Computer Nerds - Computer Build - "The Juggernaut"

So souping up a computer to me is just as much fun as souping up a bike or car to most people. What type of horsepower do you guys who build your own PC's have under the case?

The Juggernaut (my home server) is getting a complete over haul. It presently has:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
8GB 2DDR 1066
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
3 Seagate 1.5TB 7200 HDs
Radeon HD 4850 video card

Now for the goodies!

Intel i7-3820 3.6 gHz (3.9gHz turbo)
64GB DDR3 1600
2 Samsung Internal Solid State Drives @ 500gb each
GIGABYTE GV-R797OC-3GD Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card
Intel DX79SR motherboard
SeaSonic X Series X-850w Power Supply


Few questions before getting started on the build.

I know it isn't necessary, but I'll probably overclock the CPU and maybe the memory. That means heat...so I'm looking at upgrading the stock cooling unit to a water cooled unit. Any recommendations?

I've tried setting up a home media server and the lag for buffering is unbearable. I've got a piece of crap wireless netgear dsl/router combo unit. For $20, I was planning on hard wiring a 50ft HDMI cable directly to the viera tv, and using my iphone as a wireless remote. Will there be any signal loss over a cable that long, or is there a better way of doing this? I figure just treating the tv as a monitor is the easiest thing to do.

My goal is <2 second boot time

 

JB Weld? You'll shoot yer eye out kid.

 

I know computers better than you know the back of your hand

 

And almost as well as you know the palm of your hand.

 

C'mere. Closer. Lemme show you the back of my hand.....WHAAAP!!!

 

I wanna say the 50ft HDMI cable is going to either push it or break the limit. Why can't the server be closer to the TV?

 

I can maybe get it done with a 25-30ft cable.

 

For the HDMI cable just get a HDMI signal booster. All it does is inject in power into the line.

There is no signal quality issues at 50' that you wouldn't have at 5' with the same cable. This is because it is digital and length has nothing to do with signal quality. But build quality does which is why the 5' cable would perform the same as the 50' cable.

 

Blue food coloring cools the best. Don't use red. Also, make sure you have a clear case. The food coloring loses its cooling effectiveness when it is confined to a dark case. May the force be with you.

 

Also on those SSD's...keep them at no more than 2/3rd's full or you will loose the speed you get out of them. You really don't need two 500gig ones anyhow...just put the OS on one and then spend your money on spinal disks for your data. If you are doing a bunch of video you don't want SSD cause you will wear them out.

On the motherboard, don't get Intel....go Gigibyte. I say this as I recently built a machine with the same proc as you are looking at with an Intel board and the Intel board is crap. Did you know Intel is going to stop making motherboards?

 

They should. They're crap. I don't know if you've ever heard of GIGABYTE - they make a much better board, in my opinion.

 

Yeah I always typo them as Gigibyte.

 

I've used the ASUS Sabertooth motherboard on 2 i7 builds now and it has been great. It's also priced really well too.

The newest i7 processors run pretty cool as well, so unless you plan on going crazy with the overclocking, I wouldn't waste the pain of a water-cooled system. More parts = more chances something goes wrong, more parts to maintain/watch for failure/leaks, and more chance your computer catches fire...yep, seen it happen, about took the house with it. I think he said it was the water-pump that started the fire. Toasted the computer and the wall near it. Obviously a bunch of people run water-cooled systems and don't suffer failures, but it just all sounds like extra risk/pain.

50 ft. is not a problem with HDMI. Any decent cable will work fine.

 

Cant help with the specs or any of the other stuff, but i can comment on the longetivity of the watercooling.

I originally water cooled my rig back in 2002 with an off the shelf system then added water blocks for the video card and northbridge set. Its so far been moved over through two different system upgrades. The computer is on 24/7. Every few years i flush out the water/coolant mix and keep on trucking. Only failuers i had were the coolant lines getting old and brittle. I was moving the rig and one of the hoses literaly snapped in half. It became brittle like plastic. Went and bought 10 bucks of hose and replaced all the hoses. At that time i also managed to strip the threads on my CPU cooling waterblock. 5 min on my lathe i had it fixed.

I did it primarily for quietness. The rig originally lived in my living room and the northbridge fan, cpu fan, video card fan, PS fan were driving me insane. After watercooling the only fans were for the rad, spinning very slowly and the PS fan which was replaced with a quiet unit.

The only way you knew the system was on was by looking for the HDD and power lights.

Since last upgrade i didnt bother watercooling the video card. The new style of ful enclosure with a fan blowing air is much more efficient and quiet then before.

With that being said. 64GB of DDR?! jeez....only think i really would want is an SSD for my OS hard drive.

 

you guys must watch a lot of porn!

but seriously, what is overclocking?

 

Overclocking is running a computer processor at higher than its rated speed. It's pretty much exactly comparable to raising the rev limit on your bike engine.

Stupidhead, you've probably checked this, but is that mobo capable of >32gb ram? I got out of the game a long time ago but I remember pricing out a system a little while ago and a lot of the motherboards didn't support >32gb ram, despite being 64 bit.

 

I think it's something like over-revving for computer nerds.

 

Naw...its increasing displacement. Overrev you loose power...overclocking you gain speed.

 

What about Intel main boards don't you like? We have built thousands of machines and they all had Intel main boards.

Not one has ever failed in over 13 years.

 

That particular board does support 64gig. Not sure what you are doing that remotely needs 64gig though.