Project PARVUM ARGENTUM - Lots of rendering, machining and 4 Titan Xs?

[Maki Role]

Project PARVUM ARGENTUM - I need nand, lots of nand - Update 25/11/15

Hello everybody!

First time posting in this forum, been an accountless lurker for too long now. If you frequent other tech sites you may have seen me before though. I wanted to share with you all my new project, titled Argentum, a collaborative work with Parvum Systems!

I present to you, Project Parvum Argentum!

Brief:

A few months back, Justin of Parvum Systems approached me with a proposition. The idea was to create a wall mounted PC in a similar vein to my last project, Loramentum, but with monstrous hardware in mind. Seeing as Parvum did the machining for my last build, the thought of a collaboration project very much whetted my appetite.

So how is this going to differ from Loramentum? Well, scale mostly. This build is going to feature a lot of hardware, both on the cooling side and*in specs. In making this project larger, we also wanted to make some parts more daring. Whereas Loramentum features a simple 2 part clamshell design, we thought it would be interesting to increase that to three layers so that channels can pass over and under each other. What also differs is what stage I'm starting the log at. In Loramentum all the main renders were complete before embarking on the build. Owing to the number of manufacturers involved in this build, it seemed like that would be a tough call, so this time you'll be able to see the design evolve. I'll update the OP when the final renders for the project are completed so that they don't get lost.


I'd also like to give a big thank you to everybody who's decided to sponsor this project and to Justin at Parvum! Without you guys this project could never have been possible.


Specs:


So what specs are we talking about here?

CPU: Intel Core i7 5960X
Motherboard: Asus X99E-WS (kindly supplied by Asus)
RAM: TBD (likely 64-128GB )
Graphics: 4(!) x Nvidia GTX Titan X (kindly supplied by Nvidia)
Storage: TBD
Power Supply: SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 2000W 8-Pack Edition (kindly supplied by SuperFlower)

Cooling:

4 x 480mm rads
4 x Laing D5
Aquacomputer Aquaero 6 for fan control
Rest is TBD


First Goodies:

Here are the first components to arrive:














First Renders:

The plan is to do a fully rendered version of the build, like I did for Loramentum. As such, I began to model the components that were sent, chiefly the PSU and motherboard. The following images were made using Autodesk Inventor and Blender (using Cycles to render the images).

 

[Maki Role]

Can't wait! Sounds sweet.

Epic!

Thanks guys!

you make me feel so poor

Aah the advantages of not actually having to pay for all of it myself

should be an interesting build

Hopefully it'll live up to the hype!

First off, I'm glad you decided to stop lurking and join the forum proper. This looks like its going to be something we'd all like to see.
Second I'm damn jealous of that kit, extreme in the extreme !

I have some questions if you have the time to answer.

1) How do you draw the motherboard etc to such detail? Do you somehow scan it and its drawn for you or is it done from scratch? (I've no clue about this)
2) Why do you do a full render of the build, to what purpose does this serve? I'd imagine its rather time consuming?
3) The enclosure for this must be huge, considering the hardware and rads. Can you tell us the dimensions?

I'm seriously gonna have to give up doing projects, I've got a feeling this will make my efforts look like Homer Simpson nailed a shelf upside down to a cat !

I'm subbed and look forward to seeing more

I do it all from scratch using just a pair of digital vernier calipers. I do most of the modelling in Autodesk Inventor, which for the most part is fairly simple to use. I've found it's mostly a matter of practice. After a while you become better and better at working out which basic shapes and features combine to make a full object, basically breaking something down into it's component forms.

The renders themselves serve a number of purposes really. The first is for actual CAD use. I try to make the models as accurate as I possibly can, which helps a lot with scaling, positioning etc. This makes the building phase much simpler as I have a definitive plan of action. The next aid is in thematic mods. Having very accurately modelled and textured parts allows me to picture almost exactly what something will look like before committing to it. By having models to hand, I can see what something will look like if painted, gold plated, removed and so forth. This is particularly handy for expensive components where I might not get a second chance to redo them. The last point is for promoting the build. Simply put, people really like detailed 3D models. They're fun and draw quite a bit of attention as they make something that's at first rather banal and turn it into a feature. They're also great for pitching to sponsors as they get a really good idea of what you want to do.

