Haswell-E + 4xTITAN Build

[blueberryjudy]

Given the recently launch and exciting Haswell-E [http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/...iew-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested/8] launch, its time for a new build

CPU: Core i7 5960X
Motherboard: Suggestion?
RAM: DDR4 Suggestion? Need minimum 64 GiB
Power Supply: Suggestion?
GPUs: 4xTITAN
SSD: Suggestion -- need around 2 TiB total.

Before you guys suggest me AMD convince me to not get the 4xTITANs, this is for CUDA research and NOT gaming.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I'd suggest you talk to AdamK47
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36666059&postcount=60

 

[Ken g6]

Will this be double-precision floating-point CUDA research? (I rather assume it is.) But if not, consider cheaper consumer-level cards.

What kind of budget are you looking at? Will this be 4x original Titan from Ebay, 4x Titan Black, or 4x Titan Z?

Will you be overclocking? If not, you might want to consider Xeons for a dual-socket mobo, depending on how CPU-intensive that side of your CUDA apps are. But I don't think those are out yet for Haswell-E.

On the other side of that, if your CUDA apps aren't multi-threaded on the CPU side, consider a 5930K. Same PCIe bandwidth, fewer cores, higher stock clock speed, and lower price. (Unless you get 4x Titan Z.)

 

[MasterChuck]

What kind of budget are you looking at? Will this be 4x original Titan from Ebay, 4x Titan Black, or 4x Titan Z?

One nitpick the Titan-Z is a dual graphics card so you can only have a max of 2.

If you want our help you should be more specific about what your goin to use the computer for and a budget. Do you really need 64gb of RAM?

 

[StinkyPinky]

I'd suggest you talk to AdamK47
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36666059&postcount=60

That's awesome. Really tidy job. Too many points of failure for me though. 8 dimms and 4 gpu's.

 

[blueberryjudy]

Will this be double-precision floating-point CUDA research? (I rather assume it is.) But if not, consider cheaper consumer-level cards.

What kind of budget are you looking at? Will this be 4x original Titan from Ebay, 4x Titan Black, or 4x Titan Z?

Will you be overclocking? If not, you might want to consider Xeons for a dual-socket mobo, depending on how CPU-intensive that side of your CUDA apps are. But I don't think those are out yet for Haswell-E.

On the other side of that, if your CUDA apps aren't multi-threaded on the CPU side, consider a 5930K. Same PCIe bandwidth, fewer cores, higher stock clock speed, and lower price. (Unless you get 4x Titan Z.)

Don't care about double precision. We get TITANs at significant discount from MSRP due to our relationship with NVIDIA.

No overclocking. Single socket solution is fine, extra two cores will help compile code faster as this is a dev machine, so that is fine as well.

And yes, need 64 GiB of RAM.

Still need advice for PSU / motherboard / case. I am thinking of getting the LEPA 1600W, is that enough? Unsure about motherboard + case, not sure which cases can actually fit 4xTITANs.

 

[blueberryjudy]

Don't care about double precision. We get TITANs at significant discount from MSRP due to our relationship with NVIDIA.

No overclocking. Single socket solution is fine, extra two cores will help compile code faster as this is a dev machine, so that is fine as well.

And yes, need 64 GiB of RAM.

Still need advice for PSU / motherboard / case. I am thinking of getting the LEPA 1600W, is that enough? Unsure about motherboard + case, not sure which cases can actually fit 4xTITANs.

There is also a benefit to not going dual Xeons, all the PCIE lanes will be connected to the same CPU which helps scalability (latency) under our research conditions.

 

[mfenn]

There is also a benefit to not going dual Xeons, all the PCIE lanes will be connected to the same CPU which helps scalability (latency) under our research conditions.

If you only care about floats, then the GTX 780 Ti is a good bit faster than the Titan. How much device memory do you need for your code?

 

[blueberryjudy]

If you only care about floats, then the GTX 780 Ti is a good bit faster than the Titan. How much device memory do you need for your code?

Unless there is a power concern, we are set on GTX TITANs. Our research group rather develop on a small subset of hardware (TITANs and k20s), we don't want to deal with random bugs and crap that may popup just to save a couple hundred dollars on a single dev machine.

Still need advice on PSU + Case + Mobo!

 

[mfenn]

Unless there is a power concern, we are set on GTX TITANs. Our research group rather develop on a small subset of hardware (TITANs and k20s), we don't want to deal with random bugs and crap that may popup just to save a couple hundred dollars on a single dev machine.

Still need advice on PSU + Case + Mobo!

Point taken regarding consistency, but note that I didn't say anything about price; you put that in there yourself. I just noted that the GTX 780 Ti is faster than the Titan for single-precision, which it is.

We can't really help you with the specific questions on parts until you answer the question about budget that Ken asked in post #3.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Given the recently launch and exciting Haswell-E [http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/...iew-core-i7-5960x-i7-5930k-i7-5820k-tested/8] launch, its time for a new build

CPU: Core i7 5960X
Motherboard: Suggestion?
RAM: DDR4 Suggestion? Need minimum 64 GiB
Power Supply: Suggestion?
GPUs: 4xTITAN
SSD: Suggestion -- need around 2 TiB total.

Before you guys suggest me AMD convince me to not get the 4xTITANs, this is for CUDA research and NOT gaming.

Back again Teasing us with awesomeness!

Mobo: Gigabyte x99 $297.- The spacing between slots looks fantastic for your purposes.

Ram: Crucial 2133 ddr4 2 kits for $820.-

Case: Antec P280 $110.-

PSU: Rosewill hercules 1600 watt $299- looks like there is a promo code if that matters

SSD: Crucial m550 two 1tb drives for $940.-

Just shy of $2500.- Hope that fits your budget

 

[blueberryjudy]

Back again Teasing us with awesomeness!

Mobo: Gigabyte x99 $297.- The spacing between slots looks fantastic for your purposes.

Ram: Crucial 2133 ddr4 2 kits for $820.-

Case: Antec P280 $110.-

PSU: Rosewill hercules 1600 watt $299- looks like there is a promo code if that matters

SSD: Crucial m550 two 1tb drives for $940.-

Just shy of $2500.- Hope that fits your budget

The TITANs also have extra VRAM which is very handy.

Where does it say the Antec case can support up to 4x dual slot GPUs?

Any reason why the Rosewill 1600W over the LEPA? I thought the LEPA was a better brand?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

The TITANs also have extra VRAM which is very handy.

Where does it say the Antec case can support up to 4x dual slot GPUs?

Any reason why the Rosewill 1600W over the LEPA? I thought the LEPA was a better brand?

The Antec has 9 expansion slots so should be able to. If worried at all get the Cooler Master cosmos it has 11 expansion slots.

The LEPA is excellent. So is the Rosewill: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Rosewill/Hercules-1600/10.html
Hard to go wrong with either.