Intel ES Xeons

[FourOh]

I've ended up with an extra 2011-3 X99 motherboard which, after I carefully repair a bent pin, should be fully functional. I don't have room in my fleet for another tower, but I could replace one of my Dell T5500s. I was looking on ebay and there are "ES" Xeons being sold, way cheap. These Engineering Samples are not meant to be sold and technically are property of Intel. The sellers are in Japan, and have very good seller ratings. Other than no warranty and possible felony charges, any down side to these chips? This E5-2658 v3 retails for $1700+... and the ES chip is going for about $300 on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151989476551

[Al]

I've ended up with an extra 2011-3 X99 motherboard which, after I carefully repair a bent pin, should be fully functional. I don't have room in my fleet for another tower, but I could replace one of my Dell T5500s. I was looking on ebay and there are "ES" Xeons being sold, way cheap. These Engineering Samples are not meant to be sold and technically are property of Intel. The sellers are in Japan, and have very good seller ratings. Other than no warranty and possible felony charges, any down side to these chips? This E5-2658 v3 retails for $1700+... and the ES chip is going for about $300 on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151989476551

I think visiting day is every other Wednesday and SUSA members will be there for you...which Federal Pen will you be going to? I might consider the T5500 before you're picked up.

[nanoprobe]

FWIW I have 2 retail E5-2683 V3 chips(s-spec SR1XH) for sale on eBay. These are 14c/28t They are not engineering samples. They are OEM final production chips. They aren't cheap but when you consider they retail for $2100+ the price is good IMHO. In a 2P SuperMicro board running 56 threads @ WCG they pulled 270 watts total at the wall. The stock clock is 2.0 Ghz. They turbo up to 2.3GHz under full load. Anything turbo mode you see listed above 2.3 is for a single thread, not all 56.
link

EDIT: These chips will run in some X99 boards but may require a BIOS update. I've read that they work in Asus and AsRock mobos. Don't know about others.

[FourOh]

I think visiting day is every other Wednesday and SUSA members will be there for you...which Federal Pen will you be going to? I might consider the T5500 before you're picked up.

I'll leave instructions with my wife. She'll miss me but I'm sure she'll be happy to distribute all my gear

[FourOh]

FWIW I have 2 retail E5-2683 V3 chips(s-spec SR1XH) for sale on eBay. These are 14c/28t They are not engineering samples. They are OEM final production chips. They aren't cheap but when you consider they retail for $2100+ the price is good IMHO. In a 2P SuperMicro board running 56 threads @ WCG they pulled 270 watts total at the wall. The stock clock is 2.0 Ghz. They turbo up to 2.3GHz under full load. Anything turbo mode you see listed above 2.3 is for a single thread, not all 56.
link

EDIT: These chips will run in some X99 boards but may require a BIOS update. I've read that they work in Asus and AsRock mobos. Don't know about others.

Looks like a solid deal, but those might be a little much for this budget Gigabyte board. Plus, I pretty much had my 2016 hardware budget spent by the middle of February

[nanoprobe]

Looks like a solid deal, but those might be a little much for this budget Gigabyte board. Plus, I pretty much had my 2016 hardware budget spent by the middle of February

NP! They're available if anyone here might be interested.

[John P. Myers]

It's not illegal to possess, buy or give away an ES CPU, only illegal to sell them, though Intel doesn't enforce it because if they got them back, they have literally no use for them.

The only reason they're illegal to sell is because Intel claims ownership of all ES CPUs and all that are out in the wild are "on loan" from Intel and you can't legally profit from selling something owned by someone else.

[Mike029]

FWIW I have 2 retail E5-2683 V3 chips(s-spec SR1XH) for sale on eBay. These are 14c/28t They are not engineering samples. They are OEM final production chips. They aren't cheap but when you consider they retail for $2100+ the price is good IMHO. In a 2P SuperMicro board running 56 threads @ WCG they pulled 270 watts total at the wall. The stock clock is 2.0 Ghz. They turbo up to 2.3GHz under full load. Anything turbo mode you see listed above 2.3 is for a single thread, not all 56.
link

EDIT: These chips will run in some X99 boards but may require a BIOS update. I've read that they work in Asus and AsRock mobos. Don't know about others.

What is the cost of putting something like this together? Chips, MB, memory, and hs/fans, I could save a few $ with if I could use a evga 1200 psu. I'm guessing this would still cost around 2k to put together.

[nanoprobe]

What is the cost of putting something like this together? Chips, MB, memory, and hs/fans, I could save a few $ with if I could use a evga 1200 psu. I'm guessing this would still cost around 2k to put together.

Your 1200 PSU would be more than enough. The 2 chips running 56 threads at WCG only pull about 270 watts at the wall. Depending on what GPU you have and if you decide to crunch with it your power consumption will go up. You can get a 2P SuperMicro board for about $275 at Newegg if you buy them open box. You must use ECC registered memory. The cost will depend on how much you want to have. 16GB will be enough in most cases and will cost about $175. The best HSF would be the CoolerMaster 212 EVO. They are about $26. With the 2 CPUs your cost would be about $1700-$1800.

[FourOh]

Your 1200 PSU would be more than enough. The 2 chips running 56 threads at WCG only pull about 270 watts at the wall. Depending on what GPU you have and if you decide to crunch with it your power consumption will go up. You can get a 2P SuperMicro board for about $275 at Newegg if you buy them open box. You must use ECC registered memory. The cost will depend on how much you want to have. 16GB will be enough in most cases and will cost about $175. The best HSF would be the CoolerMaster 212 EVO. They are about $26. With the 2 CPUs your cost would be about $1700-$1800.

56 threads, hmmm... Don't ask Z how much RAM it needs