Behind-the-Scenes: How We Built the 2008 Dream Machine!
Posted 07/21/08 at 12:00:00 PM by David Murphy
Comments
Print
Email
Behind-the-Scenes (Page Two)
Left: A perfect example of the "too many chefs in the kitchen" problem that plagues geeks and their friends. Gordon and Dave were just super-excited to get their respective sections of the Dream Machine up and running. When time's an issue, sometimes you just have to work like a pit crew on a rig.
Right: This is an artsy picture of the hard drive holders. There's no back story behind this one--just simple, easy-to-use hard drive holders We packed the Dream Machine full of five drives, and while we don't anticipate removing them anytime soon, it's nice to know that we could do so in mere seconds.
Left: If you look super-closely, you'll note the secret hard drives we promised we wouldn't reveal until two weeks from today. Just kidding. You can't see squat. Dave is holding over three terabytes of raw storage power in his oversized hands, however. Jealous?
Right: Gordon slides the first of the Dream Machine 2008's many PCI-based devices into place. We would end up swapping the configuration multiple times before we achieved the best aesthetic combination of two videocards and one soundcard. Luckily for us, the case fit our two giant ATI 4870x2 cards while still leaving a little bit of room for cable management.
Left: Gordon carefully slides the power supply into place. Given the tight fit between it and the location of the Dream Machine's coolant pump, we actually decided to use the mess of cables themselves to secure the pump into place. Once we slid the power supply all the way in, there was absolutely no way that pump was going to move, period. We'd normally recommend using some kind of adhesive or screws to attach the pump to the case.
Right: Speaking of cables, here's the rat's nest on the dream machine's right side. Gordon would eventually use a lot of tape and twist-ties to get this secured, but the formidable task only grew worse and worse as we continued to add, tweak, and connect various new electronics to the rig.
Left: We fired up the machine and, curse our luck, found a leak in the water cooling setup. Or rather, a leak found us. We immediately powered down the machine once we noticed the drip-drip-drip of coolant onto the rig's sensitive internal electronics. As is typical with custom PC building, Dave is starting to disassemble his hard work to troubleshoot the leaky problem.
Right: We were pretty sure we had the leak nailed down, but we wanted to triple-check that we had fixed the culprit. We came prepared with various paper towels and napkins to prevent any stray fluid from hitting the case's expensive internals this time around. "Be prepared" -- sage advice for the Boy Scouts, Scar the Lion, and water-cooling enthusiasts.
Left: As luck would have it, we fixed the first leak only to create a second. Gordon busted out the flashlight so Dave could get a closer look at the source of the dripping. A CPU waterblock was to blame this time. And given the closeness of the tube clamps to the base of the block, we had no choice but to remove that portion of the loop if we were to have any chance of sealing the leak.
Right: Gordon gives Dave a helping hand. While we don't recommend clamping your tubes too tightly to the nozzles of your water block, we know that it's difficult to tell exactly when your hose is properly fitted. We decided to push, and push, and push some more until we were confident that a tighter seal would be absolutely impossible. But our macho arm strength paid off. This was the last leak we would ever see on the Dream Machine 2008.
Left: With the rig up and running, the scope of what we had built finally began to come together. The blue LED fans attached to the radiator give the rig's internals a lovely blue glow. We still decided to install three blacklight cold-cathode tubes to accentuate the effect towards the rig's lower half. The difference of the lights is subtle, but we love having the clear fluid transitioning in and out of a glowing blue state. It looks neat even though you'll never see these differences unless you actually pop open the case's side door. We're sticklers for detail.
Right: Gordon seals the right side of the Dream Machine 2008 with a loving embrace. Unlike typical cases, the HP Blackbird 002 chassis comes with a number of screws for keeping the right side panel attached and in-place. This makes sense, as HP does a fantastic job with its own cable management. Unless something breaks--or unless you're chroming and customizing a case of your very own--you'd likely have no reason to pop open the cable-hiding side of your rig.
MY Rig
Submitted by erolsipar on Sun, 08/17/2008 - 3:58pm
Where is the dream machine? What are we waiting for?
The HD 4870 X2 well they are already out.
But... Maybe the 7200.11 1.5 TB Barracuda Seagate Hard Drive.
I dont know but Im building a dream machine too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HDD: 1 TB Samsung 32 mb Cache X2 ( 2TB RAID 0) 16K STRIPE.
CPU: Q9650 3.0G 12mb L2 Cache.
GPU: Sapphire HD 4870 X2 Crossfire.
