Personal Rig Update 2015 Part 1 - New Parts and HUGE Plans
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,421 words · ~12 min read
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It is time, my friends, for personal rig update 2015, where I build a droolw
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worthy rig, touching its RAM and
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savoring its drives while you guys
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watch and sometimes press the like button, depending on whether you're into
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the whole multi-art video, of which this is definitely one, and like whoring
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thing, which is definitely what I'm doing right now.
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Corsair delivers real mech or Oh, here I have one. Hi. Real neck or nothing with
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their new Strafe mechanical keyboard featuring genuine Germanade Cherry MX
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key switches. Click on my chin to learn
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more. I'm going to move my chin now just for you for a
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loop. So, let's start with the story so far. This is the final version of
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personal rig update 2012, which as some of you know took until 2014 to
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finish. Oh, that took a long time. So, the highlight points here are 4960X 6
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core processor, GTX Titan. We've got uh
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oh, an LSI 9268i RAID card with eight Corsair 120
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gig force SSDs running in RAID zero.
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They're actually refurbished drives, although they've held up just fine until
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now. So, I guess what we need to do aside from just listing components is do
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a couple pre-update benchmarks to find out where we're sitting at and where we
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need to end up. So, Cinebench, we're looking at
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1,68 points. And then Crystal Disc Mark,
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just a very rudimentary um disc benchmark. Whoa, we're looking
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at about 800 megabytes per second reads, 321 megabytes per second sequential
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writes. So, as you can see, that RAID array has degraded a lot in the last few
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years since I've been using it because on most RAID controllers, trim
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functionality is not supported in RAID.
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So, the timing is right for our personal
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rig update. Let's have a look at the new components that are going to be taking
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the place of what's already in here. All right, so let's do this whole video
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style. I'm actually not upgrading the graphics card. this time around. And the
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reason for that is quite frankly I don't game that much these days and when I do
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I'm usually gaming at 720p streaming to my Shield Portable. So is a Titan enough
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for that? Yeah, I think probably. So first up, the new platform. This is the
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Rampage 5 Extreme that some of you will recognize from my blue painted
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motherboard guide. It used to be red, now it's blue and it is going in the
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personal rig. Also replacing the 4960X
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is a 5960X. So I'm adding another two CPU cores. And then I'm sticking with 32
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gigs of RAM, but this time a more subdued 32 gigs of RAM. No flashing
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lights or anything. This is just a kit of Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400 MHz
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DDR4. So that's what we got for that. Next up, and this is kind of a funny
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funny story. I have another Rampage 5 Extreme.
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Not because that one is broken or anything, but as you guys may or may not
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have noticed, I have taken this heat
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sink and ASUS ROG logo off and I have
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actually misplaced it. So, I will be
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Frankensteining one off of another board that Luke used for a build guide. And
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then I have a very cool finishing touch
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because as some of you noticed when I painted the board, the one thing left on
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it that was still red was that freaking glowing logo. So I had a buddy of mine,
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Rich Suros, better known amongst the modding community folks as Darth Vivas,
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whip these up for me on his laser
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cutting machine, which we first witnessed at Mod 24. So check this out.
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He's actually sent me a variety of different ones to use, and I will be
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replacing the stock ROG logo with either
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a black one or a blue one depending on
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uh how they look. I'm going to try those babies out. Check that out. Doesn't that
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look sick? So, a huge shout out to Darth
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Beas for sending these little custom pieces over to me. These look absolutely
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fantastic. And for our next trick, yes, this is the
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piece that I'm really excited about. This is an Intel 750 series 1.2 TBTE PCI
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Express NVMe SSD. It has been a long
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time since I paid less than a dollar per gig for those refurb drives. Like way
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back in 2012 or something like that, I want to say it's been a long time since
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any SSD has actually tickled my fancy
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and made me want to upgrade to it. Well, this is finally it. It's an capacity
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upgrade. It's a speed upgrade. And it's a space-saving upgrade. I no longer have
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to have a whack of SSDs bolted to the back of my motherboard tray and a PCI
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Express card. This is just a simple PCIe
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uh Gen 3 4X card that is going to do everything that my previous bulky setup
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did and better with trim support, so the
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performance won't degrade over time. Really excited about this one. So, I
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guess that's pretty much it. Let's get
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started. Mostly unobstructed access.
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Now, some of you might wonder why I went with a Rampage board instead of a WS
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board like I did last time around. I'm on the record as being kind of a fan of
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the whole nononsense WS board concept.
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The reason is that ASUS opted, for
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whatever reason, to put a PS2
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port on the ROG board this time around
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and not on the WS board. And when you're troubleshooting something, let me tell
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you, a PS2 port can be an absolute
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lifesaver. That and the ROG board comes
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with a 3x3 AC wireless solution that's actually
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like pretty freaking fast. So there you
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go. Went with this board. Oh yeah. Wait, what? Those LEDs
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are red.
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I assumed they were white and that it was just a red layer in between. I don't
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think you can paint LEDs,
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Brandon. So, I actually have to plug into the top SATA port here because I
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scratched the uh the finish of the paint on the inside of the connector there. I
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am going to have to touch that up a little bit. But, uh other than that, there shouldn't be any other red bits
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visible with all the components installed. And speaking of all the
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components installed, there's actually not that much left to do here, is there?
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Let's go get the new
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SSD. Yeah,
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boy. Just like that. So, very much performance. I I
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wish Intel would clue in and use black PCBs, but if they're not going to do
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that, then I guess a heat spreader on the back is the next best thing. So,
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there it is, friends. 1.2 TBTE 750
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series. Look at all those flash chips.
