Best motherboard for E5-2699 V4

[syXzor]

Hi guys,

I just purchased a Xeon E5-2699 V4, and now I'm on the hunt for the best motherboard, memory etc.

Since I've already invested in a quite expensive cpu, I'm definitely looking at a dual socket motherboard, so I can buy a 2nd cpu and some extra memory in a year or 2.

I've already done a lot of searching for info about what the best motherboard for my CPU might be, but I didn't come to a clear conclusion, so here are some of my questions

X99 vs c612?

As I understand it C612-based boards are the best motherboards to fully utilize this processor right? But what other advantages does C612 hold over X99. Does it excel in performance, or what would the best arguments be for choosing a C612 board over a X99 board?

Going with C612

Newer (and better) boards than Supermicro x10 or Asus z10pe for the E5-2699 V4?

I often see people recommend the Asus z10pe-d8 with a Xeon E5 v3/v4 build, but at the same time they mention it has to be manufactured after a certain date in 2015 and needs to have a bios newer than x. I can find reviews from back in 2014, so I was wondering - is it still the go-to board for the E5 2600 V4 Xeon CPUs? Also, the many different Supermicro board-models are somewhat confusing. I feel kinda lost trying to figure out which is better, and what differences there might be between x10 models; dai, dri, dax etc... also those seem to be quite old with a release date in 2014. Are there any newer boards worth considering?

I'm gonna be using my computer primarily for streaming (x264) while gaming.

 

[Patrick]

C612. Do you need a workstation or a server board? 10GbE? SAS? How many GPUs?

 

[syXzor]

To begin with I'm just throwing in a single Geforce GTX 1080.

I don't plan on using the pc as a server, but as a desktop pc for multimedia purposes - streaming while gaming and doing multiple things on multiple monitors at the same time.

I know the 2699 might be a bit overkill for that use, but I got it a a great price, so now I'm just looking at a great build around that CPU. Gaming/multimedia/desktop but still with extensibility and the highest quality components in mind

Still I think it'd be wise to pick a dual socket mobo from the beginning, for futureproofing purposes, but the recommended dual socket motherboards just seem a bit dated, so I'm starting to doubt if a new X99 board might even be the better choice.

 

[Rapturoso]

C612. Do you need a workstation or a server board? 10GbE? SAS? How many GPUs?

If you don't mind me asking, what price was your CPU and also where can I get one at this great price?

 

[Patrick]

With that CPU I would probably get an X10DAC (what I use with my dual E5-2650 V3's). I have that plus a GTX 1070 in a small Supermicro SC732 chassis where everything barely fits. Mountain View real estate is expensive! The C version has the LSI controller which is completely unnecessary if you need 10 or fewer SATA devices.

I think the ultimate motherboard right now is a Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DRG-Q bacause you can fit tons of dual slot cards. The bad part is that it is proprietary so finding 3rd party cases to fit it is hard. I was going to use the complete system around it before I decided to make a lower power smaller SC732 system (hence why the entire setup is in my FS post).

If you are not going to use a lot of drives, and want something fairly standard, Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DAi or Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DAX

Supermicro makes an X10DAL-i which is ATX but skip that with the CPU. You will want more RAM.

I think the Z10PE-D16 WS | Motherboards | ASUS USA is a good option as well. I will say that my dual E5 V1/ V2 system was based on the predecessor. I will say, the current SM setup has not had the quirks (3x times power on/ off to post as an example) that the old ASUS setup had. Then again, may have been a generational thing.

You can use server boards, but they will not have onboard audio if that matters to you.

 

[syXzor]

If you don't mind me asking, what price was your CPU and also where can I get one at this great price?

I'd rather not make this thread go off-topic, but to answer your question, for some reason I found 3 in stock on amazon yesterday, where the price had suddenly dropped to just 1699 usd. It's back up to 4000+ now, so I feel pretty damn lucky, although to me it's still a lot of money for a CPU!

 

[sthsep]

I'm using the Z10PE-D16 in my workstation for about 1-2 years. The only issue I faced that I lost 2 or 3 time the ramsticks (they where not found on post screen). I just pulled then the sicks and reinserted them and they were working fine again. But that may also be a problems with the sticks itself.

