Daniel de Vries' s semi-final build that got him into the final of the Master Builder competition.
"This system has been created to try to be equally outstanding at
gaming, video editing/encoding & media centre tasks. It encompasses
the highest performance and quality parts available today."
Daniel de Vries.
The Build
CPU: Intel Core i7 980X Extreme EditionThis CPU is Intel's new flagship non-server CPU. It is a 3.33GHz LGA1366 socket based hexa-core CPU with hyperthreading, which makes it able to handle 12 threads concurrently. A CPU that can handle this many threads becomes very attractive for video editing, which is highly threaded. On top of this, it has a huge amount of cache (12MB) which makes for excellent gaming performance. It has a nice high clock speed to boot.
CPU COOLER: Cooler Master V10 Hybrid CPU CoolerIn my opinion water cooling is more effort than it's worth. This being said, when building an extreme system it is advisable to use an aftermarket cooler. This cooler is massive and has the added benefit of cooling the RAM as well as the CPU. The CPU used in this build is rated to 130W TDP so a large cooler is a necessity, especially if we intend to overclock.
ASUS (SPONSOR) MOTHERBOARD: ASUS P6X58D PremiumI chose this board from the ASUS ones for a few different reasons. It has official support for the "Gulftown" CPU we're using (other X58 boards require a BIOS update). It has three 16x PCI-e ports all of which will be used (one for SSD and the other two for GPUs). It has one 1x PCI-e port which will also be used for our TV tuner card. On top of all that, it has an excellent cooling setup and is easy on the eye too.
ASUS (SPONSOR) GRAPHICS CARD: 2x ASUS EAH5970 2GBThese cards are a dual GPU DirectX 11 -supporting setup, giving a total of 4 GPUs for excellent gaming performance. Additionally, they support OpenCL which allows the GPUs to be used for non graphics -based calculations (e.g. video editing or encoding). Officially this setup is called 4way CrossFire as there are 4 GPUs, however there are only two physical cards, so the wording can be a bit confusing. The X58 chipset on the chosen motherboard supports CrossFire. Currently these are the highest-performing video cards available today. NVIDIA just released their new GeForce 400 series on Friday 26th March, but the GTX480 card still does not outperform the 5970. On top of this, ATI's in-built sound devices lend themselves much more favourably to media centre use. When using the HDMI output you get full high definintion audio (DTS, etc) as opposed to NVIDIA's option of SPIDF passthrough. To get HDMI output on these cards, you need to use the correct DVI to HDMI converter, one of which is supplied with each card.
MEMORY: 2x Corsair CMG6GX3M3A1866C7 (1866MHz) 6GB kits - 12GB totalWe have chosen to go with 12GB of RAM in this setup as 4GB DIMMS are still not readily available (when they become more available, a 24GB setup would be adopted), and 12GB is enough for our application. Specifically, this Corsair RAM was chosen due to its low CAS latency of 7. You can get higher-clocked RAM, but the CAS latency blows out to 8 or 9 which can mean a performance hit for gaming.
AUDIO: Onboard audio & GPU has built in audioIn my opinion, the need for dedicated sound hardware is not required when using the ASUS EAH5970 video cards as the integrated sound device is brilliant. It has been upgraded to support HDMI 1.3a which includes support for Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 8.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit. The level of sound quality from these cards is amazing, and definitely of a level acceptable to be used in media centre tasks. As for gaming, the motherboard's onboard sound is more than sufficient to drive the headphones chosen for gaming in this build.
HARD DRIVE 1: OCZ Z-drive SLC 512gb (PCI-e ssd)This drive will be used as the operating system and application drive. This is by far one of the fastest SSDs available on the market today. It uses Single Level Cells which gives it super high performance. We will need a lot of bandwidth to make all that performance worthwhile, so OCZ have chosen to use the PCI-e interface for this SSD, giving it a massive boost in performance over the standard SATA interface. 512GB is enough storage for our operating system and numerous applications including video editing/encoding/authoring software and the all important games!
HARD DRIVE 2: 2x OCZ Colossus SSDs 1TB in RAID 0These drives will be used as the 'working drives' when undertaking video editing and authoring tasks. When working with high-definition video we need a very large amount of storage and cannot afford to sacrifice speed. These SSDs provide the best setup for doing high definition video authoring, especially since they are set up in RAID 0 (striped for performance, not redundancy).
