Building a Whisper-Quiet Threadripper PC For Greg Kroah-Hartman!

[@ReagueOfRegends]

Greg is basically #2 for the kernel after Linus. Very impressive. An honor.

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

Better support from now...

[@tmpnerd]

@@hammerheadcorvette4 Most stuff works. glibc memcpy performance is not always optimal and If you want max performance you should use the performance gov which basically means no freq scaling. AMD should invest time in the schedutil scheduler.

[@matiasm.3124]

He is a fucking boss !! And help a lot with the newbies kernel developers too !!!!

[@TheBitKrieger]

"Oh btw, I'm using Arch" after 11 seconds - nice one :D

[@jannikmeissner]

By giving this to a Kernel developer you just put a big smile to a certain Threadripper user on this end

[@pusheen483]

This is what I was thinking... this hardware config is now pretty much guaranteed to be fantastically supported by the kernel in the future lol

[@kylefish666]

The last 30 seconds really brightened my day... Goodwill all around is what we need.

[@MrHaggyy]

😅 next week Linus calls Wendell: i want what he has but better.

[@jwbowen]

He's already got one: www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Torvalds-Threadripper

[@brunosalezze]

And Its 3x faster boulding the linux kernel than previous Linus machine

[@HenkPoley]

@@brunosalezze Linux Torvalds old machine: i7-6700K. www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/98jevk/linus_torvalds_seriously_considering_upgrading/

[@johansvideor]

@@HenkPoley No, his last CPU was i9-9900k according to this article www.zdnet.com/article/look-whats-inside-linus-torvalds-latest-linux-development-pc/, which makes the 3x even more impressive.

[@ziggy6698]

Best example of a "PC building" channel on YT. All those subs are worth it and you deserve more. Building a PC for Greg is legendary status. Keep doing what you guys do.

[@silentseawolf]

Thanks to all the manufactures that pitched in. Your support encourages my support, yay team red!

[@charlesballiet7074]

that's a wonderful mid tower. I remember watching your work since the tek syndicate days. your so talented, thank you for sharing your wisdom, blessings Wendell

[@SomeTechGuy666]

Great video as usual. A better tech couldn't build a better machine for a better guy for a greater project.

[@aaardvaaark]

I find it very reassuring that GKH will be overseeing future linux kernel development on a workstation built by Wendell.

[@danielyount9812]

Very cool addition to your video lineup,I always grab juicy tidbits of excellent open source information as well. Keep up the great work.

[@jmannUSMC]

"Should purr like a kitten and not scream like Mr. Baskin being fed to the tigers"

[@bs4760]

Outtakes are awesome! I know I have so many of them when doing my recordings. Good build.

[@charlesnix8314]

That is a fantastic build!

[@Adamladd]

I got alot of nostalgia looking at Wendel sit behind a computer component and only the top half of his face showing over it

[@bgtubber]

Hey Wendell, I might be wrong, but did you forget to put the thick rubber pads on the 2nd CPU fan (the one facing the exhaust)? Judging by the sound the CPU cooler makes, I think you haven't. When I put a 2nd fan on my Noctua, I had the same high-pitched propeller sound coming from the CPU cooler. Once I replaced the original thin rubber pads with the extra thick ones that come in the box of the Noctua cooler, this high-pitched whine largely disappeared. If you check the cooler installation manual, they have a picture that shows the 2nd fan using the thick pads.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

GKH is “Mister Linux Device Drivers”. I think he created UDev and the USB device-driver architecture. I remember a comment from several years ago about somebody criticizing the Linux kernel for not having stable in-kernel APIs that you can write device drivers for, like Windows. In reply, he pointed out that, at the time, both Windows and Linux had redone their USB APIs about 3 times. The difference was that Windows still had to carry around backward-compatibility shims for the older API versions, while Linux did not. So the overheads, complexity and other such issues for Linux drivers were actually less.

[@AugustusBohn0]

I love videos like this. I know they can't be done too often, but I like the idea of giving deserving FOSS people beefy hardware to make doing what they do more pleasant, or at least faster :) Wendell, have you heard of Loadsharers?

[@charlesballiet7074]

what came first the kernel or the silicon wafer? makes you think if such power is needed now, what did the coders use back then?

[@AndreiNeacsu]

Thanks Greg, Wendell and the sponsors for their contributions to Linux!

[@stopthefomo]

Would earplugs be even more quiet?

