LGA 2011-3 Upgrade Path?

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larrysb

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Nov 7, 2018
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I think Intel peaked with the Broadwell EP (Xeon E5-v4). With many servers being pulled now, there's a lot of cheap used parts on the market, which are hard to beat in reality. If you need lots of cores, E5-2696 v4 or 2699v4 are super cheap and nice, reliable stable parts.

I'm running a few multi-GPU workstations on 2689v4. While not as turbo-y fast as the latest and greatest parts, 10-cores, 3.7ghz all-core turbo with all the PCIe lanes and ECC support, on a single-ring, single PCIe root complex is hard to beat, especially at the price. They're reliable as all get-out and run nice and cool. Even at max-wattage synthetic workload, they only need a quiet air cooler to stay at full turbo indefinitely.
 

josh

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Oct 21, 2013
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I think Intel peaked with the Broadwell EP (Xeon E5-v4). With many servers being pulled now, there's a lot of cheap used parts on the market, which are hard to beat in reality. If you need lots of cores, E5-2696 v4 or 2699v4 are super cheap and nice, reliable stable parts.

I'm running a few multi-GPU workstations on 2689v4. While not as turbo-y fast as the latest and greatest parts, 10-cores, 3.7ghz all-core turbo with all the PCIe lanes and ECC support, on a single-ring, single PCIe root complex is hard to beat, especially at the price. They're reliable as all get-out and run nice and cool. Even at max-wattage synthetic workload, they only need a quiet air cooler to stay at full turbo indefinitely.
I think at some point in time you have to weigh the hardware costs vs the power consumption. 10-core all-turbo on the older chips would consume a lot more power than the newer chips to get the same degree of performance? Are you running the 2689v4s on dual CPU? Otherwise, lane support should be the same?
 

larrysb

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Nov 7, 2018
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I think at some point in time you have to weigh the hardware costs vs the power consumption. 10-core all-turbo on the older chips would consume a lot more power than the newer chips to get the same degree of performance? Are you running the 2689v4s on dual CPU? Otherwise, lane support should be the same?

Well, the i9-10900k (Comet Lake) 10c/20t, only has 16 PCIe lanes, and lacks ECC support, is built on 14nm process node and has a spec-sheet 125w TDP (which is basically fiction - read the many reviews about how hot it runs...).

Intel has been stuck at 14nm process node since Broadwell (the E5-2600 v4 family is also 14nm). They've enhanced it in several generations, but it is what it is.

Now if you don't need the PCIe lanes and don't need ECC support, or large memory support, the 10900K is a nice chip. It is very zippy and a heck of a gaming processor. But you'd also do well to look at AMD's offerings in this segment.

On the other hand, the Broadwell EP Xeon isn't as fast and it is 4-years older and also built on 14nm process. But it has 40 PCIe lanes and ECC support, twice the memory bandwidth and can support 10x the memory size, and of course, it can be used in 2-CPU configs.

The E5-2689v4 (10c/20t) has a base clock of 3.1ghz and a max turbo of 3.8Ghz, and an all-core turbo of 3.7ghz, it isn't as fast on CPU intensive benchmarks and workloads, but it can move data around a lot better, and it can support multiple GPU's, high-speed networking and NVMe at the same time. That's a lot of what a Xeon is all about. It also runs very cool, in spite of the 165w maximum TDP.

That's where things get funky in the Intel lineup today on the server/workstation side. We have Xeon Wxxxx which is Core X-extreme 10900x with ECC turned on, or Xeon Scalable Gold, and neither is really much better. Xeon W2255 10c/20t has 48 pcie lanes a bit higher clock (4Ghz all-core turbo). Xeon Gold 6246 is 12c/24t, 4.1ghz all core turbo. These all have the new Skylake mesh architecture, which has some NUMA implications for some things.

AMD's offerings look very interesting by comparison in all of these segments.

It just all depends on what you need and what's important.
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
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Well, the i9-10900k (Comet Lake) 10c/20t, only has 16 PCIe lanes, and lacks ECC support, is built on 14nm process node and has a spec-sheet 125w TDP (which is basically fiction - read the many reviews about how hot it runs...).

