$29 Embedded Epyc 3151 ASRock Rack EPYC3151D4I-NL
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btw: how did you connect the supermicro frontpanel cable to the asrock motherboard ? they are not compatible.
Yeah, the lack of onboard networking is what makes one of these not worth more than $30 imo.
Like... sure, you can work around it, but it's a serious limitation... with kinda janky solutions.
You either have to convert the m.2 slot (rip on board nvme boot/data), or bifurcate the the single pcie slot which means you're basically gonna be bifurcating to a m.2 pcie carrier board, because there's not exactly a ton of variety when it comes to bifurcation. Yeah, there's some combo boards (and m.2 + nic is one of them) but they're definitely not common.
You're not gonna be bifurcating (for example) a video card and a nic, you would have to convert a m.2 carrier board to gpu and nic, etc.
And at that point, you're already paying the extra $30 that these are now overpriced at.
And also CBL-0068L , for folks that need something a little longer.
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The Gigabyte MJ11-EC1 has a similar downside, you need a PCIe adapter if you want to use any expansion. To date, no EPYC ITX board for a good price without making big compromises.
FWIW you can buy 2.5G/5G M.2 Ethernet cards quite inexpensively (~$20) these days.
That being said, these boards are massively overpriced at $60 and it seems the seller considers $40 too low and auto-rejects offers even for multiple quantity. Judging by the number sold though, they don't seem to have any trouble finding willing buyers so I doubt they will drop the price.
Waiting for someone to start dumping MJ11-EC0 boards that have onboard networking and a native PCIe x16 slot
I have seen it once for around 100-120 but I was stupid enough not to grab it :-(
Literally the first Result on eBay Germany for 120 EUR, or am I missing something ?
EDIT 1: this seems a MJ11-EC1 not a MJ11-EC0, though I couldn't find much Information on the EC1 vs EC0.
First off: The Supermicro CBL-SAST-0933 OCuLink cable works in these. I didn't want that detail to get lost in the philosophical rambling to follow.
It seems that "Great Deals" posts with a lot of activity always have a few things in common: There's some people who will buy out of curiosity. There's people who think the deal is overpriced. And if sales pick up, STH Effect kicks in and the seller raises the price
I got one of these for $50. I'd been interested in the platform since introduction, but Ebay and liquidator prices on Epyc embedded in the U.S. have always been at least 8-10 times more. I won't spend hundreds on curiosity, but $50 is under my impulse purchase threshold so I got one. Plus, I already had everything else needed to get it up and running.
If you posted that its overpriced: is there a source of economical Epyc embedded boards (in the U.S.) that I missed? Or are you saying that, functionally, there's more value in other platforms? Even with the added costs for networking and cabling, these are still hundreds cheaper (at least in the U.S.) than the next cheapest Epyc Embedded option I could find.
I can understand if the networking options (give up the entire PCIe slot or rely on a USB or m.2 adapter), and likely giving up four (or more) PCIe lanes as well, make it unacceptable regardless of price. But, I think that's different than the "bang for your buck".
It seems that "Great Deals" posts with a lot of activity always have a few things in common: There's some people who will buy out of curiosity. There's people who think the deal is overpriced. And if sales pick up, STH Effect kicks in and the seller raises the price
I got one of these for $50. I'd been interested in the platform since introduction, but Ebay and liquidator prices on Epyc embedded in the U.S. have always been at least 8-10 times more. I won't spend hundreds on curiosity, but $50 is under my impulse purchase threshold so I got one. Plus, I already had everything else needed to get it up and running.
If you posted that its overpriced: is there a source of economical Epyc embedded boards (in the U.S.) that I missed? Or are you saying that, functionally, there's more value in other platforms? Even with the added costs for networking and cabling, these are still hundreds cheaper (at least in the U.S.) than the next cheapest Epyc Embedded option I could find.
I can understand if the networking options (give up the entire PCIe slot or rely on a USB or m.2 adapter), and likely giving up four (or more) PCIe lanes as well, make it unacceptable regardless of price. But, I think that's different than the "bang for your buck".
"It depends"
Are you buying one for Reg ECC support? Then no, I have nothing better in the US. If you aren't buying one for Reg ECC support, then what is the appeal of an embedded EPYC? It's not like you get more PCIe lanes out of this board than a regular Ryzen.
Are you buying one because it's a cheap motherboard with integrated CPU that has ECC? If yes, then consider alternatives like: https://www.ebay.com/itm/188103200167
I had the IMB-V2000M and can confirm it supported ECC. Idle power consumption was not great, ~20W (and no proper IPMI, but it does come with DASH).
They are similar era CPUs except the EPYC has a higher TDP and performs slightly above the V1605B
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That's a really nice piece of kit! I really like ASRock Industrial. The gear I've had from them was well made and lasted forever.
I don't necessarily need Reg ECC. But its what I already had on hand, and I suppose it can't hurt for ZFS. The goal of the build is to squeeze a bit more household/homelab capacity out of parts I already had on hand (including a sizable pile of 960gb/1TB NVMe and SATA drives) in a lowish power platform. With prices the way they are, I don't want to buy any extra RAM or storage right now. IPMI was a plus, but not a dealbreaker.
