Behind-the-Scenes: How We Built the 2008 Dream Machine!
Posted 07/21/08 at 12:00:00 PM | by David Murphy
Dream Machine 2008 Revealed: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three
We've given you the gear. Now take a trip into the Maximum PC Lab with an exclusive Web-only look at how we constructed this year's Dream Machine 2008--the fastest PC you can buy, hands-down. Be there for all the heart-wrenching fluid leaks! The painstaking storage decisions! The bits and pieces we had to break just to achieve our Dream Machine...dreams!
If you have yet to check out what we packed into this rig, be sure to catch up on our first, second, and third looks at the actual parts of this over-customized rig. Speaking of, we know that we promised to reveal the fancy secret hard drives we used, shown below:
Unfortunately, the non-disclosure date for these drives has been bumped back by two weeks as the request of the manufacturer. Feel free to speculate in the comments as much as you'd like: we've seen plenty of back-and-forth about whether these Photoshop-blurry drives are standard magnetic drives, SSDs, nuclear-powered, et cetera. Are they Western Digital's rumored 20,000 RPM Velociraptor drives? Have we added some Photoshop trickery to make them look like a number of drives we could be using? Find out in two weeks!
Behind-the-Scenes
Left: Gordon looks happy as a clam as he prepares to open the box containing the custom-chromed chassis of the Dream Machine 2008. You'll note the box is on the floor. That's because the HP Blackbird 002 case weighs close to a metric ton as-is, and chroming it seemed to pack on the poundage to absurd levels. Rather than risk a broken back, Gordon wisely decided to chop the box from a safer height.
Right: We had to snap off the case's optical-drive rail locking tabs just to be able to fit our water cooling reservoir into the chassis. In doing so, we broke the entire mechanism. But all the optical drive needed was some way to wedge into the five and one-fourth-inch bay. It didn't matter that the rails didn't exactly lock into the chassis as they used to just as long as the entire contraption of optical drive, drive rails, and mounting guides created enough of a wedge to lock the optical drive in place--which it did. We were happy.
Left: Nothing fancy to report on this one. It's just a beautiful shot of our glimmering chassis. Had we shot it horizontally, you could have turned it into a jaw-dropping desktop wallpaper. But we didn't. Sorry.
Right: Dave and Gordon carefully move the preassembled water-cooling loop to the Lab bench. We opted to test the entire plumbed system prior to attaching it to actual electronics. This was a lesson learned from last year's Dream Machine, when we killed an entire motherboard the first time we fired up the rig. Word to the wise: no matter how tightly you have those fixtures screwed into place, it's well worth your time to test the entire system when it's not near thousands of dollars of expensive equipment.
Left: This backplane of SATA connections would prove to be our undoing at first. If you recall, the positioning of Western Digital's Velociraptor hard drive doesn't fit with any standard hot-swap configuration. Unfortunately, this meant that we were unable to use these speedy drives for the Dream Machine 2008. And believe us, we tried every possible situation--even contemplating the removal of this backplane entirely--just to get the drives the work. But at the end of the day, we opted for ease-of-use over speed. The backplane stayed and we went looking for a new pair of speedy hard drives...
Right: As noted earlier, Dave is attaching the HP Blackbird's drive rails to a new optical drive. It took both him and Gordon approximately 20 minutes to figure out the exact orientation of the rails that would match case's internal mounting. As it turns out, they were right with their first configuration--the drive just needed a bit of wedging to get inside the case. We don't often recommend elbow grease treatment when building a machine, but it was just what The Doctor ordered this time around.
Left: Gordon takes a look at the Skultrail motherboard we used on this year's machine. That's not an apprehensive look on his face. He's just contemplating the raw power that two Intel QX9775 processors will bring to this year's mega-rig. You'd also be correct in suggesting that he's considering just how the EATX motherboard will fit inside of this chassis.
Right: Gordon struggles to wedge this oversized motherboard into the Dream Machine's chromed case. It was a tight fit, but we were barely able to make this motherboard work. We didn't end up blocking any critical ports, although we did make for some tough cable management situations later when we attempted to route the case backplane's SATA cables to the side-facing inputs on the EATX motherboard.