 

[syXzor]

With that CPU I would probably get an X10DAC (what I use with my dual E5-2650 V3's). I have that plus a GTX 1070 in a small Supermicro SC732 chassis where everything barely fits. Mountain View real estate is expensive! The C version has the LSI controller which is completely unnecessary if you need 10 or fewer SATA devices.

I think the ultimate motherboard right now is a Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DRG-Q bacause you can fit tons of dual slot cards. The bad part is that it is proprietary so finding 3rd party cases to fit it is hard. I was going to use the complete system around it before I decided to make a lower power smaller SC732 system (hence why the entire setup is in my FS post).

If you are not going to use a lot of drives, and want something fairly standard, Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DAi or Supermicro | Products | Motherboards | Xeon® Boards | X10DAX

Supermicro makes an X10DAL-i which is ATX but skip that with the CPU. You will want more RAM.

I think the Z10PE-D16 WS | Motherboards | ASUS USA is a good option as well. I will say that my dual E5 V1/ V2 system was based on the predecessor. I will say, the current SM setup has not had the quirks (3x times power on/ off to post as an example) that the old ASUS setup had. Then again, may have been a generational thing.

You can use server boards, but they will not have onboard audio if that matters to you.

Thanks for the great answer Patrick.

I can definitely rule out proprietary and I'll not need a lot of SATA devices / drives.

Just the possibility to drop-in a 2nd cpu at some point, and of course the RAM to back i up. Btw. how many RAM would you recommend for such a CPU? 4x 16GB per cpu should be enough, right?

I guess right now I'm considering

1) X10DAi
2) X10DAX

If I were to pick the Z10PE-D[8|16] WS - I think 8 slots should be enough, but probably opting out of this, due to the old EEB form factor. It just seems like a dated motherboard to me, and as you mentioned - quite a few quirks has been reported, and I don't think everything can be fixed just by updating the bios.

 

[Netwerkz101]

I'd rather not make this thread go off-topic, but to answer your question, for some reason I found 3 in stock on amazon yesterday, where the price had suddenly dropped to just 1699 usd. It's back up to 4000+ now, so I feel pretty damn lucky, although to me it's still a lot of money for a CPU!

Horse before carriage ...but at that price I can understand the impulse buy on that CPU.
Your use case screams Desktop/Workstation board/cpu vs. a Server board/cpu.

As Nanotech mentions ... lower core count + higher clock rates would be better for you
in your (current) use case.

So what if you already bought the CPU cheap. Sell it!!!
(or build two separate systems )

Use the profits to build the gaming/streaming system you want and keep the change.

Also ... if you are truly going to use all those cores, I'd be looking at DP boards with 8 DIMM slots per CPU for
expandability (future-proof as you say) alone.

 

[escksu]

I bought the Asus Z10PE D8 WS board for my pair of 2696v4.. ITs pretty ok I have to say. It comes with M.2 slot. Only downside is just 4 RAM slots per CPU. If you are going to install lots of RAM, this may be an issue. For me, I just end user so I think 8 slots is more than sufficient.

Also, not all PCIE slots are 16x and you need 2nd CPU for all slots to work. This board will support quad SLI/CF with 16x for each card if you have 2 CPUs.

Another issue is there don't seems to be a way to overclock the Xeons on this board. IT does support slight overclock and turbo boost but no way to change the turbo boost multiplier settings. I have yet to find a way to do it.

 

[chilipepperz]

(hence why the entire setup is in my FS post)

That's the hawtest workstation for this CPU and it gets my vote. With that many cores you need 8 or 12 DDR4 per CPU def.

 

[syXzor]

If you are going to be streaming while gaming even an X99 processor (6-core) is more than sufficient seeing as the primary usage will be (Twitch) streaming and gaming. Xeons will not provide the best gaming experience due to their clock speeds for typically clocked affordable samples. I would recommend you go with a 5820K or a 6800K instead on X99 than invest in a Xeon for streaming and gaming. However since you mentioned you already bought the processor if you want feature set and connectivity options you can consider X99. Otherwise C612 will be the better option. However the E5-2699 V4 is not a good option for gaming and streaming unlike a Core i7 5820k or a 6800K.

Horse before carriage ...but at that price I can understand the impulse buy on that CPU.
Your use case screams Desktop/Workstation board/cpu vs. a Server board/cpu.

