INTERACT FORUM
Devices => PC's and Other Hardware => Topic started by: mojave on September 08, 2014, 12:25:26 pm
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I'm building a new HTPC using a Haswell-E i7-5820K processor. All parts have arrived and are listed below.
Case: Silvertonetek GD07 with rack ears
CPU: Intel I7-5820K
Motherboard: ASUS X99-Deluxe
Thunderbolt card: ASUS ThunderboltEX II Dual
Memory: GSkill Ripjaw DDR4 2400 (4x4GB)
PSU: Seasonic Platinum SS-860XP2
SSD: Samsung XP941 256MB 4X M.2
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro H75
Blu-ray drive: ASUS 12x Blu-ray internal drive
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
I will be using my GTX 550 Ti video card temporarily. I may get the new GTX 970 STRIX (http://thepcenthusiast.com/asus-geforce-gtx-980-and-strix-gtx-970/).
The Samsung XP941 M.2 SSD is very small. It came in an envelope from newegg via USPS.
My son wants to help put this together so I'll have to wait until tonight. The case has plenty of space for more internal drives so I may add some for storage. I currently use a NAS (very old and slow) and some external USB 3.0 3TB drives.
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That is one serious HTPC. Are you sure you're not mislabeling it slightly? :)
I'm totally excited about my development system rebuild, but I'm still trying to keep myself from ordering now, and instead waiting for things to settle, NVIDIA to announce, etc. Also hoping for some new SSD miracles. I want a 1TB SSD, and unless a M.2 PCIe shows up real soon, I'll go with a 850 PRO instead.
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All I care about is the JRMark benchmark score. ;D
I keep thinking I'll find time to play some video games at home, but with 5 kids and a wife there isn't much free time. So, it will be primarily used for audio playback, football recording/viewing, and the weekly Blu-ray movie. Don't tell anyone :-X, but I watched Mary Poppins last night.
I'll probably keep it for 4 years at least. My 4 year old work computer is an i7-920 OC'd to 3780 Mhz with 12Gb of RAM and a GTX 660. It is on 24/7 and is rock solid. It still feels extremely fast.
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I will be using my GTX 550 Ti video card temporarily. I may get the new GTX 970 STRIX (http://thepcenthusiast.com/asus-geforce-gtx-980-and-strix-gtx-970/).
For what it's worth, some concerns have recently been raised about the STRIX cards.
While the card monitors the GPU temperature to control the fan speed, it seems that the rest of the board is not monitored, and some components (e.g. VRMs) are running dangerously hot when checked via thermal imaging cameras - reaching temperatures over 100℃
Since this is a recent development, and the 900 series is due soon, I suspect there will not be enough time to address this.
Of course the 970 should consume a lot less power and run cooler, so perhaps it would not be an issue.
Edit: ASUS 780 STRIX (http://i.imgur.com/GGRYG9t.png)
MSI 780 Gaming OC (http://i.imgur.com/lctftDY.png) (essentially the same noise level under load; 1dB quieter)
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My son wants to help put this together so I'll have to wait until tonight. The case has plenty of space for more internal drives so I may add some for storage. I currently use a NAS (very old and slow) and some external USB 3.0 3TB drives.
I recommend that you don't put the drives in the case, because of heat and possible vibration in the case. I had the issue with my second HTPC build, but it the drives would vibrate in the case. Yeah, all the latest ways to keep the drives quiet. If you don't want to do a NAS, then another option is a sas expander. http://www.sasexpanders.com/ (http://www.sasexpanders.com/) Depends on your storage needs.
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I recommend that you don't put the drives in the case, because of heat and possible vibration in the case. I had the issue with my second HTPC build, but it the drives would vibrate in the case. Yeah, all the latest ways to keep the drives quiet. If you don't want to do a NAS, then another option is a sas expander. http://www.sasexpanders.com/ (http://www.sasexpanders.com/) Depends on your storage needs.
I really like the idea of moving all of my storage except the SSD outside of the main PC case.
Expansion is becoming a problem for me, and keeping drives cool without making a lot of noise is increasingly difficult.
But I don't think it's so big a problem that I can justify spending $1400+ for an enclosure, plus the cost of a SAS card (another $800) and be limited to a 10m range.
Hopefully Thunderbolt will solve these problems. It would be cheaper to build a complete PC with Thunderbolt, than it would be to buy one of these enclosures and a SAS card, and there are now optical thunderbolt cables which go far beyond 10m.
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I have a couple external USB3 and Esata RAID enclosures that are cheap and reliable.
Also a 4 bay backup dock for 4TB greens that I use for backups with Acronis Backup 11.5 backing up all my machines over the network to the HTPC. (HTPC backs up locally)
4 bay which has been running 3TB WD greens in Raid 10 for almost 3 years now. $189 for enclosure
http://www.mediasonicstore.com/servlet/the-14/Mediasonic-PRORAID-4-Bay/Detail
8 bay which also has 3TB WD greens in Raid 10 for 2 years. $350 for enclosure
http://www.mediasonicstore.com/servlet/the-24/Mediasonic-ProRaid-8-Bay/Detail
4 bay backup Dock - using with 4TB greens
http://www.mediasonicstore.com/servlet/the-43/Mediasonic-ProBox-4-Bay/Detail
Reliable and FAST. No problem serving up multiple 1080P streams with a read speed of 200>300Mb/s and writes of 150>250Mb/s.
If you spend a bit more on the 4TB/6TB Reds you could have a shed load of storage in RAID 5 or RAID 50.
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That is one serious HTPC. Are you sure you're not mislabeling it slightly? :)
I'm totally excited about my development system rebuild, but I'm still trying to keep myself from ordering now, and instead waiting for things to settle, NVIDIA to announce, etc. Also hoping for some new SSD miracles. I want a 1TB SSD, and unless a M.2 PCIe shows up real soon, I'll go with a 850 PRO instead.
