Best bang for the buck CPU platform? (on the used market)

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John M.

Member
Mar 7, 2016
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Hi everyone,

I tend to upgrade my workstation every 3 years or so. But usually with old hardware because I'm cheap :).

This is my current config:

Supermicro x9dri-ln4f - 2x E5-2680 v2 - 128GB RAM - 1070ti - Samsung 970PRO nvme - 7x 2TB RAID - Areca 1222 Controller - Mellanox Connectx2 10Gbe.

Has anyone suggestions on what generation the best bang for the buck is at the moment? What platforms are currently being replaced in datacenters etc... I remember there was a huge exodus of e5-2650 cpu's a couple of years ago and the prices where very low.

I would very much like to upgrade to something more modern, with proper pci-e bifucation support etc... an nvme slot on the board would be heaven :)

Thx for any suggestions!
Karel.
 
R

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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what currently is (slowly) getting replaced is scalable v1, there are lots of cheapish cpus out there.
But platforms stay so few boards/systems yet, therefore i'd recommend E5 v4 at this point, plenty cheap boards/cpus to be found
 
J

John M.

Member
Mar 7, 2016
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I'm currently debating if I should jump to gen2 threadripper or to E5-v4. Thing is that my current E5-2680 v2's have very low single core performance and the jump to E5-2690 v4 seems not that big in that regard.

I'm using geekbench5 as a reference here:

SINGLEMULTI
e5-2680 v267010000
E5-2689 v4 (way too pricy)90012000
E5-2690 v488015000
2950X (16 core)110014000


Going for an x399 motherboard and a Threadripper 2950X seems also interesting...
 
funkywizard

funkywizard

mmm.... bandwidth.
Jan 15, 2017
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John M. said:
I'm currently debating if I should jump to gen2 threadripper or to E5-v4. Thing is that my current E5-2680 v2's have very low single core performance and the jump to E5-2690 v4 seems not that big in that regard.

I'm using geekbench5 as a reference here:

SINGLEMULTI
e5-2680 v267010000
E5-2689 v490012000
E5-2690 v488015000
2950X (16 core)110014000


Going for an x399 motherboard and a Threadripper 2950X seems also interesting...
Click to expand...
The modern AMD cpus clearly have way better single threaded speeds. For a desktop it's pretty compelling.

For a server, the E5v4 is good enough in most cases, given how cheap they are.
 
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bayleyw

Active Member
Jan 8, 2014
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You don't get a huge jump till Zen2/Threadripper 3000. The 2950X has faster single-threaded performance than the 2690v4 because the favored core can turbo up to 4.4 GHz, but it also has a pathological internal layout that sometimes results in very low performance. TR 3000 fixes that and has good IPC (~Skylake), but is a bit expensive (~2K cost of entry for the platform).

Most of the Skylake-SP processors turbo to 3.7-3.9GHz, but even the best Xeon Platinums are only slightly faster than a 5950X and cost several hundred dollars more, so they only make sense if you need the I/O and RDIMM support.

There are some esoteric choices out there, the Platinum 8124M is a good CPU but it only boots on ASRock boards. The W-3175X is still very fast but requires a $1K+ board and chilled water to really shine. There are unlocked QS Epycs (a 32c part is about $1K) but those require manual management of clock speeds since the overclock disables turbo.
 
J

John M.

Member
Mar 7, 2016
43
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bayleyw said:
You don't get a huge jump till Zen2/Threadripper 3000. The 2950X has faster single-threaded performance than the 2690v4 because the favored core can turbo up to 4.4 GHz, but it also has a pathological internal layout that sometimes results in very low performance. TR 3000 fixes that and has good IPC (~Skylake), but is a bit expensive (~2K cost of entry for the platform).

Most of the Skylake-SP processors turbo to 3.7-3.9GHz, but even the best Xeon Platinums are only slightly faster than a 5950X and cost several hundred dollars more, so they only make sense if you need the I/O and RDIMM support.

There are some esoteric choices out there, the Platinum 8124M is a good CPU but it only boots on ASRock boards. The W-3175X is still very fast but requires a $1K+ board and chilled water to really shine. There are unlocked QS Epycs (a 32c part is about $1K) but those require manual management of clock speeds since the overclock disables turbo.
Click to expand...
This Platinum 8124M route does seem interesting, can only find one reference on youtube where it seems to work in an Asrock server board. I can't seem to get this board in Europe. The ebay listings also mention Gigabyte boards like the Gigabyte C621-WD12 that seems readily available.. But can't find success stories with this board. Might give it a shot but can get an expensive mistake...
 
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