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Schwarzgerät II
Pictures of build, 2020-03-30
My 2020 upgrade to Schwarzgerät, built around the TRX40 platform. This will be an upgrade of cooling, motherboard, CPU, and RAM; I'll continue making use of my current case (CaseLabs Magnum T10), SSDs/disks (currently 4TB NVMe SSD, 144TB SATA3 ferromagnetic), GPU (EVGA RTX 2070) and PSU (EVGA SuperNOVA 850 Titanium), plus assorted Noctua fans and IcyDock HDA bays. This will be my first liquid-cooled machine, and I am likely to go for a custom loop. I would have just used a Noctua HSF, but their only product designed for the sTRX4 isn't available in chromax.black. I'd passionately yearned for Noctua chromax.black for months, and its lack of availability for this build (plus the 3970X's mastodonic 280W draw) made me say "fuck it". I'm going custom loop due to the paucity of 360mm AIOs for sTRX4.
New materials
| Role | Component | Reasoning | Cost/Vendor |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD 3970X | One of the finest packages of our era, at a fantastic price point. Thrashes the 3990X's 2.7GHz base clock with a 3.7. I furthermore believe the 64-core 3990X will be memory starved for most task sets large enough to engage all its cores, and thus not worth paying double. The 3990X is still an awesome chip, don't get me wrong, but it's strictly for suckers given the 3970X's existence---and you're talking to a man who was previously running the much-maligned Broadwell-E 6950X. | $1950 Amazon |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte TRX40 Aorus Master | Unlike most of the TRX40 boards, it has a fifth 1x PCIe slot, and I always find myself with the occasional piece of shit I need plug in there (usually some wireless card). 1 slot's holding a GPU, 1 slot's holding a SAS card, and figure the other 2 are occupied with 10GigE and/or Fibre Channel and/or a massive SDR and/or an NVMe expander and/or accelerator. Those $850 motherboards couldn't spare a buck for a fifth PCIe slot, even at Gen3? Lame. I have 10GigE cards falling out my asshole, so I don't need them onboard, or at least don't need to pay a $350 premium for them (though that does free up a PCIe slot, depending on what I'm doing). The Aorus Master does, however, give you 2 ETH PHYs (1 Aquantia 5GigE, 1 Intel GigE), and I can always use more of those. It's got the big beefy 16+3 Infineon VRM solution of its pricier brethren and the same Intel AX200 2x2 802.11ax wireless. It doesn't ship with a Thunderbolt card or an NVMe expander like pricier ones, but I already have those, and have yet to work with a Thunderbolt device anyway. USB-C 3.2 Gen2, good good [nods approvingly].
The only thing that worries me is that the audio solution is said not to work on Linux. I'll be using a USB DAC in any case, but if they botched Linux support there, where else might it be broken? |
$500 Amazon |
| CPU block | EKWB EK-Velocity sTR4 Nickel+Acetal | The "Full Nickel" sounds alluring, but so far as I'm aware, full nickel doesn't improve thermal characteristics (the heat-conducting area is of course metal), so the extra $30 is just for aesthetics. I'd rather the top be black in any case. Acetal is reportedly less brittle than plexi, and is the correct color. I might get the D-RGB variant, as it doesn't add much cost ($10), and that might be fun to play with. The EK-Velocity line seems the canonical choice for sTRX4/TR4 waterblocks. | $123 Amazon |
| Radiator | Hardware Labs Black Ice Nemesis GTR 360 | Without employing add-on components I don't have (and are no longer generally available), I can only put in 2x360s (with the CaseLabs pedestal, I could rock dual 560s, alas). I doubt that even 2x360 will be necessary for a quiet, cool build, and intend to start off with a single 360mm. Height is 54.7mm on the Nemesis, and an ultrathicc 60mm for the EK-CoolStream XE 360. | $129 Amazon |
