So, the desktop PC will become nothing more than a truck? Well, here’s your Mack truck, Mr. Jobs, filling your rear-view mirror on Interstate 80 as you try to get that tablet-sized, Flash-less-powered toy out of the fast lane. Oops, sorry about running you over.
Our take? If the future of the desktop PC is as a truck, it might as well be one hell of a fast and powerful truck. In building Dream Machine 2010, we embraced the notion of raw, wanton power. The result is a power rig capable of hauling a heavily threaded load uphill in top gear while other single- and dual-processor machines are barely chugging along in the slow lane with their hazard lights on.
The Power Cube: Three turned out to be the magic number for this year's Dream: three GPUs, three radiators, three grills--even the 12 cores (and 24 threads) are divisible by three.
At the onset of our Dream Machine project, we were concerned. 24 threads. Three videocards. 24GB of RAM. 4.4 terabytes of storage. Could we get it all to work together? And could we overclock the CPU and GPU enough to qualify as the fastest PC in the world? It took some wrangling, but we’re happy to reply with an emphatic YES. Even better, all this power has some astounding real-world benefits in multithreaded applications.
The simple paint job and tough-looking grills and fans on this year’s system complete the theme. This is not a system for the faint of heart. Read and enjoy.
Want to know what's inside Dream Machine 2010? Here's the full monty
(click to enlarge)
This is the biggest motherboard we’ve ever seen
No one doubts that EVGA’s new Classified SR-2 is the mother of all motherboards. Sure, other boards will run dual Xeon processors as well as 48GB of RAM, but in terms of physical size and configuration, there is literally nothing on Earth like the 13.6x15 inch SR-2. In sheer size, it dwarfs even the massive Intel Skulltrail motherboard that served as the foundation for Dream Machine 2008. The girth of the board comes from EVGA’s proprietary HPTX formfactor, which can accommodate as many as nine expansion slots. However, given the SR-2’s 12 DIMM slots and two proc sockets (not to mention the nForce 200 bridge chips), this mobo has only seven slots. Fortunately, they’re all full-length x16 slots, with four running x16 data rates. The rest are x8 PCI-E 2.0. The board can accommodate an insane four double-wide graphics cards and even features USB 3.0 and SATA6 ports to boot. In every way, the Classified SR-2 embodies this year’s theme of wanton power.
Water-cooling = overclocked tri-SLI
When we considered our graphics options, we had two configurations rattling around in our heads. Ultimately, EVGA’s GeForce GTX 480 SuperClocked cards won the honor. Sure, the Radeon HD 5970 is a hottie, but we’d be restricted to two cards in CrossFire X mode, which just doesn’t have the same panache as a tri-SLI GTX 480 setup. We briefly considered going with an obnoxious-sounding four GTX 480 cards, but nixed it. While decadent, we weren’t sure anything would scale to four GPUs. And it’s not like the tri-SLI cards were in danger of being overwhelmed. Once water-cooled and heavily overclocked to 910MHz (30 percent over a standard 480 card), the tri-SLI GTX 480 cards didn’t even creak under load. In the Unigine Heaven benchmark with everything maxed out, the EVGA GeForce GTX 480 cards belted out nearly 60fps. On our zero-point machine with a single Radeon HD 5970, we saw this same test stutter along at 3fps.
Why Xeons? They give us 12 cores—and 24 threads
What’s the only thing better than a hexa-core Intel 3.3GHz Core i7-980X? Two hexa-cores. Sure, Intel’s 3.3GHz X5680 is technically a Xeon, but hardware geeks know that it’s really the multiprocessor version of the Core i7-980X. If you’re wondering why we didn’t just use two Core i7-980X chips—both versions are LGA1366 processors, after all—it’s because that’s impossible. The Xeon X5680 features two Quick Path Interfaces—one to communicate with the chipset and the other to talk to an additional CPU. A Core i7-980X intended for desktop use has the second QPI disabled at the factory to prevent its use in a multiprocessor setup. So, what do two ultra-pricey Xeon X5680 procs give us? An insane number of threads: 12 physical cores and an additional 12 virtual cores for a total of 24 threads. Besides giving us lightning-fast performance with highly threaded applications (think 42 to 79 percent faster than the fastest PCs today), this also gives us the ability to mega-multitask the hell out of anything.
It doesn’t really take a genius to overclock a Gulftown to reasonable levels. You crack open the BIOS, start cranking up the base clock (or bclock), and maybe add a little voltage to the CPU and the chipset. It’s not quite as easy with a dual-processor setup, however. In fact, it’s a bit daunting the first time you open up the BIOS on EVGA’s Classified SR-2 board. Umm, IOH QPI Signal… set that to, um, what again? Right.
