly which case to use.

 

I have settled on a case that I believe will be perfect for this.  The monitors that I have chosen are the Acer Gaming 21.5" KG221Q bmix, they are 75hz, Freesync, 1vms, TN monitors that measure 20" by 12".  The amazing part of the case selection is that the Corsair AIR 740 measures: 426mm x 340mm x 510mm meaning that if I turn the case on it's side, so the window is up, and a monitor will almost perfectly fit on the front.

 

So after reaching out, I'm really excited to announce that Corsair is a part of this project!

 

And now that I have ram, SSDs, and the case, I can begin work!  Updates should start coming out more regularly now that I'm not stuck waiting.  Next update should include more information about the parts and a general plan for the build.

[Arkratos]

Planning for the case is starting, and I must say after unboxing this thing, it doesn't feel nearly as large as I was expecting. Because it's "double wide" it's a lot shorter both top to bottom and front to back. Overall, I'm really pleased with the size, and the build quality is quite nice!





But more importantly this is how it's planning to be used.



With a monitor essentially replacing the front. Look at how perfectly sized that is!



The others will be mounted via an arm to the side. I'm still looking into the structural integrity of where to mount those arms, but the size look really solid.



I think this case will be perfect for this, and the amount of watercooling it supports will mean the three RX480s and 1950x should be nice and cool!

[thenonsense]

I'd be interested to see where this goes.  I have a similar setup for 2 players with a 1700x and a pair of 1080s.  We have a spare 1050ti laying around.  Given that 2 gamers is a resounding success for us currently, I'm tempted to invite a third.

[Bazadar]

Oh now this is something I will enjoy following!

[Arkratos]

On 11/23/2017 at 1:54 PM, thenonsense said:

I'd be interested to see where this goes.  I have a similar setup for 2 players with a 1700x and a pair of 1080s.  We have a spare 1050ti laying around.  Given that 2 gamers is a resounding success for us currently, I'm tempted to invite a third.

Only thing that has me concerned is AMD's CCX architecture.  You basically don't want to split a VM over CCX's unless you need to.  I'm going to try to give each VM a full CCX that way I hopefully don't have any Infinity fabric slow downs or anything.  But hey, their architecture is what has enabled this technology to be so affordable, I'm not complaining, it's just something to be mindful of.  So far I'm really really impressed with Ryzen and Threadripper.  Super excited to try to saturate so many PCI express lanes!

[Arkratos]

Hey guys sorry for the delay in updates.  With the holidays approaching schedules get crazy but I wanted to get a few teasers of some parts that are coming in and give a quick update on playing with things.

 

Update 1 Component Checking Part 1 and Planning

 

Teaser of the color scheme coming together:

 

Trying to figure out radiator fitment and routing.

 

I just ordered a Monsoon MMRS reservoir, hopefully I got the right length and parts for what I want, either way I'll be needing to do some painting on it.

Also I've never had so many sticks of matching ram before... This is glorious!

 

And they run perfectly on Threadripper, XMP worked perfectly, here's some Cinebench numbers.

 

[thenonsense]

Good to see this is coming together.  As for my build, I'd hand each person half a CCX with half of one for UNRAID.  Nothing needs to cross the fabric.

XMP still appears to be a grab-bag, despite all the updates pushed to memory.  I'm glad to hear it isn't a problem here.

Keep it up!

[Arkratos]

On 11/30/2017 at 9:56 AM, thenonsense said:

Good to see this is coming together.  As for my build, I'd hand each person half a CCX with half of one for UNRAID.  Nothing needs to cross the fabric.

XMP still appears to be a grab-bag, despite all the updates pushed to memory.  I'm glad to hear it isn't a problem here.

Keep it up!

That sounds like a solid plan.  And ya ram is fickle with Ryzen, but it seems to be mostly ironed out.  I still may try to tweak it manually to get 3000 but I've never messed with timings.

[Arkratos]

Short update, but trying to give everyone a heads up.
I've been ordering parts and test fitting them along with general holiday busy-ness.


I hit a snag though with the reservoir, the stock mount from Monsoon puts it out so far in the case that it literally covers half of the motherboard. I do love the looks of the reservoir and if I can get it to work I plan on painting a lot of it. However.... I was going to cut a new mount on the laser, but that is getting delayed because the office flooded!


So hopefully this weekend my brother and I can clean the water mess up and I can get that piece cut. Stay tuned!

[Arkratos]

I've been waiting to see what would happen with Threadripper waterblocks. I told myself for a copper and gold themed build I need a plexi and copper block, ideally something that I could add some gold to.

I'm waiting to see if Heatkiller help me get a copper/plexi block without the top anodized, that way I can take it somewhere and get it anodized, probably gold.



Because that is a beautiful block.

If that doesn't work, I'll probably go with XSPC as their red edition block offers a similar feel, where I could anodize the hold down plate a different color. With that one, I know I can get it in copper and either re-anodize the hold down plate, or make my own... I do have some nice gold mirror acrylic 

I'm on the fence honestly. I think I like the heatkiller block better, but the xspc allows me the opportunity to do some fun stuff with the large flat hold down plate... Opinions?

[Damascus]

heat killa

 

[Arkratos]

They are honestly the reason I've been so slow on the build.  I really wanted to see their offering, they did NOT disappoint.  It's beautiful... just I want the block to be copper.  But hey, even Heatkiller's very own Jakob, suggested emailing him to see if they could get me a non-anodized top to make it easier on me... Maybe they can get me a copper base too?  (I personally would think so because it's less manufacturing work)

I just keep looking at the XSPC block and I think... I have that gold mirror acrylic, I could make a hold down plate, and even do something like engrave scales on it.  Because the build is based around a three headed golden/bronze dragon...  I'm trying to make a focus on 3's.  3 gpus, 3 nvme ssds, 3 monitors... but aside from the 3's and the color schemes I'm having trouble bringing the theme to the inside of the build in a tasteful way.

