Costings
Original Cost $4659
New Case FT-05B $419
32inch Display $1304
NH-D15S $141
Corsair HX1000i $326
7980XE CPU $2775
Thermal paste& BDR $145
Samsung 2TB SSD $890
PCIE Wifi Card $79
NH-D9L $89 (for GPU, not yet
fitted)
Slimline DVD Writer $99
Windows 10 $199
Total $10926
Recovered costs:
Sale of Mac Pro & Displays $2355
Case, PSU and DVD $100
Core i9-7900X $650
Total $3105
LESS RESALES $7821
Comparison note: The iMac Pro 18 Core
model with 64 GB Ram, a 2 TB SSD and Vega 56 w/ 8 GB of VRAM costs
$9000 currently. I did buy some unnecessary items - the DVD and GPU cooler - that would have cut the cost even more ($200 less) , but then I'm not that poor that I need to save the money.
The non-comparable is the screen; The iMac Pro has a
5120 x 2880 screen but it's only a 27 incher. This visually is no
better than the two I just sold imho: dot pitch doesn't mean
anything to me at the res of modern screens, but screen size
definitely does.
If you ignore the $2355 from selling
the Mac Pro the prices are closer but then there is the screen thing
– and nothing can equal the freedom to upgrade and the freedom to
choose my own parts, or even make my own case or case mods.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Screen
I got a BenQ PD 3200U, which features
3840 x 2160 res, full 10 bit colour and at least two inputs along
with a built in KVM. This all works okay buuuut. . . . . First, I
got both computers connected to it and then used the “hotkey puck”
controller to program it so that by touching the lit buttons on the
bottom right of the screen I could switch between the two computers.
That’s the good bit - well, actually you need to tap the buttons
twice to get it to switch. You can get the puck to switch between
displays but it takes a few clicks. I hoped to get it down to one if
I can just figure it out but in the end I was not going to keep the
Mac Pro so it doesn't matter. Just remember that the switching
process also doesn't automatically wake the computer you want to
switch to - and if it isn't getting a signal it will switch back to
the active one. Get the idea?
I watched an interesting Youtube Vid by
DIY Perks where he built a silent PC by mounting everything
vertically so that the airflow naturally provided cooling, and
getting rid of the fans altogether. He also built a custom case for
this project and in a follow-up vid, mounted a CPU cooler on a GPU
also in pursuit of a quiet PC.
I won’t be going quite as far as
having NO fans as I suspect that would be impossible if you want to
have high power chips, but I can certainly take some of his ideas and
try to make something much quieter than the current models on sale.
First, the PC I bought has a Corsair
Carbide 100 case, AIO water cooler and a fan-forced GTX 1080 Ti GPU.
I will first replace the case with a
Silverstone FT05B which has vertical mobo mounting and airflow – in
the bottom of the case are two huge 180mm fans that I can get
spinning slowly enough to be barely heard, yet they might even give
enough airflow to cool everything. Well, that’s the ideal.
It also comes standard with
magnetically held dust filters. (Why the hell doesn't Apple ever have
dust filters on it's computers? Almost everyone else does.)
Next, I am getting rid of the liquid
cooler. I don’t like them as they are unnecessarily complicated and
any leakage will be very, very bad. The CPU will instead be cooled
by the biggest, best cooler I can find - The Noctua NH- D15S will
fit in the case. Also, I will be able to use it to test if it will
fit on the GPU card as-is, or if I will need extra hardware to mount
the card so that the cooler will fit in the case. Coolermaster make
a mounting kit that can do this and all I need to do is chop it a bit
to get the offset I need – well ,that’s the theory.
I have thought long about how to get a
second GPU card in but it just doesn’t look possible with the FT05
and a whole new case seems a waste at this point: It would be better
to get a more powerful GPU card first – two video cards mean a new
power supply anyway. The big test is pushing the GPU and seeing if
it sounds like a vacuum cleaner. I haven't quite reached that point
yet. There is also rumours of a new Nvidia card coming out so maybe I
will just wait until that appears and either run two which will mean
no fan mods on them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update May 13 2018
Transplanting the board into the FT-05
case was easy as was replacing the PSU – the only problems I had
installing new parts were with the slot loading vertical mount DVD
drive. This doesn't seem to like DVDs much, it being tricky to get it
to load them – it loves to split them out though. I think I will
have to take it out at some stage. I also had to make a special
bracket for the third SSD mounting and that worked out quite well.