Mobo: ASUS P5E3 Premium/Wifi AP Edition X48 Chipset.
RAM: OCZ PC3-12800 Intel Extreme Edition.
Case: Antec 1200.
HSF: Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme.
Mouse: Logitech G5.
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W.
FLOPY: Ultra Internal Media Drive w/floppy Black
DVD RW: SAMSUNG TRUDIRECT 20X INT. LIGHT SCRIBE (SE-S203S/BEBN).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Q9650 has nothing to touch than other cpus because of a software detected VID so the Q9650 doesnt need luck to overclock it, just a good motherbaord. ( I have talked to an Intel Help Representative and said the Q9650 is a different processor and the VID is not programed by any range, it has a specific voltage around 0.85-1.3625 and is controled by software specific. The E8600 VID is programed by hardware and used by software. It's different techonology on the E0 Revision of the new Q9650. My goal is 4 Ghz and is enough for me to use the Q9650 not like an QX series due to lack of using liquid nitrogen or Dry Ice. The Q9550 already hits the 4Ghz range so does the Q9450 but a bit harder or luck for a good low VID and not like the Q9650. Some software still use core sensing and due to this, it reads wrong VID. And on new Intel Cpu's the right sensing recognizing for the program to read is actually die sensing for new cpu's.
Submitted by brokenmoth08 on Sun, 08/17/2008 - 6:50pm
You are builing one with the case that I feel should have been used.
Submitted by 9985 on Mon, 08/04/2008 - 4:09pm
I enjoyed the Dream Machine article, but I just don't get the $5K chrome job. I suppose MPC could have commissioned a famous artist to hand-paint the case for $1 million, would add exactly the same amount of performance. Might as well add on another $1million remodeling of the home office since this is where the dream machine will sit.
With an unlimited budget, I wonder why some SSDs weren't considered for boo drive- perhaps not ready for primetime, but they have bee available for some time- wasn't even discussed as an option that was opted out of due to stability, didn't fit into the case, whatever.
There are other silly/cool gaming gadgets that would be better use of the $5K in terms of bragging rights that a "work-of-art" case:
- Art. Lebedev Studio Optimus Maximus ($1600 custom OLED keyboard - rediculous, but nifty)
- Killer M1 NIC ($280, maybe gets a few ms response time faster in online games)
- CH Products HOTAS flight controller ($300 joystick/throttle for flight sim fans- could probably find even more expensive ones if you know where to look)
- how about adding in the cost of the top 10 games (from any of the many articles in PC Gamer & other places) of all time pre-installed?
-a custom/psychopathic liquid nitrogen cooling kits to break world records in benchmarking scores for months to come?
etc etc- there are lots of ways to get real gamer "oooh-ahhh" factor vice the parrot-like fascination with a shiny object.
(end rant.)
Green Machine update. I
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Sun, 08/03/2008 - 1:36am
Green Machine update.
I sold my gas sipping Kia Sephia in favor of a used Ford Explorer. It gets about 13mpg and it pumps out a record amount of carbon emissions every day.
My goal is to save up and build a machine with only the most power hungry components and be super fast. This means fan cooling and lots of fans suck lots of power.
Call it a redneck machine.
Green Backlash
Submitted by RSpears on Sun, 08/03/2008 - 10:33am
Max PC=Performance! However, I do agree that higher efficiency will lead to higher performance. Untill then my plans involve more power, not less.
Submitted by RSpears on Fri, 08/01/2008 - 12:40pm
OCZ Core Series OCZSSD2-1C64G 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid state disk (SSD)
or
OCZ Core Series OCZSSD2-1C128G 2.5" 128GB SATA II Internal Solid state disk (SSD)
Due 8/5/08
Submitted by RSpears on Sun, 08/03/2008 - 10:39am
I didn't know the 2 weeks were up yet. So busy working havn't had time to read the mag.
From what I've read SSDs need a little more time to kickass on HDDs.
The next Dream Machine will most likly have SSDs for the boot drives.
He just got here a little
Submitted by sirphunkee on Fri, 08/01/2008 - 3:55pm
He just got here a little late, didn't realize that this party's candles had already been blown out
This is purely a work of
Submitted by TheUltimateGamer2006 on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 8:57pm
This is purely a work of art, even if the nikel plating did cost 5 G's.
It is the Dream Machine though, so I guess that's a moot point.
Submitted by kato4174 on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 3:20pm
Amazing Dream Machine!!!!