[thenonsense]

Scrap the loop, scrap the case, and just dunk this thing in mineral oil.  Get some plastic aquarium dragons to round out the theme.  

Lol but seriously, I want to see that custom job on the CPU block come through.  Any chance the blocks on the GPUs will receive special treatment, to represent each dragon head?

On another note about your config, I was thinking about upgrading to the 1950x and just handing 2 CCXs each to 2 gaming VMs, and letting Unraid siphon off what it needs.  Have you played around with your Unraid config yet?  I'd be curious if you'd done any preliminary benchmarks with a 4/8/16-core VM, just to see if crossing the infinity fabric is worth the threads.

[Arkratos]

So good news actually, Heatkiller got back to me and are going to get me a non-anodized top with a copper base.  I've also found a company to anodize it for me and then afterwards my brother and I are going to do hydrodip a rattlesnake scale pattern onto the block.

 

As for the GPUs since the metal is entirely under the plexi there isn't anything fun I can do to the metal without risking ruining the blocks.  However the backplates are completely open to stuff.  I have black backplate for each card but honestly I was thinking of working with V1Tech to get some custom backplates made.  Just not sure how I want to represent a dragon head, or if I just want to go scales or something.  Also I've got a pretty cool idea for the parallel config I plan to run with the rigid tubing.  I can't wait to get the parts in and actually make it.

I was planning more to use KVM on linux, but I might try with unraid.  And I haven't gotten to play with all of that yet because I need to get a loop set up for the GPUs.  I've gotten all three GPUs together, but two of them have waterblocks on them from the last build.  So I can't get them up and running until I have a loop of some sort done.

 

Good news though, the correct radiators are on their way, and with days off for Christmas and New years I hope to at least get a loop up for that even if I don't have the cpu block yet.  I'm not sure how long the cpu block will take to come in from Germany.

 

From a computer architecture point of view, if things are set up correctly crossing the infinity fabric should be about on par with a R7 cpu, so I don't see it being an issue.  That seems to be what I've gathered from other forums too, but with so much development taking place to support Ryzen for VMs, it's a little hard to tell.

[Arkratos]

Still waiting on the rest of the watercooling pieces...

Watercool is getting me a custom waterblock, it's been ordered and everything. It's the acrylic block with a copper bottom (no nickel plating) and the black cover will be left naked for me (no anodizing). That way I can take the cover and get it anodized gold, leaving me with a copper base and gold top as planned! Only problem is the order got slightly missed by the people handling the nickel plating and all of the current batch got sent off to be plated, so I've been bumped to the next batch (next week). After that I'm thinking I'll hydro dip a scale pattern on the block too.

So since that has been delayed I haven't done much on the liquid cooling front.

But what I have done is take the opportunity to attempt lighting work, play with different tubing and paint.

Since the build is copper and gold I experimented a little bit. The left is gold and bronze alternating and the right is gold only.


I think the gold by itself looks much better so I did a few sticks to test how they look.






Honestly I think it looks great, the paint/marker needs to be touched up, but I really like it. IMO it's better than RGB leds.

Also I've been experimenting with frosted tubing, I'm trying to replicate the effect where the tube looks like it's glowing. But I'm actually on the fence about whether I'd rather just use the new Primochill Vue coolant. But so many people are having issues with it and the color I want isn't even out yet. So I figured I'd take my time and play around while I wait for the watercooling parts.

[Arkratos]

After lots of waiting, I got a special package in the mail towards the end of last week.  This specific configuration of this block does not exist on the website, the base was not nickel plated and the top cover was not anodized.  This means I can get the top anodized much more easily.

 

The surface area on the fin design is massive!  Almost the size of the entire exposed Threadripper heatspreader, I'm very impressed.

 

I hopefully can take the time to take the top cover piece to get it anodized by a local shop.  The plan is to get it gold and then hydro dip a snakeskin  pattern on top of that, so we'll have a golden scale pattern.

 

Speaking of anodized though.  I was trying to find ways to tie the gold theme through the build more without being gaudy.  A tasteful piece here, a tasteful piece there.  So I picked up the anodized gold singularity computers reservoir mounts to go with the new smaller bitspower reservoir... and... the color was very different from what I expected, way to orange-y of a gold.  So those have been returned, and it looks like I'll be painting the standard plastic reservoir mounts, but that should be fine, just not the super fancy nice mounts that I was expecting to have.

 

 

Lastly I wanted to give an update on the watercooling internal design, I can't do the full loop without the cpu block obviously but I have been brainstorming how to best execute the other theme of the three heads inside the case.  Currently this is what I've got cooking for the GPUs.

 

[Damascus]

I've got to say, heatkiller is easily my favourite block brand so far, I've had a raystorm and supremacy evo but my heatkiller pro IV takes the cake.  The damn thing just oozes quality.

 

 

[Arkratos]

This is my first Heatkiller waterblock and I knew their quality was good, but following their development of the block was stunning.  They literally delayed it because their design wasn't good enough.  They have a post on another forum that showed like 8 different designs they produced in trying to get the design right.  It's beautiful, heavy, and the fin area is MASSIVE!  I wish I could have used more of their products in the build but I already had the waterblocks for the RX480s and I don't think their reservoir would fit the theme...  and I'm recycling a pump that wont even be visible.

I'm so excited to see it when it comes back gold!

[Damascus]

Oh Yeah, the first thing I noticed was how heavy it is.  The entire top piece is a single, solid block of black nickel plated copper

[Damascus]

Love the gpu blocks as well