7 Gamers, 1 CPU - Ultimate Virtualized Gaming Build Log
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,610 words · ~13 min read
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So normally I stand amidst the hardware to introduce the topic of the video, but as you can tell today
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There's legitimately no room for me because this is by far
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The highest end machine that I have ever built and the hardware barely even fits on the table
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But what is this build for? Linus, you've been teasing this thing on social media for weeks
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Well inspired by our two gamers one CPU build back in whenever the heck we did that
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This is taking it to the next level Michael Bay sequel style. We are doing seven
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Gamers running off of one
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Tower, but before we begin I should tell you something and that is that I legitimately don't know if this is gonna work at this
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Time now, I mean we've done some pre-testing
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We've got four VMs working with you know the performance you'd expect from an AMD Radeon R9 nano and a quad-core gaming
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Processor, but we have no way of testing seven until we install all
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The custom water cooling and get the whole thing assembled so without further ado a huge
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Thanks to Kingston for sponsoring this video providing
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256 gigs of their kick-ass DDR4 ECC memory providing eight one terabyte SSDs
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So all those gaming VMs have nice high speed storage and for demoing this machine at their booth at CES 2016
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So if you're there at the show definitely go check it out. You can see it in person
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Let's get started
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So it's
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24 hours later, and if I look like I haven't slept much. It's probably because I didn't
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But it's totally worth it. It's
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Working so I'm gonna take you guys through the journey now that I know that it's successful of how we created
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seven gamers one CPU
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it starts I guess actually with the CPU or I should say CPUs because there isn't a
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CPU on the market that could deliver a full-on high-end gaming experience to seven gamers
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All at the same time so our system is equipped with two
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Intel Xeon E5 2697 V3 processors
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So these are fourteen core processors that are clocked at up to
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3.6 gigahertz when they're turboing as high as they can and they actually have hyperthreading as well for a total of
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56 threads meaning that each of our VMs has four cores and four hyperthreads
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just like you would if you were running on something like a core i5
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or a core i7 normal desktop processor for our motherboard obviously we needed something that
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could hold both of these cpus and seven graphics cards so the ASUS z10ped8ws is one of the only
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standard form factor boards that would fit in like a gaming case that is capable of carrying
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seven gpus two sockets for some cpus and that can hold all of the RAM that we need and it's got some
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other key features as well so it has a vga output for our unraid console it's got enough SATA ports
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for us to throw in as many ssds and hard drives as we pretty much want it can handle a total of 12
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out of the box and it's got an m.2 slot on it which could be useful in the future as like a
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cache for the array on to RAM
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some custom RAM development for relates to the etc RAM conversion because it has the encoding
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unit and it's got yet another feature called RAM oh yeah etc RAM actually kingston hooked us
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the crap up for this machine and sent us because we could only have eight sticks of memory
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in this board they hooked us up with 32 gig sticks of ddr4 ecc RAM what that means is each
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of our gamers can have 32 gigs of RAM for a zero compromises gaming experience
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First and foremost, actually,
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is that pretty much nothing else on the market
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was gonna work for us,
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so we needed something that supported
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our extended ATX motherboard,
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and this one has an optional tray available.
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And in addition to that,
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because there's lots of server cases out there
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that would support this motherboard,
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we needed support for water cooling.
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So it's got lots of room for radiators,
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pumps, reservoirs, all of that good stuff.
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Not to mention it's got room
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for all the hard drives we need,
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and it's got a full aluminum construction,
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so it's actually fairly lightweight
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considering all the hardware we have in there.
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And personally, I think it looks pretty badass
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with the selection of windowed and mesh panels
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that we chose for our particular rig.
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Not only that, the Case Labs also hooked us up
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on a sweet black and orange powder coat paint job
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that I think looks fan-freaking-tastic.
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For our power supply, again,
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we didn't have a ton of choices
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because doing quick napkin math,
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I figured this rig was going to pull
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anywhere from 1,500 watts or more from the wall
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when it was under max load.
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So EVGA hooked us up with their T2 1,600-watt power supply.
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Yes, my friends, it is 80-plus titanium
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and capable of a continuous load of 1,600 watts.
