Comments requested on my Haswell-based multi-purpose rig.

[Toobad]

Thanks for stopping by peeps. About 5 years ago I popped out for some milk and I guess "life happened". Anyway I'm back now and it is great to see so many of the major contributors of yesteryear still active on the board. I've tried to do some backround reading on modern components but I hope you "hands on" guys will steer me right.

I want to put together a Haswell-based multi-purpose rig to replace my old Q6600-powered box. Cost is not an issue but I still look for the best bang4buck. I already have a 30" Dell 2560 x 1600 monitor. This will NOT be a gaming rig, it can best be described as a Lightroom-crunching, NAS-tastic, media server-esque, whisper-quiet PC and this is how I see it panning out parts wise.

Processor - Intel i7 4770K
Adobe Lightroom is cataloguing and picture processing software used by photographers and loves the fastest of processors. I would like it to be able to overclock on demand according to load.

Mobo - Asus Z87-Pro
This is the cheapest overclocking board where Wi-Fi Go! makes an appearance. I want my Asus Transformer tablet to be able to wake up the PC for media streaming duties without having to get off the sofa. The improved control of Fan Expert 2 will hopefully ensure low noise . Here's a high-res pic of the mobo http://cdn3.wccftech.com/wp-content/...05/Z87-Pro.jpg

Case - Fractal Design Define R4
Chosen to keep things quiet, it also has the advantage of being about an inch wider than most mid-towers thereby allowing more CPU cooler options and tidy cabling. Will the fans fitted as standard be enough or is there merit in additional fans for just an auto-overclock?

CPU Cooler - Arctic Cooling Freezer i30 CO
Fan bearing designed for Continuous Operation

RAM - Corsair Vengeance 2 x 8Gb1600MHz
I assume it is not worth going better than 10-10-10-27 latency. Does XMP support allow the mobo to auto-overclock the memory? I'll leave 2 spare slots for a further 16Gb but I doubt I'd ever go there.

PSU - be quiet! 480W Gold Modular
Assuming Haswell compliant regarding C6 & C7 power states as it is a zero load design. Will only ever need the onboard HD4600 IGP and I believe running big PSUs at light loading is less efficient anyway. Modular hookup will minimise cabling although I believe the R4 case is good at hiding cables so perhaps a hybrid will save a few pennies.

OS - Windows 8 64-bit OEM
This will take care of the NAS requirement by automatically setting up 2 HDDs in a mirrored configuration using its Storage Spaces facility.

SSD - 250Gb for OS and programs, 120Gb for Lightroom catalogue & cache.
Open to suggestions regarding NAND type and controllers but liking the Plextor M5 Pro Extreme.

HDD - Western Digital Red 2 x 2Tb
I like the 3-year warranty for 24/7 operation.

Optical Drive - Pioneer BRD-207EBK Quad Layer Blu-ray Writer

Card Reader- Icy Box IB-865 USB 3.0 3.5" bay

Any finessing suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm in no hurry to build this system. With the Haswell NDAs coming off this weekend, I'll let the reviews modify the final spec and jump in as soon as the early adopter price premium has been removed.

[Pob255]

One thing to point out, you don't want to cache on an SSD as that adds a lot of read/write cycles.
The samsung 840 pro is rated as one of the best current ssd's

[kmac]

Looks like an awesome build!!

[Bonebreaker777]

RAM - Corsair Vengeance 2 x 8Gb1600MHz
I assume it is not worth going better than 10-10-10-27 latency. Does XMP support allow the mobo to auto-overclock the memory? I'll leave 2 spare slots for a further 16Gb but I doubt I'd ever go there.

Card Reader- Icy Box IB-865 USB 3.0 3.5" bay

Personally I would choose a AIO water cooler or a passive cooler, but that is a very personal choice.

As memory goes, I would go for either faster timings or 1866Mhz speed or both (heard that Haswell will push the official memory speed support to 1866Mhz. SB was 1333Mhz, IB is 1600Mhz so Haswell could well be 1866Mhz). And something to colour match the MoBo

As the card reader, look into this > Akasa AK-ICR-17. Not so expensive but offers a LOT (including USB 3.0 speed card reader for Class 10 and higher cards).

[Cheshh]

Nice build!! Maybe add one more 140mm fan in the front. All 3 fans can be linked up to the fan controller included with the case. I own the R4 and love it, very quiet

[Willzzz]

Yeah why get CL10 when you can get CL8:
http://www.ebuyer.com/389659-crucial...8g3d1608dt1tx0

I can't imagine the Corsair stuff is cheaper.

A passive cooler on an overclocked 4770k I don't think so.

[Willzzz]

480w is still way too much, you could get a Seasonic G360, gold efficiency and Haswell compatible.

[Bonebreaker777]

A passive cooler on an overclocked 4770k I don't think so.

Still wonder how would that work. I have a passive on my i5-2400, no undervoltage, so the idea is not that far fetched.