Aha it's interesting that you should mention the enclosure. This won't be going in some massive case or wardrobe-like structure. Instead it will be open air and fairly planar, mounted inside the frame itself. Dimension wise it'll be pretty large yes, but it will also be pretty narrow. The concept is drawn from my last project which had much more modest hardware:

As soon as I saw 4x Titan I was all in.

Haha they do have that effect it seems, really beastly cards. They may not have the high clocks of some of the recent 980tis but they have 12GB of VRAM, which is all that matters to me for the most part.

 

[Maki Role]

OMG that's your last build ! Its very nice..

Thanks for taking the time to explain to this layman, how long did it take to "make" the motherboard say?

Off to find your other project log now, must see

Took about 4 days in total I reckon, not sure how many hours though. Motherboards are fairly straightforward really as most of the components are pretty stock meaning you just need to focus on the heatsinks and part locations. Thanks btw!

Please share links to previous projects! That one above looks amazing!

I don't have them hosted here so hopefully this is okay (since LTT isn't a shop or something). These are my three most recent ones:

Vesper

Loramentum

Moderne

The renders are very impressive, looking forward to seeing the finished project.

Hope you enjoy the ride!

Wow, this looks like its going to shape up to be damm fine. Especially if that picture of your previous build is anything to go by

Ahh but now I've set the expectations high so it's going to be tougher to live up to them, fingers crossed.

Knew your name sounded familiar. Came across the pictures of your last project a few weeks ago, and loved it... reservoir inside the motherboard tray, amazing design and execution. So clean.

Cheers! Yeah it was a great build to work on, so many new techniques that I'd never tried before and had to learn.

So I thought I'd share some of the stuff that's been going on recently. The plan is to make a monoblock for the Asus X99E-WS that will cool everything important on the board. The stock heatsinks are beautiful, but apparently the PLX chips can get a little toasty when using 4 GPUs, which we will be doing. According to some owners they've experienced random crashes when the chips get too hot. The solution is just provide a bit of airflow, which is very easy in a normal case. However, since this is open faced, I can't guarantee that will always be available. That and we thought it would be cool.

Here's the lower section thus far:







The above model is a little out of date as I've since added some extra cutouts that are needed for it to fit properly. The test block is going to be machined tomorrow, don't want to have the final one milled only to realise it doesn't fit rofl.

I also spent some time making a short video showing the motherboard model:

 

[Maki Role]

Pure computer pr0n! Love it

Only the finest PC fap material here

Wow those renders are unreal and your last project is phenomenal!

Thanks!

Right so whilst I'm waiting for the motherboard PLX test block to be machined, I figured I'd update with some of the most recent renders. I meant to post these a week back but I was snowed in with work and my head just froze up. Now that things are slightly less hectic, let's get to it.

Nvidia, about a month back, asked if I could also render the Titan X cards going into the build. Now I was a little hesitant about this as since the cards are going to be watercooled, the stock coolers won't be present later on. They also didn't respond when I asked if they could provide an official CAD file. The coolers themselves look simple, but they're actually incredibly complicated to model. There are curves, lofts, chamfers and fillets everywhere, and some of them quite subtle, almost none of the surfaces are completely flat.

In any case, I did end up modeling the things, and so here they are:

Clay render showing the model itself sans textures:​

This was actually and accident when I misclicked and applied a frosted acrylic material to the whole thing, thought it looked cool though.​

 

[Maki Role]

So this ended up being a much longer gap than any of us had planned. If there's one issue with doing large scale sponsored builds it's that you have to deal with a lot of different timescales and schedules, so they do have a habit of dragging on a bit.

But that said, I do have a proper update for you all!

First of all, I'd like to welcome a new sponsor into the fray, Hexagon PCs! They kindly offered to supply the sleeving for Argentum, and some special stuff it is indeed.

The next big bit of news is that the fourth Titan X has finally surfaced , it's been a long time coming but this build at last has the stated number of GPUs present. Sadly that doesn't mean all too much right now though as we're still missing, well, almost everything else. Hey, good things come to those who wait.

And lastly, and probably most interestingly, we have some PHYSICAL PROGRESS! Somehow the guys at Parvum Systems managed to find some time in the run up to i55 to cut the test block for the motherboard. This is a vital piece as it allows me to work out exactly what works and what doesn't with the design. For the most part it actually fits perfectly, there are only a couple small changes that I need to make to have it all functioning well. We didn't want to commit to copper until we're 100% sure that it's going to work right.

