Computer Hope

So, in the nearly 7 years (wow, time flies...) I've been here, apparently I've not posted any of my builds in here.  Here are a few of my own over the years.  Side note: I worked as a system builder at OcUK for around 18 months during which time I built over 3000 so I won't post pictures of all of those

This is an older system of mine, circa summer 2010.  I built a system before this in around 2008 which was my first ever custom build, this build used almost nothing from the old build by the time I was done upgrading and changing things.  I reused the PSU, cooler and graphics card in my next build but changed the core components.  Basic specs: Asus P5Q Pro, Q6600 @ 3GHz, 4GB Corsair XMS2, Samsung F3 1TB, Thermalright IFX-14, Intel Pro/1000CT NIC, Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic, Corsair HX650, Asus GTX 460 TOP, in a Coolermaster Stacker STC-T01.  Imageshack felt the need to rotate my images back in the day when I uploaded them, and I don't have the originals any longer.  I apologise for any neck strain caused



Next system.  This was a complete rebuild and much, much neater.  I loved the Stacker case but cable management was awful without some serious modding, and I didn't have the tools or time to take that on back then.  I used a Fractal Define R2 case, Asus Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom X6 1055T @ 3.8GHz if I remember rightly, the same IFX-14 heatsink, same graphics card, PSU and HDD, and G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3.  I added another HDD, I think this was a Samsung F4 2TB.  Later, this build expanded with a total of 3xF3 1TB which I ran in RAID for a while.  I also got rid of the Creative sound card as driver support was abysmal and bought an Asus Xonar DS.



Next, we came to my first foray into watercooling my own builds.  By this time I had changed my graphics card, and then everything else apart from the HDDs was new for this build.  I had a Supermicro H8DAi-2 board, 2 x AMD Opteron 6419EE hex core CPUs, 8 x 2GB DDR2 ECC RAM, an MSI Twin Frozr GTX 470 with EK fukll cover waterblock and backplate, slim 420mm radiator in the top of the case, powered by an OCZ ZX850W PSU, wrapped up in a lightly modified Fractal Design XL case.  The radiator proved to be a pain to fit due to me not measuring properly, but we got there.  The PSU was total overkill as the system drew very little power, but it was the lowest wattage unit available with all the right connectors, to avoid me using adapters.



This system treated me well until I ended up needing more raw power for gaming, the Opterons at 1.8GHz were great for data crunching with 12 cores and used very little power but severely bottlenecked my 470, which clocked like a beast.  I sold it, went for an i7 at 4.2GHz with 24GB RAM, added an SSD, sat on that for a while, before selling most of it off to downsize my PC.  That downsized PC has now been sold and I'm gearing up for an epic new rig, something that may not be the fastest out there any more but is something I've wanted since it was released.  I'm waiting on certain parts to come back into stock, so till then....watch this space.  If you like high end builds, you will not be disappointed

This has been a little brief in places so if you have any questions, just ask happy to answer any questions anyone may have.

when you call your build that is 2 years after I built mine an "old" build it makes me a sad panda.

In the first image your PSU is a Corsair HX 650W, what is the difference between a HX and a TX model? (Mine is a TX750W). I was leaning towards it being modular (the HX) but the image makes me think otherwise.

Heh, I only called it "old" because it's not my current build.
The difference was modular vs non modular, I'm only using about 1/2 of the cables in that build. Also, the HX650 back then was a CWT built unit whereas the TX750 of the same era was a Seasonic built unit. Nowadays, they also do a TX-M series, which is a modular TX series, as well as the non modular TX series, modular HX, and fully modular AX, which is confusing to say the least. The OEMs are also a lot more mixed up these days.

I like the plumbing. 

I did suspect the difference was modularity- just couldn't tell there. I have to admit I know next to nothing about the different brands, models, and their comparative price/performance, but I can fit them together. That's why I needed your help to 'fix' my build back then; iirc something like 300 dollars cheaper and much more versatile to boot

How many hard drives are there in that second one? I count 4.

Yep, modularity and the OEM. Both were very good units though, almost all Seasonic units are excellent and most CWT are at least good.
In the second build, the one with the giant heatsink, there are two drives, a 1TB and a 2TB. In the third, the watercooled one, there are 4, 3 1TB and a 2TB.

The liquid cooling setup you have is pretty nice!