I just put a 1TB SSD in my Id. The Samsung was about $450 for the EVO and the Pro 1TB is $750.
The EVO is plenty fast enough. I'll be upgrading my 6 x 120GB Sandisk SSDs to 512GB or 1TB soon as im out of system capacity.
PS. nice "HTPC" Mojave..
PPS. You could always put an Id (or similar) with one of the 8 bay enclosures in a cupboard or other room and have 36TB usable if noise is really an issue. :)
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I got the HTPC put together, but didn't have time to boot it up yet.
Here are some comments:
Case - Silvertonetek GD07: My current HTPC is in a Silverstonetek case that I've owned for about 9 years (2005). I really like their cases and recently did a build for a friend in a GD08 case. It is easy to work in and supports four 120mm fans and two 80 mm fans for lots of airflow options. It looks good and I like the door that hides the drive and USB ports. The case has a removable rack for all 5 1/2", 3 1/2", and 2 1/2" drives.
CPU - Intel I7-5820K: Largest CPU size-wise I've installed, doesn't include a cooler
Motherboard - ASUS X99-Deluxe: Easy to install, backplate had sound/vibration damping on it, layout seems good, 6 fan headers (plus more on an included add-in card), easy to read memory slot labels, M.2 slot for vertical installation of SSD M.2 drive, extra PCI-e M.2 expansion card included that supports 4x, Thunderbolt header
Memory - GSkill Ripjaw DDR4 2400 (4x4GB): These have a slightly curved bottom instead of flat. Very light.
PSU - Seasonic Platinum SS-860XP2: Nice packaging! Completely modular. Plenty of cables with various options. For example, some GPU cables are dual 6/8 pin. There was also a single 6/8 pin cable that I used. There were long and short SATA power cables with different quantities of SATA connectors. I only needed one short cable for the Blu-ray drive. There is a switch on the back for hybrid or normal operation. Hybrid has three stages: fanless, silent, and cooling mode.
SSD - Samsung XP941 256MB 4X M.2: Installed vertically into a special ASUS mount for the motherboard. Very small and easy to install.
CPU Cooler - Corsair Hydro H75: I had less space between the case and motherboard than I expected. I ended up mounting the radiator to the inside of the case and putting one fan on the outside of the case blowing in. I'll have to see how it works. I'm not sure it will really work or fit once I try it in the final rack. I may need to switch to air cooling and rear 80 mm Noctua fans. It was very easy to install and only required screwing in studs to the motherboard, attaching the pump, and screwing down thumbscrews over the pump. No rear plate is necessary for an LGA 2011-3 socket.
Thunderbolt card - ASUS ThunderboltEX II: This looks nice and installs easy. However, it comes with a 9 pin header cable for connecting to the motherboard. The manual says it only works with a certain ASUS X77 motherboard. The X99-Deluxe has a 5 pin Thunderbolt header. I found online that ASUS makes a 9 pin to 5 pin cable, but it is hard/impossible to get. Someone also said ASUS has recalled all current ThunderboltEX II cards so they can include the necessary cable to work with the new X99 motherboards. I'll have to look into it more today.
So far both the cooler and ThunderboltEX card have presented problems. I also got all done with the build and my son asked about removing the feet from the case. I forgot to remove them! ::) For the case to fit in my rack, I'll have to remove all components, unscrew the feet from inside the case, and reinstall all components. Maybe I can find an extra 1U space and put a spacer below the HTPC.
I pulled my GTX 550 Ti card with Artic Cooling GPU cooler out of my current HTPC (since it has also has video on the CPU) and installed in the new HTPC. Not that it really matters, but it matches the color scheme very nice.
I just checked online and the latest bios was released on September 4. I'm also downloading any recent driver updates. I'll be updating the bios next.
Empty case:
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Motherboard and PSU installed:
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CPU Cooler, memory, SSD M.2 drive and ThunderboltEX II card installed:
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GTX 550ti with Artic Cooling GPU cooler installed:
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=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.122 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.918 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.595 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.398 seconds
Score: 3150
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.226 seconds
Flood filling... 0.258 seconds
Direct copying... 0.237 seconds
Small renders... 0.877 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.645 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.349 seconds
Score: 8489
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.141 seconds
Populate database... 0.801 seconds
Save database... 0.210 seconds
Reload database... 0.039 seconds
Search database... 0.640 seconds
Sort database... 0.565 seconds
Group database... 0.559 seconds
Score: 7275
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 6305
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Interesting to see that the score is so close to the 4790K result posted recently. Seems like you need to start bumping up the clockspeed.
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Awesome score !! Nice rig..
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I really like the idea of moving all of my storage except the SSD outside of the main PC case.
Expansion is becoming a problem for me, and keeping drives cool without making a lot of noise is increasingly difficult.
But I don't think it's so big a problem that I can justify spending $1400+ for an enclosure, plus the cost of a SAS card (another $800) and be limited to a 10m range.
Hopefully Thunderbolt will solve these problems. It would be cheaper to build a complete PC with Thunderbolt, than it would be to buy one of these enclosures and a SAS card, and there are now optical thunderbolt cables which go far beyond 10m.
Actually, I built an HTPC server, because of the cost was cheaper. The motherboard is an ASUS P8Z77-V PRO/THUNDERBOLT. Areca ARC-1882ix-16 http://www.areca.us/products/1882.htm (http://www.areca.us/products/1882.htm) The case that I wanted wasn't available. http://www.akiwa.com/product_detail.php?pid=2&id=713&img=pimages%2Frackmount%2FGHS-2000%2FGHS-2000-1.jpg (http://www.akiwa.com/product_detail.php?pid=2&id=713&img=pimages%2Frackmount%2FGHS-2000%2FGHS-2000-1.jpg) or Lian Li http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5244/cst-472/Lian-Li_PC-343B_Modular_Aluminum_Cube_Case_-_Black.html (http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5244/cst-472/Lian-Li_PC-343B_Modular_Aluminum_Cube_Case_-_Black.html) I had a Chenbro 10769 case. http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=104 (http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?sku=104), it holds up 11 or 13 drives. Depends on the options. You can also do 2 hotswap SSD drives in the floppy slot. Built like a tank, but it is quiet after you swap the fans. I have 2 of them.