Don’t take this as a knock against the SR-2 board. In fact, we’re tickled pink that it’s so overclocker-friendly, but the task still presents a challenge. Our goal was to reach a judicious clock speed—nothing too greedy. With the water-cooling in place, we were able to hit a stable 4GHz. We did this by disabling vdroop on both chips and increasing the core voltage to 1.35 volts, and by moving the CPU VTT up to 1.35. We actually underclocked the RAM to 1,066 and gave the chipset, or IOH, additional voltage of 1.45 volts. Digging around EVGA’s forum, we found that the company’s overclocking evangelist Shamino recommends an IOH QPI signal of -70 and -16. Our overclock was a simple bclock boost. By bumping up from the stock 133MHz to 160MHz, we achieved a very even and very stable 4GHz clock on both X5680 chips. With another 48 hours to futz around, we’re sure we could have reached the low- to mid-4GHz range, but deadlines are deadlines. Still, 4GHz on 12 cores of computing is nothing to scoff at.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our GPU overclocking. Not everyone knows this, but MSI’s Afterburner utility now supports the GTX 480 and even lets you dial up the voltage. With our triple-radiator water-cooling system taming these nuclear graphics cards, we used Afterburner to speed up the cores of the three GPUs to an amazing 910MHz. We also increased GPU memory to 2,200MHz. This gave DM2010 a heavy advantage in GPU-bound graphics tests such as Heaven 2.0 and STALKER: CoP. —Gordon Mah Ung
This fully loaded card takes PC audio to places previously unheard of
Onboard audio has come a long way, but using the world’s best components to build a Dream Machine without also including a kick-ass soundcard is anathema to us. We immediately reached for Auzentech’s X-Fi Forte 7.1 this time around.
As much as we dig Creative’s X-Fi cards, Auzentech’s engineers pick up where Creative’s leave off. They use Creative’s awesome 20K2 PCI Express audio processor as a foundation, and then surround it with high-end (and upgradeable) op/amps; an AKM AK4396VF DAC with 24-bit resolution, sampling rates up to 192kHz, and a signal-to-noise ratio of 120dB; an integrated headphone amp; and a combo optical/coaxial stereo digital-audio output.
Using the X-Fi chipset means the card can deliver Creative’s entire suite of audio-processing tools, including the 24-bit Crystalizer, which we’ve found enhances even tracks we’ve ripped and losslessly encoded using FLAC. And for those games that take advantage of it, there’s support for Creative’s EAX 5.0.
Awesome speakers + ingenuity = dreamy audio
While demoing the incredible MM-1 computer speakers, a B&W rep told us how its engineers, during early product development, had used rejected prototypes in surround-sound configurations for movies and gaming. We immediately asked how we could do the same thing for the Dream Machine.
We wound up using three stereo pairs (front L/R, surround L/R, and one pair for the center) for our 7.1 configuration. The MM-1s are full-range speakers, but we threw B&W’s spectacular PV1 subwoofer into the mix for gut-punching bass.
Our configuration required a bit of creative cabling: The X-Fi Forte uses analog break-out cables, so we used the MM-1s’ analog aux inputs instead of their USB ports. And since the card outputs the center channel and low-frequency effects on the same cable, we used a cable with a 1/8-inch female jack on one end and two RCA male plugs at the other end. We connected the RCA plug carrying the LFE to the sub and the other to the center channel via an adapter.
Screen real estate as far as the eye can see
We toyed with the idea of using a trio of Asus’s new VG236 3D displays with this year’s Dream Machine (three in 3D, get it?), but then HP dangled three of its brand-new ZR30w 30-inch LCDs in front of our eyes. The three 23-inch VG236 displays suddenly looked dwarfish sitting next to our massive aluminum cube computer.
The ZR30w isn’t just big, it’s an S-IPS panel (yay!) that uses 10 bits per pixel to produce 1.07 billion displayable colors. The ZR30w covers 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut and 99 percent of the Adobe RGB color gamut. As is common for displays this size, the ZR30w’s native resolution is 2560x1600 (a 16:10 aspect ratio). This monitor is obviously aimed at the pros, but we found its 7ms gray-to-gray refresh rate plenty fast enough to play Just Cause 2 and Bad Company 2 at a resolution of 7680x1600. Ooh-rah!
Next page: Dream Machine Parts continued >>
Comments are closed on this article
drcrazyrich
August 11, 2011 at 10:15am
WHERE IS THE ATI 5970 CARDS INSTEAD OF OVER PRICED AND HEATED nVIDIA 480s BAD MAX!! AS FAR AS THE REST GOES ITS OK ,I prefer AMD over intel due to price /performance overall .Hugh case BTW but I can definately see why you used it .WOW I ld hate to see the power bill after that thing for a month ,OUCH :(
Links of London
December 08, 2010 at 9:51pm
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dstephanoshacht...
