Reliability on high performance builds?

[WalkerYYJ]

Hey all


So Im working on a project at work that needs a singluar system with as much raw CPU horsepower as possible. However it also NEEDS to have SLI/XF capability. I have been unable to find any 4 cpu MBs that have SLI/XF so I think im going to be stuck with an SR-2 and two Xeon X5690s (It needs to be ready within the next 1-2 months so im not sure waiting for the SR-3 or LGA2011 is going to be practical.) The main problem is im not 100% convinced two X5690's is going to have enough kick to get the job done properly so im "HOPING" If I can get them into the ~5ghz range the system will be able to limp through what I need to throw at it.


The question is what is going to be a fairly stable cooling method that I can "assume" can go un serviced for ~1-2 years? Noise is NOT a problem, power is NOT a problem, and cost is NOT a problem. However at the end of the day this is going into a 4U rack (remote mounting of cooling equipment is ok.) It will be used for ~5-6 hours a day so the ability to power down would be nice (but not a requierment.) the only big issue is upon powerup it needs to be able to come up FAST IE waiting for 5 min for the cpus to get down to temperature before boot up is a game stopper, and I would rather just spend the power to keep it at low temp 24/7


Iv been contemplating using Phase change as im not sure 5ghz is attainable on water but am concerned with condensations issues if left on 24/7.

would liquid through a closed loop heat exchanger be a better way to go? IE the compressor side of the system could be left on 24/7 and would have a large reservoir of coolant (a few liters) which would be kept at say -15 deg or so, but the circulation pump for the computer side would be on the 12V rails, so upon power down chips could come to room temp, and upon power up the heatsinks would be into negative territory within a few seconds of starting to circulate coolant...
Is this a **** poor idea? any better ways to go about this build?

 

[Janus67]

What do you plan to do for this? I would have imagined that a server solution would be better compared to a pseudo-consumer solution.

Phase change will indeed cause issues with condensation by the way.

 

[WalkerYYJ]

The system is going to be driving six 1920x1080 3d projectors in an array around a spherical room using a fair bit of custom software. I would prefer to go to a dedicated server solution, but so far NON of the server boards iv found have SLI/XF capability (which is a hard requirement for the project.)
I can't use multiple machines from some technical and legal reasons IE it MUST be done using a single computer system...

is a liquid/Phase change hybrid a bad idea?

 

[Gautam]

Wait for Sandy Bridge-E. It's under 2 weeks away. You would probably be best off in using your budget to reduce ambients rather than trying to go sub-ambient on the CPU's.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Wait for Sandy Bridge-E. It's under 2 weeks away. You would probably be best off in using your budget to reduce ambients rather than trying to go sub-ambient on the CPU's.

+1; to both. Use water cooling and keep ambient temps as low as feasible.

I don't know that 5GHz will be what one would call 'normal' 24/7 clocks for SNB-E though. The volts you might need could be too high. With the new architecture though, you may not need that high of an overclock.

 

[WalkerYYJ]

Awesome, thanks for the advice folks... now the big question is will the SR-3 ALSO be shipping in the next 2 weeks (along with quad channel ram)

 

[hokiealumnus]

Quad channel RAM is already available. Here's G.Skill's current selection. No idea about the SR-3 though. I've also seen rumors floating around that ASUS will be competing in the dual-CPU market too.