NOW HOW DO I PERSUADE YOU TO GIVE ME (POOR BUT PROUD) THAT KICKASS RIG????
Appreciative comments and gripes
Submitted by webgrunt on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 4:03pm
First off, I'd like to thank the staff at MaximumPC for building an exceptionally beautiful DM this year.
Every year, the DM gets more extravagant, and each year, I have to argue with myself to just let go and enjoy the sheer abandon with which its builders spend someone else's money to build "the ultimate" rather than my natural tendency to think "Gee, they could have saved a thousand bucks there with no noticeable performance difference" or "when will they ever even use that piece of equipment?" It's not easy, but how else will I enjoy it?
However, I have to say something about the nickel plating. Five thousand dollars to nickel-plate the case? What's up with that? For that kind of money, couldn't you have gotten it plated in gold or platinum?
It's a rhetorical question, though. I'm sure nickel is much more durable. But you could have at least said it was platinum-plated, and most of us would have believed you.
Ah, that's right--"Minimum BS". Well, I guess even that has its downside once in a while.
Party on.
Freakin Sweet
Submitted by mjjordan001 on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 8:01am
IF DM didn't cost as much as my crappy Gas Guzzler car, I would be like a fat kid in a candy store.
The Dual Quads are a bit to much but its always good to look ahead. By the time those quads would be put to use, I should be able to afford the DM.
cost assuming now roughly 18,000, 6 months 9,000, 1 year 3000, 2 year 500 bucks and thats when ill have the prize DM
The un-PC PC Engineer
Full Suite of Benchmarks
Submitted by Strongbad536 on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 8:57pm
hey dave, do you think when you guys do the final post that you could show us a full suite of benchmarks instead of just the usual 5 you do in reviews? I thought that what Gordon did with his Core 2 chipset roundup was very good. That would be awesome. : )
Submitted by pellier on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 7:11pm
norm doesnt lick this =(
Move Along, Nothing To See Here
Submitted by TheDuck on Thu, 07/24/2008 - 9:06pm
I edited this comment to nothing... Someone beat me to finding the mystry drives...
The VelociRaptor 10,000 RPM Revision B.
Submitted by hifiaudio2 on Thu, 07/24/2008 - 5:31pm
edit: nevermind.. newer comments didnt show up until i posted an old comment...
Submitted by brokenmoth08 on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 9:32pm
then I guessed the mystery drives! YEEPEE! I hope for a autographed picture of Will Smith, or the Murph, or at least Norm (possibly of him licking the Dream Machine)
Submitted by Malagant on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 6:22pm
Have you guy's seen the new Biohazard rapture skulltrail edition PC.
I'm sure it is faster then this, as the cpu's (QX9775) are OC to 4.8 ghz and they offer 2 GeForce GTX 280 1GB DDR3 in SLI. Seam strange why you can't get SLI when another company can. Don't get me wrong but this is still an awesome pc but not the fastest.""Computing is no longer a game for pussies. It's a full-contact, balls-out, game for Spartans only. My computer cools itself by pumping my own blood through it's hottest zones. And I cool myself down by DRINKING FREON, MOTHERFUCKERS!””
Submitted by Budgetperson on Thu, 07/24/2008 - 8:53am
Well - Their CPU OC is definetly better - but two 4870x2's will definetly outperform 2 gtx 280s.
www.upbeatpc.com
Submitted by Budgetperson on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 2:49pm
Well that is really sad. But it's not a deal breaker. I don't see why so many people are critisizing so much, it's just that obviously Maximum PC values the CPU over GPU.
If they wanted better graphics, then they could've put in a x48 motherboard with 3 GTX 280s. That would proably give more performance then 2 4870x2's.
Also - if you look at the $2500 build - they include a $1000 processor and a $285 video card. No crossfire even? I'm okay with the lack of a gtx 260 but cmon- a $1000 proc in a $2500 buid?/
Just my opinion - Budgetperson
www.upbeatpc.com
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 1:04pm
I have to talk to a dozen people about this: ATI BEAT NVIDIA THIS TIME!!!!
Why is no one positive about this...maybe they bought GTX 280s and are trying to defend
their purchase. MPC does not value the CPU over the GPU or GPU over CPU! Neither do I!They (and I) don't participate in this war! Gah!
Velociraptors
Submitted by Techrocket9 on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 10:14am
The Velociraptors are revision B. The only change is placement of the ports so that they work in hot-swappable drive bays. It says so in the mag. Rev. A is being phased out.
