Project Hephaestus (custom build supercomputer)

greetings,

My name is Panagiotis and i'm new to this forum so glad to meet you all!!!, i work in the IT field in my country in particular IT-Sec. since 2004.
I came up with project Hephaestus some days ago (Hephaestus was the god of craftsmanship so i conclude it was a good name to give!!!),
the target is to build a custom mid. budget (around 2700$ give or take) supercomputer
with performance and expandability in mind for general purpose tasks including challenging computational tasks like
cryptanalysis, gaming, contribution to large problem solving, etc.
I came up with a hardware listing to get started and i need your opinion on that for start.
the setup will be as follows.
[oldtable]Type Model Brand
CPU FX-9590 AMD
SSD 840 Series Evo 120GB Desktop Kit Samsung
PSU SS-1250XM X-1250W SEASONIC
Mobo 990FX Extreme9 Asrock
GPU AMD HD7990 6GB AMD
GPU AMD HD7990 6GB AMD
RAM Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB DDR3-2400MHz Corsair
CPU Block CPU-380A Water Block Koolace
GPU block EK-FC7990 - Acetal+Nickel incl. Backplate EK
GPU block EK-FC7990 - Acetal+Nickel incl. Backplate EK
Chipset block EK-Supremacy EK
RAM block Alphacool NexXxoS RXP-1 RAM-Cooler (DDR1/DDR2/DDR3) - G1/4 - Black Nickel Alphacool
RAM block Alphacool NexXxoS RXP-1 RAM-Cooler (DDR1/DDR2/DDR3) - G1/4 - Black Nickel Alphacool
RAM block Alphacool NexXxoS RXP-1 RAM-Cooler (DDR1/DDR2/DDR3) - G1/4 - Black Nickel Alphacool
RAM block Alphacool NexXxoS RXP-1 RAM-Cooler (DDR1/DDR2/DDR3) - G1/4 - Black Nickel Alphacool
Pumb-reservoir XSPC Twin D5 Dual 5.25" Bay Clear Reservoir w/ Twin XSPC D5 Variable Pumps Installed XSPC[/table]
the next step is the configuration, heat transport, fail-safe subsystem, housing, connections, etc.
I have started to design a custom cooling system based from an air condition external unit,
i didn't manage to come to a conclusion yet i have to do the math first,
my main concern is the parts for start and working on the rest.
Thank you for your time, I'm anticipating your feedback.

if the computation side of what you do is multi threaded, your going in the right direction.

2400 ram might be a bit exotic. I would think 1866 would do fine, I game on an 8 core and 1866 is plenty fast.

A Titan or Titan Black would give you almost the same computational power, double precision capability, and use way less power than the 7990.
It would also give you more usable vRAM than the 7990.

Also, RAM watercooling is useless.

You also may want to look at the INtel side of things and X79/4930K. I am pretty sure computationally, it will beat out that 8 core...? Depends on the application/type of work I guess, but that is something to look into... though it will raise the budget a bit.

I also agree with NOT cooling the ram with water... pointless outside of looks... but it is pretty restrictive in a loop as well.

I would also not grab 2400Mhz memory either unless you know that extra bandwidth is used in your application. I would imagine 1866/2133 would be fine..

ASSUMING YOU LIVE IN THE US

Replace the CPU with an Intel 4770k and the motherboard with an Asrock Z87 Extreme4. i woud also replace the Radeon 7990 with an R9 295x.

Intel 4770k

Asrock Extreme4 z87

Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 295x

The AMD he listed will walk the 4770K in computations due to its 'real' cores... not the best choice for the OP.

Thank you for your response,

I consider to aim at a unified system in this case AMD because it collaborate more better
between the hardware parts. I considered that the nvidia card may create bottlenecks in performance level, in addition i have read that the 7990 have more cryptanalytic capabilities than any other non-enterprise grade cards. The objective here is to gain as much intercommunication speed as possible:
cpu 4.2 Gb/s
gpu 4 Gb/s on lane 1,4 (full x16 mode each) plus crossfire bridge
memory burst rate approx. 143 Gb/s (overkill, i don't know the actual transaction rate)
if everything goes fine then there will be very few bottlenecks in the configuration
i plan to deploy a raid array for storage purposes i didn't conclude yet,
i think its going to be raid 0,1 consisted of 4 1TB WD Black edition in two bonds for speed
and redundancy.