[@markcooperartcomofficial]

I put industrial fans in my workstation and it's loud as hell, yet i like how i can overclock on air and never have to worry about the water cooling going bad.

[@markcooperartcomofficial]

@Buffy Foster Those industrial Noctua fans running full blast. lol.

[@sklivello]

Very interesting! Thank you for this work!!!

[@rcald-gz5jd]

*Wendell* Thank you for producing this video. It's highly entertaining.

[@doubelus]

Great contribution, Big thanks to the awesome L1 team! Keep it up This one should be better than Linus new rig 😉

[@EwenMackenzie]

This is just incredible! *Hits subscribe furiously

[@AsukaLangleyS02]

You're marking out hard for whoever Greg is.

[@charlesballiet7074]

marking out? never heard of that phrase, is it canadian?

[@PaulEmsley]

If you knew who he was, you'd know why.

[@AsukaLangleyS02]

@@charlesballiet7074 I'm American

[@alistairwillock7266]

LMGTFY: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kroah-Hartman Pro-tip: Linux kernel devs with their own Wikipedia entries are likely to be legitimately notable :-P

[@cheezy2455]

Giving back to the people that give ! great build . ( you might want a little bit of lessons on cable management but over all a great sensible build . 2 thumbs up .

[@itsdeonlol]

Cool sir!

[@reptilez13]

"Should purr like a kitten, not sound like a dying cat." ;)

[@EdoDijkgraaf]

"AMD has got something coming for that." Tell us! Please!

[@heretolevitateme]

Blessed Saint Wendell, NDA slayer

[@giorx5]

80CU Navi21 incoming

[@rwdesigner]

“Big NAVI commeth” Basically Radeon VII v2 - 32GB HBM2

[@blablamannetje]

At 14:40 "it's about 20 seconds to compile the linux kernel". Cool

[@1337l4m3]

My i3 needs 3,5 hours to compile the linux kernel :(

[@mdrumt]

128GB memory, I had to replay that part just to make sure. Amazing stuff.

[@Level1Techs]

actually, upgraded him to 256gb thanks to gskill! this system is fully maxed out.

[@mdrumt]

@@Level1Techs oh lordy! Incredible!

[@alistairwillock7266]

​@@Level1Techs That's good work there Wendell - also, I now have the itch to upgrade my compilation box. So thanks for the incoming $4k parts bill :-P One question: like you, I've given up on Enermax. Is there any other AIO cooler that you think might be worth it from a performance standpoint for a 3960 or 3970, or should I just head straight for a custom loop?

[@justvideos3216]

I build a similar PC. But I removed the second fan from the cooler. The one between cooler and the backside of the case. I found out it is responsible for 80% of the noise but it works without too. Instead I installed 3 slow running fans at the front side to get cool air into the case.

[@ElijahPerrin80]

Wow that is awesome, well done.

[@Makeshift_Housewife]

11:29 wait, isnt that Corsair Dominator RGB RGB ram? Same case / setup but a different one that the one going to greg with Gskill?

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

4:25 Why should they have data sitting in their buffer? If the kernel says “do a flush”, and they respond with “flush done”, are they lying? Are their buffers not empty yet, as they’re supposed to be?

[@sagebias2251]

11:50 did you change out the memory? That isn't trident z neo? That is corsair dominator.

[@crredsox13]

I thought Greg was an OpenSuse tumbleweed guy. I guess times are changing. Great build!

[@UlfricStromcloak]

wow, What a coincidence. Apparently Linus (Torvalds) also switched to Threadripper (3970X) www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Torvalds-Threadripper

[@thelongslowgoodbye]

Not really a coincedence considering that Greg and Linus work together.

[@autohmae]

@@thelongslowgoodbye more likely: it has lots and lots of cores, so it's very good for what they need.

[@cartmann227]

Thanks AMD😊👍

[@iloveanime6441]

Love your videos plz make more and I'm interested in server hardware

[@ABUNDANCEandBEYONDATHLETE]

Building a 3970x with the backup B ram this week...was thinking about a cheap gfx card to wait until rtx 3080 or similar. Thanks for sharing 😁👍🏼

[@loganwalsh]

Omg this build is amazing 😍

[@themaconeau]

"We want 32 cores but purr like a kitten, not sound like a banshee" 😎😂

[@MrBiky]

16:48 I'm glad you posted this nugget here. I was wondering if someone who develops the kernel and uses DYI distros like Arch (I wouldn't call it minimal) would use something that comes "default" and not instantly wipe the installation and use his own rice. I think he would be pretty happy about that and I'd really want to see a reaction video, or at least a reaction call.