Left: The Corsair FB-DIMM memory we chose didn't come with much passive cooling, so this ended up being one of the few times we ever saw the top of the memory without a huge fan accessory on top of it. Take our word (and burnt fingers) for it: these little guys get H-O-T hot. That's twice as hot as normal hot, for those keeping score at home.
Right: We're unsure of what calculations Gordon was writing at the time of this picture. Are they the secrets to his 4 GHz overclocking success? Something having to do with cable management? A mental layout of the case's front-panel connections? A quick game of Lab Soduku? We might never know.
Left: With the motherboard in-place, Dave slaps the water-cooling configuration back into the dream machine and attaches the D-TEK FuZion v2 blocks to the CPUs. Even given the smaller room to work with in the HP Blackbird 002 case, the water cooling was a lot easier to configure than last year's monstrosity. You might recall that we ended up cooling both the videocards and the CPU on the Dream Machine 2007. Next year, Dave suggests we just dunk the entire thing in oil and call it a day.
Right: Gordon rests his hand on the heart of the beast, a custom power supply from PC Power and Cooling. Before we built the Dream Machine for-reals, we measured out the exact cable lengths we'd need to be able to connect all of our devices without having too much extra. The company then shortened or lengthened the leads depending on our specifications--just one way we killed extra case clutter without having to resort to twist ties.
Check out 12 more pictures on Page Two!
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MY Rig
Submitted by erolsipar on Sun, 2008-08-17 16:58
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, 2008-08-17 19:50
You are builing one with the case that I feel should have been used.
Submitted by 9985 on Mon, 2008-08-04 17:09
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, 2008-08-03 02:36
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.
Submitted by RSpears on Sun, 2008-08-03 11:33
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, 2008-08-01 13:40
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, 2008-08-03 11:39
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, 2008-08-01 16:55
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, 2008-07-30 21:57
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, 2008-07-29 16:20
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, 2008-07-28 17:03
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, 2008-07-28 09:01
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, 2008-07-25 21:57
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, 2008-07-25 20:11
norm doesnt lick this =(
Move Along, Nothing To See Here
Submitted by TheDuck on Thu, 2008-07-24 22:06
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, 2008-07-24 18:31
edit: nevermind.. newer comments didnt show up until i posted an old comment...
Submitted by brokenmoth08 on Wed, 2008-07-23 22:32
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, 2008-07-23 19:22
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, 2008-07-24 09:53
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, 2008-07-23 15:49
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, 2008-07-29 14:04
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!
Submitted by Techrocket9 on Wed, 2008-07-23 11:14
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, 2008-07-23 12:37
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, 2008-07-23 01:32
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, 2008-07-22 22:59
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, 2008-07-22 17:28
I got my issue. For anyone who doesn't subscribe, the "Mystery Drives" are just Velociraptors.
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 2008-07-29 14:06
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, 2008-07-22 18:28
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, 2008-07-22 10:24
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, 2008-07-22 10:36
Submitted by dinotrex on Tue, 2008-07-22 09:33
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, 2008-07-22 10:51
For that matter, the future dream machine just very well might be a Mac-mini.
Eh? Ehhhhh?
; )
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 2008-07-29 14:23
How come MPC did not choose 2 Intel Xeons or Opterons for the Dream Machine?
Submitted by sirphunkee on Tue, 2008-07-22 15:22
Submitted by Keith E. Whisman on Tue, 2008-07-22 13:08
The Murph I just puked all over my keyboard after reading your remark. I hope your happy now.
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 2008-07-29 14:22
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, 2008-07-22 09:36
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, 2008-07-29 14:10
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, 2008-07-30 06:09
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, 2008-07-21 20:07
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, 2008-07-21 14:30
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, 2008-07-21 14:15
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, 2008-07-21 15:04
Actually, Mac|Life has a bench in the lab. They keep an iMac down there.
Submitted by TheDuck on Tue, 2008-07-29 14:14
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, 2008-07-21 23:38
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, 2008-07-21 15:34
why is ther a vertical line in MaclLife
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