Thanks, it was quite a nice setup, even if it was quite a lot of work to get it in that case.

QuoteSupermicro H8DAi-2 board, 2 x AMD Opteron 6419EE hex core CPUs, 8 x 2GB DDR2 ECC RAM

How has this Supermicro board held up?   

I had 3 of them before in 1U rackmounts with single Pentium 4 2.8Ghz CPU's and we had a failure rate of 66% (2 of 3 dead within a year.) I haven't bought any other Supermicro systems since. We were using them for our Shoretel VoIP phone system at a few of the food stores that I supported. They were powered through APC 1500VA UPS's and so I know that it wasnt dirty power that killed ours.

I lucked out in making Ghost images of these servers, and so I was able to push the ghost images to some HP SFF Desktops that were running Pentium 4 2.66Ghz CPU's and get our phone systems back up and running when each one died at the worst time. Only hack I had to do to make it all work was to clone the mac address to that of the original server to make Shoretel software work since its license key is bound to mac address, so as long as the mac address of the NIC remains the same for the NIC used of the dual NICs for the VoIP the software would function. With an incorrect Mac address the software breaks the activation and the server wont operate the VoIP phone system for answering, voicemail, and softphone features from desktop computers on the lan with headsets for users.

We also have a bunch of servers with TYAN brand motherboards dating back to Dual CPU Athlon MP 1800+ that are still running flawlessly, although are showing their age and can fail at any time.

It held up fine under full load 24/7 for around a year, then I sold it.  I had a choice between a Supermicro or Tyan board as both had the slots and features I needed, but the Supermicro's layout worked better for my needs so I went with that.  I had no problems at all with mine, and their G34 boards are very popular with people who do distributed computing as their BIOS can be modified to allow some overclocking, again they seem to hold up fine under full load 24/7 as long as the cooling and power is up to scratch.
I haven't used any older server/workstation class boards as extensively so my experience may not be typical.

Calum are you sure you don't buy invisible cables? My system is a mess of cables and I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of the mess, without wire cutters and a torch. Even your desk looks uncluttered. I though my setup was clean, man was I mistaken.

Definately more Pro looking than my budget gaming setup...LOL 

But its nice that with his dual-cpu server grade board everything on the motherboard was designed with localized connections in the bottom edge so you dont need to have cables reaching across the face of the motherboard.

My build is not to impress and purely just functional. If the cable reaches Im golden, and if it doesnt, I need to add a custom extension etc, as well as extra slack in the cables are just braided among other cables/wires so that they never get into the path of a fan blade. So in my wire cluster mess there was minimal concern over how the wires/cables were routed... but not to be pretty..LOL

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=136457.0;attach=20941;image

In mine its a mess of wires, but none are in the path of a fan blade. I even have the 120mm fan powered off of the floppy power connector with wire stripped back and inserted into the holes in the female pin holes for the ground and +12VDC..LOL *The 120mm fan is needed to blow cool air across the video card and help avoid a hot pocket of air inside, so air is moving well all the time. Also the SSD is just hanging off the SATA power supply connection in this picture, but I have since added velcro and stuck the SSD below the HDD's.

My one friend bought a high end gaming computer tower and a power supply that has jacks so you only plug in the power cable taps you need and can route the wiring on the backside / under the motherboard etc. So the only exposed wires/cables are those that  come around the edge of the motherboard to  make the connection to the jack that they plug into. Very clean and open looking just like Calums server class system, but not as well as Calums 

Quote from: Funky on November 23, 2013, 02:23:57 PM
Calum are you sure you don't buy invisible cables? My system is a mess of cables and I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of the mess, without wire cutters and a torch. Even your desk looks uncluttered. I though my setup was clean, man was I mistaken.

Heh, none of my builds in this thread have been that neat, wires are still visible so they're not perfect by far.  The first build in the CM case is a real mess due to a complete lack of cable management options, and for some reason my second build's image has been removed by Imageshack, not sure why.  I'll re upload them to Imgur and redo the post soon.

Most cases make cable management easy, if a little time consuming.  I used to build machines for a living and they were often a lot neater than those I posted, although I was restricted by time.  In my server type build, the watercooling made it a little awkward as it required a bit of modding to fit, I was never quite happy with it but I loved that case so I modded it rather than change my case for a neater build.