Project Gemini Rebuild (SR-2)

Biffa

Biffa

Biffa

Man of Honour
Joined
30 Oct 2002
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Surrey
So, like many of my builds this one has a history :)

It has been a AMD XP1800, E6300, Q6600 B3, then a Q6600 G0 @3.4Ghz then lastly an i7 920 D0 @ 4.0Ghz

Cooling wise its been on air, H20-I20, H50, and then Custom water.

It was the first rig I ever watercooled, and doubles up as my VMWare server, running 3 hosts.

It also is a 24/7 Folding@home machine :o and at some state (probably at the E6300 stage) got named Gemini

Lets concentrate on the most recent spec, then go onto the build spec and progress from there :)

Pre-Upgrade spec:

Cpu: i7 920 @ 4.2Ghz
Mobo: Asus P6T X58
Ram: OCZ 13333 DDR3 Low Voltage 12GB (6x2GB)
Case: Lian-Li A16B
CPU Block: XSPC V3
Pump: EK 4.0
Rad: XSPC RS240
Res: EK Multires
Tubing/fittings: 8-10mm white tubing on compression fittings.

Threw the build together from spares (bought the pump) after an unsuccesful build with the H50 (too hot) and this is how it looked.

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Sitting at around 70°C and pushing somewhere around 33K PPD on a bigadv 24/7 it was stable as a rock. :D

But I had a plan, I wanted to reduce the number of GPU's I was running in my other machines, yet not lose any output and save some money on the electric bills.

And then the hardware was released that would make Gemini live to its name....

The EVGA Classified SR-2 (Super Record 2)

270-WS-W555-A1_MD_1.jpg


With dual 1366 sockets for Xeon CPU's and Overclockable to boot the spec sheet read like a hardware nuts wet dream. ;)

Code: 
EVGA Classified SR-2 (Super Record 2)
Part Number	270-WS-W555-A1
CPU Support	Intel Socket 1366 (Xeon 5600/5500)
Chipset		Intel 5520
Memory Support	Dual or Triple Channel DDR3
SLI Support	2-way, 3-way, 4-way
SATA Header	8
SATA Type	2x600MB/sec / 6x300MB/sec
USB Ports	2x3.0 / 10x2.0
PCIE Slot	7 x PCIe x16/8
Integrated LAN	2 x 10/100/1000

It would be mine.. oh yes! :p
 
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So.. here we go

Rebuild Spec:

EVGA SR-2 Motherboard
Dual Xeon X5650
Dual EK Extreme Blocks
EK SR-2 Motherboard block
Thermochill PA140.3 Radiator
EK-Reservoir Combo DCP 2.2
Lian-Li PC-P80 Case


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Someone obviously approves:
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The case was a tricky one, it had to be big enough to take the crazy sized SR-2 Motherboard:
sr2_size_matrix.png


You need a case that can take the depth of the motherboard, currently there are only 2 or 3 stock cases that can do it, or you can get a custom MM mobo tray and hack it into a Corsair. The only other options are to buy a MountainMods case itself or a DangerDen Plexi case. Neither of which rock my world.

The PC-V2010 fits, but thats even more expensive, and not as good for watercooling I reckon.

Lucky the case isnt going to be on display anywhere as its an ugly mofo, this isn't going to be an elegant build, its going to be functional and I didn't want to spend much time modding this baby, I couldn't afford to spend too much time during the transplant of equipment to the new rig stage, as the VMWare images it hosts run some of my stuff that I don't want down for too long a time. :eek:

First thing you notice is how big the box for the Lian-Li PC-P80 is, and then you realize the size of the box for the SR-2!

Here it is compared to the box for the Asus P6T7-WS, itself no small potatoes in the Motherboard world and central to another build of mine.
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On the flip side I was slightly dissapointed on the box size of the Xeon CPU's.. I mean they were so small I almost didn't notice them at the bottom of the box!
Compared to a standard i7-920 box or the beefy i7-970 box and you can feel short changed considering they cost the same as the 970 :p
08112010225.jpg


At this point I was almost ready to begin, but I was waiting for a few extra parts including the fittings, the res and tubing, so I threw the cpus in, jury rigged a loop with my old faithful XSPC 750 bayres and checked everything booted up.

Then it was time to start putting it all together :D
 
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Unpacking shots.

The SR-2, how well is this thing packed!
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Nekkid in all its glory.. lots of warning stickers everywhere, nomnomnomnomnom :)

The mobo block:
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Nice and shiny, then a trial placement to makes sure I bought the right part, and to see what it would look like :)

Lets fit that sucker!
Nice easy screws to undo, thats what I like to see. :)
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Nekkid mobo:
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My weapon of choice for cleaning computer parts:
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Squeaky clean :D
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Fitted.. *phew*
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Which reminds me I hate the EK method on all their blocks of using plastic standoffs "stuck" with TIM. Its twice as bad with a block this size but I managed to fit it on the first try without losing a standoff.
 
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That is seriously impressive! Very nice!

I did have a "doh" moment when I saw the picture of the coin balanced and thought "how did he balance two coins on it" then the fact that it was a reflection kicked in and it all made sense... xD Stupid early morning brain...

kd
 
ooooh subbed.

id be very interested on how this compares to a single i7. i was saying to someone the other day that id love to do a twin xeon build next but they were insisting that a single i7 clocked can be just as effective?
 
neil_g said:
ooooh subbed.

id be very interested on how this compares to a single i7. i was saying to someone the other day that id love to do a twin xeon build next but they were insisting that a single i7 clocked can be just as effective?
Click to expand...

Depends completely on what you want to do, and whether the application scales more than 4 threads.

So rendering, measured with something like CineBench 10 shows +50% improvement in rendering times.

But games show little or even negative improvement, they show little improvement going from 2 to 4 or 4 to 6 cores so 12/24 isn't going to make any difference :)

But as a server or distributed computing or scientific computing machine, thats where multi cpus and especially the SR-2 because it can be overclocked to improve results even more :)
 
Biffa said:
Depends completely on what you want to do, and whether the application scales more than 4 threads.

So rendering, measured with something like CineBench 10 shows +50% improvement in rendering times.

But games show little or even negative improvement, they show little improvement going from 2 to 4 or 4 to 6 cores so 12/24 isn't going to make any difference :)

But as a server or distributed computing or scientific computing machine, thats where multi cpus and especially the SR-2 because it can be overclocked to improve results even more :)
Click to expand...

makes perfect sense, ta :)
 
No, this isn't really a show pony, its going to be a functional build at best. I can't help myself with some things as you will see but I don't have a problem with the bare aluminium interior of a case normally anyway.
 
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