The only issues with the Areaca Thunderbolt box is you are limited to 8 drives, and cost is $1800. You can go to a farther distance with a SAS Expander. Just need to look at their Thunderbolt option. It is more expensive box, but distance is not an issue. http://www.pc-pitstop.com/thunderbolt/ (http://www.pc-pitstop.com/thunderbolt/)
Nice HTPC case. http://www.hfx.at/ (http://www.hfx.at/) There is write about JRiver on one of their products.
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Last night I booted up the HTPC for the first time. I went into the bios so I could monitor temperatures. I let it run for about 30 minutes. The highest temperature during idle was 30C.
I then updated the bios. It was very easy and just required the bios file to be on a USB flash drive. Now that the OS is installed, future bios updates involve putting the USB flash drive in a certain port on the rear of the motherboard and pushing a button also located on the back of the motherboard. Anybody need a USB 3.5" floppy drive. ;D
I initially had trouble getting the OS to load on the M.2 drive. This article (http://pcdiy.asus.com/2014/07/plextor-m-2-m6e-ssd-asus-z97-motherboards-better-together/) gave some help, but it still didn't work. I needed to reboot/install about 4 times before getting the bios settings right that allowed for booting from the M.2 drive. I have no idea why Microsoft made the license code for Windows 8.1 so small and hard to read.
Once I got the OS loaded, I installed drivers and the ASUS utilities. I used the ASUS 5-Way Optimization to overclock.
The combination of automated overclocking, fan controls, power efficiency, digital power delivery and per-app customization have returned in full force with upgrades on the X99-Deluxe.
There are many settings in the Optimization and I went basic for the first time. The board overclocks by 100Hz and runs some tests and then repeats until it reaches a max. It does an analysis of all the fans and evaluates their minimum and maximum RPM and cooling capability and then comes up with fan profiles. It also creates several power management profiles. I'm looking forward to working with it some more.
The first automatic overclock came in at 4700Mhz - a 42% increase over stock! I saved this profile. ASUS allows you to assign clocking profiles to software programs. I assigned the overclock profile to JRiver and then ran the benchmark. I was watching CPU-Z during the benchmark and the CPU would drop back to idle speed several times. I think the benchmark could be higher if I set the clocking in the bios and turned off any C-States. I'll have to play with it some more.
The maximum temperature during 5-way Optimization was 74C. This is with only one fan on the Corsair H75 water cooling radiator. It dropped back down to the low 30's almost immediately after the CPU returning to idle. Overall, the fan noise was very quiet. However, it isn't completely silent at idle and I think it is from the three 120mm Silverstonetek fans. It could also be that I need to slow the fans on the Arctic Cooling system on the GPU. I'll be looking into it more in the next few days.
You can see from the benchmark how much faster the multi-threading is with the Haswell-e i7-5820k and extra 2 cores:
Intel i7 4790k @ 4487Mhz on Air (Johnny_Friendly)
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.289 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 2.015 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.979 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.619 seconds
Score: 2753
Intel i7-5820K @ 4700Mhz (Mojave)
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.122 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.918 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.595 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.398 seconds
Score: 3150
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Overclockers.com has a review of the ASUS X99-Deluxe with lots of pictures. It is one of the most comprehensive looks at the motherboard that I've seen.
http://www.overclockers.com/asus-x99-deluxe-motherboard-review (http://www.overclockers.com/asus-x99-deluxe-motherboard-review)
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The first automatic overclock came in at 4700Mhz - a 42% increase over stock! I saved this profile. ASUS allows you to assign clocking profiles to software programs. I assigned the overclock profile to JRiver and then ran the benchmark. I was watching CPU-Z during the benchmark and the CPU would drop back to idle speed several times. I think the benchmark could be higher if I set the clocking in the bios and turned off any C-States. I'll have to play with it some more.
Nice!
Adjusting C-States, disabling turbo (forcing it to stay at the max OC speed) and so on boosts the JRmark score from about 4500 to 5000 on my 2500K.
I generally do allow it to dynamically adjust the clock and so on though, unless I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem.
I wonder what your score would be like when set to the same clockspeed as the 4790K.
Theoretically with them both being Haswell chips, and with Haswell-E using DDR4, it should be the same or higher for single-threaded tasks?
I've seen it suggested that a 4790K is the better chip if your workload includes single-threaded tasks, but I wonder if that's just because they can clock higher due to having fewer cores. If you get the same performance clock-for-clock, that pushes me back in the direction of Haswell-E.
I'm curious about what the CPU usage is like with multichannel SACD playback, any chance you could post results from this track (https://www.dropbox.com/s/zpito7z616ov7qh/audio_sample.rar?dl=0) with Memory Playback enabled/disabled?
Especially with one core per channel, I'd be surprised if there was any difficulty with playback though. (like I'm seeing on my current system)
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The 5-Way Optimization is starting to scare me. It is now up to 7250Mhz.
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I used that tool on my 4770K once, and it set it to 4.7 GHz (IIRC), and claimed everything was stable. Too bad the system sporadically crashed afterwards anyway, so much for stable! :)
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Still going at 10000 Mhz. They need more digits for the readout. Max temp has now reached 80C.
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I think something is wrong with your system, its impossible that its actually running at full load on that. ;)
Also, you attached the same screenshot on both images, and it claims 6625 MHz in both ?
