Friday, February 27, 2015

...new build...

a bit of history,

my last machine was an AMD 1055T based. Six cores, running at 2.8GHz. It was pretty amazing. I built it in 2011 so it lasted a while. Even for running Photoshop, it was great. With 8GB of RAM I was very happy with it.

But alas, it was starting to slow down as I was getting more involved with premiere. For simple edits it was fine, especially since it was being supported by an ASUS GTX460.

After doing a bit of research, here is what I bought to start building the system.

For a processor we have a Intel Core i7 5820K on a Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard.
For RAM I got G SKILLS 16GB 2666GHz.
Cool Master Hyper 212 EVO for a cooler and Samsung 850 EVO 256GB

I wasn't thinking of overclocking thus the choice in the cooler and I had a Samsung 830 before for a few years and no complaints.

I have to say, as much as I was reluctant to install Windows 8.1 it turned out to be the easiest thing to do. And am I glad I did it. I have been using Windows 7 since it came out, and windows 8.1 is a pretty easy transition. If anyone is on the fence about switching... it is pretty good. And very stable so far, especially when you see what I have done.

Everything is so smooth now a days. The initial install was a breeze. I also installed the utilities package that came with the motherboard.

Here is where things get complicated. By default the CPU runs to 3.2GHz. and turbo is turned off in the BIOS. The DRAM by default runs at 2133MHz. To have it run at 2666MHz you have to turn the XMP profile on.

Once you do, everything is all set. And the system is blazingly fast and stable rendering for 8 mins at a 95% CPU in Premiere. It didn't crash the few times I ran the render. You do hear the fans fire up! and here is why.

The XMP profile put the CPU strap to 125. and the CPU core voltage to 1.28. Among other things, the CPU runs at a blazing 4.5GHz at this point. My CPU temps were around high 60s. and the TDP was around 150~160W. The CPU is rated for 140W.

I decided to lower the CPU voltage to 1.15 and changed the Multiplier to 32. Lowered the TDP to around 130~140W. And still stable. It did crash Adobe Media encoder so I decided to change some things.

After a few trials this is what I am running right now.

XMP off
Core Multiplier X41
CPU strap at 100
Turbo off.

everything else is default.

the mother board is pretty good about setting the CORE voltage dynamically. This keeps the TDP low. while the CPU is at a 90-95% rendering on premiere, the TDP is around 130W and I get a core temperature around 50 to 55 C.

Mind you, its running at 4.1GHz on all 6 cores. Not bad. Its pretty Stable.

Also, I upgraded to a ASUS GTX 780 from the GTX 460. And the 780 is pretty good in premiere. I decided to install the GTX 460 with the 780 for a multi-monitor setup, and its running it pretty good. I think windows 8.1 has a lot to do with this. It hasn't crashed yet. It even runs under premiere using all the CUDA cores, but it does slow down the 780. If I had the cash... I would love to SLI and try some Premiere CS!!! Remember, when I was trying it, it was two different GPUs NOT in SLI and Premiere is using BOTH the cards.

I would like to see someone test out dual GPUs with the 40 Lane Intel i7 5930K. The setup I have, the CPU is bottle necked by the 28 lanes for the 5820K.


If you have any questions, I would try to help, but I am no expert at this. I am sharing this just so if anyone is looking/wondering about this kind of setup.... here it is!


Few videos on Youtube that surely helped me a lot:

Linus on overclocking in depth
and here is JJ from ASUS talking about the AI software that has been amazingly helpful with controlling the fans in my air cooled system!