I've got an i210 NIC connected via a four m.2 slot PCIe x16 card (also on hand in a spare parts bin).
That gives remaining capacity for 10 storage devices (three remaining m.2 slots on the PCIe card, the motherboard m.2, and six SATA). Lots of tradeoffs of course, but its helping me to reuse gear that was otherwise collecting dust.
If you're buying stuff based on impulse budgeting, you've already thrown away considering the worth of something... because now it's just "is this too much to pay for something I find interesting/useful/etc" and not about if it's actually worth what you pay for it.
And if on top of that you already have everything you need to overcome the downsides, it makes it even easier to ignore the additional "cost" those downsides add.
Do you have a use case the specifically needs an embedded epyc?
I can't think of one myself (especially since amd with ecc is available a lot more than you'd probably think), but if you do absolutely need epyc then sure, it won't be overpriced to you because you're willing to spend for a premium feature.
For most people here who don't need epyc, they can get equivalent hardware performance without missing features for the same price or better.
I'm not sure that anything is unacceptable regardless of price, because like I said originally I think at the original sale price these were just fine... and acceptable is a different metric to different people who buy based on different criteria.
"Bang for your buck" is a relative concept, that depends on what "bang" (features, etc) you're looking for and what your "buck" is worth.
If your bang is very specific (embedded epyc required) and your "buck" isn't limited ($50 impulse, and already having the $60+ in parts on hand to overcome the limitations) and you want it right now... then that might mean it is the best "bang for your buck" for you specifically.
But this is the "great deals" forum, and I personally don't think this is a "great deal" at the listed $60 price.
I think it's an "ok" deal if you're just buying it for something like a firewall or router etc where you're just going to pop in network card and call it a day (and never want to use it for anything else down the road), but other than that I think it's just overpriced because the seller saw the STH effect and figured they could make a bunch of more money off a niche offering.
I managed to get one at closer to the original price. Intent is to throw a pair ofa SATA SSDs and some other bits lying around including USB 2.5gbe and make a really tiny TrueNAS box, hopefully without using the PCIe slot at all. I'm one of those "only use ZFS with ECC" guys and AMD has always had weird asterisks with ECC support on their (especially older) non-Epyc chips, and I really like having IPMI.
I'm curious how people cool these outside of a 1U screaming server box. Just drill a fan to the HS? 3D printed fan shroud? Quiet cooling tends to be the rocky shoal my projects end up beached on.
I'm curious how people cool these outside of a 1U screaming server box. Just drill a fan to the HS? 3D printed fan shroud? Quiet cooling tends to be the rocky shoal my projects end up beached on.
…which makes it strange that you're going for 2.5G over USB instead of throwing in a server-grade NIC.
As for Xeon D-1500 or Atom C3000, you put a NF-A6x25 fan on the heatsink (or whatever fan size fits) with two strips of gaffer tape on the sides and call it a day.
@jackfrost all good points! No matter how much I research hardware purchases, its inevitable that I run across something more appropriate the following week. There's a lot of options out there and its hard to keep track of them all. I suppose "Impulse buy" wasn't the most accurate term. I still research hardware purchases, even at $50. But because I tend to research those less thoroughly, I find better alternatives after the fact for them more often. Your thoughts on approaching purchases differently are appreciated. Buying only the things that @Fritz bought first only goes so far after all
@etorix ...tape! Brilliant! I always used sealing wire to hold fans on top of 1U heatsinks. But tape would have required a lot less "threading the needle" around heat sink screws in tight quarters.
@Oarman , a 70mm fan fits the heatsink on these perfectly. Mine is in a desktop ITX case with a pretty quiet/low flow case fan setup , and temps are fine.
No, nothing that specifically required Epyc. As mentioned above, the goal was adding capacity to carry the family through until (hopefully) RAM and Storage prices stabilize a bit and I can undertake a top down upgrade with (much) larger SSDs. I think I'm like a lot of STH members, in that I already have at least some parts on hand that COULD work for a new build. I probably tend to limit my choices more than I need/should based solely on if they work with what I already have: in this case 32GB RDIMMs and connectivity for either 5-6 each of m.2 NVMe and 2.5" SATA SSDs, or 10-12 NVMe by themselves. Maybe the reuse goal itself wasn't the best approach?
@etorix ...tape! Brilliant! I always used sealing wire to hold fans on top of 1U heatsinks. But tape would have required a lot less "threading the needle" around heat sink screws in tight quarters.
@Oarman , a 70mm fan fits the heatsink on these perfectly. Mine is in a desktop ITX case with a pretty quiet/low flow case fan setup , and temps are fine.
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Haha, yep that's the way it goes.
I think in general just by the nature of something being a "great deal" means those somethings come by rarely... "ok" deals are much more frequent.
While I wouldn't limit myself based on what I already had, I definitely keep in mind if something I already have can be used... I think reusing itself is a great goal, it allows you to be flexible and more cost effective... especially now and for the next few years until SOMETHING happens with chip prices.
Realistically, if what you're doing works for you, that's all that matters... its not like there's some formalized code of how homelabbing works, lol.
Hell, if you had the RDIMMs lying around this probably IS a great deal, as needing to buy ram for anything right now is just a money pit!