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Purchasing a new rig, looking for feedback
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 7:01 pm
by mikefrisk
Just looking for feedback from the community before investing this amount of cash. I will be using it for Octane as well as Adobe suite other 3D packages etc. Any thoughts on this set up? Changes you would make?
Power Supply: 1.3 Kilowatt EVGA SuperNOVA G2
Motherboard: ASUS X99E-WS/USB 3.1
Cooling: Sealed Liquid Cooling System for 2011 Socket
Processors: Intel XEON E5-2680 v4 14-Core 2.4GHz (3.3GHz TurboBoost)
Graphics Card #1: Single 11GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition
Graphics Card #2: Single 11GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition
Graphics Card #3: Single 11GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition
Graphics Card #4: Single 11GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition
Memory: 64GB ECC Registered 2400MHz (4 X 16GB)
Operating System: MS Windows 10 Professional
Operating System Drive #1 (Primary): 1TB Samsung 960 Pro PCIe NVMe M.2
Re: Purchasing a new rig, looking for feedback
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 7:27 pm
by carmichael84
Are you going to be doing any CPU rendering or heavy simulations on the rig? If not I'd probably swap the Xeon for something like the 6900k or 5960x and save some $. The higher clock speed is definitely nice for things like After Effects and most 3d packages since most of those tasks are single threaded still. I have a 5960x x99 rig slightly overclocked (4ghz) with 4 GPU's and it's super stable. Xeons are great though if you're going to be doing a lot of CPU rendering as well or heavy simulations.
Also if you're doing a lot of After Effects or Nuke work, I'd suggest rather than the 1TB m.2 drive, I'd get a smaller m.2 for my system drive. Then 2 standard SSD's. 1 for disk cache, and another for working projects. I find it dramatically speeds up After Effects working off a separate drive for projects / cache / system. It's definitely less important than it use to be with standard HDD, but I find it still helps, especially if you work with a lot of multi layered EXR files doing animation.
4x1080ti's is amazing. I have 3 right now and obviously depends on the scene, but I'm getting close to 30% faster render times compared to my 4x 980ti rig. 1 less GPU and still 30% faster. I'll definitely be adding a 4th soon

The stock founders edition cooler is really pretty good too. Even overclocked I haven't hit temps above 75. And at stock settings, they hover around 70 on full load.
Re: Purchasing a new rig, looking for feedback
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 7:50 pm
by mikefrisk
carmichael84, this is exactly the feedback i was looking for.
I do, in fact, do simulations using bulletFX and realflow as well as particle effects in AE and Lightwave alike. Also i'm looking into the future, trying to price out a machine that will stand the test of time. I've priced out a few different CPU's and the price savings is negligible imo. Moreover, this is just my initial purchase, I do plan on installing at least one SSD for cache/project files in the near future.
With you're input i feel more confident in my build specs. I currently have 3 gtx 970's so this upgrade will be hopefully be overwhelmingly positive.
Re: Purchasing a new rig, looking for feedback
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 8:22 pm
by carmichael84
Xeon's are solid for sure if you got the loot. I still have a z620 with dual 2670 (v1s) in it and it still rocks.
I have that Asus x99 e-WS board as well. I don't know a ton about motherboards, but I haven't had any issues. The only thing I had trouble with was getting the 4th GPU to fit when using the HD Audio header with my case. The connector was too tall, so I couldn't get my 4th card in place.
I ended up going and getting a few cheap PC jumper cables with flexible ends (some are hard plastic). I just ran those from the header into the case connector and finally got the card in.
Re: Purchasing a new rig, looking for feedback
Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 8:50 pm
by mikefrisk
Yeah, I ran into problems fitting just my 3rd GPU in my current case, had to move my power supply outside. I've assured myself this wont be a problem on this build as i'm going with an oversized case.
Re: Purchasing a new rig, looking for feedback
Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 1:38 am
by carmichael84
I can definitely recommend the Thermaltake core x9 for a 4GPU case. I fit 4 hybrid cards + a corsair h115 in mine no problem. It's cool too because the motherboard lays horizontal, taking some stress off of the GPU's.
Good luck dude, should be a beast!