Going for silver, white and a darker grey



Finally 4 GPUs present in real life!





Motherboard PLX block so far





Fits nice and snug

 

[Maki Role]

Keeping an eye on this...

looking promising

Hopefully it won't disappoint

A build with that many Titan X's has to be good!
Keeping an eye on this build

Bah the hardware is nice, but the mod needs to stand out in its own right else it's a fail in my book. Seen too many builds where people get carried away by just adding more and more, the real challenge will be trying to make it look special without knowing the specs

Why didn't you include a cpu block as well? Or will you make another layer that will fit exactly to it?

Bingo. We still don't know what CPU block will be used so it felt a bit pointless trying to model the whole thing upfront.

I love Autodesk Inventor. You've encouraged me to get back to modeling my Abrams Tank!

Sounds like quite a project!

I don't even want to think about how difficult it is to render like that!

Subbed!

It's actually not that hard, just a bit laborious. The modelling itself is rather simple, the real pop comes from the materials applied in the render engine. You just need to understand your lighting and the way materials behave so that you can replicate them.

Looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

As am I, this is more of a slow burn project so there's a lot of room for exciting changes and twists.

Question...

Why 4 Titan-X's?

I only ask because someone on another forum was doing a build with 4, and he switched it to 3 and a Titan-Z for PhysX which gave very similar performance for gaming, but better for rendering.
On occasion 3 titans are better than 4 in game without PhysX too...

Gaming wise I'll probably just disable SLI for most stuff tbh. Whilst I play in 4k, I don't tend to play demanding titles so a single Titan X will be fine. For rendering, the Titan X is a much much better choice than the Titan Z thanks to the 12Gb of VRAM. The main advantage of GPU rendering is speed vs a CPU, but if you exceed the VRAM quota you nullify this. Having an extra 6GB on tap makes a colossal difference in that regard.

That and this is what I was offered, not that I'm complaining at all rofl.

 

[Maki Role]

My issue lies in the fact that Maxwell architecture cards all have astonishingly poor double-precision performance.
Thus the Titan X cannot be considered a semi-professional card in the same way as its predecessor and even the GM200 based Quadro M6000 is a very bad performer in FP64 (Floating point 64).
This is because NVidia's focus has shifted to Deep Learning applications and therefore they have cut the number of FP64 CUDA cores.

Until FP16 CUDA support is increased the original titan series should out perform the GM200 series cards in Rendering, Fluid Dynamics and mechanics calculations.

That aside, I wish someone would give me 4 Titan-X cards

Most visual rendering (including what I do) doesn't use FP64, so Maxwell's fine there. Again the main point boils down to 6GB vs 12GB. My current system already has 2 OG Titans in it, but I'm thus limited to 6GB of VRAM. This is a genuine issue as once you start adding lots of complex shaders and geometry, not to mention particle systems, the memory usage shoots up. If you have particles in the scene it can be challenging at times to keep to within 6GB. So even if the Titan Xs were slower than previous cards within the limit, they'd be much faster than the CPU still, which is what you'd have to use for scenes above 6GB with the older cards.

 

[Maki Role]

i was considering doing a log when i finally decide to do some proper watercooling.

all these pros have just put me right off lol i would be laughed off the forums.

these things look so awesome, i could never have the patience you lot have. if i start it i will need to finish it ASAP hoping i havent fluffed anything and it all works fine.

them acrylic titans are the bomb. scrap this build and do something with them acrylic ones.

Bah you've gotta start somewhere, my first loop looked like this:

Pretty rubbish by today's standards if you ask me rofl. As for the Titans, it seems those accidental ones have proven quite popular haha.

any more progress photos?

Not yet unfortunately. The build's in a slow phase atm where mostly it's about securing the rest of the parts and other sponsorship bits. Making massive progress on that front though, doesn't make for the greatest updates however

Once things are sealed and decided I'll post the results.

Crazy build, looking forward to seeing the progress!

It may be a slow burner, but progress there shall be, well, soon enough

any updates on this will it challenge kaps build ?

