Techspot: Haswell-E vs Dual Xeon (SB-EP)

[Burpo]

I'm trying to figure out what case it would fit in. I don't think it will fit in a big ATX case?

Takes an EATX case..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NZXT-SOURCE...262385?hash=item4af57e1b71:g:CvYAAOSwfZ1WazMv

 

[tenks]

yea, I think I'm going to hold off for now..I've waited this long for broadwell-e...might as well wait and see what it does to the market and how its performance fairs..

The motherboard part of this equation is defiantely a reall turn off. I don't want any of those server boards, I'd like a normal board like the Asus z9PE-D8 but prices are a joke...Hell I'd even consider a single cpu but x79 are so damn expensive, even on ebay...Why is that?

 

[NAC]

Holy SATA ports batman for that ASROCK board. 14!
But zero USB 3 it looks like...

 

[ethebubbeth]

Holy SATA ports batman for that ASROCK board. 14!
But zero USB 3 it looks like...

Servers usually have lots of drives but little need for high-speed USB.

 

[Burpo]

x79 are so damn expensive, even on ebay...Why is that?

The flood of server chips has driven the prices up, Availability has really dwindled. Last year I barely got $100 for a like new Asus P9X79 Deluxe on ebay. Today that board would do $275 easy, simply due to these cheap Xeons..

 

[bunnyfubbles]

really is too bad these can't be overclocked, I'd have an obvious upgrade to my 3930K

certainly is tempting to grab 2 and a dual socket board to play with, but that's just too much hassle for me

 

[tenks]

The more I think about it, the more I want to do this. Its just these damn motherboards!

I already have 16GB of DDR3-1866..Could easily buy another 16 for $60-$70. And just move all my SDD/HDDS over.

But I want USB 3...gah..I'd love to find a Z9PE-D8 for $300 and it'd be a done deal

 

[Burpo]

For single CPU there's a new (bare board) Asus P9x79-ws ending soon..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-p9x79-ws-ipmi-/182084729564?hash=item2a65187adc:g:-HwAAOSwjwlXBIqj

And there's 2 new Dell T3600 boards (with audio) at $149

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-GENUINE...891871?hash=item1c6499e65f:g:Lk4AAOSwiylXBFgQ

 

[tenks]

For single CPU there's a new (bare board) Asus P9x79-ws ending soon..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-p9x79-ws-ipmi-/182084729564?hash=item2a65187adc:g:-HwAAOSwjwlXBIqj

And there's 2 new Dell T3600 boards (with audio) at $149

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-GENUINE...891871?hash=item1c6499e65f:g:Lk4AAOSwiylXBFgQ

I saw that first one Burpo...Any opinions on that board? will it will work with Xeons for sure? I dont care about manuals and I can find them online..

As far as the Dell one, I cant find any specs..New Egg is also selling it, a refurbished one fro $159

 

[Burpo]

Yes, the Asus P9X79 WS has no problems with Xeons & supports some ECC ram.
The Dell board is C602 chipset & works also, but no multi core enhancement or other features of the Asus.

 

[tenks]

This thread has been both a blessing and curse to my day. Thanks a lot Sweepr!


I was gonna get that Asus P9X79 WS but it shot up to $200 pretty fast..I still need time to think about all of this. I cant impulse buy.

 

[Net]

for those who are interested there are some good videos on dual E5-2670 builds on youtube. Just search for "dual e5-2670"

 

[tenks]

if I get a mainstream x79 board, with OC'in these still be limited?

 

[NAC]

Could it be that I decide to build a system on the same day that the last reasonably priced, third party, dual CPU motherboard with 2+ PCIx16 slots was sold? There are a bunch of Supermicro boards still on ebay, but I don't see any with 2+ PCIx16 slots. And there are Dell and HP motherboards, but I'm pretty sure they'll need case and power supply modification. Well, I'll wait and if luck would have it that I missed out on those ASROCK boards by like a day, so be it.

But question about PCI slots. According to Intel ARK, the C602 and C606 chipsets only support 8 total max lanes?
http://ark.intel.com/products/63984

 

[tenks]

Do those Asrock boards suppord MultiCore Enhancement?

NAC - Yea seems like they all dissipated right when we looked at them, lol

 

[Burpo]

Depends on implementation, chipset has 8 lanes, but 80 lanes total for Asus Z9PE-D8 WS with dual cpu's.

"All in all, the board has 72 PCIe lanes with the new PCIe 3.0 specification at its disposal, ensuring massive bandwidth capabilities."
"all on-board components are connected through the C602 chipset. It provides eight PCIe 2.0 lanes, used by the ASMedia-USB3.0 chips, the VIA FireWire controller, the LAN ports and the Marvell controller, as well as Aspeed's remote-management chip, meaning that all eight lanes are being used."

http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.p...performance-test-asus-z9pe-d8-ws.html?start=2

 

[tenks]

Man, I've been searching for a x79 all f'n weekend and no one wants to sell it w.o a shitty 3000 series i7. So annoying!

