Benching Rig

[DarrenP]

How does this sound for a decent Benching Rig. (i'm going to give two options pick which system you would think is best!)
CPU:Intel Core I7 Extreme Edition 3970K Or An AMD FX-8350
Motherboard:ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Or ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 64GB (8 x 8GB) 2400Mhz (either way it's going to be this stuff)
Case: Either a Thermaltake GT 10 or something better you recommend? (i know the case there isn't for benching, but i like it, and i think it would be a cool(in more than one way) case! .
PSU: Corsair AX1200I (would that be enough juice?)
SSD: One 120GB Corsair Force Series 3/ 256GB Samsung 840 pro
HDD: One 1TB Velociraptor WD 10000RPM HDD/ One 2TB 7200 WD Black.
GPU: One GTX 690/ Two 7970's in Crossfire
CPU Cooling: H220 or H110 Or H100I

How's that all sound?

 

[Boulard83]

Case, If you are going to bench alot, maybe swaping hardware often, a bench table is much more suited for that purpose.

CPU, Your 2 choice of CPU are VERY different ... You wont really need a I7 Xtrem, the 3930k will give the same result under that cooling. Even on LN2, Xtrem wont really OC higher. You pay a grand for nothing ( IMO ).

64gb of RAM is overdoing it unless you plan on palying with Ramdisk to load your benching apps.

Good PSU.

SSD, the 840pro is MUCH much better VS the F3....

HDD, useless for benching ... alwais usefull for storage. Caviar balck are enough.

GPU : Both are very good. I prefer 2 680 VS a 690. Better coolign opportunity.

Cooling : OK ..... benching ? Go for real WC ... not wannabee WC.

 

[DarrenP]

Thanks for your feedback!

Could you recommend a good bench?
Should i go with my usual 3770K? (I love it!)
maybe 32GB? (i really want to make it into the benching club Just a bonus of building a ridiculous system )
840 Pro it is!
So no HDD? because i wouldn't have anything other than monitoring programs
I really wanted the Ares II :/ sadly i missed the buck there... perhaps 680's would be better
I've never done a custom water loop, so i'm gonna say i'd give it a shot, but maybe on a cheaper PC, like some 350$ system or something ridiculously cheap. (i'm a scared of ruining an expensive chip...)

 

[Boulard83]

WC : You wont ruin the chip with WC and if you spill some water on the MB, simply dry it with hair dryer and let it settle overnight and everything should be fine the next day.

Ram : Even 8gb is enough ... no need for more if you just bench. 4gb could be enough ... Speed is the thing !

CPU : Yes, your chip is fine. A 3930k will help to crack some score in CPU intesive graphical test and on CPU bench apps. X79 also have more PCIe lines to the CPU, this help with multi GPU.

GPU : get 2 good 680's or 7970's. Something like MSI lightning or Asus DCII with agressive VRM's. Flash unlocked bios and HAVE FUN ! WCing the card will help even more !

As for the bench station, there are tons of these. I have a tecnofron HWD and i really like it. Search performancepcs, frozencpu and other online shop and you will find other models.

 

[DarrenP]

I just saw your monster! man it's a beauty! I'm jellin'

I thought if you spilt anything on your MB it would ruin it? silly me xD

I'm gonna use 16 i think, i don't like dipping below that.

So in all honesty i could just use my general gaming rig for both? until i'm older and have more money?

I'm still building my gaming rig, so maybe i'll go with two 680's and go from there, i was thinking maybe the classified 4GB versions?

 

[moocow]

What kind of benching are you after? 2D or 3D or both?

Depending on what bench you are going after a different platform would be best.

The best thing you might want to do if you are going to start benching would be to grab some cheap older hardware like 775 or AM2 and a ln2/dry ice pot and go to town. It is much cheaper to beat on older hardware and with Haswell and IB-e coming out I wouldn't waste any money on a SB-e rig at all.

 

[DarrenP]

I have a 3770K i just bought for my gaming rig that's on the go, and i have an old Acer Aspire T-320 with everything still intact could i try that first?

 

[Boulard83]

With an open air case, you have better "cooling" cause you dont have to move the hot air away, it move away by itself. Back in the day with a SLI Asus 570 DCII, i had 10°c low GPU temp on the testbed VS a 600T loaded with 10 fans .......

The best way to bench on your dayli rig is to simply have a benching OS on another HDD or SSD. I use my old 150gb VRaptor when benching with a stripped down Win7 pro install. You can make your own benching Win7 with RT7lite. With a separate OS, you wont corrupt your 24/7 install if the rig BSOD alot.