Now the only spinning discs are externals that I use for backup. All
the other fittings were smooth and easy apart from a slight cramp
when fitting the clips that hold the fan onto the radiator on one end
as it is close to the wall of the case.
Today I installed the i9-7980XE and I
used Thermal Grizzly metal thermal paste to keep it as cool as
possible. Previously I fitted the HX1000i PSU, the idea being that it
would be as quiet as possible since the fan on it doesn't even start
moving until you are over about 40% load.
After fitting the 7980XE I ran a few
tests to see how hot it got – Blender and DAZ renders and it all
looks very good: I think the max for any core was 68c and most didn't
get near that.
At idle it is at 38c which is pretty
darn good.
The temp testing I did used Corsair
Link 4 to tell me what the temps were because that is the only one
that works for me. I also go an external DVD/Bluray drive (plus free
version of Cyberlink Director, a video editor) so I loaded up the
Gigabyte disc that comes with the Mobo and it said all of the goodies
are installed - but they just don't show any info apart from
hardware recognition so it's Corsair Link. Note also that you can't
adjust the fan curves or anything from running, you need to get into
the BIOS to do that. I have no idea why this problem occurs but so
far I have not even tried to fiddle with the settings. Maybe later.
The BIOS is easy enough to get to, there is even a one click
Overclocking setting or if you are crazy enough an advanced OC area
but I won't be going there, at least for now.
Having watched some YouTube vids I got
the impression that the 7980XE would suck up power and generate a lot
of heat, but the results so far don't seem to support that – of
course, compared to the old Mac Pro which really worked its fans hard
under load (and you could hear them too) the new machine is very
quiet and even when running full CPU load there is surprisingly
little heat coming out the top. I suspect all that hoopla about heat
and needing a liquid cooler is just to sell more liquid coolers.
Mind you, I have the biggest (and best?) cooler that will fit the
case too.
All of the “old” parts from this
project were sold on eBay except for the liquid cooler. It seems
nobody wanted to buy it, even when cheap. In contrast, the 7900X CPU
sold in minutes – mind you, I was selling it at half price.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know, you may well ask “Why didn't
you just buy the parts you needed and build straight from that,
wouldn't that have saved you money? “ Well, yes, quite possibly,
but this is my first ever build and I was a lot more confident about
transferring parts of a working unit as opposed to assembling parts
from scratch. Call me cautious but I do remember a time when just
getting the right PC parts to work together was an arcane art. I did
not want to get stuck with a dead computer because of a noob error.
For example, how do you install the BIOS software? When exactly on
the assembly process? Do you even need to? There are many unknowns
for me here. Maybe next time I build a new PC (five years time
perhaps?) I will try it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May 22 update
I tested the 7980XE and found that it
sey off the heat alarm at over 70c – so I put the alarm up to 80c
and all was well – according to CorsairLink4, the main CPU cores
reach up to 84c under full load. Is that okay? I have looked online
and can find nothing that tells me what is a “safe” temp for the
7980XE and on one site they said they had overclocked theirs and had
it running stable at 100c !
I still think water cooling is BS: what
you really gain is thermal mass, that is, the amount of water in the
cooling loop can absorb a lot of heat until it reaches peak unlike an
air cooler – but if you are running your system at full power for a
long time (more than , say, two minutes) there is no gain at all
compared to an air cooler – also, it is more complex and can make a
big mess if it leaks.
My solution, the NH-D15S is plenty good
enough, it seems 85c is no big deal to the system buuuuuuut. . . . .
. I still want it as cool as possible so I bought a second fan to
mount on the radiator.
I also put Conductonaut Thermal Grizzly
metal compound on it when I fitted the 7980XE.
This is also fairly close to the
original liquid cooler as it had two fans on it too, but mine are
bigger and should be quieter too. I have tried to change the fan
profile in the BIOS but somehow I could not do so. I must be missing
something there.
Last note: there was one handy Mac system app that I miss: it remembered where you opened a file from and sent you back there when you went to save it again. Why doesn't windows have that? It wastes so much time digging around looking for the same friggin' folder I was just in two minutes ago. It seems so bleeding obvious, I seem to recall that one upon a time, the OS did that by default.
