RAM and cooling pad reccomendations for Clevo P775-TM1G (workstation use)

I recently got a P775TM1-G (from Obsidian; I9 9900, RTX 2080) without disk drives as I already had a set from my old P775DM1G which I will just move over (2X Pro 970 1 TB and 2x Evo 860 4 TB). The system will be used for gaming and structural biology. The main offenders are CCPNMR, PyMol, Agilent LC/MS software, large amounts of curve fitting analysis from other experiments, and image processing; I might need to run Relion at some point in the future if I am lucky. I had two questions:

1 - I will need probably a hefty amount of RAM, particularly for Relion (most likely 64 GB as 128 is prohibitive after everything else). I was looking at buying two 2x16 RipJaws 16/18/18 3000 MHz kits, but I am not sure if the motherboard could handle 64 GB with that speed and timings and therefore I should go for something less crazy to not waste money in RAM which won´t run that fast? I do not intend to overclock any bits to be fair (amonst other things, because I will already hammer the damn thing a lot)

• My other option would be either HyperX Impact 2666 MHz 15/17/17 or Crucial Ballistix 2666 MHz 16 (don´t know the others but I think they are 16/16; I have 4x16 GB 2400 ones in my DM1G, had zero issues with them, and they are cheaper where I live).
• There are no 64 GB kits for either of these so I was also wondering if I can just get 32 now and another 32 from the same model and make in the future to minimise things going boom with the RAM. For this computer RAM amount would take priority over speed as I regularly hit 30-40 GB if I don´t close stuff regularly in my DM1G, and in the TM1 I would assume that the CPU would demand even more RAM.

2 - I will probably be running the laptop for several days when processing my data. I have a cooling pad which has fans under both GPU and CPU intake so that is covered but the problem is the NVME drive I use as a scratch (Evo Pro 970) which is sitting in the m.2 slot in the hard disk bays in my DM1G.
I have a low-profile radiator fin on top but even with that it can reach regularly high 70´s and thtottles when I am running stuff in there, and I have another in the slot under the GPU (that one seems to cap at 60-65, thankfully).
Is there any cooling pad which has a fan in the middle, so it´s blowing right on the small ventilation grill in the hard disk bay? I was thinking about this one but I am not sure about how good it is with the moving fans and whatnot as I have seen it mentioned around here a few times:
https://www.amazon.es/Cooler-Master-NotePal-PLUS-R9-NBC-U3PK-GP/dp/B00ED3WMTC


Apologies for the wall of text, I ramble too much...

EDIT: After suggestions in the thread, I am considering another option (2x32 GB Corsair Cl18 kit). I also found the PassMark site and pulled the benchmarks of each option:

 

As for the cooling pad it's generally accepted that the best one is the cooler master u3 with 3x 120mm fans powered externally. Quite costly in comparison but otherwise cooling pads in general are kind of the pet rock of laptops. Otherwise just grab a copple of bottle caps and lift the back a bit to allow more breathing room.

 

Thanks, that makes sense. If I am going to ditch the fans altogether, would it make more sense to get a cheaper one with the same structure and replace the fans in it? Or is the U3 also good because of the grill?

I was thinking on getting 2X 120 mm ones for the CPU/GPU and a smaller 80mm for the NVME slot (smaller so I got more wiggle room to overlap with the NVME venting hole), all Noctua 5V PWM ,and connected to a single NA FC1 controller ( so I can plug to the USB 3.0, total draw should be 0.45 A from the 0.9 and theoretically the port pulls out at 5V).

 

For the Notepal U3 you can choose a Notepal U2 instead which will be cheaper and do some mods to it:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r-notepal-u3-plus.809628/page-3#post-10867390

For RAM i'll wait for some recommendations since i'd like to upgrade my 2400mhz ram to something better

 

That post was quite helpful - I saw somebody already tried the low- noise fans and was a bit subpar so I changed my setup to use 2/3 12V 2000 rpm ones (the 3000 rpm are probably too loud on top of the laptop fans) and for now I will use one or two of the 80mm USB in the pad to cool the bottom NVME slot. I think I'll get the U3 in the end as the grill is larger,w gives me more space.

I saw you did something like that as well; do the fans rattle if they are put together side-by-side as shown in that post?

 

If there is any laptop that can handle high ram speeds, it what you have. In theory the absolute best ram you can have is the corsair vengence 3000mhz because it latency values are 16-18-18-39 over 16-18-18-43 which is what gskill is at, plus those corsairs are the high end B-die anyway. Supposedly the most stable is the hyperx 2666mhz, which is why some boutique sellers only sell it over anything else, but I cant get any straight answer for that. Two kits of the same ram will work just fine. Its not like is quad channel anyway. Past that is bios tweaking, and I saw premamod in a video pull off something like 3400mhz at a lower latency value once with that laptop and those chips.