 

[tenks]

Where do you get that or any dual 2011 cpu motherboard for $300? That MB is $619 on newegg.

Cheapest I see is Asus DDR3 1066 Intel-LGA 2011 on Amazon for $360

the editor linked the wrong board, he linked the 16dimm version.

The one he got for the review was the 8dimm version and can be had for $289, at least when it was available.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2&cm_re=ASRock_EP2C602-_-13-157-352-_-Product

 

[NAC]

I wasn't able to find anywhere that the ASROCK supports MultiCore Enhancement. I doubt it.

I just realized I'll need to upgrade to Windows Pro to get support for multiple physical processors. I think I'll get a $50 dvd for Windows 7 system builders disk.

Also trying to decide about memory. I think I'll get used ECC server memory - it is about $50 for 8 * 4gb. Or maybe I'll spring for $100 for 8*8 gb. It seems that ECC memory is basically much less likely to fail? I've had to replace memory in the past, it was a pain to diagnose - first to determine it was a memory problem, and then to isolate which of the sticks was the problem. The errors didn't show up always when I ran one stick. Anyway - I imagine it may be a nightmare to diagnose the isolate a bad stick of ram out of 8. Of course, new ram doesn't guarantee there wont be a problem, but to compare new non-ECC vs. used ECC: it seems that ECC may be the way to go?

Also, apparently ECC has very little if any performance hit:
http://www.techspot.com/news/57360-...on-ecc-memory-performance.html#commentsOffset

 

[tenks]

I wasn't able to find anywhere that the ASROCK supports MultiCore Enhancement. I doubt it.

I just realized I'll need to upgrade to Windows Pro to get support for multiple physical processors. I think I'll get a $50 dvd for Windows 7 system builders disk.

Also trying to decide about memory. I think I'll get used ECC server memory - it is about $50 for 8 * 4gb. Or maybe I'll spring for $100 for 8*8 gb. It seems that ECC memory is basically much less likely to fail? I've had to replace memory in the past, it was a pain to diagnose - first to determine it was a memory problem, and then to isolate which of the sticks was the problem. The errors didn't show up always when I ran one stick. Anyway - I imagine it may be a nightmare to diagnose the isolate a bad stick of ram out of 8. Of course, new ram doesn't guarantee there wont be a problem, but to compare new non-ECC vs. used ECC: it seems that ECC may be the way to go?

Also, apparently ECC has very little if any performance hit:
http://www.techspot.com/news/57360-...on-ecc-memory-performance.html#commentsOffset

Dont get ECC unless your applications/workload demand it. I've given up on a dual board, as the only one I want is the ASUS Z9PE-D8 so I can have normal desktop board features, multicore enhancement, higher supported RAM speeds, usb 3.0..but I'm not paying $500 for a motherboard. I've been looking at getting a single socket x79...Found a couple on craigslist..Negotiating an asus x79 sabertooth for $150..seems like a decent board

$150+$70 for an 8core rig...Pretty good but I'm still probably going to try to wait and see what happens with broadwell-e..especially since I'm going to wait for the GPU refresh to invest in that side as well..I've never bought an old computer platform before..It kinda goes against my style as I usually make my builds last 4-5 years..I don't know if an 8-core sandy will last another 4-5 years from now.

 

[Burpo]

The Sabertooth for $150 is a nice board..

 

[tenks]

The Sabertooth for $150 is a nice board..

Cool, thanks for the input. I was curious how it faired and if it was a good model when it was out.

 

[tenks]

So I've never bought used computer parts before...Can anyone give me any insight on how big of a risk I'm taking? Is there a huge risk involved with used CPUs? especially one from an always on server farm?

 

[Burpo]

Not really, ebay has buyer protection and it's full proof. You get your money back if not satisfied. I've gotten many good deals there. Server parts/CPU's that were never overclocked, and changed out every 3-5 yrs. is what I like to buy.

 

[Net]

So I've never bought used computer parts before...Can anyone give me any insight on how big of a risk I'm taking? Is there a huge risk involved with used CPUs? especially one from an always on server farm?

You'll want to be able to return it if needed. The used cpu I bought a while back, i7 980x, had a bent pin and I was able to return it.

Even when buying new you'll want a return policy too. You want to test everything out that you can before the return policy time is up. So run memtest, etc... Make sure all the ram slots work, etc...

The other part that you probably won't notice till later is compatibility issues. Hopefully you don't have any problems. I try to stay in the mainstream so I can run linux and other things without having problems. Just make sure to research everything out well. Especially if you want to run linux later.