October 27, 2010 at 8:31pm
Is it just me or should I expect a "Dream Machine" article to not have words like overkill.
I shouldn't be reading lines like "We briefly considered going with an obnoxious-sounding four GTX 480 cards, but nixed it."
or, "That leaves us room to expand to 48GB of RAM if need be." Why not just expand right now? This is a dream machine.
angelus101
October 14, 2010 at 2:20pm
Hello I just have a few general comments about this system. First, I have built High-End computers for many people, have built many of my own, and fixed the low end undesireable stuff that a cell phone has more potential.(just letting you know)
Ok here we go gentleman your in for a treat,
Lets start with the case, mountain mods is highly overpriced and really is (sorry) quite ugly frankly a lian-li(highly overrated also) would have sufficed and would have been cheaper, fact is you are watercooling. You dont need the realestate that case offers you just picked the one with the largest pricetag. Watercoolings appeal comes and stems you get superior cooling without having to have monsterous air flow, grant it you still need flow for passive heatsinks. No fan grills or filters nice so static from dust can clog and kill the SB which is a problem for that board already noted on forums. The board is a waste in actual testing aka the real world, most programs, games cannot use the full potential of a normal 6 core processor let alone 12 cores. That specific board is actually made for one thing people who use workstations as everyday computers and can have multiple gpus for normal use and workstation cards for graphics or music. All you have done is created a paperweight that blisters benchmark programs. Ram choice i only see 6 dimms in pictures which means 24 gigs you went with 4 gig sticks an interesting choice only using 3 channels on each side. the graphics are iffy at best why most games have terrible 3 way sli support in fact they only give a few frames more in most cases the best combo for playability because anything over 40 fps is useless is 2x 480 evga sc+ or ftws with a dedicated gpu for physics grant it tha will well keep you in the range of 65-120 fps in 95 % of games except wow of course because sli support is crap. Sound choices are interesting in fact I like the forte card but the speakers are well , aboout that for the price acually by a processor 7.1 and go with a cerwin vega 7.1 system grant it expensive but if audio is that important well its worth the cost and at least you have a home theater setup that you can hook up elsewhere. SSd's are crap for capacity meets cost stick with the raptors for speed , capacity, leave ssds in laptops where less heat and any speed you can get is worth it. Your watercooling system is meh at best dd used to be good there is better out there a combo of enzotech and swiftech blocks using fezer products and i give the dd gt 3ice. you would have had better yields with the swiftech pump(s) running a seperate dual o2 setup per cpu and gpu.
Fact is you did not do your reading or research on the products you slapped together and got meh for the money even in an overbudget system you still need to hit reviews and user comments and see the practical application of such.
You have became the guy(z) that bought quadrro cards expecting to get better fps just because they are more money and realized when not used in their specialization all they are is overpriced crap to a user.
ty and sorry for the harshness but you live you learn.
Julia Meth
October 14, 2010 at 12:57pm
Dream machine is really a dream for me, I want to own this machine but do not have enough money. Its looking so dashing and attractive. Whenever I have get some saving I definitely buy this machine. Dissertation Methodology Writing
handyman315
October 06, 2010 at 2:41am
I keep looking at this year's Dream Machine and wonder how looks, per se, have so quickly become outdated.
Let's be honest, readers wait for the annual Dream Machine, don't we? The Dream Machine issue turned me into a MaxPC fan years ago.
Take the side window, for example. How did it so quickly become passe? I don't get it. I'm an old guy geek and I think it's just way cool to peek inside something that we could not easily look into for several years.
And lights . . . I hesitate to even mention them. I'm sorry, you boys and girls at MaxPC brought me out of the "closet" back about 2003 and I ain't goin' back in. For about $20 I can turn that mundane box into a veritable Christmas tree.
I'm a 65-year old geek who "grew up" (in the 70s) on "PCs" with 6-inch green screens and with Windows being an interesting concept. I suffered through IBM's baby blue mainframes before you young turks ever thought about beige.
When simple beauty emerged in 2003, mostly with your fine magazine's annual Dream Machine, I embraced your freshness, your boldness, and the finite thought that a home PC need not be ugly.
Alas, you've come full circle, and with my hero Gordon no doubt leading the way. You young folks do know the term, "Butt Ugly", right?
Sad, but we are destined to repeat our mistakes, aren't we?
Form over function? No way, I'd never advocate that. But folks, we've about got these babies where we want them function-wise, right? They hum. So what's wrong with a little form as well?
. . . but then again, I thought pocket protectors were cool.
____________________________________________________
Leonard: "We need to widen our circle."
Sheldon: "I have a very wide circle. I have 212 friends on MySpace."