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Both sides covered in flash chips. I
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think the ideal spot for it would actually be here. Put the sound card
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back in its prior location. Easy.
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Now, so that's in. I need new thermal compound. Where's the back
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plate? Come on, post. Come on,
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post. Time to consult the manual.
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What? Thanks, manual. Oh, you have got
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to be kidding me. Okay. Okay. Well, it says no signal detected, so it may be
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broken anyway. But I did not have the monitor plugged in. As much as I want to
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go back to the drawing board and paint another motherboard, not in the plan. I
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need this one to work. Then why'd you paint it, Lionus? Well, I don't have to
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answer your questions. Nobody's fooled, Lionus. You were asking yourself the
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question in a different voice. Shut up, you. Oh, we got stuck there this time.
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That's okay. We're just going to take it slow then. One at a time. Come on,
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computer work with me. You got to at least give me consistent results here.
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Well, maybe if you hadn't painted me, Lionus. Maybe if you just shut up.
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No. Okay. Well, it's after 6. I'll just
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have to keep working on this. So, significant progress. I
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figured it out. This chip has a weak
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sauce memory controller. There's actually nothing wrong with the CPU. But
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what I didn't realize was that this motherboard, having been used as a test
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bench before, was configured with XMPP
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enabled. So that chip's weak memory controller didn't like it at all. So as
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soon as I put another 5960X in there, boom, all four DIMs, no problem. XMPP
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working, all that good stuff. So I ran
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and found myself a Windows 10 RTM ISO.
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Installed that puppy. It looks like they have brought back the simple do this
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later instead of getting product keys right away. And we are launching Windows
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10. Let's get some benchmarks. Hey, we're started. I
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actually haven't run Windows 10 yet at all. So, this is my first kick at the
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proverbial can. You know what? The last
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time I went for gold, like on RTM day,
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was Windows Vista, and that worked out great. So, uh I'm just going to go for
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it. Like, I'm I'm switching out, right? There isn't even room for more logos on
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the front. Look at all the logos. Lightcribe. Remember that? Did anyone
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ever once burn a light scribe disc? Yeah, I was to ask. Have you Have you
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ever done it? Does it work?
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Presumably. They could have. It could do absolutely nothing and we'd have never
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known. The consumer has been played. So,
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I'm fairly sure when batteries bulge that's considered a bad thing. Danger of
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explosion. Bang. Okay. Well, whatever. Let's do our Let's do our Crystal Disc
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benchmark in the meantime. So,
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bam. Let's find out just how fast this
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drive is, whose speed is documented all over the internet already. Anyway, I
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don't know why the control panel won't launch, though. I like I just hate that
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when a brand new fresh install when you like bork it up in the middle of like
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installing drivers cuz you never know. Should I go back and do a fresh format?
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Will this cause problems later or is it probably fine? Like, is it never going
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to rear its ugly head down the road? No way of knowing. All right, looking good.
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So, we do have an improvement in CPU performance. We did see this coming.
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It's scoring 1389, but Crystal Disc
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Mark, the SSD, that is where the real
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performance improvement is coming in.
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read speeds in the neighborhood of in excess of 1 Gigabyte per second for both
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sequential scenarios, both read and write. And even 4K reads and rights are
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looking pretty strong, although that read number does look a little bit on the low side. With that said, there's
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still got to be some room for driver optimization on uh Windows 10 here,
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particularly on the NVIDIA side where we can't get the control panel open right
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now.
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But the real test for me, the thing that drives me absolutely crazy about this
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machine is the boot times. So, let's go
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ahead and shut her down and find out how long she takes to start up with the new
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SSD array or system. SSD. There's just
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one SSD now. It's not an array. The number to beat is 2 minutes. Here we go.
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Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Bam.
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About 45 seconds. So, thanks to not having to wait for this card to
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initialize, I have reduced my boot time to less than half of what it used to be.
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But that is actually not the end of this
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project. I said this was going to be a multi-part video and then I proceeded to
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do a quick motherboard swap and it appears to be basically done. Appears at
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first glance to the inexperienced
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viewer. Some of you may have noticed
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that this fan is actually broken. So
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clearly I have not performed the final
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upgrade. No, I will
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be taking it to the next level. Other
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experienced viewers may have noticed this in the new hardware pile that I
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didn't mention at all before. Yes, I will be working with Protoase to
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manufacture a custom new rack mount
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computer case to replace my venerable TJ7. I will be
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moving both mine and my wife's computers
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to rack mounted cases in a separate room
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in order to achieve the ultimate in PC silence. I'll be running a single
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Thunderbolt cable to each of those machines to a Thunderbolt splitter dock
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thing in order to have all of my peripherals running at the same time,
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and that will be documented over the next few parts of Personal Rig upgrade
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2015. But for now, I at least get to enjoy the speed of the new hardware
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that's going into the machine. I may also throw a graphics card upgrade into
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the mix at a later date as well. So, in
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the meantime, guys, dislike this video if you thought it sucked. You guys all
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know where that button is. I know you do. But if you like the video, go ahead
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and like it. Get subscribed to the channel and also consider supporting us
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by buying a cool t-shirt like the ones that I usually wear using our affiliate
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code to shop on Amazon. We even have a video guide for how to do that now. or
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even giving us direct monthly contributions through our community forum. All that stuff helps us out a
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lot. If you're done doing all that stuff and you're looking for something else to
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watch, Luke actually just finished up a great video on the Intel Compute Stick.
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This is kind of the opposite end of the spectrum, but whatever. If you're wondering about what a little tiny
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beanie computer can do, then go ahead and check that out. I'll see you guys
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later. Line us away.