Again, progress atm is mostly on the parts front. If there's one bonus to buying everything, it ensures that things are done on your timescale. Working with so many sponsors means there are tonnes of conflicting agendas, not to mention difficulties and unexpected twists. Got some massive power coming in though soon, that 5960X can be kissed bye-bye

Best bit is, this build still hasn't had the frame concepts shown yet. No boring boxes (sorry Caselabs) for this build, that's for sure.

 

[Maki Role]

Well this has been a very long time coming. I warned people that this project may prove to be a slow burner, but even I wasn't quite prepared for this hiatus.

Long and short of it is sponsors can be very difficult to find, even with a build as well supported as this and a solid portfolio. As such, I've had to wait until I could afford to pick up some hardware myself.

On that front, I'd like to thank Wei Day from G-Skill. Whilst unfortunately they weren't able to aid in this particular project, I'm grateful that they reached out to support offer support for the project. Hopefully we'll be able to work together on a future build

That said, there is at least now some light at the end of the tunnel!

So a few things were needed to get this build at least running. I figured it was useless having all these parts just sitting on a shelf. So I picked up some hardware to get things going, notably a couple SSDs and 64GB of Dominator Platinum DDR4. I also picked up a temporary 5820k just so things can run, along with an H100i GTX for testing and running whilst waiting for WC bits. I'll be using the 5820k later in a future project so I wasn't that worried about picking on up.

2x2TB Samsung 850 Evo


Had this spare from another project, will tide me over until I can grab a 950 Pro for some NVMe goodness.


Much pretty RAM. Still don't get the coolers though.


Slots right in there


Always wanted 8 sticks of Dom Plat, really fills the board up and fits the theme






And a sneak peak too! These are two very early concept renders for the eventual layout. You'll notice it's missing, well, most things currently as there are just so many variables right now. I'm not spending time modelling WC gear when there's no guarantee that I'll be using it.

 

[Maki Role]

This is going to be insane

Here's to hoping we can pull it off adequately

Lovely work as always, can't wait to see the finished product.

Thanks, might be a while though :/

I'm not sure if I prefer the renders or the actual hardware!

Tell you what though, the hardware in real life is really something special, the motherboard looks so much more impressive in person than in photos or renders

The renders do look sublime, if the system looks half as good as them in real life then it will be stunning. I don't think I can stress how much I love the style of the system as the black/white/silver colour scheme looks very elegant and classy and then the green accents on the NVidia graphics cards add a nice splash of colour

Also I think I blacked out when I saw the two Samsung 2TB drives

Keep us updated and I can't wait to see the system assembled.

Haha yeah it's definitely one of my favourite colour schemes, although not many seem to go for the silver part much. Mostly I see black or white being the predominant colour. Although this isn't quite shown in the renders yet, there will be quite a bit of silver in this build, fingers crossed it will look right.

Can't wait to see what your going to do with the watercooling on that badlad!

TBH so am I, the options are still very open right now so anything could happen. EKWB said that they weren't interested in sponsoring the build, so it's going to be rather interesting having to gather everything from various places.

That moment when you walk into a room and the PC tries to suck your face off....

Stunning as ever dude.

Cheers Andy!

Damn, if I ever win the Lotto I'm buying you as a personal PC builder! Stunning work once again

Hehe, although I don't only work at the extreme enthusiast bracket either, big fan of tiny builds like NUCs or even RasPis

Your work is second to none, I can't wait for more updates, truly sublime.

Thank you for the kind words

This is going to be insane

Aye, the bar has been set

 

[Maki Role]

If a PC could be described as looking 'executive' this is what it would be.

The dream eh? Certainly doable, just need to get the colours and finish right now.

So I had the opportunity to spend last weekend over at my first iSeries! Was a real blast

I'd like to give a huge thanks to the Parvum lads for both providing me with a case at such short notice and for transporting my rigs there and back (even if they forgot the monitors rofl). Another thanks goes to Overclockers who loaned me an Acer 4k Gsync monitor for the event!

I figured I'd take a few snaps whilst I was there too, got to see all the recent Parvum rigs in their proper environments (as opposed to the workshop), they're real stunners.

The prep and travel for LAN can really knock the energy out of ya...
































I also decided to take some shots of the current state of Parvum Argentum once I got the rig back. Remember that this case is temporary and that the final build will be planar and wall mount style. No extensions or custom cables for this one currently, can you imagine doing that many cables just for a couple months of use? Well, I can't that's for sure haha