The 4gb 680's wont score better than 2gb 680's. 4gb will only help if you run very high resolution like 3 monitor surround setup.

 

[DarrenP]

that's why the 4GB models i plan on running 2 screens and an HDTV Maybe 3 if i can get away with it... so i could essentially have a benching/gaming rig?

 

[Boulard83]

^^ Yeah. I bench my main rig when i have spare time. Benched a bit more back in my WCing days but i still bench sometimes. Just take your time to find your max clocks on CPU/GPU and have fun ! WaterCooling both CPU and GPU will help to acheive slightly better clocks.

If you plan on going LN2, this is another game.... and risk !

 

[DarrenP]

I don't see my mom letting me get my paws in Ln2.. sadly i doubt she'd let me bring it in the house xD but i'll try that first, i was just planning for the future! in all honesty i've never even Oc'ed before! i can't wait for my pay cheque tomorrow so i can order the rest of the parts! (so excited) thanks for the help guys

also was the 3770K a good choice for mainly gaming/learning?

Edit: just should point this out, knowing myself as soon as i overclock for the first time i know i'll dive right into it, and likely gun it to it's thermal limits and fry the chip within 2 months... hence why i bought a cheapish mecha

 

[Boulard83]

A 3770k is the best you can get on Z77. Past that, you need X79 and 3930K.

Start with this 3770k, learn the OC basic. ( read alot of tutorial, article and reviews ). Have fun !

 

[Janus67]

I agree with moocow ,it is important to pick the benchmarks you want to try for and build a rig to go for that. Socket 775 is a great platform to get your feet wet as a decent motherboard can be picked up for about $60-80 and most cpus are $50 or less. Of course I am speaking of the used market for those parts.

Your current system is just fine for benching . For all intents and purposes if it can load windows it can be benched. You don't have to have the latest and greatest to benchmark or compete.

 

[DarrenP]

Thanks so much, i love this forum and everyone on it, everyones so nice and helpful thanks guys!

 

[Janus67]

Feel free to make a post in the benchmarking activity section, myself and the rest of the benching members will be happy to make any recommendations we can.

 

[DarrenP]

Janus, could i maybe go with a 3570K i can't seem to find a 775 for sale anywhere... and a 3570K is cheapish that i could fry without worry

 

[Janus67]

Check used places (ebay/cragslist/forum classified sections/etc), that's why it would be cheap and you don't have to worry about frying anything. And with the money saved on those parts you can get yourself a cheap Dry Ice pot and let the fun begin!

Here are some excellent motherboards for benching socket775 processors:

P965 chipset
- Commando
- P5B-Deluxe
- P5B-Deluxe Wifi/AP

P45 Chipset
- P5Q-Deluxe
- P5Q-Pro
- P5Q-E
- GA-EP45 Extreme
- GA-EP45-UD3R(or P)
- TPower I45

X48 Chipset
- REX
- P5E3 Premium/Wifi-AP @n
- GA-X48-DS4

A 2500k/2600k/3570k/3770k would all be fine to get your feet wet with how 2D and 3D benching work, most older 3D benchmarks (3dmark01,03,05,06) are pretty heavily cpu-bottlenecked so those are great places to get some real points on hwbot using old video cards.



the system you picked out at the top is complete overkill for a first benchmarking rig. I would practice on your current computer, a laptop (probably not that macbook) and any old hardware you have lying around. Each architecture/platform is different and have their own quirks, etc. Soon enough you will be just looking for hardware to toss a quick XP image on and run through some quick benchmarks for boints!

With regard to RAM you are completely overdoing it at 64, 32, or 16GB of RAM, none of the benchmarks will come close to using 4, so a lot of the most popular benchmarking RAM sets (for DDR3) are 2x2GB or at most 2x4GB (8GB) sets. It is important to remember the more RAM you have the more stress there is on the IMC (internal memory controller) which can require extra voltage = extra heat which could in turn lead to a lower overclock or stability which would hurt your benchmarks.

 

[DarrenP]

I have a Celeron (acer aspire T-320) could i use that?
http://panam.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/0000/Acer/AspireT320/AspireT320sp2.shtml
^specs

 

[Janus67]

like I said, if it can run windows (and load the basic benchmarks) you can benchmark it. you don't even have to really overclock it, but getting the scores in can help you out. and you can start learning tweaks in how to get better efficiency.

definitely start a thread over in the benchmarking section, I feel like the intel cpu section isn't necessarily the best place for this and you would get some more help over there when I don't have time to reply.

 

[DarrenP]

Okay, i'll be right over there, new thread an all, thanks guy!