He does not use ram cooling, and no you do not need to do ram cooling, especially on a laptop. The only thing you like want to try to mod cool is the PCH.

What kind of program is relion? Some benefit from higher ram speeds, others like synthetics do not.

NVME's are in no way properly cooled. You best bet will probably be to buy a newer and cooler running drive for that. In my testing, they also only spike in temperature when doing sustained sequential writing and nothing else really, which even then it throttles after awhile of that. Depending on the location, you could also cool it with a copper strip piece connected to the heatsink with abit of glue and thermal paste.

 

Thanks - I do not need (or want)to overclock so I did not consider the Corsair as they are way more expensive (214 GBP) than the G.skill (165) and double the Crucial (100) or HyperX (117) Is B-die more reliable than others, or is the benefit lost if not overclocking?
The cooling is more for CPU/GPU/NVME over long periods of time. Temps with my DM1-G are already too close to 90 for comfort and the i9-9900 is a furnace compared to what I have there (although the RTX will be cooler and they share pipes )

I am not an expert with Relion as I am not sure if I will be using it (it is experiment-dependant, really). It's software for electron microscope image analysis and 3D reconstruction of protein structures: think 500GB worth of high resolution images per dataset (or even more if I run unrefined data) which are then used to generate a 3D image of the object.

It needs humongous amounts of RAM which is accessed quite heavily and frequently - 64 GB is kind of cutting it close for TB-level datasets but I don't expect to go that hard and as I will be running refined data which are much smaller (< 0.8 TB), if I am lucky enough with the data. It will be reading/writing quite frequently to the NVME drive though. I have those drives already from my other build and I could not find anything NVME which doesn´t turn into a toaster unfortunately, hence why I wanted to have a dedicated fan for it. The drive under the GPU does run colder (65 max) so I suspect it´s just not getting airflow; I might actually drill the case on the grill to get more air in.
The other programs I use are not that RAM-heavy and 32GB would be sufficient if I am careful - I can upgrade later with the same sticks later on as you describe.

 

On the cooling pad idea, what would be more efficient?
-2 fans blowing IN (under GPU and CPU) and one blowing OUT (center fan, slightly downwards to cover the M2 slot) to create airflow inside the case to cool the pipes and motherboard/NVME

-or all 3 blowing IN, in the same configuration?

I can use the provided 80mm fans with the cooler if I can't get perfect overlap in the NVME slot, as a bit of airflow should do it in that component.

 

The 9900k needs to be delid'ed in order to get any real temperature decreases, along with undervolting which I assume you've AT least done?

If your working with data in that size, you might want to look into doing raid 0 setup for real performance increase in an nvme drive. And assuming relion is like any other corporate design/industrial software, you might want to look into either quadro gpu, with a xeon cpu, and ECC ram. All of that would dramatically increase the cost for sure, but thats also standard in that area. People get away all the time with gaming gpu's/cpu's/ram and drives all that environment because its much cheaper and works just as good usually. Assuming Relion is like most of those programs, it probably wont benefit from high performance ram, so samsung 32gb chips it may be for you, but that said I dont know much about relion to say. If what you said about 64gb as being cutting it close, then your probably better off with the samsung chips. You can always return items too if you want to do some trial and error. If your work is that important to you, then you may definately want to invest in ECC memory for sure, and maybe even quadro.

I will say this also, apart from probably needing to switch to switch to an nvme raid 0 setup for much faster(and cooler) drive performance, you should also look into getting specifically MLC drives instead of standard TLC/QLC drives, because writing that much that often will kill most any tlc drive, and qlc wont even compete. There are of course better people here to ask about that. MLC is far more reliable and doesnt even need an slc cache, ECC, or other things associated with TLC weaknesses to compensate. What nvme drives have you tried? I went from a polaris samsung to an adata 8200 pro, and that polaris would hit 110c for no reason, while the adata doesnt go past 31c doing casual gaming. Sustained sequentual writing is what raises my drive temperature with the adata, and assuming you want to keep performance while being throttled, raid 0 is the way to go.

 

I got the 9900, not the K version, and went with Obsidian as they do LM/delid themselves for that reason; the 65 TDP/ 95 TDP figure is probably not true but I think the power limits on the non-K should be lower, at least that os what I saw with my 6700 in the DM1.
The Evo Pro is MLC 2-bit, which is why I went for it
I use the other 2 TLC Evo 4 TB for storage, and then I move the data to one of the Pro for working directory; the other is for OS and installation. I might try Raid0 as you suggested; Relion will be doing sustained writes so it will be the case you described.

Quadro cards do not offer much of an improvement in Relion based on price according to academic literature, so I went with the RTX 2080.

What is ECC memory exactly? I see that in most memory chips but I was told that I need a specific motherboard and cPU for that, so I considered non-ECC options as the sellers offer non-ECC for the TM1.I was able to find this.

