
Trying to work up the nerve to start my next big project. I have been buying parts on the Down-Low for a while now. A few years back when China, I don’t know the distributor, dropped what they called an X99 motherboard I wanted one. It had dual 775 sockets and could run two XEON processors. It used up to 32 gb of ram. But, the DELL Workstations had an EATX Motherboard as well that handled two XEONs and 32 GB of ram, so I bought two of those at auction and built David Maxon and I each one.

Meanwhile China goes on. They update the X99 (It is not an official American or INTEL sanctioned motherboard, BTW) to 64 GB, then to LGA 2011 sockets, then to DDR 3, then to DDR 4. I was drooling.

I use an AMD 8 Core on my main machine to do AI work, 3D Modeling and also music, lyrics, etc. and animated ads for books, and book covers, and on and on. It does well with 32 GB of memory and a pair of 730 GT NVidias GT. Yes, mixed, older tech, but it gets the job done and it cost me a few hundred instead of a few thousand dollars.

But I saw the upgrades to the X99 board, a board I thought would get sued out of existence and instead survived. When they added the DDR3 and then the LGA2011 sockets I paid real attention, because that is a far cry from the Xeon 775s to the 2011 Xeon processors. Also, the DDR3 memory is much faster, in fact three times plus. And the memory channels are ten times as many. So, I bought the pieces one by one.
Last night I started see what I have and What I need.

I have an EATX rack case I built when I had the DELL Workstation mounted in there. I built it as an open air case and I spent some time on it, and it is drilled out and ready for an EATX board. Plenty of space for a huge Power supply, long space for a graphics card. The case is thin, 4 1/4″ thick, about 30″ tall and 28″ wide.
I also purchased the X99 Motherboard with the dual LGA2011 sockets, space for 64 GB of DDR at up to 1600 MHZ The max mem is 128 GB, so I can expand. I also bought 32 GB in 4 sticks of DDR3 in 8GB each, and I have 64 GB of DDR3 in 8GB sticks, so I have plenty.

I also have dual 12 core XEON processors.

I have dual CPU coolers with double fans.

I also have a 1 Terabyte SSD m.22 that will go right on the motherboard as it has 2 M.22 slots @ 32 GB sec.
I have also a 1 Terabyte SSD drive.

I have my three Terabyte Sata drive to transfer and my 2 Terabyte drive to transfer.

I have my WIN 10 on an SSD drive already, so I will only have to reactivate everything once I transfer it.
I have a second 2.M.22 drive at a half Terabyte.

I also have a PCIE Graphics card, GEFORCE 970 GTX with 4 gb of DDR5.. I have a matched pair of EAH 5550 cards as well, but they are the CU type and require 4 8 pin power plugs between the pair, so that will allow 4 moni9tors which ever way I go. According to benchmarks I’ve seen the single card will do ten times better than the double cards, and even if I purchased a second 930 card, in SLI they cannot double up the memory like most SLI run cards. A weird design flaw? No idea. So, I will most like go with single 930.

I have a Rocketfish Modular PS.

I purchased 4 120 MM fans and this time I got grills for them. On the old setup I did not have grills as I have no kids and then some kids showed up, and it scared the hell out of me. So, grills this time, and that means full grills.

Wish me luck. I have some specific cables on the way and then I will build it…
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