Leonard: "Yes, and you've never met one of them."
Sheldon: "That's the beauty of it."______________________________________________________
nugent73
October 01, 2010 at 2:01am
The Rig Rocks and the article helped me pull the trigger to get a Mountain Mod case. I have a few questions though. In the photo looking at the Motherboard and video cards it seems as if the Hoses are going to the bottom of the case. Are they and if they are whay Mountain mmode is that.I am guessing the fluid is going from one side to the other. In regards to the three radiators do yoyu set it up so the fan is blowing through the raidiator or pulling through the radiator? Or does it not matter?
FLemay
September 28, 2010 at 6:08pm
Great machine! No! Awesome machine!
But the case? Come-on guys! I like the bare metal industrial look as much as the next guy, but this doesn't do it for me.
How about a case like the CRAY CX1?
http://www.cray.com/Products/CX/Systems.aspx
or this one...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gTJMEP-c2fo/SM0JXvCZerI/AAAAAAAAE_0/glKOF-oKPZU/s1600-h/sick+pc+mod+1.6.JPG
Suggestion for next year: come up with a totally new case. Something from an obscure company that should be known but is not.
drmnez
August 24, 2010 at 1:51pm
y are the speakers not listed with the cost of the DM???
Correct me if Im wrong, but aren't those speakers $500/pair plus the cost of the subwoofer? that kinda blows my mind if you ask me. over $1500 for speakers plus extra for cabling.
schneider1492
August 21, 2010 at 1:38am
Why didn't you guys just film the build progress and go over all the little details. judging by the comments you realy blew some peoples minds.
fsg1948
August 15, 2010 at 11:24pm
You guys kill me ..... you say how its done, but you do not illustrate it. Each B&W MM-1 set of speakers have only one (1) 3.5mm jack output (for Headphone). So show me how do you do FL/FR, CENTER, RL/RR and connect to subwoofer at the same time ????? (and how in hell do you do 2 center speakers,? it makes no sense). Also the B&W manual states that these are near field speakers and that the cables are specifically designed for a certain length. How do you achieve 7.1 surround sound without a Dolby Digital/DTS/Prologic decoder?. Please illustrate and explain a little more clearly .... don't just write and run !
cudleeman
August 18, 2010 at 8:02am
It's safe to assume pretty much everybody that reads this is a tech geek.
Google it.
It's sad that I have to say that.
See what looks like a female VGA?
There is an attatchment that comes with the soundcard that separates all the channels out.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829156014
COMMANDER_COOK
August 15, 2010 at 11:09pm
How do you "slave in" a second power supply?
And where the hell did my signature go?
fsg1948
August 13, 2010 at 8:37am
Could you please show us exactly (a picture is worth 1000 words) how speakers were connected to the Auzentech soundcard? Could you have used an Asus Xonar soundcard instead (seems to have higher S/N ratio) ?
onlyhtml
August 11, 2010 at 4:57pm
Please corect me if I am wrong, but isn't this a faster computer?
Motherboard: S5520SC (Intel EATX) DDR3 ($451.38)
CPU: Twin Xeon X5680 (3.3 GHz) 6-core 130 Watts ($3,130)
Ram: Kingston 96 DDR3-1333 REG ECC (12x8GB) (Estamate, 10000)
Video Card: 4x ATI Radeon HD 5970 (8 GB Total) Crossfire ($2760)
Sound Card: Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Champion PCI-E ($251.89)
Controler: PCI-E SATA 6Gb/s 4 Channel RAID 60,50,10,6,5,1,0 ($446.39)
Wireless Card: 802.11n Wireless LAN Card ($97.99)
SSD: Four 64GB Intel x25-E Extreme SSD 25 RAID 10($3731.64)
Hard Drive: Four 600GB Western Digital VelociRaptor (10,000RPM, 6 Gb/s)($1536.92)
Blue-Ray: Pioneer 12X Blu-Ray Burner SATA (Black) ($532.10)
Case: Mountain Mods U2-UFO ($360.00)
Power Supplys: Two Silverstone 1500W Each ($1071.98)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit ($271.04)
Productivity Software: MS Office 2010 Pro ($413.28)
Moniter: 8 Asus 27inch DISPLAY PORT LCD w/ Speakers (1920x1080 (black) ($3856.32)
Speakers Logitech Digital 5.1 Channel 500W ($522.78)
Keyboard: Logitech Wireless MX550 Combo (black) ($515.29)
Water Cooling: Two MC-TDX CPU Block form Danger Den ($120.00)
Four DD-5970 Water Cooling Block from Danger Den ($480.00)
Eight Aqua Drive Hard Drive Block from Danger Den ($400.00)
Two DD12V D5 PUMP Variable Speed by Laing ($200.00)
OCZ CRYO-Z Cooler ($380)
10 Feet of Tygon 3603 Tubing ($30)
Feser One - UV BLUE - F1 - Coolant ($20)
Alphacool HF 38 Cape Cyclone 250 ($75.00)Grand Total: $31,654
schneider1492
August 21, 2010 at 2:10am
How would you fit 4 PCI-E 2.0 video cards in that each bloc an aditional slots and have room for sound card, wireless card, and a raid card on a motherbopard that only has 2 PCI-E 2.0 slots?