Intel has been stuck at 14nm process node since Broadwell (the E5-2600 v4 family is also 14nm). They've enhanced it in several generations, but it is what it is.

Now if you don't need the PCIe lanes and don't need ECC support, or large memory support, the 10900K is a nice chip. It is very zippy and a heck of a gaming processor. But you'd also do well to look at AMD's offerings in this segment.

On the other hand, the Broadwell EP Xeon isn't as fast and it is 4-years older and also built on 14nm process. But it has 40 PCIe lanes and ECC support, twice the memory bandwidth and can support 10x the memory size, and of course, it can be used in 2-CPU configs.

The E5-2689v4 (10c/20t) has a base clock of 3.1ghz and a max turbo of 3.8Ghz, and an all-core turbo of 3.7ghz, it isn't as fast on CPU intensive benchmarks and workloads, but it can move data around a lot better, and it can support multiple GPU's, high-speed networking and NVMe at the same time. That's a lot of what a Xeon is all about. It also runs very cool, in spite of the 165w maximum TDP.

That's where things get funky in the Intel lineup today on the server/workstation side. We have Xeon Wxxxx which is Core X-extreme 10900x with ECC turned on, or Xeon Scalable Gold, and neither is really much better. Xeon W2255 10c/20t has 48 pcie lanes a bit higher clock (4Ghz all-core turbo). Xeon Gold 6246 is 12c/24t, 4.1ghz all core turbo. These all have the new Skylake mesh architecture, which has some NUMA implications for some things.

AMD's offerings look very interesting by comparison in all of these segments.

It just all depends on what you need and what's important.
I was looking at it and definitely see the difference now. I just didn't expect an i9 to only have 16 lanes.
I guess a Ryzen 5600X/5800X would be much better than the 10th Gen for server usage since they have ECC support and 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes. But unless you're doing 4x GPU gaming setups, 16 lanes should technically be sufficient for calculations?
Lack of ECC is definitely a deal breaker for non desktop usage.
 

larrysb

Active Member
Nov 7, 2018
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I was looking at it and definitely see the difference now. I just didn't expect an i9 to only have 16 lanes.
I guess a Ryzen 5600X/5800X would be much better than the 10th Gen for server usage since they have ECC support and 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes. But unless you're doing 4x GPU gaming setups, 16 lanes should technically be sufficient for calculations?
Lack of ECC is definitely a deal breaker for non desktop usage.

Well, you know, those lanes can get used up pretty quick with big GPU's, 10gb, 25gb or even 100gb networking and lots of NVMe storage.

It just sort of depends on what you need to do with it.

AMD has really come along on all fronts.
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
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Well, you know, those lanes can get used up pretty quick with big GPU's, 10gb, 25gb or even 100gb networking and lots of NVMe storage.

It just sort of depends on what you need to do with it.

AMD has really come along on all fronts.
By big GPUs does the RTX 3090 count? Because I will not be using any of the professional cards with 48GB+ memory. If anything I might get 2x3090s and NVLink them. So 2x x8 for GPU from the CPU and 2x x4 for NVMe from the chipset?
Then again, no ECC means no chance for virtualization/ZFS hypervisor. What would I need 8-10 cores for then? :rolleyes:
 

funkywizard

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By big GPUs does the RTX 3090 count? Because I will not be using any of the professional cards with 48GB+ memory. If anything I might get 2x3090s and NVLink them. So 2x x8 for GPU from the CPU and 2x x4 for NVMe from the chipset?
Then again, no ECC means no chance for virtualization/ZFS hypervisor. What would I need 8-10 cores for then? :rolleyes:
Yeah personally for a pair of 3090s I'd want 2x x16 pcie 3.0 slots minimum, preferably pcie 4.0.

You might get away with x8 pcie 3.0 but it's not ideal.
 

josh

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Oct 21, 2013
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Yeah personally for a pair of 3090s I'd want 2x x16 pcie 3.0 slots minimum, preferably pcie 4.0.

You might get away with x8 pcie 3.0 but it's not ideal.
The i7-10700K was at $260 earlier. Is there really no good purpose for this crazy pricing other than a boring desktop gaming machine?