Ho Hum
Submitted by jwalch.hawk on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 11:37am
I'm not bashing MaxPC's choice on that or anything, but... Yippee? I mean, Western Digital was all NDA-paranoid about THAT? My God, who do they think they are, the NSA or something? Seriously... If all they did was move the damn ports... It's not that big a deal. I mean, handy, yes. But groundbreaking? Hell no.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Wed, 07/23/2008 - 12:32am
These Velociraptors have to be special in some way. Perhaps they have a capacity in excess of 500gb? Perhaps they are new hybrids with on board flash memory? What makes these guys so special that MaxPC has to stay hushed about them by the manufacturer? Perhaps they spin at 15K RPMs? They make better peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches?
Submitted by warpfold on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 9:59pm
Since Velociraptors don't fit in a standard hot swap configuration, and Techrocket9 states that they are just Velociraptors. Then I would assume WD repositioned the connections for hot swapping. Which would make it easier to integrate them with my system. I hope my assumption is correct.
Submitted by Techrocket9 on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 4:28pm
I got my issue. For anyone who doesn't subscribe, the "Mystery Drives" are just Velociraptors.
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 1:06pm
They are Revision B! I have to go through all of the comments saying this ???!!! It drives me mad!
Just the 10k vraptors?
Submitted by kleinkinstein on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 5:28pm
Just the 10k vraptors? Much too many holes in this build, I'm so dissappointed MPC. Next year let us spec the damn thing for you. Then do a contest/drawing for someone to help you do the building and you won't have a coolant leak.
C&C
Submitted by Stephenh1984 on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 9:24am
Why when you click on "nuclear powered", it sends you to YouTube showing a C&C video showing off its nukes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Submitted by TheMurph on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 9:36am
Submitted by dinotrex on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 8:33am
Just imagine in about 5 years or less, we'll be laughing our a%$ off reading this article. We'll all wonder what were we thinking...water cooled computers? Multiple spinning disks? Dual CPU and GPU? Let alone the back breaking heft of a case...
The future dream machine will probably be no bigger than a Mac-mini, use a minimal amount of electricity and CPU and GPU performance hundreds of time better than what we have today. Storage will be in the highend Tera bytes, the size of 2.5" disk. I think the keyboard and mouse will be about the same size but monitors will be 30" or bigger.
Well, this is just some wishful thinking on my part. I do have to chuckle when I see the monstrosity of computer systems I saw at a tech museum in Mountain View...those mainframes had less computing power than my laptop.
JD
Submitted by TheMurph on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 9:51am
For that matter, the future dream machine just very well might be a Mac-mini.
Eh? Ehhhhh?
; )
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 1:23pm
How come MPC did not choose 2 Intel Xeons or Opterons for the Dream Machine?
Submitted by sirphunkee on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 2:22pm
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 12:08pm
The Murph I just puked all over my keyboard after reading your remark. I hope your happy now.
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 1:22pm
Then how are you typing...
If you have the 'Spill' Resistant MS Keyboards (I do!), your OK, just put it in the dishwasher (see MPC Spring '07 issue).
Submitted by kleinkinstein on Tue, 07/22/2008 - 8:36am
Why no Nehalem? Why no x58? Why no ESA? Why no P80R? Noe-sata? Why the buffered ram? And the Skulltrail is nearly as silly as a chromed HP case. Too many faux pauxs this year. It squarely appears that they are pimping the mystery HDD's as an approach to make this build matter. They can raid all the SSD's they want, only a 20K raptor is worth my attention again. MPC you get a C+. I hope you get back on track for DM09.
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 1:10pm
You need ESA compatible devices for ESA, and these high performance parts are not ESA compatible... The VelociRaptor (Revision A and I think B) have SATA! The rest are not released!!!
Oh... and read the comment below.
Submitted by jwalch.hawk on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 5:09am
I'm thinking the lack of Nehalem and X58 probably has something to do with the fact that they aren't even close to being out yet... Just a thought.
Isn't ESA an nVidia proprietary thing? In that case, using Skulltrail locked them into AMD/ATI if they wanted dual-graphics. Not saying that was the only decision or the best decision, just saying that lack of ESA falls under the umbrella of the decision to use Skulltrail.
