Pls Help Me Choose Components For 2 Workstation Build Proposal

[xkm1948]

So in the end the lab I am helping with decide to build their own system instead of sourcing it out to 3rd party. The big boss of the lab has good PC skills so he would be getting all the components himself and assembled them with my help. Here are some hard requirements:

1. Definitely 128GB of RAM. Speed doesn't matter too much.
2. Minimum GPU. He has little need for CUDA or OpenCL assisted work load.

He will be shopping both Micro center and online.

Here is my proposed 2 routes.

Route 1.

7900X or 7820X
128GB DDR4 2133 or 2400
(Which X299 works best for stable 24x7 operation?)
280 AIO? Tower cooler?
850 EVO 2TB or some good 2TB SSD?
GeForce 1050
650Watt? 750Watt? PSU?
Non-flashy black tower case?

Route 2:
TR 1950X or 1920X
128GB DDR4 2133 or 2400
X399 workstation board recommendations?
Enermax AIO for TR
850 EVO 2TB or some good 2TB SSD?
GeForce 1050
650Watt? 750Watt? PSU?
Non-flashy black tower case?

It has been a while since I put together a build. Please help me pick some components for these 2 propositions.

Keyboard/Monitor/Mouse there is no need to worry. We have lots of surplus from decommissioned DELL peripherals.

Price wise he does intend to save as much as possible, without sacrificing stability of course.


Thank you!

 

[Frick]

Why a gaming GPU at all? GT710 or GT1030 if you for some reason want a bit more grunt.

 

[xkm1948]

Why a gaming GPU at all? GT710 or GT1030 if you for some reason want a bit more grunt.

I thought 1050 was the lowest. Welp glad you pointed it out! Newegg only showed 1050, 1060 ,1070, 1080 so I thought well lowest pascal was 1050

1030 it is then!

 

[cadaveca]

Will highly recommend the Cryorig A80 as a cooler for these high-end systems... it has a fan on top of the pump head which will help keep the board's VRMs cool while the CPU is loaded. Actually, many of Cryorig's AIO coolers feature this fan-on-the-pump-head design, so you even have some options to suit the case size, etc...

You can see our review here:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/CRYORIG/A80/

 

[xkm1948]

Noted. If the X299 is chosen I would definitely recommend A80 to him. However for TR4 the size of cold place seems to be pretty important.

 

[R0H1T]

My vote goes to TR since more cores, cheaper(?) plus lots of PCIe lanes & runs (arguably) cooler than SKL-X thanks to solder. I heard newegg will have 1950x for $800 in BF deals, so if you're in the US that's one hell of a deal.
You could also undervolt it & make it run cooler, if you plan to run it on stock clocks.

 

[xkm1948]

My vote goes to TR since more cores, cheaper(?) plus lots of PCIe lanes & runs (arguably) cooler than SKL-X thanks to solder. I heard newegg will have 1950x for $800 in BF deals, so if you're in the US that's one hell of a deal.
You could also undervolt it & make it run cooler, if you plan to run it on stock clocks.

Local micro center have 1950X in stock now for 799.99

Not about picking which one. I will be presenting both system to my friend and let him pick. This thread is about picking the mobo, cooler and etc. Cpu is easy, mobos are hard to pick

 

[R0H1T]

Local micro center have 1950X in stock now for 799.99

Not about choice my man, it is about picking the mobo. Cpu is easy, mobos are hard to pick

I've generally found a roll of the dice having the same outcome (probability) as the one involving mobos, that is to say it's more or less the luck of the draw.
Though the more expensive boards are generally considered more solid & hence reliable.

 

[Caelestis]

I would choose the TR System. Longevity and therefore the possibility to upgrade should be higher. Also I would go with two 1TB NVMe instead of one 2TB since TR supports NVMe Raid.

 

[ikeke]

With 128GB and 24/7 operation in lab env I'd go with TR and ECC memory.

http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~bianca/papers/sigmetrics09.pdf
https://science.energy.gov/~/media/ascr/ascac/pdf/meetings/201512/ResilienceASCAC2015.pdf

 

[Aquinus]

1. Definitely 128GB of RAM. Speed doesn't matter too much.

Is this an at most or an at least? If it's at least 128GB, you might want to go with server hardware with load-reduced DIMMs so you can add more than 128GB if the boss man is doing the same kind of work you're doing.

 

[silentbogo]

I'd say, go with ThreadRipper, replace GPU with GT1030 (it's quite adequate even for low-intensity CUDA workload, or occasional Overwatch skirmishes on lunch breaks).
The only problem with both platforms, is that with your RAM requirements your co-worker will be limited to 128GB max.
Another thing: 850 Evo is still so expensive (especially $/GB for 2TB drives), that it will be cheaper to get a pair of 1TB Intel 600p NVME drives and run in RAID-0.
650W 80+ Gold or Platinum should be enough, even if you consider slight OC.

P.S. Maybe wait for Epyc?

 

[EarthDog]

IIRC, you were slamming in to 128GB wall already, so, why are we looking consumer? EPYC (no waitng... its here) or a scalable xeon with support for more ram seems like the ticket assuming hes doing the same thing you are.

 

[ikeke]

Yep, Epyc seems like the better option for compute heavy 24/7 professional usage.

https://www.servethehome.com/amd-epyc-7351p-single-socket-cpu-linux-benchmarks-and-review/

 

[xkm1948]

He is not going server grade hardware, unless it is cheaper than TR4/I9


And no, he doesn't need more than 128GB

 

[silentbogo]

IIRC, you were slamming in to 128GB wall already, so, why are we looking consumer? EPYC (no waitng... its here) or a scalable xeon with support for more ram seems like the ticket assuming hes doing the same thing you are.