I just realised that in the dual GPU setup there would most likely be an NVLink bridge which would cut down on the transfer going through the PCIe lanes.
 
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larrysb

Active Member
Nov 7, 2018
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By big GPUs does the RTX 3090 count? Because I will not be using any of the professional cards with 48GB+ memory. If anything I might get 2x3090s and NVLink them. So 2x x8 for GPU from the CPU and 2x x4 for NVMe from the chipset?
Then again, no ECC means no chance for virtualization/ZFS hypervisor. What would I need 8-10 cores for then? :rolleyes:
Well, it really depends on what you want to do with it. :)

Systems engineering is always more complicated than buying parts and putting them together. Nothing wrong with a killer gaming rig, if you want to game. There's good call for some professional systems, like SolidWorks, to go with a fast gaming processor and a lower-tier Quadro RTX4000 (professional card). That would make a killer fast rig for that. But I like ECC memory for systems where money is made.

When I first built these workstations, they were 4-way 1080ti systems because that was the best I could do. But in the RTX era, it is 2 cards and a high-speed Mellanox card so I can do distributed computing. Just not terribly practical to build RTX in 4 slots for various reasons. I'd love to have Quadro RTX8000 or the new A6000 cards. But budgets are budgets.

The 8-10 core CPU's are good for my purposes. CPU loads aren't high for training up a deep learning model. But they come in handy for all the data prep that goes on, which GPU's aren't terribly helpful for. Just lots of python code doing that.
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
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Well, it really depends on what you want to do with it. :)

Systems engineering is always more complicated than buying parts and putting them together. Nothing wrong with a killer gaming rig, if you want to game. There's good call for some professional systems, like SolidWorks, to go with a fast gaming processor and a lower-tier Quadro RTX4000 (professional card). That would make a killer fast rig for that. But I like ECC memory for systems where money is made.

When I first built these workstations, they were 4-way 1080ti systems because that was the best I could do. But in the RTX era, it is 2 cards and a high-speed Mellanox card so I can do distributed computing. Just not terribly practical to build RTX in 4 slots for various reasons. I'd love to have Quadro RTX8000 or the new A6000 cards. But budgets are budgets.

The 8-10 core CPU's are good for my purposes. CPU loads aren't high for training up a deep learning model. But they come in handy for all the data prep that goes on, which GPU's aren't terribly helpful for. Just lots of python code doing that.
I have two systems in my home:
1. Desktop
2. Hypervisor server/cluster

For tasks I need:
1. Regular desktop/workstation needs
2. Gaming
3. Deep learning
4. Plex server
5. File server
6. Home automation

Currently I am running tasks 3-6 on a 2xE5-2670V2 server which was due an upgrade to V3/V4 a year ago but I held off because of DDR4 prices.
Desktop has been running on E5-2667V2 because DDR3 was cheap back then as well.
I do have a bunch of V3/V4 equipment in the workplace that I could repurpose but I'm considering just jumping straight to the newer gen CPUs.
I could run task 3 on either the desktop or the server. A bit more hassle on the desktop since I'd have to virtualize windows and play around with GPU passthrough both to Linux and Windows. Or I could use WSL but I'm not sure if there's issues with DL.
Only hard limits I'm seeing is ECC support on the server which rules out the i9s.

Currently considering, 3900X/5600X for the server and i7-10700K or i9-10850K for the desktop. Thoughts?
 
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Styp

Member
Aug 1, 2018
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I am kind of in the same boat, as many here.

Upgraded after getting convinced to single socket E5v4 but I need more computing power and will stick to one GPU for the time to come. Not sure if a high core count Xeon Gold / Platinum is worth the upgrade or a 5900x is a valid option.

I think when it comes to performance per dollar 10900k or 5900x is hard to beat but as soon as you need high memory bandwidth or other things maybe an 'older' plattform might be worth. I noticed that at work our Xeon Gold workstation is very close to the performance of a 3900x although on paper this should not be the case. (Numpy / Python nonAVX)
 

josh

Active Member
Oct 21, 2013
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The i9-10850K + Prime Z490-A combo is $450 at Newegg if anyone's having trouble deciding