[@MrBiky]

Just for additional engagement points, why I'm saying Arch is not minimal is because it comes with a lot of (pretty necessary) software by default (for a general purpose OS that is). The only distros I would qualify as minimal would be Tiny Core Linux and specialized distros like OpenWRT. Now, that's just my opinion. I'm also wondering if there are any "core" Linux developers who use distros without systemd, like Gentoo, Alpine, Void, Artix or Obarun (or Slackware). I've read somewhere that systemd developers asked for specific kernel interfaces, so it worries me that Linux distros may become dependent on systemd. While I don't hate systemd per se (I use it on the CentOS instances I manage) and I am not smart enough to understand the kernel, I am worried that at some point Linux may become dependent on systemd (more like, Linux distros won't be able to function without systemd or some hacked systemd-like implementation). Maybe my worries are unfounded, but loving the Unix philosophy of keeping things modular _and_ non-monolithic, these worries are something that I have to face when seeing the massive trend (at least in many enterprises) towards any piece of software and especially towards software with an ever-growing number of bugs discovered.

[@ArunG273]

@@MrBiky why do you care. Do you have only 10gb storage?

[@bored78612]

Most Kernel devs don't care about other programs except GCC and the kernel, I know Linus just installs Fedora and replaces the Kernel.

[@redneckrestoration9385]

awesome!

[@TechWeLove]

Excellent build ❤️ , except I would have liked you to have put 2 sound dampening panels on, instead of 1 ( Like you were talking about ). That's the problem with my current PC : too much electronic noise. You've inspired me to build a PC like this one. Excellent advertising on your Part. ❤️

[@Level1Techs]

Not out yet on the DarkBase 500DX, at least, at the time I asked beQuiet :)

[@666Tomato666]

@@Level1Techs I don't know where you live, but you should switch the framerate in your camera to match power line frequency (60fps in North, Latin America an Japan annd 50fps everywhere else), you won't get the banding in video this way

[@gh8447]

@@666Tomato666 What banding? I'm viewing this in the UK (50 Hz) and it's absolutely fine. You're also the only person to have mentioned this problem; maybe there's an issue with your setup?

[@666Tomato666]

@@gh8447 the whiter and darker bands especially visible during slow-mo. Re-watch the first minute, you'll notice them going from top to bottom

[@TechWeLove]

Nice. Yeah, the DarkBase 500DX looks like a good model. Looking forward to when it does release.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

What about the ASETEK Vapochill XII-XE Lightspeed cooler PC case that also cools your processor down to minus 70 degrees below zero before booting the system, if the side panel was also the monitor then you would need a PC monitor.

[@mitchjust6688]

Compiling the kernel under half a minute. :D I still have old Athlon 3200, OC-ed, and if I remember correctly, it takes cca 6 hours to do the job! JfC!

[@Brodda-Syd]

At 11:41 I can hear the Noctua fans singing. Mine makes the same noise at over 1000rpm but I run them silent at 700rpm Not sure which fan it is as his fan software does not differentiate between case and CPU fans. Why does it show TWO fan1's???

[@Dlf212]

Is the case comparable (in size) to a HAF X (what I use now)? Eventually planning a 3700x (or 4700 build) with a 2070 super.

[@iboysven]

It should be way way smaller. Why don't you take a look at the data sheets? 😊

[@bobprivate8575]

@@iboysven Agreed, case manufacturers don't usually hide dimensions. I would say this build would be closer to the HAF 912 than the HAF X in size.

[@david300m]

Nice build...

[@crossfiredeluxxe7313]

What happened to the GSkill Memory?

[@Silverhks]

A really will done video Wendell. Linux in general is out of my comfort zone but I still like the hardware.

[@bronekkozicki6356]

That's one very nice machine. I am sure gregkh will like it. With this much memory and CPU power it could also host some fast VMs, and Arch is rather good as a hypervisor - if that's what he likes.

[@TheHanleyProject]

Nobody: Wendell: OSTENTATIOUS

[@sebastian_hakansson78]

Nobody in the USA maybe, because most Americans don't have a vocabulary.. It's not English, but a diet slang! (And I am not even a native English speaker..) You should listen to some people in ENGLAND, they still speak the full real language!

[@markcooperartcomofficial]

@@sebastian_hakansson78 You must do a lot of travelling to know MOST Americans.

