Been meaning to to an SR-2 build for ages and am now finally getting around to it. Bit of background first. I'm currently Folding on my gaming rig which has a 3770K and 3x GTX 670s. I recently bought a GTX 690 from Biffa in the MM to put in there and needed somewhere to put the 670s. Around the same time, Kerrgreg was offering SR-2s in the MM at very reasonable prices, so I decided to bite the bullet and bought one with MB waterblock and RAM. I've since added to that 2x Xeon 5620s with waterblocks. I've also managed to pick up a Xigmatek Elysium case from the MM at a good price as well as a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD.
List of items so far:
Still to get:
The plan is to build the rig with the 5620s and 670s at the moment and then to upgrade to 5690s and either; 4X 690s or 4X Titans (whichever yields the highest PPD for F@H). For now I will be watercooling the CPUs and MB with a normal WC set up and the 670s will be stock cooled. Once I get the 5690s and upgraded graphics cards, I will be building some sort of fancy cooling system using the Hailea water chiller I bought for a previous project. This will be some time in the future as I have 2 holidays booked and need to get my credit card cleared so it will be later in the year before I get any of the upgrades done.
I'm waiting until the case arrives on Tuesday before deciding how the WC loop(s) will work and I'll be ordering the PSU at the same time as I get the WC stuff. I was keen to do this on a budget since I got most of the bits so far from the MM but I never realised until I got the MB what a power hungry SOB the SR-2 is. I intended to use the OCZ ZX1250 from my gaming rig in this build but, while it has enough grunt, it has nowhere near enough power connectors. The SR-2 needs 2X 8 pin MB connectors plus 2X 6 pin PCI-E connectors (1 for each CPU) as well as another 6 pin for the MB if you're running multiple GPUs
There are cheaper options than the EVGA PSU but it is built for the job and also has fully braided modular cables - which will save me money for cable braiding stuff and a hell of a lot of time.
Anyway, enough of that and on with the pictures.
The motherboard. The photo doesn't do justice to the size of this thing - it's huge.
That's 2 CPUs, count them, 2.
Again, count them - that's 7 PCI-E slots (4 of them at X16).
Token arty shot:
Motherboard blocks:
CPU blocks and backplates:
RAM:
List of items so far:
- SR-2 MB
- SR-2 MB waterblock (EK)
- 3X GTX 670
- 12GB Corsair 1600MHz C9 RAM
- 2x Xeon 5620 CPUs
- 2X Koolance 370SI waterblocks
- Crucial M4 128GB SSD
- Xigmatek Elysium case (due to arrive on Tuesday)
Still to get:
- EVGA SuperNOVA NEX1500 Classified PSU
- 2X Xeon 5690
- Watercooling stuff as required
- Upgraded GPUs
The plan is to build the rig with the 5620s and 670s at the moment and then to upgrade to 5690s and either; 4X 690s or 4X Titans (whichever yields the highest PPD for F@H). For now I will be watercooling the CPUs and MB with a normal WC set up and the 670s will be stock cooled. Once I get the 5690s and upgraded graphics cards, I will be building some sort of fancy cooling system using the Hailea water chiller I bought for a previous project. This will be some time in the future as I have 2 holidays booked and need to get my credit card cleared so it will be later in the year before I get any of the upgrades done.
I'm waiting until the case arrives on Tuesday before deciding how the WC loop(s) will work and I'll be ordering the PSU at the same time as I get the WC stuff. I was keen to do this on a budget since I got most of the bits so far from the MM but I never realised until I got the MB what a power hungry SOB the SR-2 is. I intended to use the OCZ ZX1250 from my gaming rig in this build but, while it has enough grunt, it has nowhere near enough power connectors. The SR-2 needs 2X 8 pin MB connectors plus 2X 6 pin PCI-E connectors (1 for each CPU) as well as another 6 pin for the MB if you're running multiple GPUs
There are cheaper options than the EVGA PSU but it is built for the job and also has fully braided modular cables - which will save me money for cable braiding stuff and a hell of a lot of time.
Anyway, enough of that and on with the pictures.
The motherboard. The photo doesn't do justice to the size of this thing - it's huge.
That's 2 CPUs, count them, 2.
Again, count them - that's 7 PCI-E slots (4 of them at X16).
Token arty shot:
Motherboard blocks:
CPU blocks and backplates:
RAM:
