Possibly combining HDPlex 250w and a PicoPSU

[Dan Jones]

Hi,

I am working a small from factor gaming+rendering build in the s4 mini case for a friend. It will be used for hd video game streaming so I expect the CPU and Video card to be at full usage for long periods of time. I expect the system to draw around or a little over 250W at full usage. Is this likely to be a problem for the HDPlex. it is rated for 400w peak but it's very important that the system doesn't fail because he takes part in a lot of gaming tournaments. From looking around it seems that everybody who has used parts that draw more than 250w hasn't had a problem but I just want to confirm. I was thinking of possibly combining the HDPlex with a picoPSU, powering the gpu on the 160w HDPlex and the rest of the system on the PicoPSU. What are your guy's thoughts? If this isn't possible I can always downgrade the cpu.

Here the proposed parts list:

S4 Mini
S4 Mini PCI cable
HD PLEX 250W
Gigabyte GTX 970 itx (145W)
1x 8GB Kingston HyperX RAM
MSI B150I Motherboard
intel Xeon E3-1231 v3 (80W)
Noctua NH-L9I
250 GB Samsung 850 EVO
WD Blue 1TB HDD

 

[QinX]

I've run a 4670 with a reference GTX970 on the HDPlex with a Voodoo 350W brick and it never crashed on my once, even when running Prime95 + Furmark on it. Which in terms of stress-testing is the most brutal thing you can do to a system.

If you are considering the dual PSU setup you are also going to need two bricks. That would make it more robust but also a bit more cumbersome to travel with.

The only combo currently that is prone to problems is the R9 Nano, but that isn't really a fault of the HDPlex.

If you notice that the system doesn't have the stability you seek, which I believe it will. You can always undervolt the CPU and set a lower powerlimit on the GPU. I don't think @Josh | NFC has ever had a problem with an S4 Mini and a GTX970 combo.

 

[Josh | NFC]

The 970 has been pretty good, although I like some versions better than others (Asus is my fav so far but I hate doing the mod for it. The Gigabyte has been successful for at least four customers I know of and supposedly fits OK without adjusting the DC power jack).

One thing I found just this week is that Heroes of the Storm actually can stress your system more than furmark and prime95 (in terms of heat and power draw) because of a bug that blizz needs to work out. I have one customer who is experiencing that problem now, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it but from the amount of complaints it seems to be a fairly common issue with the Nvidia 9 series having the majority of the complaints.

No scientific data yet on it...just something that shocked me as his system was stress tested for THREE DAYS with benchmarks, the first day being Prime95 + Furmark. No issues and passed. He gets on Heroes of the Storm and BLAMO. Resets power brick towards the end of a match. Keeps happening too, and the system gets stupid hot. Really weird. It hasn't happened with any other game in his library though. it's silly because HotS shouldn't really be a demanding game at all.


Enough with that ranting. My only real concern is that I have never used a CPU with a wattage over 65. Some of my customers have, but I think 65 is the limit. I don't know how one would cool a 80w CPU and the Xeons I've worked with don't like to be undervolted.

I actually have some experience in streaming, and most of the encoding/broadcast suites do take really good advantage of multicore CPUs (particularly Wirecast, Livestream, and vMix) but if he is planning on gaming on the same box, then I personally would consider Skylake anyways, for the strong primary core. If you were JUST streaming then I would downgrade the GPU to a 750ti and keep the Xeon. Would you be using like a Magewell M.2 HDMI capture card or something?

I have one customer who is a pro gamer and streamer (Street Fighter) and she is using a 65w CPU and a 285 ITX.

 

[Dan Jones]

Thanks a lot for the replies.

My friend is a semi-professional dota 2 player so running the game at 1080p and 120 FPS is a must which is why I went for the 970 (although a 960 can achieve these settings too, I wanted to future proof it). He plays in tournaments many times per week so this PC dying would be really bad. The plan was to use just use open broadcaster for streaming to twitch and shadowplay for recording, so no fancy additional hardware.

As far as I could tell from looking at other builds, the Noctua NH-L9i should just about be able to cool the xeon.

I am actually very tempted now to pay £40 more for the 65w i7-6700 which I think would guarantee stability and has slightly better performance than the xeon. Otherwise I think I would go down to a 960 and the keep the Xeon as a cheaper option. Thoughts?

 

[Dan Jones]

I've run a 4670 with a reference GTX970 on the HDPlex with a Voodoo 350W brick and it never crashed on my once, even when running Prime95 + Furmark on it. Which in terms of stress-testing is the most brutal thing you can do to a system.

If you are considering the dual PSU setup you are also going to need two bricks. That would make it more robust but also a bit more cumbersome to travel with.

The only combo currently that is prone to problems is the R9 Nano, but that isn't really a fault of the HDPlex.

If you notice that the system doesn't have the stability you seek, which I believe it will. You can always undervolt the CPU and set a lower powerlimit on the GPU. I don't think @Josh | NFC has ever had a problem with an S4 Mini and a GTX970 combo.

Did you get any coil whine? If so how noticeable is if?

 

[Josh | NFC]

My personal opinion would be a 960 with the 6700(65w), the Zalman CNPS2x, and then one of the Scythe fans to get a little more air over your components. Use low profile memory if possible, I don't think RAM speed factors into this system useage at all.

Then pick up the Dell 330w which stuffs easier to into backpacks or hard carrying cases like for the S3:

Keep in mind these are just my opinions and what I would choose if I was building for a pro gramer friend whose main game was DOTA. Your build is perfectly valid, but I like heat and power headroom if we are talking about streaming and mission critical stability.

 

[QinX]

Did you get any coil whine? If so how noticeable is if?

My first unit had some noticable coilwhine and so did others with a 970
But after talking about it with HDPlex and them doing a revision, which I tested it was gone at least with my 970.

I haven't heard others complain since and I know they now sell that latest revision as standard so you should be good on that frant.

 

[Dan Jones]

My personal opinion would be a 960 with the 6700(65w), the Zalman CNPS2x, and then one of the Scythe fans to get a little more air over your components. Use low profile memory if possible, I don't think RAM speed factors into this system useage at all.

Then pick up the Dell 330w which stuffs easier to into backpacks or hard carrying cases like for the S3:

Keep in mind these are just my opinions and what I would choose if I was building for a pro gramer friend whose main game was DOTA. Your build is perfectly valid, but I like heat and power headroom if we are talking about streaming and mission critical stability.

Thanks! If I remember correctly you said in a video that the zalman is better for spreading air all over the case for cooling. I'm guessing I would put the Scythe over the CPU but isn't it bad to have two different fans against each other?

 

[Dan Jones]

My first unit had some noticable coilwhine and so did others with a 970
But after talking about it with HDPlex and them doing a revision, which I tested it was gone at least with my 970.

I haven't heard others complain since and I know they now sell that latest revision as standard so you should be good on that frant.

That's great to hear. I'm pretty sure that the reviews and builds that I saw which complained about the wine were from a while ago.

 

[Josh | NFC]

Thanks! If I remember correctly you said in a video that the zalman is better for spreading air all over the case for cooling. I'm guessing I would put the Scythe over the CPU but isn't it bad to have two different fans against each other?

I would say yes, but it works for some reason. I actually had a customer just today drop his temps running Prime 95 by 17C. Your mileage may vary depending on your ram height, wiring, board layout, etc etc.

If you go with a hotter CPU though, it stops working as well and its better to go with the Noctua.

I'll let somebody else science it out. I'm just an experimenter.

 

[iFreilicht]

I know we've passed that part of the discussion, but isn't Furmark known for being detected by the GPUs drivers wich in turn reduce the maximum power draw? If that is the case, Furmark+Prim95 isn't the most brutal thing to do to a system anymore.

 

[Josh | NFC]

I know we've passed that part of the discussion, but isn't Furmark known for being detected by the GPUs drivers wich in turn reduce the maximum power draw? If that is the case, Furmark+Prim95 isn't the most brutal thing to do to a system anymore.

#Heroesofthestorm #nustandard #xtremetorturetesting #whyblizzwhy

 

[jeshikat]

#endhashtagabuse

 

[Phuncz]

Starcraft 2 also had an issue with unlimited framerates in menus, putting load on GPUs that was... extreme. They fixed it by capping the framerate. I'm glad AMD has this feature in the drivers built-in and some games also have it independently.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

That's interesting. I'm searching for a new PSU as my 8 years old trusted Corsair HX520W started to make weird noises. Hesitating between DC-DC + externel AC-DC (laptop brick or linear PSU) and Corsair 92mm SFX PSU.

My current setup is an Intel Core i5-4570, Asus Gryphon and 4x 4GB of DDR3. I have no dedicated GPU as I'm waiting for Pascal / Polaris but could also go for a second hand single slot PRO GPU (Quadro or Firepro). My deepest regret is that I didn't get an i7-4785T instead of the full TDP i5 when I bought this rig.

 

[iFreilicht]

OT: Why choose a linear PSU? Those things are unbelieviably massive and expensive. Would that really increase audio quality by an audible amount?

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Idea was to build one myself and have a built-in battery for uninterruptible power supply.

 

[iFreilicht]

In that case you should totally go for it if just for the challange of it.