Mixing and matching AMD/INtel/Nvidia leaves zero performance hits or compatibility issues, note.

I would look into the 4930K and X79 platform honestly... that setup will likely be faster...

ATMINSIDE said:

A Titan or Titan Black would give you almost the same computational power, double precision capability, and use way less power than the 7990.
It would also give you more usable vRAM than the 7990.

Click to expand...

did you miss my post? i can see the R9 295x kicking the teeth out of the 780ti in these graphs.

or am i looking at the wrong graphs?

EarthDog said:

The AMD he listed will walk the 4770K in computations due to its 'real' cores... not the best choice for the OP.

Click to expand...

i was actually going to suggest the 4930k, but i assumed he would be better off buying a 4770k and overclocking it using OFFSET voltages, intel speed step, and disable all other c-states except C1E. He could use a water cooler thats around 100 dollars (assuming he lives in the us!) to cool the cpu. if an overclocked 4770k cannot beat the 9590, then i rest my case.

and what do you mean by its "real" cores? isn't the 9590...or 8350...like four people with a body and two heads? at least thats what i read so far about the FX. like its not truely a octacore processor..or is it? if i sound like i dont know any better, please enlighten me.

With this budget and his needs, an AMD FX-8xxx or Intel Hex is really the way to go.

(G{in}[AK)TION] said:

did you miss my post? i can see the R9 295x kicking the teeth out of the 780ti in these graphs.

or am i looking at the wrong graphs?

Click to expand...

Did you notice that I posted before you, making it physically impossible to have read your post before posting?
Thanks for the attack.

ATMINSIDE said:

Did you notice that I posted before you, making it physically impossible to have read your post before posting?
Thanks for the attack.

Click to expand...

oh god your right. sorry.

i got all mixed up while editing my posts...and taking a long time to think some things through.

the fx 8 core is 2 cores, 1 floating point operater per module, more like two bodys with one head i think.

very good for multi threaded apps, lousy for single thred.

caddi daddi said:

the fx 8 core is 2 cores, 1 floating point operater per module, more like two bodys with one head i think.

very good for multi threaded apps, lousy for single thred.

Click to expand...

FX 8 core actually has capability for x2 128bit floating point calculations for each module.
If you run 265bit AVX calculations it behaves more like a 4 core processor.
Both cores have their own 128bit pipeline behind shared scheduler.
Reason AMD has lower performance in FP calculations is because it doesn't have supersized capability to run older instructions, and then there are the shared caches etc.

If program is properly optimized AMD 8core will likely outperform Intel 4 core processors.
But in the real world most programs are stuck using ancient instruction sets and methods of computing promoting the need for single core performance.

If properly optimized for FX chips, and it's a calculation they're good at, they destroy Intel chips of a similar price point. Look at Winrar for an example.
Not many things are properly optimized though.

Now an app properly optimized for a six core Intel, or for both an FX and a X79 chip, I think the Intel six core would probably win.

EarthDog said:

With this budget and his needs, an AMD FX-8xxx or Intel Hex is really the way to go.

Click to expand...

Panagiotis, listen to EarthDog.

4930K>9590

In real world use, across a breadth of applications and conditions, the 4930K will, on average, mop the floor with the 9590. Remember that the 4930K has 12 threads, not 8.

I strongly suggest you listen to EarthDog and go with a 4930K system. In addition to being a superior CPU it also has superior memory bandwidth.

A 9590 is nothing more than a highly binned, highly overclocked 8350. You don't want that. Get a real high end CPU.

Any update on if this build is progressing and what components you chose?

He hasn't logged on since 4/23...