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And then, to make it look even more badass,
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Cable Mod hooked us up with a black and orange cable set
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to just kind of trick this baby out,
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and even some custom cable,
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so we could run single eight-pin connectors
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to each of our video cards,
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making the whole thing come together just, mm.
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Man, that's beautiful.
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And I'll tell you how close I was
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to that 1,500-watt number a little bit later on in the video.
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Now, I've water-cooled a lot of systems before in the past.
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I have never done one with this many blocks before.
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Fortunately, as far as the CPU went,
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it was really straightforward.
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I really like EK's mounting mechanism here.
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So we're using their Supremacy EVOs with nickel tops
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to match some of the other nickel accents in our system.
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And the GPU block's actually fairly straightforward as well.
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Too straightforward.
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It's kind of therapeutic for me,
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water-cooling systems these days,
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because it's like, you know, that's my old hobby.
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Like, it's relaxing for me.
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But after seven GPU blocks in a row,
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I was definitely ready for a new challenge.
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And fortunately, that's exactly what was waiting for me.
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EK Custom.
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EK Custom designed and manufactured
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this seven-block connector slash splitter thing
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that went on top of our GPUs,
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effectively transforming them into a block
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of seven graphics cards that could be installed
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in one fell swoop into all seven of the PCIe slots
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on the motherboard.
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This was the only way that we were gonna be able to fit
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not just a bunch of graphics cards into a system,
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but a bunch of high-end gaming cards into a system.
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Which leads us, I guess, to the radiators,
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because you gotta cool a bunch of high-end gaming cards
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in one system.
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So we went with two of their high-end, super-thick
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XE series triple 120 millimeter radiators.
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And then we're using on my LTT edition Noctua fans
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to cool them.
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And then the original plan was to use one D5 pump
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connected to one of their reservoirs
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and mount that in the front.
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That didn't end up working.
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I actually had a number of challenges
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and things were overheating
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and I was trying to turn the system on
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and I ended up actually having to add another pump
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to the system in order to get this baby working.
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Cause we're talking nine blocks, right?
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Two CPU blocks, seven GPU blocks to make this thing happen.
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So let's talk about those GPUs.
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That was another careful decision for this system.
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I originally planned to use,
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I originally planned to use,
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I originally planned to use,
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I originally planned to use something else entirely,
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realized it wasn't gonna work
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because even though I could get single slot blocks on them,
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I couldn't adjust the back plates
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and they had display interfaces in two of the slots.
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So I was gonna go with the Theory X
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and then I realized, oh no,
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it's gonna draw too much power.
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There isn't a power supply on earth
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that's gonna be able to handle seven of these.
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So the AMD R9 Nano saved my bacon.
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My bacon, the efficient gaming card
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that thermal throttles unfortunately
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with its stock cooler in a normal size case.
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Yeah, we took care of that.
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All GPUs, all the time, no throttling, high-end gaming card,
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super efficient and something I didn't even foresee.
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Because the card is short,
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I'm actually able to get at the PCIe locks
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so that I can remove the cards from the system
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in the event that I need to do that.
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Any other card and I probably wouldn't be able to pull,
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the cards out.
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So at the end of the build,
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I actually realized Kingston's our sponsor for this.
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And I didn't have mounting adapters for my SSDs.
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So I went for the double-sided tape,
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bippity boppity boop.
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I made a stack of SSDs in the bottom
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that I actually think ended up looking pretty bad-ass,
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booted it up.
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It kind of cycled a few times.
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I experienced a moment of unparalleled despair.
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When I thought that, okay, we went from,
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cause we originally tested it with four GPUs.
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We went from four GPUs kind of working to,
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oh no, seven doesn't post.
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And then it turned on.
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We needed a few BIOS tweaks to make this happen.
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Over 4G decoding,
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setting the default video output to the onboard video,
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making sure our boot device was the USB drive for Unraid.
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And then it was off to the races.
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In terms of software, truthfully,
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we didn't have to do a whole lot differently
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from two gamers, one CPU on the software side of things.
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We are still using Unraid to manage our pooled storage.