That cpu is not unlocked, and that board has basic overclocking features at best.
OCZ CRYO-Z phase change Cooler has only one cpu block witch means you would need 2 or would need to attach it to a water block in the system and risk ice formation in the lines witch can cause the water lines to break, condensation in your case, and as big as the u2ufo is the cryo-z would still have to reside outside the case.
What OS supports 48GB ram? why do you need ECC, its not a server?
last, thats a post that should be in the "help me build" forum.
da_samman
August 10, 2010 at 12:55pm
Is it just me, or is the soundcard, a PCI-E x1 card, plugged into a x16 slot? If so, since when could you do this?
sniggler
August 13, 2010 at 9:08am
You have been able to do this since the slot was released. You can certainly plug a 1x card into a 16x slot, it only uses a small chunk of the physical slot / bandwidth but it does indeed work.
Zachary K.
August 11, 2010 at 2:30pm
yea, you can do that. they are both PCI-E, they are the exact same except x16 is longer. if you put it in a x16 slot, it just wont use 15 of the lanes. though be careful, i got the lga 1156 which only has 16 lanes of PCI-E, i put a x1 card into a x16, and it dropped them both down to x8, which was bad for my graphics card. (it had a x1 slot but fricken heatsink was blocking it!)
politik
August 10, 2010 at 5:36am
I wanna see more pics. I wanna see build-in-progress and every friggin corner of this BEAST of a rig explored!
allc0re
August 09, 2010 at 3:30pm
C'mon guys! You know they make the best PSU money can buy. I thought that was what Dream Machine was all about.
ethanajs
August 08, 2010 at 12:39am
Everyone did a great job this year! I am in love with this computer and I'm glad that you guys got it running and were able to successfully benchmark it! Keep up the good work!
Austin55927
August 06, 2010 at 9:40pm
for the next pc you guys build you should build a custom cooling system that can handle extremely high pressers and that cools with liquid carbon the reason it would need to be able to handle extreme pressures is to keep the carbon in a liquid state. but then again it would probably cost like 6 gran to build the coolant system and according to my knowledge its not particularly easy to get liquid carbon. but still do it
Aljebra
August 06, 2010 at 9:14am
According to this:
http://gizmodo.com/5606273/this-computer-just-calculated-pi-to-a-world-record-5-trillion-digits#
(someone send me a PM so I know how to do links better on this site)
They did it in 90 days. Granted their computer does not use graphics cards, account for monitors, keyboards, speakers, ect but it is a similar setup. That being said, perhaps you should rethink your strategy and not only have the fasting gaming computer, but perhaps the fastest computer to calculate PI?
Perhaps redo your Dream Machine (as most of us would like to see the best PC vs PC), forget the accessories, put in the max RAM overclocked you can, as well as load up for storage, and contact these guys for a copy of their software...and see if yours is indeed faster. And then, own a record.
That would mean don't take apart your rig yet.
Rushimp
August 05, 2010 at 5:35pm
We write to you as long time readers. We have been fans since the first editions of BOOT. Over the years we have gained much insight and inspiration. The spring Dream Machine articles are always highly anticipated in our house. It helps give my brother and I lofty goals on building our own rigs. I personally enjoyed my own Skulltrail build in 2008.
However; I have to say, this year, we leave disappointed. We were saddened by the latest issue, fearing that our favorite magazine has lost its way. Questionable component selection and a sheer lack of attention to detail have left us questioning our subscriptions. In the past, we have looked to the “Best of the Best” list for guidance, now it seems our faith in your selections is misplaced.
The speakers, monitor, keyboard, and mouse are all personal decisions. We take no issue with them. The OCZ SSDs are fast and the WD Black’s are reliable, no problem their either. We love Plextor and we love BluRay, no problem there. The Auzentech sound card is about as good as it gets, maybe just short of the HomeTheater HD edition, again a personal decision, not a deal breaker by any means.
However, here is a small list of things that we do take issue with. The list includes items that we feel most enthusiast PC builders would agree with:
CPU, Memory, and Motherboard: We love them! Arguably the only real options for DM 2010; however, their utilization leaves much room for improvement. A Dream Machine CPU should be suitably overclocked! The CPU and RAM speeds seem compromised. They must have been able to be pushed harder, especially with water. More time should have been spent tweaking the setup with the help of eVGA. The decision not to utilize the optional 6-pin motherboard power connections also demonstrates a “Good enough” attitude. There is not supposed to be this much compromise in a Dream Machine! The motherboard is a beast, Shimano over at eVGA is destroying records left and right, it shouldn’t be blamed for lackluster overclocks: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=316295
Power Supply: Everyone is a big fan of recent Corsair power supplies. I personally have had a great experience with the HX1000. However, why the need to include one in the DM 2010? Sponsorship? You admit that the AX1200 is not ideal, and combining a high quality 80+ Gold unit made by Flextronics with a substandard and inefficient ancillary unit like the Thermaltake Power Express seems absurd. It’s a poor crutch and an even poorer place to compromise, power delivery is more important than ever, especially in a build of this raw power. The build would have been more power efficient, reliable, and visually appealing with a Silverstone Strider ST1500. The Silverstone exhibits renowned quality and reliability, it has been often utilized in world record rigs (Peter “Shimano” from eVGA and Kingpin from Detroit), many of which have quad SLI setups (HwBot.org). A respectable alternative would have been a Corsair AX1200 with a slave AX850/750. The Mountain Mods case and the new modular 24-pin ATX connectors on the AX series make it an almost ideal compromise. It almost seems like you are trying to get as many brands as possible into the mix. Maybe so you can collect more advertisement revenue, allowing companies to claim that their wares were “utilized in the Dream Machine 2010!”
Water-Cooling: We applaud you for getting wet in the last few DM builds. Water cooling has definitely gone main-stream and is a must for any enthusiast build today. Your choice (arguable requirement) of using a Mountain Mods case gives you plenty of room to be creative. That being said, your W.C. loop appears poorly planned and constructed.
Radiator: Mountain mods allows for almost any radiator setup! Why not a Watercool MO-RA 2 Pro, it is a 9x120 mm radiator core, easily equal to 3-120mm radiators. Not to mentions its one of the highest quality pieces on the market. This would both shorten the loop and decrease restriction. It would increase the heat dissipation capability of the loop and simply the fan setup. The interior would become cleaner and the air flow pathway simpler. It’s a no brainer.
Pump: Good choice, but a quality pump top for your Danger Den DDC 3.25 would have increased output and allowed the use of compression fittings instead of the OEM plastic barbs. A $15,000 computer should not have zip-ties on the pump, that’s not quality. You could have, probably should have, combined the power of two DDC Laing’s with a specialized pump top from Watercool, EK or XSPC. Dual pumps would increase flow, head pressure, and reliability.
CPU Blocks: Why use outdated blocks from Danger Den? Sponsorship again? Why not use a pair of high flowing EK Supreme HF, or Watercool Heat-Killers, or even restrictive Swiftech XT’s. All of which are high performers. You’re DDC 3.25, or ideally a pair of DDCs, should have no problem with any of these blocks, even in series.
Motherboard: EK has prototyped a full coverage block for the eVGA SR-2. I remember when Maximum PC chromed an HP Blackbird case in the DM 2008. What happened? Why not give EK a call and procure one for “testing”? This is a Dream Machine after all, we expect nothing less!
Tubing and Fittings: Is that 3/8” hose, seriously? I hope it’s at least ½” ID! Quality compression fittings from Bitspower or EK coupled with ½” Tygon hose is a minimum for most high end builds. Heck, you should have gone crazy and used braided nylon hose with stainless fuel fittings Russel Performance with NPT adapters, now that would have been something! Damn near leak proof, even at 250 psi!
Fans: Fan selection is critical when talking about water cooling. Selecting fans with high static pressures and high CFM / dB ratios is ideal. We have gravitated towards Panaflo/NMB-MAT in the 120x38mm series for their quality, performance, and price. In a build of this cost and caliber, there is only one fan that comes to mind: San Ace 120 by Sanyo Denki. Gentle Typhoons are popular, and even though their motors are made by Nidec, they can’t compete at this level.
Our final criticism comes from the decided lack of attention to detail. Building a Maximum PC has gone beyond choosing the components and slapping them together. It has become an art. We attempt to create an object of pride, one that embodies aesthetics and function. The ideal boutique quality system takes planning, precision and creativity. You guys did not even sleeve the fan cables! You zip tied the hoses to the pump; your wire management is no where near the caliber I expect in a Dream Machine! A simple trip over to http://www.million-dollar-pc.com/ helps illustrate the point. That’s what we expect. A Dream Machine should look the part! I hope to see an improved showing in the future.
