New workstation/gaming rig build

Budget:
$10,000

Usage:

* Gaming (primarily WoW, Overwatch and Battlefield 4)
* Twitch streaming
* Blu ray transcoding
* Android simulator + some compiling

Configuration Code: 1288531
Total Price with Instant Savings: $9,042.00

Direct Load URL: https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=1288531

Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Aventum 3
Exterior Finish: Black Metallic Matte Finish
Trim Accents: - Not Available
Processor: Intel Core i7 5930K 3.5GHz (Six-Core) (Unlocked CPU)
Motherboard: ASUS X99-E WS (Intel X99 Chipset) (Workstation Class)
System Memory: 32GB DDR4 2800MHz Corsair Dominator Platinum DHX (Extreme-Performance)
Power Supply: 2x Dual (1200W Corsair AX1200i (Digitally Controlled Power)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Optical Drive: Blu-Ray Player/DVD Writer (Play Blu-Ray and Burn DVDs) (Slim Slot Loading Edition) <br><strong></strong>
Storage Set 1: 1x SSD mini-SAS (400GB Intel 750 Series) (2.5 inch - NVM Express) (Extreme Performance)
Storage Set 2: - No Thanks
Storage Set 3: - No Thanks
RAID Config: - No Thanks
RAID Card: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Graphics Card(s): 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB (ASUS Strix Edition) <br><strong></strong>
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
HPC Processor: - No Thanks
Extreme Cooling: H20: Hardline: Digital Storm Acrylic Tubing Custom Cooling System (Video Cards + CPU)
H20 Tube Color:White Tubing (Requires Custom HydroLux Liquid Cooling System)
Chassis Fans: Upgrade All Fans to Corsair Airflow Performance Edition (Up to 6 Fans)
Internal Lighting: Digital Storm RGB LED Lighting System (Requires Thermal Management Control Board & Software)
Airflow Control: Digital Storm Thermal Management Control Board & Software
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires High-End Motherboard Selection)
Boost Graphics Card(s): Yes, Overclock the video card(s) as much as possible with complete stability
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: Yes, Disable and tweak all of the non-crucial services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows CD)
Virus Protection: FREE: McAfee AntiVirus Plus (1 Year Service Activation Card) (Not Pre-installed) ($35 Value)
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
Portable Gaming: - No Thanks
Branded Gear: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 15-20 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Care with 5 Year Limited Warranty (5 Year Labor & 3 Year Part Replacement)

Questions:

So I've been trying to call Digital Storm sales to figure this out and place my order but unfortunately they have been busy and it just goes to voice mail. I also tried the "email us" option but I'm not sure the average turn around time on those. Hence I've decided to ask the community here.

1.)

Is Digital Storm using the USB 3.1 refresh of the Asus X99-E WS motherboard?

All of the other boards in the configurator drop down list USB 3.1 specifically but not this one.

2.)

Does the current bios rev for the Asus X99-E WS/USB 3.1 motherboard support NMVe drives?

I've read conflicting reports on the forums about this.

3.)

Does the H2O hardline acrylic piping option include a waterblock on the motherboard chipset?

It seems more ambiguous exactly what the acrylic option provides. I want CPU + chipset + both GPUs on water.

4.)

When you select the H2O hardline option does it still respect the tube color option?

I want white acrylic piping like in the following picture. This is the exact look I am trying to achieve:

http://www.computershopper.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/ces-2015/first-look-digital-storm-aventum-3/digital-storm-aventum-3-hard-tubing/1181801-1-eng-US/digital-storm-aventum-3-hard-tubing_slideshow_main.jpg

Thank you all for the help. Hopefully I can get on the phone with Digital Storm soon and get this order placed.

@db188 Thanks for the reply.

I got through to sales on the phone and the suggestion was to proceed with the order and then work through the finer details.

Order placed and I'll work through the rest with DS over e-mail hopefully early next week!

Edited by elmoe - 25 Sep 2015 at 6:28pm

no problem bud, congrats on the order.  make sure you hammer out the details with them really soon so they don't get too far into the build stage and charge you extra for changes.  Alex seems to be really on the ball with direct emails to him as to checking up on orders and confirming the details with tech staff.  

it was in the configurator somewhere towards the bottom.

@Alex Thanks, already got your mail and have replied. Appreciate the weekend response!

Figured I would update the forum goers with the answers Alex was able to provide wrt my build listed above.

1.)

Digital Storm is currently still using the older pre-USB 3.1 revision of the Asus X99-E WS motherboard.

Alex put in a special order for the updated version with USB 3.1 for my build.

2.)

The latest bios revision for the Asus X99-E WS (both USB 3.1 and 3.0 variants) supports NVMe hard drives via PCI-E or M.2.  I went with M.2.

3.)

Water cooling for the chipset is only available when using the Asus Rampage V X99 motherboard.   Digital Storm does not have water blocks for anything other than the CPU for the Asus X99-E WS motherboard unfortunately.