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So in this case,
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it's eight of Kingston's shiny new one terabyte
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KC 400 series drives,
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running in a RAID 10 for hyper reliability
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and enough speed to run seven freaking computers off of them
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at the same time.
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And then we had to do like this funny,
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you know, guess and check thing
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for assigning keyboards and mice to VMs,
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because a lot of USB device manufacturers
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don't correctly label them.
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So we just had to kind of unplug and plug things in
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and run around and move them around.
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So we got this whole thing working and then, well, okay.
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There were a bunch of other problems,
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but I'm not gonna bore all of you guys with that.
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But I will tell you about one cool trick that we used
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to save some space on our SSDs
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and make room for more games and applications
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for each of our gamers.
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And that's a snapshotting like feature of ButterF.
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That allowed us to create one of our virtual hard disks
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and then clone it kind of like a shortcut in Windows
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for all of the other six.
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So none of those files get replicated.
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And what's cool about that is even if you delete,
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you know, this file or that one,
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the file system is smart enough to know
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not to actually eliminate the data
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so that everyone can access it.
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Very, very cool.
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So if one person uninstalls a program,
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it doesn't uninstall it for everybody.
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Which leads us finally,
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to testing.
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It works.
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Thank goodness it works.
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Not everything is possible for me to capture, unfortunately.
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Some of our GPUs are not reading
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their temperatures correctly.
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There are some quirks,
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but I can tell you guys this.
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Our idle power consumption is 250 watts.
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Yes, our idle power consumption is as much
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as a mid-range gaming machine under load.
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And our load power consumption from the wall,
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is 1,500 watts when running seven instances
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of Unigine Heaven,
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which you guys can see going on behind me.
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And I have another cool fact for you as well.
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We actually got 3DMark Fire Strike scores
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that were 800 points higher per VM
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than we did running the cards air-cooled.
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Yes, my friends, that is the power
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of custom liquid cooling.
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So I think that pretty much, you know,
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pretty much wraps it up.
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Other than to do a quick,
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I'm actually surprising my camera operator with this,
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but I'm gonna do a quick proof.
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Proof that it is all real, my friends.
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All right, so we sat through the incredibly boring
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intro cinematic for Crysis 3, and this is it.
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This is the real deal gaming experience
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of the 7Gamers One CPU machine.
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And you might ask yourselves,
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well, Linus, why did you go to all the effort?
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To put all these 34 inch Predator X34 monitors on here?
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Because what I wanted to demo
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was that you can't just have a gaming experience
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seven times on this machine.
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You can have the gaming experience
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seven times on this machine, my friends.
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We're talking 3440 by 1440 ultra wide IPS.
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And yes, that frame rate counter
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in the top right is accurate.
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This game is running at anywhere from about 60
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to upwards of 100 frames per second.
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And all my instances, if you want to just look up,
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all my instances of Unigine Heaven
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are still running in the background.
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Not a hitch, except for that I just ended up
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in the same room that I started in.
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It doesn't make you any better at games, unfortunately.
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So thank you for watching 7Gamers One CPU,
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a demonstration of what the technology is capable of,
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however impractical something like this might be.
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I mean, I don't expect you to be able to do that.
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I mean, I don't expect you to be able to do that.
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I mean, I don't expect you to be able to do that.
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I don't expect any of you to run out
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and build a system that costs literally
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as much as a decent brand new car for something like this.
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But if nothing else,
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it is proof that we have the technology.
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Thanks again for watching.
14:19
If you just liked this video, hit the dislike button.
14:22
But if you liked it, hit the like button, get subscribed,
14:26
share this video with all your freaking friends.
14:27
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14:29
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14:31
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14:33
instructions for which are up there or maybe up there.
14:36
I don't know where they're gonna put it.
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Even supporting us directly through the form
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or buying a cool shirt.
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Oh, I'm wearing some origin shirt today.
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Well, whatever.
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Not gonna worry too much about that.
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Thanks again for watching.
14:45
Don't forget to subscribe.
14:46
Don't forget to check out all our other cool videos.
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If you haven't seen 2Gamers One CPU,
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make sure you check that out
14:51
because that is where the inspiration for this all came from.