JCCIII
September 19, 2010 at 12:29am
They have lost their drive; somethings been going wrong for years. I would rather have see a bad-ass $5,000.00 rig than look at my pages of an underdeveloped 2010 Dream Machine. They did not even give us an analytical look at it, skimping on page real-estate. The money-glut of 2010 is no Dream Machine. Like the others, it gets dismantled the next day; furthermore, it never should have been built; it was never intended to be used. It is a phony.
Maximum PC had passion and fun, once. Then they lost it all to the worry of losing money from the sponsors, doing away with their boot mag vow.
Dictates from boardrooms, somewhere, seemingly, the MPC crew gets their life back, but with force, in the reverse, they show new depths of lethargy, some slanted reviews, and then this: Dream Machine 2010. They are moving to be totally out of touch with PC enthusiasm and The Spirit of Radio, even:
Invisible airwaves crackle with life
Bright antenna bristle with the energy
Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free...been with them from boot, too, sad. Moving on...
Joseph C. Carbone III
ironman31
August 05, 2010 at 1:07pm
Well since they were going along the lines of "spend the most you can spend", they should've gotten a Topre keyboard....
Keith E. Whisman
August 05, 2010 at 12:45pm
How about a case that is shaped and themed to look like a great big jelly donut. A giant jelly donut would make a wonderful dream machine. I would try to eat it but it would be a great dream machine case.
eparera
August 05, 2010 at 10:33am
Configuration
- Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
- 32GB (8x4GB)
- 2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
- 2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
- 2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
- 2TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
- 4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
- Two 18x SuperDrives
- Apple Magic Mouse
- Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User's Guide
- Country Kit
Show delivery information Delivery information shown above
- Cart subtotal $15,767.00
eparera
August 05, 2010 at 10:21am
All-new, high-performance graphics cards from NVIDIA and AMD deliver the fastest Mac graphics performance ever. A 16-lane, double-wide PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot supports the latest graphics cards for up to 8 GBps of data throughput. And by supplying up to 300 watts of total power to all PCI Express slots, the Mac Pro provides the headroom for high-performance, next-generation graphics cards.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120
Perfect for motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory comes standard — and provides greater performance than previous Mac Pro standard graphics. The GeForce GT 120 includes both a Mini DisplayPort and a dual-link DVI port. With up to four GeForce GT 120 graphics cards installed, a Mac Pro can support up to eight 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays.*ATI Radeon HD 4870
For even greater graphics performance, choose the latest-generation ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB of fast GDDR5 video memory. With massive memory bandwidth and over a TeraFlop of computing power, the Radeon HD 4870 brings advanced performance to graphics-intensive applications such as motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. Connect an Apple 24-inch LED Cinema Display directly to the Mini DisplayPort port or a 30-inch Cinema Display to the Dual-Link DVI port.Dual-display modes
Each graphics card offers built-in dual-display support in two modes. Extended Desktop mode allows you to work on two monitors at once for increased desktop real estate and enhanced productivity. Video mirroring mode is useful when presenting to groups — the same image that you see on your local display also appears on a projector or auxiliary display. Simply attach two monitors and the Mac OS will recognize both displays. Use the Displays system preference to configure your monitors in either extended desktop or video mirroring modes.
You can attach multiple Apple flat panels with DVI connectors to your Mac Pro graphics card, one directly to the Dual-Link DVI port the other via a Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (sold separately). A Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter is also available. If you have an Apple flat panel with an ADC connector, the optional Apple DVI to ADC Adapter is required (sold separately).
Graphics
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
- 2x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB [Add $150.00]
- 3x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB [Add $300.00]
- 4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB [Add $450.00]
- ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB [Add $200.00]
Can we laugh now or a year ago, cross fire, SLI whats that? but its best for graphics? LOL everytime I hear that I just laugh at the MAC vs PC commercial I would make. But its prettier LOL, do what I did empty the tower case of all the mac crap and put a real machine in there like I did and then you will have a nice case with a power house... P.S. 15 year Mac guy who made the switch years ago when I was tired of Apple sodomizing me without a kiss.
danimoth17
August 05, 2010 at 9:48am
Prices for the speakers?