Yep, Epyc seems like the better option for compute heavy 24/7 professional usage.

https://www.servethehome.com/amd-epyc-7351p-single-socket-cpu-linux-benchmarks-and-review/

Except for now you cannot buy components separately and build an epic rig to your spec and liking.
I've only seen one single-socket board on newegg, and it's some e-ATX crap from Gigabyte.
So far Supermicro and resellers only offer 2-CPU servers with 2-CPU only configurations (which will probably run upwards $15k without peripherals).
Single-socket boards and servers are still marked as "coming soon", and I haven't checked CPU listings today, but I'm sure the 7000-series is either not available, or preorder-only.

But, if eventually parts come to retailers, I'd say a single-socket SR3 board with an Epyc 7351p will do just fine. Mobo and CPU will cost somewhere around $1500.

 

[Wastedslayer]

I'm surprised no one has asked what type of workloads these workstations will be subjected to. Everyone seems to keep going bigger and bigger from TR to EPYC and i9 to Xeon.

Curious if they warrant the need for a TR build. Could save some serious cash and get a Ryzen Pro 1800 which was designed for operations like this.

 

[EarthDog]

Probably because most replying already know as he had many other threads mentioning what he does.

 

[xkm1948]

@Wastedslayer Sorry for forgetting that. As @EarthDog said I have brought it up multiple times. Still my bad for not bringing it up.

The workstation will serve as bioinformatics processing hub and the analyzing center for next generation DNA sequencing. It requires high core count CPU and high throughout RAM/Storage. GPU should be as minimal as possible. RyZen7 would be good if they support more than 64GB of RAM

Xeon and Epyc are out of question. Thank you all for bringing that option up but we are focusing on CPU/Mobo we can get from Micro center for cheap

 

[repman244]

I hope you're going for ECC RAM with that size and workload.

 

[xkm1948]

I hope you're going for ECC RAM with that size and workload.

Been working with 128GB non-ECC on my X99 for a long time. Never had any problem for my use

 

[xkm1948]

Due to insane RAM price we decide to go with 64GB for now, pretty standard for regular HPC computing nodes.

Here is the final spec, will be going to Micro center to get the parts next week.


CPU: 1950X
Cooler: Enermax TR4 280 OR Noctua U14S
MoBo: Asrock X399 Taichi
RAM:Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB 2666
Storage: Crucial MX500 2TB
GPU: EVGA 1030
Case: Generic ATX case
PSU: Seasonic Focus 750Watt

Does this config looks OK? Would Taichi X399 be able to handle at least 4*16GB RAM? This system will not be overclocked at all.

 

[notb]

CPU: 1950X
Cooler: Enermax TR4 280 OR Noctua U14S
MoBo: Asrock X399 Taichi

I helped building a very similar setup lately (for CFD ). Went for U12S, because of case limitations. It's OK, although usually maxed out under heavy load. With additional 6 cores you might need those extra few mm of heatsink.

As for 7900X vs 1950X: TR should be the better choice for DNA sequencing, at least based on what I know about your trade. That said, I actually though it's GPGPU now mostly. My team at university was merged with bioinformatics unit around 2011 and AFAIR quite a lot of publications were discussing successful transitions to CUDA.

Storage: Crucial MX500 2TB

I actually though you'll utilize quite a bit more than 2TB.

Does this config looks OK? Would Taichi X399 be able to handle at least 4*16GB RAM? This system will not be overclocked at all.

Yes, it will.
I see a different issue with this mobo. A lot of scientific equipment is moving towards 10Gbps Ethernet lately - something this X399 mobo lacks. Not a big deal for you? Adapters tend to be costly.

 

[xkm1948]

Thanks notb. I am more leaning towards the Enermax AIO since it is available at Micro center. We are set on 1950X that is for sure. Protein modeling does take advantage of CUDA based GPU acceleration. So that 1030 is just there to keep the machine running. If there are application that can utilize CUDA to vastly improve efficiency then he will go that route.

As for storage, we cannot find any SSD bigger than 2TB at micro center. Maybe I will talk him into adding a spinner disk for data storage, but more than likely he would prefer to use external disks for long term storage.

Having 10G ethernet would be nice. However his work is not dependent on how fast data is uploaded/downloaded. Even 10G network speed is still no match for our current data trasnfer method: Fedex hard drivers over night. For a relative cheap price we can ship over 200TB of data back and forth in a timely manner. And yes we got tons of spare hard drives just for that.

 

[R0H1T]

Thanks notb. I am more leaning towards the Enermax AIO since it is available at Micro center. We are set on 1950X that is for sure. Protein modeling does take advantage of CUDA based GPU acceleration. So that 1030 is just there to keep the machine running. If there are application that can utilize CUDA to vastly improve efficiency then he will go that route.

As for storage, we cannot find any SSD bigger than 2TB at micro center. Maybe I will talk him into adding a spinner disk for data storage, but more than likely he would prefer to use external disks for long term storage.

Having 10G ethernet would be nice. However his work is not dependent on how fast data is uploaded/downloaded. Even 10G network speed is still no match for our current data trasnfer method: Fedex hard drivers over night. For a relative cheap price we can ship over 200TB of data back and forth in a timely manner. And yes we got tons of spare hard drives just for that.

Definitely get the AIO, you can never overspend on cooling, also there's the 850 EVO 4TB if you can get one at that microcenter - www.microcenter.com/product/467274/4tb_850_evo_sata_iii_ssd