Dual E5 v3 build

[zombie67]

I am considering a dual E5 v3 cruncher build.

After looking at all the flavors of E5 v3s and their costs, it seems like the E5-2630 v3 is the price performance sweet spot. 8 core, 2.4ghz, $650 each. Does anyone have a different perspective?

Which mobo? E5 v3 requires the C61x north bridge, I think. It would be going into a HAF-X, so size is not important. It will hold any of them. I would be using at least 8gb DIMMs, so with dual 8 core, I would not need more than 8 DIMMs total (8 cores x 2 threads per x 2 chips = 32gb). I want it to be able to hold at least two full length, dual-width GPUs.

After a light bit of googling, it looks like there are only a few other brands that are currently offering v3 server mobos:

• Newegg has only supermicro with C612 north bridge. Of those, MBD-X10DAI-O seems to be the best for PCIe cards, cos $390
• Asus Z10PE-D8 WS, for $550
• ASRock has a bunch, none of which look PCIe-friendly.
• Gigabyte has this one. But I don't see it for sale yet.

Thoughts?

[John P. Myers]

The Gigabyte board is a beat. A $770 beast. The reason it's so high is because the Intel X540 adapter it comes with would cost ~$500 by itself and another $350 for the LSI SAS controller. Both of those things are built in to the MD70-HB0. You may want the MD70-HB1 instead, as it should be less than half the price, but not sure exactly.

[zombie67]

Thanks for the catch! Without either available for sale, and being able to see costs, I was not clear on the differences.

That said, which mobo that *is* for sale? And which CPUs? You know best!

[John P. Myers]

I'd get the Asus board. I know it's more expensive but it's worth it. Asus and Gigabyte will both be more compatible with a wider range of RAM and GPUs than SuperMicro. Also both Asus and Gigabyte will allow for overclocking where SM won't. They'll also allow memory clock speeds that simply won't be supported by SM. Asus and Gigabyte will also have a better CPU power delivery structure and will have more effective heatsinks.And since only the Asus is available at the moment, get that Definitely worth the extra money, and is $100 cheaper than the same board for the previous gen Xeons was. And here's Gigabyte's previous board for comparison purposes. Was hoping they'd release a v3 version of it but haven't seen anything.

I agree with the e5-2630 v3 being the best choice right now. With the Asus board, you can give them a 200MHz nudge and suddenly they become e5-2640's, which cost $300 apiece more

[zombie67]

Thanks for all the advise!

I'm still on the fence for pulling the trigger, for now. It's a lot of $$!

[John P. Myers]

Thanks for all the advise!

I'm still on the fence for pulling the trigger, for now. It's a lot of $$!

Yes it is. I began planning my dual Xeon system a year and a half ago with that Gigabyte board in mind. I bought a case for it even, but never bought the first component for it. The E5 v2's were about to be released and didn't want to feel the upgrade bug after having the v1's for only a month or 2. Then when the v2's finally came out, i couldn't bring myself to buy them either, knowing the v3's weren't compatible with the mobo's chipset or DDR3.

Things are different now though. DDR4 is here and it'll be the standard for many years. Also with the v3's, there's an upgrade path to the next-gen CPUs. Another bonus is the re-sale value on this stuff after it becomes obsolete in 2-3 years is usually pretty close to what you paid for it new. In the case of the high-end boards, sometimes they'll sell for more than you paid. Of course this is true of any of the better chipsets (Z77 and X79 for example). So at least for me, pretty sure i'll finally build the dual Xeon this time, though i admit i'm still waiting to see if another motherboard comes available that's a solid contender...which makes me wonder what ever happened to EVGA's line of dual Xeon mobos, like the SR-2 and SR-X...

[pinhodecarlos]

I've been thinking of this since I moved to UK and all my calculations (investments, electricity bill, space, time to babysit computers in function of client used, etc) point out to be better to have a dual E5 v3 cruncher than buying 5 or 10 individual machines to match the number of cores of the server. I used this site (http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurat...s-ts500-e8-ps4) to get the prices and build the machine. My problem is the initial investment, money I don't have at the moment (£7000).

Carlos

[FourOh]

I am considering a dual E5 v3 cruncher build.

After looking at all the flavors of E5 v3s and their costs, it seems like the E5-2630 v3 is the price performance sweet spot. 8 core, 2.4ghz, $650 each. Does anyone have a different perspective?

I've considered a setup like this before, but ultimately it was just out of my $$$ range. My plan was to start with a single E5-2670 v3 which is the least expensive 12-core chip from the v3 lineup and has a few slight architecture advantages over the 2630. Then when I had another $1700 laying around I'd pop in the 2nd processor. They are about twice the cost of the CPU you are considering, but a complete dual-CPU system would have 48 threads versus 32. The nice thing about 48 threads is that, even with 4 threads tied up driving GPUs, you can earn 1000 hours a day on a single machine. Either will make a great CPU cruncher... best of luck making your decision!

[John P. Myers]

Just to crap on everyone's parade (including my own), here are a couple CPUs from the E5-2600 series you may not have known about (neither are available to buy yet):

Insanity
Severe Insanity

As you can see, the links are official. These aren't rumors.

[Bok]

I have a friend over at XtremeSystems who is running a pair of those 18core xeons. Consistently the #1 machine at WCG..