I looked online:
MSRP of the MM-1 are $499 per set, so $1497
MSRP of the PV-1 is $1500
You can find mm-1 for sale for $300 per set online, but cant find the PV-1 any cheaper. so total would be between $2400-$3000
runevirage
August 05, 2010 at 7:31am
The funny thing is, the new Mac Pro will likely cost the same and not even be half as strong.
geisterfahrer
August 05, 2010 at 7:56am
Somehow some way, Apple sales demolish competition. I am sure they did it all by ripping off their customers. The ugly Windows os speaks volumes for pc computing experience. I use pretty much all OS under the sun. Nothing comes close to awful ugly what windows is. : )
When ignorant pc users compare platforms they almost always forget one important factor. The fact that Apple OS brings an amazing level of user experience to computing. This is something PC users live without. They are conditioned by MS to put up with awful user experience and an astronomically high price of Win OS.
schneider1492
August 21, 2010 at 9:53am
I bet your so stupid as to think you cant get a virus on OSX. What are you going to do when jobs makes you pay for an update that subsequently makes your hardware unsupported and forces you to buy a new computer.
aldude505
August 05, 2010 at 6:48pm
I will give you that OS X is a very good OS, that made Microsoft look foolish for months before Windows 7 came out. But if you're gunna talk about price lets break this down:
$129 gets you a valid update copy to Windows 7 from XP or Vista from any retail store.
Now with that copy you get FREE updates to that OS, let me say that again FREE.
Lets look at OS X which costs between $29.99 to $109.99 for each update, now if you're willing to pay Apple for each and every update for the 'Apple Experience' go for it. But for now, I'll stick with my Windows 7 OS, and deal with the 'astronomically high price' of FREE.
Keith E. Whisman
August 05, 2010 at 12:37pm
It's Steve Jobs, I can tell by the tone of his comments.
Julyjules
August 05, 2010 at 8:37am
ROFL! You're saying Microsoft has astronomical prices for Windows OS?? Dude, I think you forgot to have a look at your Mac computer's price. If Windows has astronomical prices, then that leaves Mac prices on the yottametre scale!
And for the user experience, if you don't know how to use your computer, then yes Mac can be an interesting option.
And Apple sales don't demolish competition. Maybe their sales improved lately, but just to remind you, Mac OS actually runs on 5% of all the computers in the wolrd. That's 5% of billions. MS pretty much has the rest. So if that's demolishing for you, there's nothing that can be done about you.
kiaghi7
August 06, 2010 at 7:04pm
Indeed, to add to what you've said, Apple is the number 1 competition for LINUX... The free OS that has -NO- promotion what so ever outside of word of mouth.
Apple is quite literally bickering and fighting tooth and nail for the 5% market share Windows doesn't control de facto, which is part of why Apple and Linux users are so devout (see also: zealots).
Apple OS and Linux are both VERY good OS's, and I'm not making fun or dismissing them at all, but the suggestion that Apple is "competing" for anything other than a choice between a VERY distant second or modestly more distant third place is simply intellectually dishonest.
Azrael808
August 05, 2010 at 6:31am
First of all; well done guys, that's a pretty sick PC you've put together there!
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this sort of article; I love reading about the best-of-the-best-of-the-best hardware out there being pushed to the extreme... But it makes me so envious!!!
I would love to be able to build my own "Dream PC"!!! Maybe one day...
Dunimas
August 05, 2010 at 6:15am
I love the MM cases and really enjoy the build. For the sake of this being a DM I would argue that Quad SLI was a MUST, but besides that it's as dreamy as I can imagine. The 3x 2560x1600 monitors were just down-right nasty. PLEASE POST MORE PICS if you guys can.
P.S. - would like to have seen more detail about peripherals you used and why you chose them (ugly front panel controllers, etc). :-)
squarebab
August 05, 2010 at 5:55am
Last year's "dream machine" elicited such howls of disappointment I thought MaxPC was going to fold. I guess their financial house is now in order (was it ever not?) because this year we get a worthy successor instead of a lame recession rig. Good job guys, it's very impressive. Especially the dual six-core procs! It's sad you couldn't fit a RAID card in, as I would liked to have seen a ten SSD array included (maybe next year?). But no matter, as this machine is truly king. Congratulations.
P.S. Why didn't you post this article before the mag came out like last year? I so enjoyed the massive bitching from your subscribers.
lunchbox73
August 05, 2010 at 5:36am
What happens to the old Dream Machines? Why wouldn't you keep them around?
thetechchild
August 04, 2010 at 11:46pm
On the benches on page 3, both charts list 'zero point', although one's title includes 'Origin PC Genesis'. Plus, the titles on the charts makes it seem like the Zero Point is *faster* than the Genesis. That seems weird...
Anyways, cranking this setup to 4.5GHz wouldn't kill the competition. You need liquid helium/nitrogen and some 6+ GHz for that.
peteyj222
August 04, 2010 at 8:14pm
When you guys build your dream machine every year who gets it? Does it stay in the lad as a test bed to benchmark against? Or does the senior staff take it home for a month and display it proudly in their homes like the Stanley Cup (not really a hockey fan but they do pass it around i think). Or do you scrap it for parts? Two ideas. Either auction it off and give the proceeds to a charity. Or hold a contest for fans and readers. That would be a better prize than a set of speakers. In fact, forget i mentioned the auction. Just send it to me.
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