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I have attached the correct screenshot. I stopped it at about 11000 Mhz. It then rebooted and started increasing the BCLK up from 125. At 127 the computer crashed and wouldn't reboot. I reset the CMOS and rebooted. I tried overclocking again with a limit of 5000. It went to 5000 and rebooted for the next stage of overclocking, but then I got a Windows 8 error. I'm fixing things now.
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It seems like something is probably not reporting values correctly if you're getting clockspeeds that high.
Is it advisable to raise the base clock on these CPUs? I know it was fine on older LGA2011 platforms, but haven't paid much attention to these yet. I thought it would all just be via multipliers like 115X.
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You can select a clock "strap" of either 100, 125 or 167 MHz, which the multiplier works against, that part is perfectly save. From what I've heard, X99 uses 125 MHz strap automatically if you use "OC" RAM, so it can reach the clocks required there.
The straps are designed to have a clear divisor to get clean 100 MHz back for the PCIe and DMI bus, which is why they work, since you're not overclocking the bus when changing them.
You can also try to muck with the clock directly, ie. raise it slightly for the last 1% of speed, but that is usually not possible beyond 3% clock speed increase, and may become unstable quick, generally not advised.
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This is again at 4700 Mhz on the CPU and 3104 Mhz on the memory with C-States turned off. The CPU stayed at 4700 Mhz the whole time.
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.121 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.917 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.612 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.434 seconds
Score: 3123
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.231 seconds
Flood filling... 0.258 seconds
Direct copying... 0.236 seconds
Small renders... 0.866 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.614 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.347 seconds
Score: 8622
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.145 seconds
Populate database... 0.803 seconds
Save database... 0.210 seconds
Reload database... 0.042 seconds
Search database... 0.642 seconds
Sort database... 0.565 seconds
Group database... 0.560 seconds
Score: 7249
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 6331
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For what it's worth, I must have been mistaken before, or the results have changed since, because I did some testing and tried pushing my overclock further today, and was not able to hit ~5K just by disabling all the power management features. I probably misremembered things.
It runs a little bit faster, but it's not a significant change and it looks like Haswell does an even better job than Sandy Bridge in that regard, showing an even smaller difference between having the power-saving options enabled and disabled.
I had to bump the overclock on my 2500K up to 4.7GHz to reach 4948 on JRmark.
However, to go beyond 4.5GHz requires setting all the overclocking-related options to "extreme" and putting more volts into the CPU than I'd like. The BIOS setting is in the "safe" range (1.35V) but LLC pushes that to ~1.375 under load. Apparently these chips have no problem up to 1.45V, but I'd rather stay within what my BIOS classifies as the safe range.
Unlike 4.7GHz, the overclock from the stock 3.3GHz to 4.5GHz is stable on this chip with all the power-saving options enabled, rather than requiring the use of the overclocking ones.
I could probably have broken 5K if I ran the JRmark test at 4.8GHz but it wasn't stable in the more demanding tests I had run without pushing the voltage beyond the safe levels, and even if the benchmark runs, I don't consider results on an unstable system to be worthwhile.
To be honest, I'm thinking that I may just stick with my system for a bit longer now, and maybe I will just keep it at 4.7GHz since most people consider anything below 1.45V safe.
I'm not sure that it's worth all this expense for ~22% increase in performance.
I was hoping for something closer to 50% (or 100%) considering that it's a jump from 4 cores to 6 (or 8) and there are two generations of IPC improvements on top of that.
Considering that both our results were at 4.7GHz, and it's 4 cores vs 6, it indicates that the benefits of moving from 4 to 6 cores are potentially a lot smaller than I expected - at least in many applications.
Even if IPC had remained the same as Sandy Bridge, linear scaling should have meant a score of 7422. Perhaps that's something Hendrik will be able to optimize once his system arrives.
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Not every workload is magically 50% faster if you give it two more cores. :p
Very often you just have very small datasets where adding multi-threading is more overhead than worth the trouble.
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Not every workload is magically 50% faster if you give it two more cores. :p
Very often you just have very small datasets where adding multi-threading is more overhead than worth the trouble.
Yes, I know. But seeing this and other people's "real-world" results, rather than specific tasks like rendering, compiling code etc. seem to show similar results.
Actually, I would be very interested to see what the results would be like if you set Media Center to only use 4 cores and ran the benchmark.
If I could get the same or better performance than I have now and have two cores spare for other tasks, that would be nice - that's actually one of the things which appeals to me about moving to 6 cores, since SACD playback is such a hog in MC19/20.
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Here is the benchmark with 4 cores:
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.123 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.918 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.851 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.627 seconds
Score: 2914
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.222 seconds
Flood filling... 0.256 seconds
Direct copying... 0.239 seconds
Small renders... 0.867 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.737 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.378 seconds
Score: 8151
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.145 seconds
Populate database... 0.807 seconds
Save database... 0.211 seconds
Reload database... 0.037 seconds
Search database... 0.643 seconds
Sort database... 0.565 seconds
Group database... 0.567 seconds
Score: 7228
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 6098
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Intel i7 4790k @ 4487Mhz on Air (Johnny_Friendly)
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.289 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 2.015 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.979 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.619 seconds
Score: 2753
Intel i7-5820K @ 4700Mhz (Mojave)
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 3.122 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.918 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.595 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.398 seconds
Score: 3150
i7 4960X @ 4.7Ghz with X79 Asus Rampage IV Black Edition - Memory at a leisurely 1866mhz - GTX580 @ 1000/2200 1920x1080
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 2.879 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.917 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.615 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.422 seconds
Score: 3258
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.323 seconds
Flood filling... 0.380 seconds
Direct copying... 0.245 seconds
Small renders... 0.957 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.654 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.385 seconds
Score: 7475
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.172 seconds
Populate database... 0.951 seconds
Save database... 0.218 seconds
Reload database... 0.035 seconds
Search database... 0.695 seconds
Sort database... 0.902 seconds
Group database... 0.613 seconds
Score: 5995
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 5576
i7 4960X @ 4.8Ghz with X79 Asus Rampage IV Black Edition - Memory at a leisurely 1866mhz - GTX580 @ 1000/2200 1920x1080
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 2.818 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.877 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.629 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.426 seconds
Score: 3305
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.338 seconds
Flood filling... 0.375 seconds
Direct copying... 0.246 seconds
Small renders... 0.932 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.644 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.376 seconds
Score: 7558
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.165 seconds
Populate database... 0.905 seconds
Save database... 0.213 seconds
Reload database... 0.035 seconds
Search database... 0.676 seconds
Sort database... 0.883 seconds
Group database... 0.592 seconds
Score: 6198
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 5687
The 5820K is certainly good bang for your buck.