As Nanotech mentions ... lower core count + higher clock rates would be better for you
in your (current) use case.

So what if you already bought the CPU cheap. Sell it!!!
(or build two separate systems )

Use the profits to build the gaming/streaming system you want and keep the change.

Also ... if you are truly going to use all those cores, I'd be looking at DP boards with 8 DIMM slots per CPU for
expandability (future-proof as you say) alone.

Hi guys, when I wrote that final line I feared all focus would be on that, instead of the title, but thanks for the warning.

There's no doubt about that it would be far from ideal to purchase a Xeon if it was only to be used for gaming... although some games such as Doom 2016 actually does seem to be using all the cores you're throwing at it:

Except from maybe Quake Live, I don't really play any game that utilizes less than 6 cores. Furthermore as I mentioned I'll probably be streaming in x264 (high quality preset) everytime I play - besides all the other stuff I like to have running in the background.

So say for instance; 1 game is using 6 cores and OBS can up to 16 cores max. (+other background stuff). And take the Turbo into consideration as well (6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/14/14).

As far as I understand:

- if 1-2 cores is used, each core will run at 3.6GHz
- if 4 cores is used, each core will run at 3.3GHz
- if 6 cores is used, each core will run at 3.1GHz
- if all 22 cores is used, each core will run at 2.8GHz

Now compare that with a Core i7-6800K with a base clock of 3.4GHz with 1/1/1/1/4/4

- 200MHz difference in games utilizing 1-2 cores
- 100MHz difference in games utilizing 3 cores
- 200MHz difference in games utilizing 4 cores
- 400Mhz difference in games utilizing 6 cores

At 6 cores there's a rather big advantage for the 6800K, but only if the computer is not using resources on other tasks other than the game itself.

Then again I realize you can OC the 6800K much more (than the 3% you can hope to squeeze out of the 2699 V4 I guess), but then again... my point being: If you're not just gaming, but doing other quite demanding tasks (at the same time) besides gaming - then having free cores to take care of that extra work would probably let the 6 cores, dedicated to the game, run much more stable and smooth.

Also as you saw with Doom 2016, I guess it'll be fair to assume that other new upcoming well-engineered games could potentionally be able to utilize all available cores as well, right?

Why did I mention it was to be used for gaming (among other things)? I only mentioned it, because I think it could have been relevant to mention, when picking up a motherboard.

I'm only building this PC around the 2699 V4 because I got it fairly cheap, and I kinda like the idea of "letting the future come to you" in terms of multi-threaded games and programs. Also I found my i5 6600K gaming rig waaay to weak as a x264 streaming PC - at least in the quality I seek. On the other hand this jack-of-all-trades build seems like an exciting alternative to having to buy an expensive 2nd PC - and upgrade my current. So I see it as a long-term multimedia investment - as well as a workstation when I code and render 3D/video from time to time.

So I definitely think I'll stay with the Xeon CPU - the only million dollar question is: haven't anything happened with the c612 dual socket motherboards since 2014 where the supermicro, asrock, gigabyte and asus boards were released together with the launch of V5? When purchasing a CPU from june 2016 I'd expect a new improved motherboard to hit the market as well, sometime in 2016. But for some reason everybody is still talking about the same couple of old boards: supermicro x10 series and asus z10pe-d. 10 months without a new "improved" c612 board seems like an awful long time.

 

[Patrick]

@syXzor - right now all of the manufacturers are focused on the E5 V5 generation motherboards for June/ July.

Unlike in the gaming world, the server guys have stable designs and rarely iterate on them, especially in low-density form factors like EATX.

 

[syXzor]

Using a Xeon strictly streaming for gaming and streaming is not it's intended usage nor is it the optimal scenario. Sure you could use that 2699 V4 but your main comparison and point of reference is a i5 6600K with 4c and 4 threads. The 6700K is also known to lag when streaming (see Ryzen demos) but even when using something like a 6800K/6850K and a 6900K when streaming and gaming those are the optimal processors and intended usage along with multi-threaded tasks. I am not the only poster who's repeated this but a Xeon for strictly gaming and streaming is sub-optimal due to single threaded performance (even when you consider turbo boost bins). A 6800K which can be overclocked well will not bottleneck a higher-end x99 setup and allow for streaming and gaming. There are examples on youtube of those with similar systems who use it for encoding/streaming and gaming and fine it is more than sufficient for their usage.