So looks like I'll have to live without chipset water cooling on this new build.  This is mainly disappointing from an aesthetics standpoint as I think it would look better.   This shouldn't have any practical impact on overclocking with this board as the chipset is passively cooled anyway.

4.)

Alex said he will pass on the image I provided of the other Aventum 3 build so that the DS team can try to make the look as close as possible.

I'm going for that black + white look.

Hope this helps anyone else considering a similar build.

Thanks for the info and update.    

Quick update on my build.

I've been in stage 3 since Oct 1st but just received a call from Tammy @ Digital Storm. She was clarifying exactly the look I wanted for the water cooling setup. I sent her the following picture and which she said would be the hardliners option with white fluid and then white cabling. She said she was passing this information on to the tech working on my build.

http://www.computershopper.com/var/ezwebin_site/storage/images/ces-2015/first-look-digital-storm-aventum-3/digital-storm-aventum-3-hard-tubing/1181801-1-eng-US/digital-storm-aventum-3-hard-tubing_slideshow_main.jpg

Feels like progress now back to the agonizing wait!

Sweeeet Love that SLI bridge.and wire work. Its art!!

dude, that's your rig?  i saw that on one of their social media feeds (twitter i think).  you ripped off my config!! jk.  that's the same fc terminal i chose for my AV3 build.  i'm also going with a black/white color theme (too many red and now yellow rigs out there). 

nice pics.   i'm stuck in stage 3 because i'm waiting on special order fans.

Edited by db188 - 31 Oct 2015 at 3:10pm

Keep in mind these are work in progress pics while they are doing the build. Alex grabbed those shots because he and I were double checking the aesthetics over email. Hence why things like the LED strip and wires are not all secured fully.

That motherboard orientation is actually better for air cooling in my opinion which is a guess why they choose that as the standard for the Aventum 3. I also feel like it is more convenient for install/removal of PCI cards. It would be cool in the future if you could pick your orientation though.

Very cool fans you have on special order. I just stuck with the Corsair Air series since they have the different color plastic rings you can use (white in this case).

Not sure if it is my build you saw on one of their social media feeds or just one of the prototype builds they demoed at CES this year. I modeled the aesthetics of mine off of that.

if you buy a Corsair psu don't they come with optional replacement sleeved power cables? all you have left are the front panel connectors, right?  depending on how much more expensive it would be i might be interested. 

Freakin Beast!!   

Originally posted by  Alex, you guys know those two GPUs are going through the same PLX chip, so you are essentially connecting both of those GPUs to the processor with only 16 PCIe lanes instead of 32 lanes, right?

Hopefully @Alex can shed some more light.

According to the block diagram in the motherboard manual it does look like both slot 1 and slot 3 share the same 16x PCI-E bridge and the PLX switch is multiplexing 16 into 32 lanes. However, for a 2-way SLI setup Asus does recommend this set up of using slot 1 and slot 3 which is confusing.



According to this detailed review either slot 3 or slot 5 can be used and should result in the same performance.

http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.php/reviews/hardware/motherboards/33768-reviewed-asus-x99-e-ws-intel-x99-motherboard.html?start=1

This review claims that slot 1 is an "addition 16 lanes coming off the CPU". This is odd considering the block diagram does show it going through the same bridge as slot 3/4.

Also found this interesting read that indicates we shouldn't think too hard about this for gaming workloads:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

That doesn't account for the overhead of the PLX switching of course. My GPGPU accelerated statistical modeling may suffer.

Edited by elmoe - 01 Nov 2015 at 11:06pm

Yeah I think with the 5930k the diagram is the same but with 16 lanes going to the second PCI-e bridge instead of 8 for a full 40. Agreed that doing 2-way SLI in slot 1 and slot 5 would probably be optimal. Not sure how much it would matter in pratice though.

It is hard to find much concrete info on the overhead of the PLX multiplexing too. As for peer-to-peer between two GPUs on the same bridge, I have no clue if games utilize this or if it is even available on non-Quadro cards.

Curious what you see as the real advantage of Z170? I debated this but wanted the 2 extra cores for the non-gaming workloads this will do.

it only drops down to x8 if you populate the secondary slots (they're all routed x8).  as long as you populate the 1,3,5,7 slots you're good for x16/x16/x16/x16.  the PLX chip takes its 16 lanes upstream and comes back down with 32. 

slots 1 and 3 are on the the first PLX chip and slots 5 and 7 on the second.  if you populate slot 2 it will drop slot 3 down to x8.  populating slot 4 will drop slot 5 down to x8, etc. 

can't eliminate all latency, so there is overhead with the PLX switches, but it's minimal.  

Originally posted by Clay I thought DS has its own "proprietary" way of building..? No..?

Nope. They use commodity parts that are replaceable and upgradeable. The case is their own, though.