I wonder why you get a much better image benchmark?
edit: Looks like memory speed has an influence on the image score.
Changing my memory from 1866 9-10-9-27 to 2133 9-11-11-31 gained a few CPU and image points.
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 2.820 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.883 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.544 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.408 seconds
Score: 3360
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.326 seconds
Flood filling... 0.374 seconds
Direct copying... 0.249 seconds
Small renders... 0.929 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.642 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.376 seconds
Score: 7595
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.173 seconds
Populate database... 0.921 seconds
Save database... 0.211 seconds
Reload database... 0.035 seconds
Search database... 0.673 seconds
Sort database... 0.884 seconds
Group database... 0.569 seconds
Score: 6204
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 5720
And a little bit more with memory @ 2400 10-12-12-31
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 2.817 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.878 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.576 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.393 seconds
Score: 3354
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.297 seconds
Flood filling... 0.372 seconds
Direct copying... 0.209 seconds
Small renders... 0.933 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.642 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.376 seconds
Score: 7779
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.167 seconds
Populate database... 0.912 seconds
Save database... 0.210 seconds
Reload database... 0.034 seconds
Search database... 0.675 seconds
Sort database... 0.880 seconds
Group database... 0.607 seconds
Score: 6170
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 5768
And slower with Memory @ 1600 7-7-7-20 - proves memory bandwidth is more important than latency for image benchmark and CPU benchmark.
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 2.821 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 1.882 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 0.653 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.396 seconds
Score: 3303
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 0.383 seconds
Flood filling... 0.379 seconds
Direct copying... 0.382 seconds
Small renders... 0.941 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 0.645 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 0.383 seconds
Score: 7069
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.162 seconds
Populate database... 0.919 seconds
Save database... 0.212 seconds
Reload database... 0.037 seconds
Search database... 0.682 seconds
Sort database... 0.882 seconds
Group database... 0.578 seconds
Score: 6191
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 5521
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Here is the benchmark with 4 cores:
[…]
JRMark (version 20.0.14): 6098
Thanks for the test - so it is as I suspected and the test is barely scaling beyond 4 cores at all then.
Testing DSD playback would be useful to see whether it can take advantage of 6 cores, but it looks like you would be able to set MC to 4 cores and have 2 free for other applications regardless of what the result is.
FYI, you can limit an application using the "Set Affinity" command in the task manager (Details tab) rather than having to disable cores in the UEFI - that's how I was able to confirm that DSD playback is smooth when MC is limited to a single CPU core on my 2500K, and constantly interrupts the system when allowed access to all four.
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You can configure the number of threads used for SACD DST decompression in an upcoming MC build, and I also tweaked the default to be smarter about the number of threads it uses.
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6233638, I'll be downloading and testing your multi-channel DSD file. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
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6233638, I'll be downloading and testing your multi-channel DSD file. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
No problem. Might be worth waiting to see what the new changes are like.
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I did a little modification to the case. The GD07 case is designed so that three 120mm fans can be installed in the front pulling in air from the bottom. However, due to the drive cage you can only use two of those locations. I decided I wanted the Corsair H75 water cooler completely inside the case. I removed the drive cage and moved the radiator and fans to the front left. I was able to use both radiator fans in a push/pull configuration.
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I don't really need the drive rack spaces for 3 1/2" and 2 1/2" drives so I removed them. The 2 1/2" section was screwed on and was easy to remove. The 3 1/2" section was riveted. I drilled out the rivets and then used my right angle grinder to cut the part off that I didn't want. I left a little as a support for the Blu-ray bay.
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Now the drive cage fits back in the case! There is also good airflow over the motherboard. I will have two 120mm fans on the right side of the case.
Yesterday I ordered 6 Noctua fans:
Four NF-S12A PWM for the front and side of the case
Two NF-F12 PWM for the radiator
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The S12A are my goto 120mm case fans as well, plus their 140mm cousins when required. Mighty nice fans indeed, some people are just annoyed by the color scheme, but i actually kinda like it, its something unique.
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The Noctua fans just arrived so I can install them this weekend.
My case says it supports a GPU length of 13.6" long and 5.25" high. This morning I purchased the Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming which is 12.28" long and 5.08" high.
I just looked at the picture I posted earlier of the Corsair H75 cooler mounted in the front of the case. It looks like the radiator intake and hoses will interfere with the card. :-[ I may need to go with an air cooler instead of water cooling. Hmm, I may have an idea that will still make it all work.
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Isn't there space for a 240mm rad on the right?
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Isn't there space for a 240mm rad on the right?
The two 120mm fan mounts aren't the right distance apart for a 240mm radiator. I did have my 120mm radiator mounted on the inside right location in your picture with a fan on the outside. It was plenty cool with idle temps at 30C. Here is how the temps changed during overclocking at 100% CPU with only 1 push fan on the radiator.
4100 - 53
4200 - 59
4300 - 62
4400 - 67
4500 - 68
4600 - 71
4700 - 72
4800 - 75
Since the HTPC will be in an enclosed rack, I couldn't really have a fan hanging off the outside of the case. Also, I wanted to pull air from the front or below the HTPC into the radiator.