480w is still way too much, you could get a Seasonic G360, gold efficiency and Haswell compatible.

What are the lowest Platinum PSUs? I am talking about wattage. He might as well go for one, doesn't he?

[Willzzz]

What are the lowest Platinum PSUs? I am talking about wattage. He might as well go for one, doesn't he?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/400w-...ess-atx-silent

There's always this, bit pricey mind and not in stock either.

[kalniel]

One thing to point out, you don't want to cache on an SSD as that adds a lot of read/write cycles.
The samsung 840 pro is rated as one of the best current ssd's

Quite the opposite - SSDs are really well suited to photoshop/LR cache. The catalogue and caches are write once/read many type operations, and won't have any impact on SSD life. And you will get a speed up from having them on the SSD.

[Toobad]

Excellent contributions, people. All opinions are valued, please keep them coming. Now I know where to target my further reading I shall acquaint myself with the virtues of alternative PSUs and All-in-One closed loop water-cooling solutions. Hopefully this thread can act as a springboard for other seeking to put together a Haswell-based rig. Looks like more detailed official chip info has started filtering out this afternoon http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/...ion-core-cpus/

[Toobad]

Looks like Haswell generally tops out around 4.8GHz for stabilty on water. The reviews are saying good things about the Asus Z87 boards and auto overclocking ability. I'm hoping their revised AI Suite III software will simply do the business for me. I found this article interesting http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/...cking_review/7

[Pob255]

Quite the opposite - SSDs are really well suited to photoshop/LR cache. The catalogue and caches are write once/read many type operations, and won't have any impact on SSD life. And you will get a speed up from having them on the SSD.

AFAIK photoshop cache will get rewritten every time you open a new image and be fully wiped and recreated every time you close and open photoshop.
We're talking scratch disk here not the intel ssd caching, it will increase the amount of data written to an ssd per month (how much will depend on usage and scratch sizes)
Depending on what you're doing photoshop scratch space can get very large (100gb+) which is another area that can cause ssd's issues.
But yes the scratch will work faster off an ssd.

Current "wisdom" is a separate ssd just for the scratch, don't put your OS and scratch on the same ssd, if you cannot afford a separate ssd for the scratch move it onto a hard drive.

[kalniel]

Current "wisdom" is a separate ssd just for the scratch, don't put your OS and scratch on the same ssd, if you cannot afford a separate ssd for the scratch move it onto a hard drive.

That doesn't make any sense. SSDs are not like HDDs where you have to factor in seek time. If anything, they thrive on higher queue depth operations so again, having the OS and scratch on the same SSD is perfectly reasonable and far preferable to having it on the hard drive.

I'm not sure the cache is wiped each time (it's not for Lightroom), but even if it is, that's still a very low number of writes if it's once per session. And do you know anyone that's ever hit the write limit for SSDs? I've been using mine for scratch and catalogue for a couple of years and I'm nowhere near the limit and there's no chance of me hitting it in the lifetime of the computer.

[Agent]

Current "wisdom" is a separate ssd just for the scratch, don't put your OS and scratch on the same ssd, if you cannot afford a separate ssd for the scratch move it onto a hard drive.

The problem is that the "wisdom" doesn't hold up to the maths.

Calculating a worse case scenario with a SSD isn't that hard if you know the rated NAND life. You can easily compare it to how much writing is being done to the drive and calculate its estimated lifetime. Also keep in mind that the chances the SSD won't exceed it's rated number is unheard of, in some cases hitting over double.

As Kalniel says, the chances of anyone hitting the life of the NAND is remote, even when being used as a scratch disk. Even if you did....you're talking a long time. At which point a replacement SSD will be a heck of a lot cheaper.

Also keep in mind that the scratch is only used when you're out of RAM. If someone is working with Adobe stuff, then they should be looking to buy more RAM over the SSD anyway if this is an issue.

The cache isn't wiped for me either when I just tried it, so I'm sure that would help and not hinder.

To put it into perspective a 256GiB drive with 3K NAND will last about 70 years if you write 10GiB a day to it. Increase that to 70GiB a day and you're still looking at 10 years to hit it. See: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/s...ce-of-tlc-nand. That even considers write amplification at 3x, which is probably a bit high for this type of thing.

As someone who deals with Adobe stuff daily, I can't even begin to image what you'd be doing for that to be a problem. To be fair, if it was, it would be at such a professional level that you'd be using fully blown workstations and the cost of a SSD would be trivial.

Just use your SSD like a HDD and stop worrying

[Pob255]

To put it into perspective a 256GiB drive with 3K NAND will last about 70 years if you write 10GiB a day to it. Increase that to 70GiB a day and you're still looking at 10 years to hit it. See: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/s...ce-of-tlc-nand. That even considers write amplification at 3x, which is probably a bit high for this type of thing.

I really didn't think they where that good.
Point taken.