| Reservoir/pump | EKWB Quantum FLT 240 D5 PWM | It was big and entirely right angles. D5 pump was definitely preferred over DDC. | $110 Amazon |
| Tubing/attachments | EK-Tube ZMT Matte Black tubing and EK-ACF compression fittings | Black! 3/4" outer diameter, 1/2" inner diameter. | $10/m EKwb |
Existing materials
| Role | Component | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| RAM | Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4 2400 | Holy shit, what the fuck is going on with RAM prices? For now, I'm reusing the 64GB (4x16GB) I've had in this machine since 2016. |
| GPU | EVGA RTX Super 2070 FTW3 | Beefy, overclocked RTX 2070 Super brings plenty of Turing. I already had this in another machine, and swapped it out for my existing ASUS GTX 1080. |
| PSU | EVGA SuperNOVA T2 850W Titanium | It hangs |
| Fans | 2x Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 120mm PWM 3x Noctua NF-S12A 120mm PWM Noctua NF-P12 120mm PWM 2x EK-Vardar EVO 120ER Black BB |
NF-P12 was salvaged from NH-D14 cooler stack. NF-S12As are on hard drive cages. NF-F12s are on front and back of case. EK-Vardars and NF-P12 are on radiator in push configuration. Silverstone PWN fan hub and no-name Chinese 1-to-5 PWM breakout. |
| Case | Caselabs Magnum T10 with 78mm ventilated top. 2x MAC-101 drive cages. 2x MAC-332 SSD mounts. MAC-113 fan mount. MAC-151 3.5" device mount. | A legendary artifact. I fully intend to use this case for another decade. |
| Expanders | StarTech HSB4SATSASBA 4-bay 3U HDD cage Icy Dock MB324SP-B 4-bay 1U SSD cage |
StarTech requires 2x SATA power, Icy Dock 1x. |
| SAS expansion | LSI SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 | 2x SAS ports expanding to 4x SATA III each |
| 3.5" ferromagnetic | 9x 12TB Seagate Exos | In a 9-disk ZRAID2 (7x12TB usable) |
| 2.5" solid state | 4x 1TB Samsung 970 EVO SATA III | RAID10 (2x1TB usable) for torrenting |
| M.2 solid state | 2x 1TB Western Digital SN720 NVMe | ZFS mirror for home/OS (2 used, 1 unused M.2 on motherboard) |
| NVMe expansion | ASUS Hyper M.2x16 | Not currently used, but can hold another 4x M.2s |
External components
- IBM Model-M Trackpoint II M-13 black buckling spring keyboard
- 3D Connexion CAD mouse
- Dell UltraSharp U3417W 34" USB-C monitor
- Topping DX7s USB DAC
- replaced Emotiva Stealth DC-1 USB DAC
- moRFeus USB RF mixer/signal generator, mounted to case
- Nuand bladeRF 2.0 x40 USB 3.0 SDR
Schwarzgerät 2.5
Like the Hubble or LHC, we've gotta give it more powah. The 2022 upgrade does just that despite scrotumtightening supply chain madness.
- ADD a Black Ice Nemesis 360GTS® Ultra Stealth U-Flow Low Profile Radiator
- REPLACE the 64GB DDR-2400 with 128GB (4x32GB) Kingston Fury DDR-3000
- ADD a FreezeMod LED Flowmeter
- ADD 3x18TB Seagate Exos 18s
- REMOVE all 2.5" spinning disks
- ADD 2x2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD
- REMOVE 5.25" Bluray RW
- ADD 16GB Intel Optane SSD
- ADD Silverstone fan controller
- ADD 3x Noctua iPPC fans
- ADD DEMCiflex magnetic dust filters
The new radiator will be installed on the roof of the CPU side of the case, and becomes the first cooling element on the return path. It will feed the existing radiator. Water tubing will all be moved to the top of the case, eliminating the ungainly bottom loop currently present. PrimoChill ¾" antikink coils will be added to the water tubing. The card reader will be moved to below the front fan, for less obtrusive USB cabling. Four hard drives from the PSU side will be moved to onboard SATA ports. The four (currently unused) 2.5" spinning disk slots will take over the PCIe connects from these drives.