HARD DRIVE 3: 4x Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB in RAID 5These drives will be used as mass media storage. They will be setup in RAID 5 (with the motherboards on board RAID) to provide data redundancy for all our important media. All up, these four drives provide 6TB of storage for all of our high definition video content. We lose one drive worth of space when setting up in RAID 5, but it is worth it to have the redundancy for our irreplaceable data.
OPTICAL DRIVE: Pioneer BDR-205BK 12X Blu-ray Writer DrivePioneer has the highest quality Blu-ray products and this burner is no exception. We definitely need a Blu-ray burner to make our system perfect for use as both a media centre and a video editing and authoring station. When making home videos, we want to be able to burn them to a Blu-ray to take to a friend's house for easy watching. And we want to be able to hire out a Blu-ray movie and enjoy watching it on this setup.
PSU: Enermax REVOLUTION85+ 1250W CrossFireXWe need an absolute beast of a power supply to provide enough power to run our hexa-core CPU and 2 massive video cards (4 GPUs total!), as well as three SSDs and four HDDs. This PSU has enough guts to run this setup, with a little bit to spare. It is ideal never to drive a PSU to 100% load as this can decrease efficiency.
CASE: Lian Li PC-X2000 Black Aluminum Full TowerAfter purchasing my first Lian Li case, I became acutely aware of Lian Li's tremendous build quality. This case is no exception. Absolutely beautiful to look at and beautifully designed. It has great thermal design, with three separate areas to keep the heat from the HDDs and away from the CPU and GPUs, etc. It has enough room to fit our monster video cards and lots of HDDs.
MONITOR: Dell 3008WFPThis monitor is still the best monitor for gaming. It has the highest resolution panel available on the market today. It comes with a very generous warranty and has native support for Display Port which matches it well with the video cards chosen for this build.
KEYBOARD/MOUSE: Razer Lycosa Mirror Gaming KeyboardThis keyboard oozes sex appeal (as much as a keyboard can). We are aiming for a box that is great at three tasks, one of which is gaming. This keyboard is designed with gaming in mind, however it is still extremely usable for all of our other tasks. Just because it is a gaming keyboard doesn't mean it can't do the other stuff extremely well too!
MOUSE: Razer Mamba Wireless Laser Gaming MouseA wireless mouse is a must for an extreme computer setup these days, and this example from Razer does not disappoint. It has a very high resolution, is well weighted and very comfortable. It is designed with gaming in mind, but, like the keyboard, it certainly is no one-trick pony. It excels at any task you may want to use it for.
OPERATING SYSTEM: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64bitWindows is a must for gaming. Windows 7 is the latest and greatest, therefore was the obvious choice. It supports Direct X11, has a built-in media centre which we would use for the "media centre tasks" noted in the brief. I have chosen the 64-bit version for a few reasons. It is faster than the 32-bit version, we have a 64-bit CPU, and we are running more RAM than a 32-bit OS can handle.
TV TUNER: Hauppauge HVR-2200 Hybrid Dual Tuner CardThis TV tuner was chosen to complete the media centre capabilities of this setup. It fits nicely into the 1x PCI-e slot on the chosen motherboard. It has dual 'hybrid' tuners, meaning it can record one analogue and one digital signal, or two analogue or two digital. Also, you can use it to watch one digital or analogue station, whilst at the same time recording a different analogue or digital station. Hauppauge is definitely a well respected name in the field of TV tuner cards and has never failed to impress me with its products.
SPEAKERS/HEADPHONES: Audio Technica ATH-A900I have chosen to put some high-end headphones with this system to be used for gaming. When it comes to media centre tasks, we will be outputting out sound from the video card's HDMI output directly to our AV receiver which is hooked into our home theatre setup. These headphones are of an extremely high quality, and can definitely be used when performing video authoring. For gaming they provide an immersive experience, and also allow us to game late at night when other members of the household may be sleeping.
MEDIA CENTRE REMOTE: Hauppauge MCE Remote Control Kit USBOur setup wouldn't be complete unless we had a remote to control all of our media centre tasks! This remote is a good accompaniment for the TV tuner card and works perfectly in windows 7.