Here is a picture of the radiator in the first position. The motherboard heatsinks/shrouds are in the way of mounting an inside 120mm fan. I have seen some use a 90mm fan screwed in to the top right of the radiator.
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With the Gigabyte GTX 970, the case will have 10 fans including the PSU fan! My goal is for it to be inaudible from a couple feet away.
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10 seems excessive, even if 3 of those are on the GPU.
Like, 5 case fans now? :)
My new build will have 2x120 in the front and 1x140 in the rear, and that needs to do it!
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Generally, if there's a spot to mount a fan, I use it now.
The more fans you are using, the quieter the system will be for the same amount of air intake, and the fewer spots of "dead air" there are likely to be in the case.
This is especially true with the PWM Noctua fans, since they can go all the way down to 25% speed. (typically 300 RPM unless you're using the new industrial fans)
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With the case I'm using, one can also reverse the power supply so that its intake fan is on the inside. Since the PSU is at the back left, this would pull hot air from the GPU through the power supply and exhaust it out the back. On my current(former?) HTPC, the PSU was on the back right of the case and was also used to exhaust air out the case. This is one reason I didn't have any exhaust fans for so long. The other reason was that most 60mm fans are too loud. The Noctua ones finally were silent and have sold me on Noctua fans.
You can see the PSU here in relation to the GPU:
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I always reverse my power supply if possible, in a standing tower it would pull air from under the case otherwise, and me having a carpet i would imagine it would collect quite a bit of dust from that area. Might as well pull air out of the case instead.
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I always reverse my power supply if possible, in a standing tower it would pull air from under the case otherwise, and me having a carpet i would imagine it would collect quite a bit of dust from that area. Might as well pull air out of the case instead.
Yeah, while I understand the reasoning behind pulling cool air from outside the case over the PSU rather than "hot" air from inside the case, it really doesn't matter when power supplies and PC components are so much more efficient now.
I'm not actually sure that the fan has ever turned on with my AX850 since I ended up not using SLI.
If the fan does come on, it might as well just help exhaust air that's inside the case and avoid pulling dust into the PSU. If nothing else, it's one less filter to clean.
The other reason was that most 60mm fans are too loud. The Noctua ones finally were silent and have sold me on Noctua fans.
Yes, I don't think most people fully appreciate how much better Noctua fans are than anything else until they actually use them.
Even with fans rated at or similar to the noise levels of Noctua fans, Noctuas are focused on removing distracting noises from the fans rather than SPL alone.
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Yeah, while I understand the reasoning behind pulling cool air from outside the case over the PSU rather than "hot" air from inside the case, it really doesn't matter when power supplies and PC components are so much more efficient now.
I'm not actually sure that the fan has ever turned on with my AX850 since I ended up not using SLI.
If the fan does come on, it might as well just help exhaust air that's inside the case and avoid pulling dust into the PSU. If nothing else, it's one less filter to clean.
Yes, I don't think most people fully appreciate how much better Noctua fans are than anything else until they actually use them.
Even with fans rated at or similar to the noise levels of Noctua fans, Noctuas are focused on removing distracting noises from the fans rather than SPL alone.
I am running an Asus R9 290x Directcu II, GPU with Seasonic 1200 watt platinum supply. With madVR at very high settings, the GPU can produce a lot of heat. Takes awhile, about 30 mins when watching movies but things get warm inside the case. I am using a passive CPU cooler which is contributing as well, Nofan CR95 and one Noiseblocker M12s1 case fan and two Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentPro PE-P 92mm intake fans, running at 300rpm under the bottom of a Siverstone CW02 case. I7 4790k CPU temps never go over 49 degrees and get JR mark of 5700 with with no overclocking. Ram is 2400mhz Kingston 16gb.
However, the Seasonic power supply fans can get very noticeable when temps on the GPU start to rise. My next move is to mount a 280mm rad on the outside of the case to cool the GPU and see what happens. With the case top off, the fan on the Seasonic never comes on and the whole rig is silent. The noise of the Seasonic supply is very noticeable when the fan goes on high speed. It's a platinum supply but the fan comes on at high at certain temp and it is awful.
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I received the MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G last Thursday and installed in the new build. It fit fine. It looks like the case specifications for height are when a card slightly longer than the MSI is being used. The Gigabyte couldn't have been as high as the MSI since it needs to fit under the top of the drive bay.
I found this about HDMI 2.0 on the MSI:
Dennis Achterberg the Product Marketing Officer for MSI Components at MSI Europe said that the MSI GTX 970 Gaming Twin Frozr V 4GB is listed as HDMI 1.4 due to a lack of Official Certification by the HDMI consortium, the components are apparently 2.0 (NVIDIA spec) just the card itself hasn't passed the certification yet.
The MSI lacks the backplate that the Gigabyte has on it. It is completely silent since the fans don't kick in until the temp is higher. Load temps are a little higher than the Gigabyte, but not too much higher.
The HTPC is now silent with my ear right up to the rear. It idles with the CPU at 35C with the pump and all fans at about 600 rpm. The PSU and GPU fans don't kick on until the usage goes up.
I received the Thunderbolt 9pin to 5pin header cable adapter from ASUS last week. They said they are including the cable with new shipments of the ThunderboltEX II cards. I spent a lot of time Saturday trying to get Thunderbolt to work with no success. The motherboard settings for Thunderbolt aren't documented in the manual or online. I finally realized that I had bought the ThunderboltEX II Dual adapter and the pictures of the X99-Deluxe with a card installed only show the single version. I called ASUS this morning and they "think" I need to use the single version. I ordered one today.
ASUS website and customer service have no idea what Thunderbolt card works with the X99-Deluxe. They also don't know what any of the bios settings are for in the Thunderbolt section. ? With the other Z87 motherboards, the instructions require one to use a certain slot on the motherboard. They aren't sure what PCIE slot to use on the X99-Deluxe. I guess I'll figure it out and let them know. :)
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Here is another picture of the interior with everything installed including the Blu-ray drive. This is the nicest and cleanest looking build I've ever had.
