I need a computer for a special application.

[Foxbat]

People who fantasize setting up a dozen computers in their basement for for $50000 investment are fools.

Agreed. The time to get into Bitcoin was 6-7 years ago. Now, even the ASIC Bitcoin setups are hard-pressed to break even.

 

[TheForce]

Got the new computer in and now set up. It's doing what I wanted and more.

Some initial benchmarks-

Vuze 8 camera 4K stitching:
Test 1
3840x3840 OU 3D h264 30 second file

Surface Pro: 28 minutes
Old i7-950 computer: 16min
New computer i9-7980XE 52 sec.

Test 2
3840x3840 OU 3D h265 30 second file

Surface Pro: 115 minutes
Old i7-950 computer: 70 minutes
New computer i9-7980XE 75 seconds

Adobe Premiere Pro:
Timeline playback in 4K full resolution:
Old computer using the FirePro 3D Graphics card: required a proxy build to play the file in 1280x720.

New computer using the Geforce GTX 1080Ti graphics card: Plays 4 nested 4K picture-in-picture at 30 frames per second with 4 channel audio no dropped frames. Plays two 3D 360VR files 3840x3840 h265 with lap dissolve. It will also transcode the h264 and h265 so these files can be dissolved with no dropped frames through the transition.

Basically, This machine can edit multiple layers of 4K and 8K video from different encoding and not miss a beat.


I am not done with the final additions yet. Still waiting for the second Samsung 960 m.2 storage for the video work files. I did the above tests using my PCIe card with a standard m.2 memory. The addition, when it arrives will plug in directly to the mother board, bypassing the PCIe bus. Supposed to be 2 times faster in read specs.

I also did these tests using the basic speed on the CPU which is set for 2.8Ghz. Turbo boost can handle sustained runs at 4.2Ghz. There have been some stability issues reported at max speed with this CPU. I'm so blown away with the performance at 2.8Ghz, I don't see the need for the turbo boost mode. But it's there if I want it. I doubt I'll need it.

 

[TheForce]

Not everything is perfect with my new computer.

Began to edit a 4K 360VR 3D project with an ambisonic sound track. The video plays back from the timeline just fine at full quality and frame rate. But when I added the ambisonic sound track and tried to play that it would play for about 4 seconds and then the computer crashed with a blue screen of death error message WHEA system failure. I googled that and found a list of 5 things to do to fix it.
1. Check for windows update. Latest updates are installed.
2. Check for mfg drivers. No new driver updates.
3. Check for turbo speed settings and test with turbo disabled.
4. Check for bad memory.
5. Download reboot tool if unable to reboot. Possible corrupt windows boot files. Revert to prior restore point.

The problem seems to be the Turbo speed. The builder ( Velocity Micro ) had the bios turbo set to run in Turbo mode 'always.' ie. 4.2 Ghz I had no problem with rendering for up to 90 seconds during my bench mark testing. But this was with timeline playback with ambisonic sound track. basic stereo sound tracks played fine. I set the Turbo speed down to the intel base of 2.6Ghz. Now the timeline plays back fine and no crashing. There is a way to set the turbo mode to low and then switch it on for rendering which is what I will use rather than turbo on always.

The CPU temperature monitor now shows 36°C in 2.6Ghz mode. Before the temperature was running 74°C at 4.2Ghz

I also discovered that my graphics card is set to turbo speed too. This is allowed because my card is water cooled, not just air cooled. So far no issues driving two 3D monitors.

Note- I mentioned 2.8Ghz before. A typo. I meant 2.6Ghz as that is the listed base speed of the CPU.

 

[harshness]

Perhaps there is a gizmo that someone has crafted that will disable/enable Turbo Boost without having to go through the pain and suffering of changing the Windows power profile?

 

[TheForce]

AVG has a feature in their PC tuneup than can switch turbo on and off from the task bar. I have used it on my win 7 system but don't have it installed on my new machine.



The system build is not yet complete. I'm still waiting on the Samsung second m.2 NMVE storage for video files. Right now I have all the video and ambisonic audio files on a slower PCIe card. It's faster than an SSD but only 1/3 the read speed of the Samsung m.2 stick that will mount on the MB.

I may try to contact ASUS and see if they know why adding the audio track caused the crash in CPU turbo but runs fine in standard speed. Working on a video project now and when complete I will see the render time difference between render at 2.6Ghz and 4.2Ghz.

 

[Foxbat]

Anyone else remember when there was a push button on the PC case labeled "Turbo"?

 

[Voyager6]

Anyone else remember when there was a push button on the PC case labeled "Turbo"?

Wasn't that a feature on the 80286 and 80386 computers?

 

[KE4EST]

Anyone else remember when there was a push button on the PC case labeled "Turbo"?

Yes, I do.

 

[harshness]

Wasn't that a feature on the 80286 and 80386 computers?

Turbo buttons were a feature of 8088 based machines for when games didn't run right at 8MHz so you could shift down to the requisite 4.77MHz. By the time the 80286 came out, they could no longer write software timed on CPU cycles anymore.

 

[TheForce]

The new 5.1 Amp with optical input arrived this morning and it now makes editing the ambisonic sound tracks a breeze. I had an older 12" Polk 400W subwoofer in storage for a few years. Hooked that up too.