New HTPC Build - Input Welcome

[FourOh]

My old AMD A6-3500 3-Core HTPC is five years old and I think it's time for a dignified retirement :cool: Initially I'll use my existing case, eventually I'll upgrade to a slimmer one so Mini ITX is required.

I'm considering two options, both around the same total cost (ebay pricing on the CPUs):

i7-6700T 35W 4C/8T + whatever 1151 Z270 Mini ITX mobo is on sale at Newegg

or

Xeon E5-2630L v4 55W 10C/20T + this Asrock mobo which appears to be the only 2011-v3 X99 Mini ITX board on the market
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157588

I already have a set of 2x8Gb DDR4 I bought last year that ended up incompatible with another build. The question is, with only 2 RAM slots on the 2011-3 board am I going to starve a 20 thread CPU with 16Gb RAM? Is this just trying to stuff too much into a small form factor? I'd love to get my thread count up and possibly retire one of my T5500s for power savings... not sure if this is the way to do it.

Think I'll drink a beer and ponder...

[Fire$torm]

My old AMD A6-3500 3-Core HTPC is five years old and I think it's time for a dignified retirement :cool: Initially I'll use my existing case, eventually I'll upgrade to a slimmer one so Mini ITX is required.

I'm considering two options, both around the same total cost (ebay pricing on the CPUs):

i7-6700T 35W 4C/8T + whatever 1151 Z270 Mini ITX mobo is on sale at Newegg

or

Xeon E5-2630L v4 55W 10C/20T + this Asrock mobo which appears to be the only 2011-v3 X99 Mini ITX board on the market
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157588

I already have a set of 2x8Gb DDR4 I bought last year that ended up incompatible with another build. The question is, with only 2 RAM slots on the 2011-3 board am I going to starve a 20 thread CPU with 16Gb RAM? Is this just trying to stuff too much into a small form factor? I'd love to get my thread count up and possibly retire one of my T5500s for power savings... not sure if this is the way to do it.

Think I'll drink a beer and ponder...

RAM Question: As usual, that depends on the project(s) being run. Though at 20 threads it's probably more likely then not.

Form Factor Question: Due t the amount of heat any serious crunching rig will produce, water cooling is almost mandatory if your ITX board is stuffed into a like sized case.

[FourOh]

Maybe I'll replace my i7-5820k with an "Engineering Sample" Xeon E5 v4 to get my cores up... I'll probably make a few bucks selling the i7 and put the 6700T in the HTPC. At only 35W TDP, I'm not worried about keeping it cool in a small case :D

[MindCrime]

The CPUs you listed are rather low power so heat won't be an issue. Putting Xeon E5-2630L v4 55W 10C/20T on an ASrock ITX board sounds like problems down the road. Xeon E5-2630L being a commercial grade CPU going into a lower consumer grade mobo, i foresee problems or underperformance issues. The i7-6700T is probably going to be far less restricted in the consumer itx board. The E5v4 is gonna be like a fat guy in a little coat on that itx board, Ferrari in a parking lot.

Edit: Also everything is going to be way more expensive for the 2011-v3 platform than the 1151, IMO