You didn't previously mention that you code and render 3D from time to time however is it justified enough to warrant a 2699 V4 as I interpreted from time to time meaning rarely or uncommon. The main usage and scenario is still gaming and streaming.

Another point to mention is that even if a game does use all the cores then your single threaded performance also becomes weaker because the turbo bins actually go less than what their one or two core usage turbo bins would be. There are examples of CPU bound scenarios where a lower clock speed higher core Xeon will affect frame per second quite substantially. Take for example the E5-2670 in Fallout 4 as that is a good CPU bound game and example.

Also there is no V5 processors. There is the V3 and V4 Xeon processors which are Haswell-EP/Broadwell-EP based. V5 will likely be for the upcoming Skylake-EP processors which won't be released till August or later of 2017.

Nanotech... okay let's not discuss it further - whether or not I'm justified to do a Xeon build just because I like to game a little in my spare time, and not intend to use it only for the typical use cases.

It's almost as if you're ignoring my points - and focussing on the little typos I make such as V5 (I guess you knew I meant V3, if you read it in context). An answer would have been a lot more helpful than information such as "V5 is not out yet" - I guess most people purchasing a V4 knows if there's a newer version...

We can agree that spending thousands of dollars on a Xeon build is definitely not the best bang for your bucks, and that most games ( 9 out of 10 existing games) would without a doubt run a bit better on a i7 cpu. Heck I might not fully utilize it now - maybe I will. Maybe I never will - maybe in a year or so? Thats fine.

I'm not arguing that, and I never said that I only indend to use it for gaming. I've already mentioned it a few times, what purposes I intend to use it for - streaming, gaming, work, multimedia, lots of screens, lots of background processes, a single multi-core beast instead of 2 separate computers... is that good enough, or do I need to do big data analytics to justify choosing Xeon? To be honest it's kind of ridiculous and pointless to continue this offtopic nonsense.

If you do not know other newer promising boards to consider, then hopefully someone else might stop by and give some constructive inputs.

 

[syXzor]

@syXzor - right now all of the manufacturers are focused on the E5 V5 generation motherboards for June/ July.

Unlike in the gaming world, the server guys have stable designs and rarely iterate on them, especially in low-density form factors like EATX.

Thank you for the answer.

 

[Rapturoso]

... Could it be that Xeon sales cannibalized or ate into Intel's Core i7 segments? I'd assume for example a small majority could buy a i7 6950X but a larger portion could buy a E5-2630 V4 or similar and get 10 cores at a lower speed for much less.

That's exactly what I did. 10 cores per CPU on a dual socket board. The memory price is a real killer though if upgrading the CPU is a future path one wants to take. Swap out the CPUs for units with more cores and higher memory bandwidth requirements. That's what I did.

The supported RDIMM ECC 2400MHz DDR 4 single rank quad channel memory is more expensive than the already expensive 2133MHZ equivalent though (keeping single rank for maximum throughput). I've paved the way for a 20+ core processor upgrade from these baby 10 core E5 2630 v4 Xeons. Also the moderate increase in memory bandwidth is worth the investment once these baby Xeons are replaced.

No one in their right mind would sacrifice core count for an on die GPU and the more clued-in of system builders will always spend on more important parts of a system. The same goes for core speed. Most Xeons can handle moderate to fairly taxing single threaded applications, the E5 2630 v4 being no slouch can keep up with a lot of consumer orientated CPUs. It's not the best but it is also far from the worst and covers a happy middle ground that outperforms any mid-grade i series CPU.

Granted there are markets for common enthusiast CPUs like the gamer-centric i5/i7 K series but for good all round systems capable of taking on a plethora of tasks in a timely and effective manner (not just the common media production/rendering/gaming), Xeons have become the holy grail to people outside of large installations, data centres, server/render farms and corporate workstations.

There's also the issue of rock solid stability. I've not had one single freeze, crash, loop or any other kind of instability using these dual Xeons with the ECC RDIMM DDR4 memory. It's a dream to use and a totally different world. Consumer gear would always have issues of crashing, freezing, stopping randomly, sometimes never recovering, power saving randomly and not recovering etc.

Enterprise grade equipment has been (and I'm sure will remain) a joy to use.