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?