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I'm really on the fence now.
I dig that board btw, but since I've got the red and black theme going, the white on the board would clash. (I can't be looking tacky.) :P
You may have answered this already, but I'm interested in what kind of build you came "from?" My struggle right now is justification: and funding. I've built a number of systems over the past couple of years, but even when I made the switch from an AMD FX 8350 to a 4770k I didn't have to ditch EVERYTHING. I desperately want that new 5960X, having never had an extreme processor before. If all I had to do was get the CPU and a cheap new motherboard I'd drive to Microcenter today, plop it on some starter board, and upgrade later. With the discount you can get at MC, you can often get a board almost free when you buy a new CPU.
But there are no cheap LGA 2011-3 mobos. They start at $200, which isn't exactly a throw away proposition, at least not for me. And then there's the new RAM. So I continue to mull. Is it $1500 better than my 3 month old system?
It hurts not being the champ anymore, I won't lie, :'( ;D and no one really knows how advanced Intel's SKYLAKE will be. But unlike this latest "refresh" crap, it's supposed to be a major advance. Should I wait? Not wait? Christ, I'm so confused!!! ?
Congrats on a fine looking build.
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This is the nicest and cleanest looking build I've ever had.
Those closed-loop CPU coolers certainly do make things a lot easier to work with inside the case, and look so much neater.
I'm still waiting on my 970 STRIX to ship. It's almost a week overdue now. :(
With recent discussion of The Evil Within recommending 4GB VRAM, and that new Lord of the Rings game (though it is of no interest to me) requiring 6GB VRAM for ultra textures, I'm almost wondering whether I should wait and see if 8GB cards turn up.
On the other-hand, I actually want to be able to play Alien: Isolation and The Evil Within at their highest settings when they come out in the next couple of weeks and my 1.2GB 570 won't cut it.
I dig that board btw, but since I've got the red and black theme going, the white on the board would clash. (I can't be looking tacky.) :P
This is why I don't buy cases with windows. :P
I like the system to look nice inside, but as long as the airflow is good, I don't really care any more.
But there are no cheap LGA 2011-3 mobos. They start at $200, which isn't exactly a throw away proposition, at least not for me. And then there's the new RAM. So I continue to mull. Is it $1500 better than my 3 month old system?
It hurts not being the champ anymore, I won't lie, :'( ;D and no one really knows how advanced Intel's SKYLAKE will be. But unlike this latest "refresh" crap, it's supposed to be a major advance. Should I wait? Not wait? Christ, I'm so confused!!! ?
It seems that at the same clockspeeds and number of cores in use, performance is virtually identical between Haswell (LGA1150) and Haswell-E (LGA2011-3) with some slight variance (<5%) depending on the task due to the DDR3/DDR4 differences. (lower latency vs higher bandwidth)
As you add more cores though, the clockspeed has to scale down to accommodate the extra heat and power requirements, so it really depends on whether your applications can actually utilize more than 4 cores - or whether you want the same performance with 4 cores, leaving two (or four) spare for other tasks.
The latter would be a benefit to me, but in the end, I decided that the performance gains just don't seem to be there yet to justify a complete new build for me - which it really would have been.
Haswell was not a refresh, but a new architecture. Broadwell is the Haswell refresh.
While Broadwell has been delayed, Intel has said that Skylake is on track for their original target, so it may be out sooner than expected.
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I went from an i7-3770 to the i7-5820 with an SSD. For what I do, the difference in speed really isn't worth it. I was upgrading for other reasons and decided to go with the latest. If you game, you are much better off spending money on a video card upgrade to the new Maxwell cards. I would recommend waiting on the CPU, etc.
I'm still waiting on my 970 STRIX to ship. It's almost a week overdue now.
I haven't seen them in stock anywhere yet. Was it in stock when you ordered?
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I haven't seen them in stock anywhere yet. Was it in stock when you ordered?
They did have stock in, but I missed the first batch after spending too long debating between the 970/980, and then figuring out which 970 I was going to buy.
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Haswell was not a refresh, but a new architecture. Broadwell is the Haswell refresh.
I meant the 4790k that I'm currently running as the "refresh" part. It is basically a spruced up 4770k with a coat of new paint. (er, thermal paste). And I'm cool with that, because my 4770k was a dog as far as OC potential was concerned. Even on a closed loop Corsair 110 I could barely get a stable 4.2 OC. I ditched my Cooler Master V8 GTS a couple days ago for a new in box Glacer 240L I picked up off Craigslist for $60. I'll start fiddling with the settings soon and see how high I can go beyond the 4.4 number I've been too lazy to change.
Noctua does make a great fan, and I own a couple, but until this point I've only been able to use them in hidden locations due to their less than flattering color scheme. But now that they offer them in a subtle yet tasteful grayish black combination, they are definitely on the shortlist again. Who knows, could LED's be on the horizon? Sacre' bleu!
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I finally had success with Thunderbolt last night! I received the ThunderboltEX II card (single) yesterday. ASUS tech support said I needed to use this card. However, I first tried the ThunderboltEX II Dual card I already had in the PCI-EX4_1 slot. This slot was covered by the GTX 970's fan so I had to move the 970 down to the PCIEX16_2 slot. It barely cleared the Corsair H75's radiator and fans. In the BIOS I had to manually set the PCI-EX4_1 slot to 4X speed. I booted up, connected the Lynx Aurora 16-Thunderbolt and the HTPC recognized it! I quickly connected the Aurora to my amps and played some music. It all works great! I guess I can return the ThunderboltEX II card (single) that I shipped Next Day Air. >:(
The PCI-EX4_1 slot shares bandwidth with a USB3 header and a SATA Express port. When set to 4X mode, the header and port are disabled. It isn't a big deal.