[@bndncn]

@@sebastian_hakansson78 "They speak REAL English in England." Brits: "Oi bloymey guv ain' a poffa medden a roit bloke innit?" Pedantry ain't a good look -- YEE HAW!

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@bndncn Somebody mixing up their London with a bit of Birmingham?

[@PaulEmsley]

"If your an academic or university researcher and you're looking around..." err... yeah...

[@elvie69]

Had to rewind a bit for the whole sentence when i heard "whisper quiet like a hair dryer" XD

[@diegonayalazo]

Amazing

[@QTM1981]

"or am I?!" :-D So good.

[@benjamintrathen6119]

Very Nice Wendell

[@olealgoritme6774]

Awesome dev build 😍 One thing tho. Running at 3.7GHz @ 1.4v VCore? That's crazy for the trx40 3970x.

[@justaddwater71]

What's the brand/spec/mounting for the small gray fan positioned at the front of the case under the video card?

[@artisan002]

Have you thought about giving Silverstone's Air Penetrator fans a try? In my experience, they're very good and very quiet.

[@findghazi]

good work wendell

[@gsrcrxsi]

Can you expand more on what exactly that liqid card is? Is it a self contained PCIe NVMe? Is it just an expansion card that you add m.2 drives to? Is it something else? I can’t really tell since the editing in the beginning of the video where you’re talking about this is a little choppy. You called it a “4-way NVMe with raid” but didn’t say what kind of raid and I’m a little confused at the term 4-way since I only see 1 card.

[@Level1Techs]

I understand your frustrations, I think this will help. I will add this to the description so others may see as well. + We did not go into detail because we have already done a full review of this product :) if you would like to know more specifications the video is here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGHWgJiGd9yfmtk + Also, the specific type of raid we used & LVM/LUKS comparison is looked at in more detail on the Level1Linux page: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oX6vZ32No7Gafs0

[@adrianjohnson7295]

How does Wendell know about reliant robin s? English 3 wheel fiberglass death trap?

[@josephmyszka7780]

How do you know about Reliant Robins ?

[@SavageArms357]

Probably that infamous Top Gear episode. :P

[@binaryflawgic5713]

I remember, once upon a time, there were cases for silent builds. I think they had a bit weak thermals, but they were really quiet. Without having a full open front and a glass on the side. They instead had a normal side plate with sound proofing material. I guess those are not a thing anymore? (And/Or the thermals are actually unbearable for such a CPU/setup?)

[@chucklos391]

Nobody wants them. Hardware is sexy anyway and needs to be seen. Even if little to no RGB.

[@BC-fy1wn]

Wht did you not go for the 3990X besides moola?

[@ethoswave5606]

The thumbnail looks like you're staring with amazement into the large hadron collider

[@cmoney6190]

Wendell always makes my day

[@blszyn]

The little fan on the TRX40 chipset is a non-starter. Given some time, it will start to make irritating noises. Is it driving GKH crazy yet?

[@Level1Techs]

Not so far :) it only comes on when it's needed, too

[@JuusoAlasuutari]

Awesome!

[@mondskiez309]

Linus and Greg are finally on Threadripper.. Woot Woot for us in Linux.. Intel definitely has fallen far from grace.. They keep doing the way of Apple -- forced obsolescence of expensive and underwhelming products..

[@jinraigami3349]

At least Apple products work so smoothly out of the box unlike Surface/Windows 10 that needs to be updated.

[@Shyvorix]

@@jinraigami3349 Yea but that's Microsoft to blame. Apple makes the whole pipeline and then some so choice is nonexistent in their ecosystem. At least there's Linux as an option or heavily overhauling Windows manually yourself, hardware options etc.

[@Niculwmusic]

Personally run a 3900x and 5700xt in pop_os. Would like someday to go to more cores like a 3970x and now that ive started learning pytorch in relation to making digital hardware, now also for inference, i also need some cuda for acceleration, unless amd updates ROCm for navi

[@dumplaktungtung]

whoa

[@petapixels]

What’s the idle vs full load wattage on this thing?

[@Sebastian_Athea]

I get to do a build for Greg and you send him cows nest of cables, especially that gpu power, what did you run out of cable ties or something?

[@Primetime94]

The Creator TRX40 has an Aquantia AQC107 for 10-gigabit Ethernet. That chip is known to cause lockups in Linux. I have first-hand experience with this. I hope you did extensive burn-in testing because my system locks up every couple of weeks with it enabled.