"Before all the naysayers start blasting the comment thread, here's why
we made this decision. For starters, we like to use cases in the Dream
Machine that have never been featured previously." <--- I'm pretty sure this is why they didn't use the Lian Li case... I think they figured this case was good enough to be at least a fair comparison, and they hadn't already done a full review for it. I'm not quite sure why they want to do this, as many times components in the system have been reviewed, but anyways... That's why Blackbird over P80R.I kinda would've liked to see the e-SATA too, but I'm not sure it's really anything but a decoration for a system like this. The most common use for e-SATA in my experience anyway is for nice speedy backup with an appropriate external drive. But given that the Dream Machine has 5 HDD's in it in some huge-ass RAID configuration... I'm not really sure that capable speed of an external backup drive is a relevant issue.
Buffered RAM I see your point on in that it does delay the signal a little bit as compared to unbuffered RAM at the same density... I think this might be another case where they were locked into this choice because of the Skulltrail decision, but I'm not sure. I'd be very surprised if they simply neglected this if it were an option.
EDIT: According to the Intel website for the board, it supports ONLY FB (Fully Buffered) DIMMs... So as I suspected, their motherboard choice locked them in here.
Submitted by HoldenMai on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 7:07pm
This may be totally off the mark but I would like to guess that the hard drives that you will be booting from use the racetrack memory that IBM has been making a fuss about.
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 1:30pm
I've been a computer enthusiast since I was a wee little boy. Now I'm 36 or am I 37? I lost track. Anyhow just what does pwn mean? or woot! mean? Is there a class around? I've never been one to hang out in chat rooms and for me playing a first person shooter only requires the gg or nice shot every once in a great while. Where has all this lingo came from?
And what of all these assholes that used to beat us up? The jocks. Why is it we consume technology and these jock aholes get rich off of our hobby. I say it should be made by nerds for nerds and completely owned by nerds. No jocks allowed unless they carry an appology certificate that has been notorized at all times.
Onto the story.
I have the Cosmos 1000 case and it's awsome with cable routing on the right side as well. But with just a few cables it puts pressure on the right side case panel. The right side case panel does'nt quite seal like it did befor I stuffed my hardware in it. I wish CoolerMaster would've used screws on the right panel as well. Awsome build though. It's still a rather hot topic on your choices of video cards and case though. Did you guys realize how upset people were going to get with your choices when you finalized what was going in your case?
And besides why use watercooling anyhow? It's still rather dangerous and there are plenty of air coolers that cool just as well if not better. I wonder if two Thermaltake V1 hsf's would've fit in your case?
Did you use water cooling on the video cards? These days I can see the benefits of small single slot water blocks on video cards though. The cpu's are already cool. The GPU's need the water though. If it opens up other PCIe and PCI slots then I can live with it.
Is that an iMac in the
Submitted by JPmatt6 on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 1:15pm
Is that an iMac in the background of the "Gordon considering the motherboard" picture?
Seriously guys, subliminal advertising doesn't work on us. :D
My guess is a feature sometime in the future, "Mac vs PC Desktops" after your recent notebook comparison.
__________________________________________________
JPmatt6
Actually, Mac|Life has a
Submitted by willsmith on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 2:04pm
Actually, Mac|Life has a bench in the lab. They keep an iMac down there.
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 1:14pm
Why include a issue that covers PC Desktop vs. Mac Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac?
Or DeathMatch Windows Mobile and the iPhone.
That would be great if you would include it!
Submitted by JPmatt6 on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 10:38pm
Sure...
That was actually my second thought, but I had a hard time believing Gordon would build the Dream Machine within 100ft of a Mac unless he absolutely had to (or got a bonus). But he has been open minded lately. (Not that I care, I'm with him on that.. the only good Apple product is the MBP when it's running Windows)
Submitted by pellier on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 2:34pm
why is ther a vertical line in MaclLife
Must Read Articles
Feature
Review
Feature
Feature
Feature
Most Popular Articles
This Month's Issue
FEATURE How to Get FREE Programs, Services, Software & MoreFEATURE Digital Photo Printer RoundupHOW TOBuild a 3D CameraFEATUREDIY Arcade PCWHITE PAPERHow TRIM Works
Technology News
Computer Cooling Fans
Computer Cases
PC Game Controllers
PC Games
Computer Hardware
Headphones
MP3 Players
Stream Video
Computer Mouse
Monitors
Motherboards
NAS Storage
Networking
Laptop Computers
DVD Burner
Digital Cameras
Portable Storage
Computer Accessories
Smartphone
Antivirus Software
Sound Cards
Speakers
Computer Systems
Thumb Drives
Video Cameras
Video Card Reviews
Water Cooling
Gadgets
- Keyboards
© 2009 Future US, Inc. All Rights Reserved.