After what you said on memory speed I looked again - someone built 1 and 2/GPU workstations with 64 GB ram and seems that the GPU is the limiting factor, so I would assume that more ram > faster RAM (to cache stuff), and in gaming I can deal with the performance loss - I cap most of my games at 60-90 fps anyhow as otherwise I get dizzy when switching to my external monitor. More RAM should also stress less the NVME as caching won´t happen there so two birds with one stone.

The Corsair 2*32 gb 2666 mhz kit seems to have a decent price (240; comparable with 4 Crucial or HyperX 16 GB sticks) and the CL is 18-18-18-43 which is not too far off and leaves room for expanding in the future. So I will follow your advice there and probably go for those; with only 2 sticks the IMC should not be as stressed so fringe benefits there, and as I don´t want to OC the lack of headroom those seem to have is not an issue.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/kbwongcuhk.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/my-experiences-in-setting-up-a-gpu-workstation-for-cryoem-relion/amp/

https://kbwongcuhk.wordpress.com/2019/05/01/some-benchmark-of-relion-on-my-gpu-workstation/

 

Oh that tdp figure is definitely not true. I mean they give that same figure on 4 core processors of nearly the same era if that tells you something. If its delid'ed, then you need to start undervolting to lower temperatures as liquid metal repaste has been done.

Raid zero needs to be with the exact same drives, and while people probably do otherwise, I would strongly recommend against it, especially in a laptop. There are other people here that are better to ask about that however. Just so you know, samsung nvme drives run notoriously hot, and often unnecessarily so. I had a few and I didnt understand it myself.

ECC, or Error Correcting codec checks memory for instability causing errors that would otherwise crash a system, and is usually used in server environments where things are "mission critical". Generally speaking its no substitute for unstable programming, and it only works solely on Xeon processors in laptops, and yes its very expensive being 4 times the cost of regular ram. In all likelyhood you will be fine without it. Here are some 32gb oem chips if your interested. https://www.newegg.com/nemix-ram-32gb-260-pin-ddr4-so-dimm/p/0RM-0026-01F27

The corsair performs better then the samsungs it seems, so your good with that, and since they do they probably have a higher bining you have room then for tighter timings perhaps, though that may void a warranty. The benefits to lower latency ram are real, but that is highly dependent on the program as well. Same with ECC memory in terms of reliability, but thats your call if you want to take back the 9900 for a xeon.

Dont worry about IMC stress, thats a quality control issue that isnt even applicable at this point. Its not that more ram stresses the nvme more, its that it caches more to use the nvme less in certain scenario's, and you will have to use something like PrimoCache to actually take advantage of that.

Do you have another link for that google page? Its broken on my end.

 

It's odd, the google page works if I open the bookmark but not the link. I have pasted it again in case I did it wrong the first time:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/kbwong...g-up-a-gpu-workstation-for-cryoem-relion/amp/


Relion has a specific toggle to cache things in RAM which is what I was gonna use (so only the raw data and output of each step go to the NVME).I have to manually check the output anyhow to annotate and analyse it so won't go for ECC (and I am not sure this one can get a Xeon as the mobo is a 370 and have not seen it). I wanted this chassis as it seems to be one of the best refrigerated ones around, barring the 870.

I found some benchmarks for those specific RAM models (I put them on the original post) and in the end I am between 4 16 GB HyperX sticks or 2 32 GB Corsairs; I am asking around my lab to see what RAM usage do people typically see as it is mostly data and sample - dependant; with high quality data it uses much less memory (i.e, I refine my wet lab experiments) and good data is never a bad thing anyhow. Depending on that will be one or the other.

Does undervolting carry any risks? I know the BIOS is unlocked so it can be done but have never done the sort - will try once I receive the laptop (it's still in purchasing deptartment limbo)

 

Its nice it has a cache toogle. I dont see many programs with that, though I havent expanded much in the enterprise sector.

There are not many desktop xeon laptops out there for sure, and your right about z370 not technically being compatible with xeon, and maybe even ECC memory. People do get them to work though, and its a controversial point with intel obsolescence tactics. If you really want a machine with supreme reliability and dedicated xeon and ecc memory support, you will have to probably get another laptop for it. Specifically something like an Msi WT75 8SM like this one: https://eurocom.com/ec/configure(2,452,0)TornadoF7W I dont know if there is any true benefit otherwise with this kind of equipment over better programming or high reliability, but it should protect from system crashes and hence not lose work, but feel free to ask around or call people.

In order to find out which will run better on relion for ram performance, you first need to determine what kind of program Relion is. That said, ask your collegees if they routinely go over 64gb of ram, or get away with only having 64gb of ram, because if that scenario of low quality data is all to common, your going to be undoubtly better off with the 32gb corsair sticks. unless you can afford to get away with less ram with "quality" data samples as you said? This question will be irrelevant though if you go for a xeon build with ecc memory.