[@Level1Techs]

There is, I think, a firmware update to fix this.

[@Primetime94]

@@Level1Techs My motherboard is an ASRock X470 Taichi and I bought it a couple years ago. So, hopefully your board has new firmware that fixes it. I couldn't find the new firmware on Aquantia's site, so I ended up just disabling the chip and buying an Intel X710 PCIe NIC and using that.

[@helloworld9730]

any recommendations for a board to combine with 3960 without wasting money and to get the best value to price

[@Trooper_Ish]

Was this whole build because GKH didn't know who L1T are?

[@SirMo]

Love the video! Just wanted to mention. There is some weird sort of sub bass sound every time you hit the work bench. Probably want to try and EQ your mic on future videos to avoid it. Not everyone may hear it, but folks with sub woofers or with hi-fi headphones will.

[@drumpf4all]

Holy F! I want one too!!

[@chrisgg]

I have pretty much the same system but with 64GB of RAM due to unavailability back in January. Is it really recommended to go the 8 stick route? Isn't 4 sticks significantly faster (less bottlenecking)?

[@mechy2k2000]

What top program is running in the terminal??

[@tnaxpw]

12:40 only 64GB of ram

[@Level1Techs]

It's got 256 now, but did some testing across a variety of memory kits. :D

[@maik-beckmann]

@@Level1Techs Nice! Video shows it runs at 3600. Did you clock it down for 256GB, as you hinted at in the video, for stability sake?

[@jamesm5192]

@@Level1Techs If you can bend the ear of folks at AMD, then won't you explain to them how it would benefit their bottom line to release their code so we can libreboot?

[@ilionsd]

So which RAM it is? On some B-rolls it is Corsair and on the other it is G.Skill?

[@charlesballiet7074]

why all the horsepower for kernel work. Isn't the code so close to the silicon that its extremely efficient and not needing such computation?

[@bored78612]

Have you ever compiled the Linux kernel? Or any kernel?

[@alistairwillock7266]

Time. The single most important contributor to developer productivity is minimizing the time required to build/deploy/test your most recent code increment. Note Wendell's comment about the Linux kernel taking 20 seconds to compile. Getting a system like this into GKH's hands is providing a force multiplier to one of the most important open-source programmers in the world. Good work Wendell (and sponsors)!

[@aashi9307]

Waaah crazy build. Any idea how to run the system w/o Gpu. I want to test this cpu for mining 😅

[@JakeDigby]

85ºCis v warm for cpu, no? this is a beast of a system, but I figured 60-75º would be normal for a system like this? no shade, love the channel. just looking to gain some insight if theres something im missing

[@jurepecar9092]

Even more exciting is recycling older two and quad socket HPC nodes into this kind of quiet desktop systems. Older hw is always more fun than bleeding edge ;)

[@cijoykjose]

Today Wendel did some physical hardwork to make it up to the beautiful Amazing Micro Devices .. 🤩

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

16:27 A Ford Pinto ... before or after that little rear-end tap so famously parodied in _Top Secret_ ?

[@Jamaicanboi407]

OMG i need this...! im still on 4th gen

[@synthdude7664]

Hey! I have a question regarding the aorus xtreme trx40 NVMe connections that I’m hoping you could help me with. If I were to plug in four NVMe , what Sata3 6gb/s connectors are disabled ? I think my confusion is coming from the fact that there are sata3 ports (0-9) so, there are ten overall sata3 ports and I could hypothetically connect ten 2.5” SSDs if I wanted, or ten 5.25” optical hard drives if I wanted, however if I inserted four NVMes on the motherboard, how much more storage can I add? Thanks in advance if you get a chance to respond to this! P.s your content is top notch!

[@Level1Techs]

Double check the manual. It should be in there. I am guessing that only like 2 ports might be lost but this may only apply to sata m.2 and not nvme m.2

[@GabbyTech]

nice looking system

[@jamesm5192]

Why no ECC?

[@bgtubber]

It's gorgeous! Does the 2nd CPU fan help with temps? I have the same Noctua cooler on my 3970x and I'm wondering if I should put a 2nd fan like you did.

[@Level1Techs]

yes, absolutely. It's also a bit of a trick from case to case. In this case (haha, see what I did there) it helps to have good airflow from outside the case to in.

[@bgtubber]

@@Level1Techs Awesome. Thanks!