Maxwell Render

Sure, you don't have to see the ugly bastard and it's silent.

If you don't go above ~4-4,2GHz i think the temps should be ok on air - depending on your cooler and the cpu.
i don't know if this works for your cupboard, but a good airflow is always neccessary not only for ivy bridge - and concerning noise... without a good airflow the fans will have to run faster so i don't know if this is really a good idea to place it in a cupboard. If it gets too hot it can cause instability and HDDs shouldn't run too hot to prevent damage.

the z77 chipset has some new features like PCIe 3.0 support with ivy bridge and native USB3.0 and Intel Rapid Start Technology, a combination of Suspend-To-Ram and Suspend-To-Disk. The performance should be almost the same like for z68.
Here is a comparison:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z77 ... ,3174.html

Ivy Bridge review:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy ... ,3181.html

Can't see anything that excites me about the z77and since the motherboards are almost twice the price I'll go for a z68. I'm thinking of mounting the computer parts directly on the walls/floors in the cupboard, i.e. use the cupboard as a case.

So if I want to overclock, what should I put the most money? CPU cooler? Case coolers? Faster mem?

if you don't use a metal case you'll have no electromagnetic shielding. I just wanted to mention it, i don't know if this is a real problem...

Concerning the RAM: it's not needed to overclock the RAM, it can be set independant from the CPU multiplier and base clock.
You will not see a real difference in (rendering) performance using faster RAM speeds. DDR 1600 is enough.

The price difference between z68 and z77 is around 10-15€ here.

Priority is a good CPU cooler, but you'll need a good airflow too. But one or two normal case fans (120mm or bigger depending on your case) should be enough. I would mostly look for silent versions and a low initial voltage.

If you want a silent system and if it's ok for you to pay a bit more for the cooler, you should look for a custom water cooling system (~200€+). The initial price is higher but the advantage is that you'll be able to reuse almost all components for future pc builds. Maybe you'll have to buy a new monting set for a new socket for a few € but that's it. And you're able to cool more than only the CPU, you could add a GPU cooler later (or now) if your heat exchanger is big enough.

Otherwise i think you should at least buy a Corsair H100.
I don't know how quiet your video card is.

Thanks again for the info. I'll probably buy z77 after all. And a good CPU cooler to start with.

Maybe you are doing something like this:

http://www.braverabbit.de/playground/?page_id=630

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http://www.ftella.com

So, I'm typing this from my new computer A 2600k, 16GB ram and a z77 mainboard. (+ a new 7200 rpm disk). I've just installed windows, maya and maxwell and only did a few quick test renders. Obviously way faster than man old one. No overclocking yet. Will try that out in a few days. I only have the CPU fan that came with the CPU though + a 120mm case fans, so there is obviously a lot to do to improve the cooling.

Thanks for all the feedback!

@Fernando Tella: Yes, something like that... in the future.

Well, I've been testing around some. When in idle, the core temp is about 30 C. When overclocking and rendering it will go up to 98C pretty quickly and then lowering the frequencies (so it won't burn up probably). So overclocking give me less performance... I'm using the stock CPU cooler though. So the thing is: how much faster, percent wise, will it render if going from 3.4ghz to 4.4ghz. Because a good CPU cooler cost quite a bit and may not be worth it. Also the Intel 3000 graphics seems to have some issues in Maya 2011.

Clock for clock you will see a proportional increase. So if you increase the clock speed 30%, you'll see a ~28-30% increase in performance.

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mo cores, mo problems

Oh, so it's that straight forward. Sounds like it's worth it then. I'll go and search the net for a good CPU cooler then.

I would say it is definitely worth it.

There are good air coolers around 30-40€. If it's placed under your desk the problem is always to find the balance between performance and noise.
If i had to buy an air cooler now i think i would take the Thermalright HR2 Macho SE - very good price/perfomance ratio.

here are some reviews and performance rankings

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... mitstart=4
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/geha ... ung_120_mm

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/geha ... zelluefter

Yes in general clock speed increases will give you a roughly linear performance increase.

Increasing core count is slightly less linear, but to what degree greatly depends on application and cpu architecture.

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mo cores, mo problems

I took out the back and there's also a pretty big hole (for the cables) on on wall and pretty big opening in the bottom. So there's actually no difference if it's in the cupboard or not AFAICT.

Thanks for the links, will take a look.

I think I'm going to build something like this for my new workstation:



Still have to check compatibilities but this is more or less the picture.

What do you hardware gurus think?



(I hope you don't mind Blazer if I post this here)

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http://www.ftella.com

jeez I wish I could build PC's.. there is such a HUGE difference between built PC's and DIY PC's... sooo huge.. amazing.. yesterday I was pricing one Boxx PC .. final was $16,000... woot... ahahah

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sing with me.... la la la... la la la