Build recommendation

[n0j0y]

K will stop being a bother after this.

Any thoughts or criticisms on this?
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/cn6rQ7

[KT819GM]

You just selected some most expensive components, so what you expect to be wrong? If it's your budget, just go and buy.

[epixoip]

My only criticism is the desktop tower. Save yourself some money and headaches and go with the Chenbro RM41300-FS81. It's like $50 cheaper, was designed for GPGPU, and can either be a floorstanding tower or a rackmount server.

Oh also, why the water cooling for the CPU? That's only an 84W CPU, and the stock cooler is more than adequate. Please don't bring water into this otherwise respectable build. Just use the stock cooler that ships with the CPU.

There, I just saved you $150.

Oh wait, one more criticism: that power supply isn't a very good choice. I mean, it's not a bad choice, but there are better choices. The power supply is the most critical component of the build, and since you're going to be running the PSU at >50% load, you really want something that is going to be very efficient. Have a look at the EVGA T2 1600 or P2 1600. If you really want to go with an 80plus Gold PSU, then go with the Lepa G1600.

Wait wait wait, one more criticism: you picked out DDR3 1866 RAM, but that board can only do 1866 with an overclock. Try to find some DDR3 1600 instead. You probably want to look at the memory compatibility matrix for that board to ensure you're getting the correct RAM.

Oh, and if you do go with that Chenbro case, you may want to pick up 3x Delta FFB1212EH-F00.

[xor]

$5k budget... being the cheapskate I am I would have a whole wall of bread boarded hardware with 5870/5970s. =) I suppose there is something to say for the savings the electricity in the long haul if you're doing 24/7 utilization, but I don't run my stuff often enough to make the investment in higher efficiency stuff pay off before it obsolete to something else.

If the rig makes you money then it makes sense to invest in the components that makes everything most efficient and you can just buy new and have it the next day. But it is more research approached its worth mentioning for around $500, about the price of 1 used GTX 980, I am doing 32 Gh/S (giga) MD5, about 2.5x as fast it... and that is two complete rigs... GPUs (6 total), PSU, mobo, cpu, memory, case and drive. And for another $60 - $70 it will be close to the equivalent of 4x 980 because I have 2 more free 1x pci-e slots left (1 per board) and enough PSU to drive one per GPU per rig. Granted, it is all used commodity hardware and I buy only when it being sold at a good price... except the PSUs, those are new (well refurb) 1050w GOLD 80 for $100. But used board/core duo cpu, 2gb ram, 500 gb drive... I had the same GPUs in a Xeon workstation with 2 full and 2 half pcie lanes, 16gb memory and there is no difference in the benchmarks, so the only the GPUs matter for the most part. Buying a high end CPU and stuffing it full of memory is a waste of money IMO unless you're doing CPU intensive hashes, but you wouldn't be bothering with all those GPUs if you were. The big difference, which can be a negative or a positive depending on how you look at it is to get that speed it is in two different rigs, not one. Often it is nice because I like to work on different jobs at the same time, and when not I can use a simple script to distribute the load.

Used market for either you're paying around $5 to $6 per GH with a 5870 and $37.5 per GH for a 980. Again, if you're running 24x7x365 and/or you're using this for commercial/profit and want to be able to keep scaling quickly then my budget minded approach does not apply very well.

Just food for thought for you or anyone else who turns up this thread that wants to know how to get good speed on the cheap. It's not hard... buy used older components (AMD for GPU) is all takes.

[n0j0y]

@epixoip thank you kindly for the input and catching my screwups. I knew there would be some, and I like your recommendations. Better gear and solution for the same money once all in. Will be going that route.

@xor very valid suggestion and if it were my money I would be going that route. Putting together for company so I wont be the only one on it and it isnt my money. Looking for biggest bang for the buck, while being available now and relatively easy to support. To your point, itll likely be running fairly constant and is being used for business.


Thanks all.

[rvn]

... Save yourself some money and headaches and go with the Chenbro RM41300-FS81. ...

Thank you for that info. I was looking for a low cost 19" chassis for my 4-card setup for ages =D