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Well, the Bobulator VIII is now three years old, so I've started putting together the Bobulator IX! Here are the parts I'm looking at...

CPU: Intel Core i7-4771 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Extreme ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Tactical 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Storage: Samsung EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Video Card
Sound Card: Creative Labs ZXR 24-bit 192 Hz Sound Card
Case: Cooler Master HAF X ATX Full Tower Case
Case Fan: BitFenix Spectre Pro 156.3 CFM 230mm Fan
Case Fan: BitFenix Spectre Pro 148.7 CFM 200mm Fan
Case Fan: BitFenix Spectre Pro 148.7 CFM 200mm Fan
Case Fan: BitFenix Spectre Pro 148.7 CFM 200mm Fan
Case Fan: Noctua NF-R8 PWM 31.4 CFM 80mm Fan
Case Fan: Noctua NF-P14 FLX 65.0 CFM 140mm Fan
Case Fan: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 55.0 CFM 120mm Fan
Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS324-98 DVD/CD Writer
Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS324-98 DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Full (32/64-bit)
Mouse: Logitech G700s Wireless Laser Mouse

Since I have the SAN hosting all of my media, I'm going completely solid state on the Bobulator. No more spinning disks! I've purchased a couple components above over the last year including two of the three SSDs, all of the fans, and the sound card. I'm reusing my case, power supply, and optical drives, so those aren't a concern.

I've been holding out for the brand new GeForce GTX 780ti. It officially launched yesterday and the very first batch of cards showed up on Amazon and NewEgg this morning, so I placed my order. They are moving very fast. 18 of the EVGA SuperClocked model were available on Amazon at 8:00am, and they're down to 3 left as of 8:27am. The card should arrive tomorrow, and I can't wait to see how it performs!

-b0b
(...squeeeee!)

1TB SSD now - $600

1TB SSD in 3 years - $90

X
(Perdicabilitcus!)

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I remember almost buying a 64GB Intel SSD with SLC memory for $649 less than three years ago. The high prices and low density put me off from SSDs until last year.

In the last twelve months, I've gone SSD crazy. I bought a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro for Meredith's computer a few months ago and a 128GB Samsung 840 (non-Pro) for my laptop over the summer. The only spinning disks left in the house are in the server and the SAN, and only because I need the capacity. Once the 4TB SSDs hit in 16-18 months, I'll get rid of spinning disks forever.

Since I work almost exclusively in datacenter storage these days, I get to talk to a lot of vendors about enterprise products and can make some pretty good predictions about consumer products. The 15,000 RPM SCSI/SAS disks are end-of-life and won't see any higher capacities. The 10,000 RPM disks are expected to meet the same fate in two to three years. Interestingly, the industry doesn't think SSDs will be able to match the price-to-capacity ratio of high-capacity SATA disks for several years, so we'll see a market split between high-capacity SATA disks and high-performance SSDs. I think we'll see caching (SSD in front of a SATA disk) become much more common in the next year or two.

-b0b
(...can't get enough SSD goodness.)

If I pick up a PS4 I will be getting a 1TB SSD to put inside of it. Becuase, you know, you can and stuff.

Considering how long it takes to load games onto the hard drives on the XBox 360 and the PS3, I don't blame you. Every time we get a new Forza title, I have to plan on waiting a solid 30 minutes to load the game to the hard drive before it is playable.

I can't tell you how awesome it is to finally have a Bobulator that is completely free of spinning disks. Not only is it screaming fast to load the OS (and Steam in particular), but applications load instantly, games launch must faster, loading new areas in games happens instantaneously, etc. Life is good! Not to mention I have fewer worries about sudden hard drive crashes.

-b0b
(...got his GeForce 780ti yesterday and it is amaaaaazing!)

I had some problems with a faulty motherboard that wouldn't boot with RAM in the third and fourth slots. I had to RMA the board. I received the replacement board today and rebuilt the Bobulator IX with much better results this time.

I improved my 3DMark FireStrike score from 4,579 to 10,382 compared to the Bobulator VIII, putting my rig in the 94th percentile. Not bad for stock clocks.

I ended up overclocking my GPU and VRAM by 75MHz and my CPU by 700MHz, and everything seems to be humming along just fine. I removed the rest of the fan filters from my HAF-X to maximize airflow, and temps are staying quite frosty.

Interestingly, the 780ti is substantially cooler than my 580 was, even when the 780ti is overclocked. With the 75MHz overclock, the 780ti idles at about 91 degrees Fahrenheit. The 580 wasn't overclocked at all, but it idled at a whopping 172 degrees Fahrenheit. The 780ti doesn't even get that hot at full blast in 3DMark!

-b0b
(...it's actually substantially reduced the temperature in my office.)

Dammit man! You are building another one?

Looks hella sweet but why the 4771 processor and not the 4770k. You know the other one is a nice round number and all...

Actually, when I sent my first motherboard in for RMA, I also swapped my processor for a 4770k. I originally went for the 4771 because I wanted VTd (hardware virtualization) so I could run some VMs on my rig. Then I decided I'd rather have the unlocked multiplier instead so I could overclock my rig a bit. The 4771 will go in either Meredith's PC or an HTPC when the replacement for the RMA board arrives.

The CPU is still idling at 90 degrees Fahrenheit at 4.2GHz, so I'm going to kick it up to 4.4GHz next and see how it runs.

-b0b
(...VTd or overclocking, hard choice!)

Those pic are CRAY CRAY!!!

X

It always makes me sad to look at pictures of fancy PC builds with super-anal-retentive wiring jobs. I've yet to build a computer that didn't look like crap internally. But they have all run like scalded cats, and that's what matters!

-b0b
(...who needs pretty cabling and good airflow?)

After using two 22" 1680x1050 monitors for the last six years or so, I finally bit the bullet and bought new monitors that don't suck. The Bobulator now has two shiny 27" 2560x1440 Asus PB278Q monitors. Going from 1680x1050 to 1440p is insane. The amount of screen real estate is off the charts. Also, the monitors are much better quality than my old ones, so colors are much richer and more vibrant.

Gaming is amazing. I've been playing Diablo 3 for a couple weeks now and switched out my monitors last night. Not only can I see a much bigger area of the map, but the spell effects and artwork are absolutely stunning. Sadly, Skyrim is a bit of a mixed bag. I run about 120 different mods and it juuuuuust barely worked with 3GB of video RAM. Sadly, even with the GTX 780 Ti, there is just no way it will run with those mods on 1440p. I guess I'll have to scale back the textures a bit. ;p

It's happening!

I had to take a picture before I took the stickers off!

These screens are so big that it was easy to get immersed in the Unigine Valley benchmark. With all of the options cranked, I was able to pull off 72 FPS on one monitor and ~30 FPS with two monitors. Time for SLI?

I also traded in my milk crates for a real, actual desk for my lappers. Baby steps!

I did some quick investigative work just for Briney. At 1440p with medium icons, you can put 476 icons on a single desktop, or 952 icons on both monitors. That might be juuuust enough to last you a couple weeks. ;p

http://www.TWNCommunications.Net/Other/Monitors5.jpg

-b0b
(...huge image.)

The Geek Crew
http://www.TWNCommunications.Net/ForumOLD/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Mother Board >> Bobulator IX http://www.TWNCommunications.Net/ForumOLD/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1383917292 Message started by b0b on Nov 8^th, 2013 at 8:28am