Re: PC requirements

Posted by Mel Symeonides on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/PC-requirements-tp7587774p7587775.html

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Hi Peter,

If you have ever built your own PC, or know someone who has, you can
benefit greatly from building it custom. Off-the-shelf systems can be
upmarked considerably and often use outdated components or skimp on
important things like a good power supply. Of course, the benefit of
that would be presumably a warranty on the whole system, in case you are
not able to diagnose things yourself, but if you build a custom system,
each component will come with its own warranty. It would just be up to
you to determine which component is faulty and claim the warranty on it
yourself.

I recently built such a computer for light sheet data acquisition and
processing/analysis. Here is the configuration:

Motherboard: Asus Z10PE-D16 WS
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2650 V4 (x2)
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U12DXi4 (x2)
Memory: Samsung M393A2G40EB1-CRC 16GB DDR4 2400MHz ECC-Reg (x8 = 128 GB
total)
OS drive: Samsung 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 SSD (on a PCIE M.2 adapter
because the motherboard runs its onboard M.2 at SATA speed)
Data drive: Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SATA (6 drives in RAID10 configuration)
Video card: GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Primo
Power supply: EVGA SuperNOVA P2 1200W 80+ Platinum

You will obviously also need monitors, keyboard, mouse, Windows license,
and some kind of data server - you should assume that you will not be
storing your data on this computer if you are generating 1TB datasets. I
got a Synology DS1817+ 8-bay NAS with a 10GbE adapter and loaded it with
8 Western Digital Gold 10TB drives (WD101KRYZ), and run them in SHR2
(basically RAID6, for double-parity, i.e. you can lose two drives and
still be able to recover). I also got a 10GbE adapter for the
workstation PC, this allows utilization of the maximum transfer rates
the RAID array is capable of, which is 3-4 times faster than standard
Gigabit Ethernet. This data server is costly but, for light sheet data,
basically necessary if your institute does not provide substantial data
storage.

Another thing to note is that component prices can fluctuate quite a
bit. I bought the video card in the summer for under $740. Right now
they are out of stock everywhere (1080 Ti of any brand), and when they
are in stock, they go for anywhere up to $2,000 (you have bitcoin mining
to thank for that). You can get a Titan Xp for less than that now so the
price/perfomance advantage of the 1080 Ti is no longer there, but look
for the Titans to also disappear off the market really quickly as mining
expands higher up the range.

All told, I spent around $9,000 for the workstation and $4,500 for the
data server. Comparable off-the-shelf workstations cost around $12,000 -
$15,000 (and possibly even more now with the GPU market up in the air
and RAM prices currently rising), and off-the-shelf data servers of
similar capacity would cost much more than that.

Assembly and setup of the PC was not trivial, so you will want someone
with experience to help you. Workstation (Xeon) motherboards can be very
finicky, and the installation manuals for some components can be pretty
incomprehensible. Also be aware that if you need multiple PCIE slots
available for data acquisition cards etc., the GPU only takes one but
actually occludes at least one more slot (my card took up three slots
total) so your choice of case/card should be made carefully. I ended up
cutting a hole in the back panel of the case and mounting the GPU
vertically with a 2-slot PCI bracket and PCIE riser cable, as I needed
every last PCIE slot on the motherboard. Some cases come with vertical
GPU mounting positions, but some of those will block the regular PCIE
slots, or will be incompatible with SSI-EEB format motherboards (which
is what most dual CPU boards will be).

Good luck!


Mel


On 1/15/2018 7:22 AM, Owens, Peter wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> Dear listers,
>
> I am looking into purchasing a high end image processing PC , that will be capable of processing large multidimensional data sets up to 1 TB in size.
> Does anyone have any recommendations on a PC configuration that would be suitable?
> Do people build custom PCs or buy off the shelf?
> Are high spec gaming PCs up to this task?
>
> thanks for any advice on this .
>
> all the best
>
> Peter
>
>
> Peter Owens
> Centre for Microscopy and Imaging,
> National University of Ireland Galway.
> P: +35391494036 m: +353863326749
> W: www.imaging.nuigalway.ie e: [hidden email]
>
>
>  
>
>
--
Menelaos Symeonides
Post-Doctoral Associate, Thali Lab
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
University of Vermont
318 Stafford Hall
95 Carrigan Dr
Burlington, VT 05405
[hidden email]
Phone: 802-656-1161