After I installed the Thunderbolt card, I had the top of the case off. After booting up all the Noctua fans were spinning. I couldn't hear them even with my ear right above the open top of the case. I really like these fans. The only noise I could detect was a slight noise from the water pump. However, my ear had to be within about 4" to hear it.
Next up is getting the drives formatted in my new OWC Thunderbay 4 (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/TB2IVKIT0GB/) enclosure. I tried last night, but the drives wouldn't show up in disk management. I called OWC this morning and with Windows, I need to boot to safe mode to format the drives and then they will be recognized. I'll try tonight.
The drive bay is very nice and the fan is very quiet. The enclosure automatically turns on/off depending on the HTPC power state. The longest copper Thunderbolt cable is 10' with optical cables available up to 200'. What I like is the daisy chain capability. I can connect additional enclosures with 18" cables. Each enclosure can currently hold 24 terrabytes with 4 x 6TB drives. Six enclosures can be connected with only cable going to the HTPC so one can scale up to 144TB. With the ThunderboltEX II dual card, I can have the Lynx Aurora on one port with 5 additional drive bays and the 6 more drive bays on the other port. Now I'm all set for expansion to 264TB with 6TB drives and 4x enclosures. ;D
The drives are supposed to show up separately in Windows so one needs to use Window 8's Storage Spaces or software RAID for the drives. I think one could also use something like Drive Bender.
In addition to 6 devices per Thunderbolt port, you can also daisy chain 3 monitors. So really you get 9 devices altogether per port. There is a cable that goes from the video card DisplayPort out to the DisplayPort in on the Thunderbolt card. This lets one add 6 monitors in addition to the other outputs on the video card. I'm not sure what I would use it for, but it might be helpful for a whole house video system. Of course then you would need to run the pricey optical Thunderbolt cables.
The motherboard has some nice network and wireless features. Perhaps these can be accomplished other ways, but I thought it was nice to be part of the motherboard purchase.
1. There is both bluetooth and wireless output with an antenna included. You can use the bluetooth for transferring files from your phone to the HTPC. The wireless supports 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and can be used to connect to a wireless router, or it can make the HTPC into a wireless router.
2. Wi-Fi Go! function lets you download an app and control the computer from your handheld device. You can view the computer screen or type on the computer. You can also transfer pictures and other data to your computer from your phone. For example, you can take pictures on vacation and transfer them home using the app.
3. ASUS Cloud Storage: You get 5 GB of cloud storage and can sync not only from your computer, but from any other devices you might have like Android phones and laptops. It can even keep the data synced between your computer and laptop and the cloud.
4. Turbo APP: You can specify clocking and fan profiles on an application basis.
5. Turbo LAN: You can specify network priority on an application basis.
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I was able to format the drives in the Thunderbolt enclosure by booting to safe mode. One nice thing about the Thunderbolt enclosure is that I can do whatever I want with the drives. For example, I could stripe two 4TB drives and add an 8 TB drive for backup. The forth drive could be a weekly backup that I remove and store in a fireproof safe or off site.
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I was able to format the drives in the Thunderbolt enclosure by booting to safe mode. One nice thing about the Thunderbolt enclosure is that I can do whatever I want with the drives. For example, I could stripe two 4TB drives and add an 8 TB drive for backup. The forth drive could be a weekly backup that I remove and store in a fireproof safe or off site.
Hey Mojave,
I'm looking at doing a very similar build to this one in the same case moving both my gaming PC rig over to this case and my HTPC to another one of the cases as well.
I'm about to go all rackmount for my gear.
I like what you've done with thunderbolt! Never thought of going down that route!
How is the rig running? I have the H75 cooler too in my current HTPC case and would do the same as you cutting the drive bays out.
My board is an E-ATX X79 Mboard which the case is supposed to support, do you think the H75 will still fit in the front left?
Cheers mate.
Really love what you've done with this build!
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The HTPC is running great and stays cool and quiet. I have to clean the bottom and side screens at least every 6 months. I should probably do it every 3 months. The inside of the case stays nice and clean due to the positive pressure.
I have done more builds with the GD-07 case. The H75 should fit with any motherboard. However, you have to be careful not to use too long of a graphics card. I've used some Asus Z-170 Deluxe motherboards and you can see in the picture below how everything fits.
I've done a build with the GD-08 case. I prefer the GD-07. The main (only) reason is because the GD-08 has drive doors that are difficult to get to work properly. Half the time the drive won't open without manual intervention. With the GD-07 you get a nice clean look and the drive bays don't have an extra drive bay door that is integral to the case.
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Thanks for updates!
Yeah I was a bit worried about the drive doors, but I don't want to wait another 3-6 weeks for the GD07 cases to arrive so I switched to the GD08. I think in my use case, being in a rack with front door it's probably more practical anyway. I'm sure I could mod the drive bay doors to mount directly to the drive tray if needed. Nothing a dremel cant fix. :)
I downloaded the manual and you cant fit 120mm fans at the front when using an E-ATX MB, but you can still fit 6x60mm fans though.
I have a ASUS Rampage IV black X79 MB with 4960X CPU which is an E-ATX (SSI EEB) size MB that's going in from my old workstation/gaming PC.
That means I'll have to mod the drive tray and mount the h75 rad/fan upright in the space of 3 of the 5 1/4 bays instead of flat on the bottom. I know from the current case that the h75 is in that it fits in the space of 3 drive bays so at least I think I can still get it to work!
I was very tempted to just get a Thermaltake Core X9 case which would only just fit in the 12RU rack but it would be overkill and I'm also trying to downsize and consolidate my gaming/HTPC into one rig!
From the research I've done it looks like it's possible to fit 2 x 240 rads into the case using the E-ATX board with a tiny bit of modding to the drive tray like you did. One in the back corner and one in the opposite front corner. When the next gen GPUs come out I'll maybe have a look at upgrading to a water cooled GPU too.
Thanks again for your input!