- Joined
- Apr 19, 2003
OK, after nearly a month of work on the specifications and assembly of my new primary workstation, it’s now in production. I thought I’d share/show off some pictures and impressions, including some of my less than brilliant moments building this monster. But first, the specs (I know, rather redundant given the sig, but oh well…):
I really like the Xeon HSF retention system. Very industrial and built to last:
Of course, your motherboard will sit properly if you install the plate correctly:
Given the weight of the stock 5100 series HSF, it’s easy to understand why such an impressive retention system is necessary. These things are sold copper and weigh in at about a kilo each:
I used the Coolermaster Mystique 632 for this build because 1) it has a good internal layout and airflow design with ample room for oversized power supplies, 2) it’s aluminium, 3) it was on sale at Mwave for US$70. Did I mention that it’s aluminium? Steel doesn’t stand a chance here.
Since the unit has a total of 7 drives, I needed a method of mounting and cooling the 3 drives not accommodated by the Mystique. I chose the Thermaltake 5.5” drive insert due to its 120mm fan and the fact that it’s aluminium:
I had to do a bit of creative case grinding to get this unit to slide smoothly into the 5.5” bays on the Mystique:
I chose the Supermicro PWS-0060, which is virtually identical to the PWS-056, except it has a single quiet fan. I’ll let Super Nade’s review speak for this PSU; it was only US$125 from Next International…
And here’s the system all put together; I still have a bit of wire management to do; just waiting for some longer cables to come in…:
Here’s the back sans the restrictive fan grille and with a creatively modded alternative:
And here’s the front, likewise with the stock fan grille cut out:
And with the bezel in place:
I chose to use Windows XP 64-bit for this system due to the fact that only a 64-bit OS can natively take advantage of all of the installed RAM. I’d rather have run Server 2003 (and tried), but since all of the versions which come in the MS action pack are 32-bit, they were out of contention.
As expected, the difference in performance between this and my old system (AMD 3800X2, 2GB RAM, 2 each 6600GTX, 74GB Raptor OS drive w/148GB Raid 0 raptor storage array) is significant. Just doing the Photoshop work for this post was so much faster and smoother (and thanks to the Quaddros, gone are the “disappearing image during crop” bugs). Illustrator redraws are lightning-fast, and I can multitask to my heart’s content with no reduction in performance whatsoever.
Apologies to DaveB, whose system I basically copied as described in this post. I didn’t get quite the deals he did, but his choices were nonetheless the best value on the market today.
- Supermicro X7DAL-E motherboard
- 2x Xeon 5120 dual-core Woodcrest processors
- 4 each 1GB Kingston 667 FB ECC RAM
- Supermicro PWS-0060 PSU
- Dual PNY Quattro 560 video cards
- 500GB RAID 10 storage array, built on 4 each 250GB Seagate 7200.1 Perp drives
- Raptor 150 system drive
- 500GB backup drive
- 300GB drive for media
- Total Storage: 1.45TB
I really like the Xeon HSF retention system. Very industrial and built to last:
Of course, your motherboard will sit properly if you install the plate correctly:
Given the weight of the stock 5100 series HSF, it’s easy to understand why such an impressive retention system is necessary. These things are sold copper and weigh in at about a kilo each:
I used the Coolermaster Mystique 632 for this build because 1) it has a good internal layout and airflow design with ample room for oversized power supplies, 2) it’s aluminium, 3) it was on sale at Mwave for US$70. Did I mention that it’s aluminium? Steel doesn’t stand a chance here.
Since the unit has a total of 7 drives, I needed a method of mounting and cooling the 3 drives not accommodated by the Mystique. I chose the Thermaltake 5.5” drive insert due to its 120mm fan and the fact that it’s aluminium:
I had to do a bit of creative case grinding to get this unit to slide smoothly into the 5.5” bays on the Mystique:
I chose the Supermicro PWS-0060, which is virtually identical to the PWS-056, except it has a single quiet fan. I’ll let Super Nade’s review speak for this PSU; it was only US$125 from Next International…
And here’s the system all put together; I still have a bit of wire management to do; just waiting for some longer cables to come in…:
Here’s the back sans the restrictive fan grille and with a creatively modded alternative:
And here’s the front, likewise with the stock fan grille cut out:
And with the bezel in place:
I chose to use Windows XP 64-bit for this system due to the fact that only a 64-bit OS can natively take advantage of all of the installed RAM. I’d rather have run Server 2003 (and tried), but since all of the versions which come in the MS action pack are 32-bit, they were out of contention.
As expected, the difference in performance between this and my old system (AMD 3800X2, 2GB RAM, 2 each 6600GTX, 74GB Raptor OS drive w/148GB Raid 0 raptor storage array) is significant. Just doing the Photoshop work for this post was so much faster and smoother (and thanks to the Quaddros, gone are the “disappearing image during crop” bugs). Illustrator redraws are lightning-fast, and I can multitask to my heart’s content with no reduction in performance whatsoever.
Apologies to DaveB, whose system I basically copied as described in this post. I didn’t get quite the deals he did, but his choices were nonetheless the best value on the market today.
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