You'll be fine undervolting. Just ask around here for help.

 

HyperX 2666 cl15 2x16 can be nicely oced as for mobile at 1.2V


Trfc currently at 528 not 532
UNCORE +150

Paired with 7700hq Aida show
Read at ~45.5
Write at ~ 49.7
Copy at ~ 44.2
Letency at 52.2

Evan 3300 is achivable stable with tras at 38 and Aida show around plus 1 to the above numbers

And HyperX 2x8 cl15 2666 can do 3066 cl15 also 1.2v and also tested by me but dont remember aida scores

But Both version are cheap

 

After asking the people at work, I will likely go for the Hyper X. Relion does not get that much of a performance improvement from fast RAM, and for loading large datasets into ram not even 128 would be enough (and with an NVME drive it´s not even required for the data I would work with, particularly if I get good samples in the first place.

The computer is here so now I could test with other programs (CCPNMR, Graphpad, ImageJ and Adobe apps), and if there is performance to be gained from what I have at the moment (my old 32 GB kit from Crucial) I don´t think I am going to notice it much.
I also managed to build the cooling pad and it does have quite an effect on the the GPU (2-3 degrees less at most, but it takes 1-2 hours longer to reach those temperatures, whilst before it would go to max after 1 hour of heavy use). The CPU does benefit even more; there is a 10-15 C difference with the pad on and off under long loads. I guess the default cooling system simply cannot input enough air, and it´s also cooling the mobo/heatpipes.
The NVME drives do show also a pretty good effect, particularly the one in the bottom slot. I am encrypting now all the drives, and benchmarked several times, and the temperatures go to 60-65 at most - before I have seen even the Evo Plus under the GPU slot reach a good 90 in the controller and 80 in the NAND.

So all in all, I am a pretty happy bunny!

 

In case it is useful for people, I went with the HyperX ram and 64 GB - apparently I had it wrong and the humongous amounts of RAM are needed if I am preloading all the data in there, for which I would need 256 or more, even with good data. I tried 32 GB of my old 2400 MHz Crucial sticks and even in my other applications I did reach a good 31 GB of RAM use, and I even had some stutters in my data analysis. So 64 GB it is.

I also measured the power use of the CPU and it´s actually quite close to what they advertise - I have the i9 9900 and it seems to stay around 70W, with some peaks at 85-90, and the average clock being 4.4-4.6 GHz with full all-core load (in HWMonitor). That is the advertised 8-core clock boost and I guess it stops there due to the PL2 limits as I did see power limit "throttling".

So it seems that getting it was a good choice instead of the 9900K as that one did reach the PSU´s limit in the reviews (353 vs 330W). Maybe this is useful for other people with my same conundrum.

Thanks everyone for the input!

 

UPDATE: After getting the HyperX sticks it seems there is a hard cap on speed with 4 dual-rank sticks (which I guess is to be expected...)

I installed 2 sticks first to test, which led me to have no issue booting and on Memtest running at stock 2666 MHz CL15. After putting all 4, I had to manually enable XMP profile 1 in the BIOS (without changing anything) to have 2666 CL15 with all 4x16 GB sticks as it boots by default at 2400 MHz.
At a first glance it seemed stable, but eventually results in the computer failing to boot ocasionally, stutters and other random ****e, and eventually the clocks in RAM went back to 2400 CL14; I also had very long BIOS times (1 minute or more). So probably it´s the limit for this one; the one they had in NotebookCheck also was running at 2400 MHz CL15 with the same brand of sticks ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/Euroc...z-Clevo-P775TM1-G-Laptop-Review.413719.0.html), despite those being 3200 MHz; so I suspect it´s a limitation of the motherboard Their other review had the Samsung 32 GB sticks but since those were 2, and CL19, they seemed able to run at 2666 MHz although I guess the latency there would kill most gains in performance ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/Schen...0-Clevo-P775TM1-G-Laptop-Review.413126.0.html).

The resellers I know of also sell the computer with 2400 CL14 RAM as the only option for 64 GB which makes sense if this is the hard limit for 4 dual-rank sticks. I noticed that what the XMP profile says in the BIOS and what I can see in CPUZ is different but I am not sure is worth trying to fiddle with it as it runs quite smooth anyhow with 2400 MHz.

So word of caution for people using these for high-memory workloads: don´t bother going over 2400 if using 4 sticks (although the 2666 were only 2 GBP per stick more, so I guess it was not much lost money, really...)

 

can the p775tmg 8700k handle 3200hz 16/18/18/36??

 

I honestly dont see why not. That Clevo has xmp last I recall. And coffee lake became reputable for having the ability to handle fast ram. I might see however if you can program your current ram to those settings.