"Well if we let them use consumer grade graphics cards and operating systems on server chipsets, then why would they buy workstations? And if they bought half as many machines, then there would be half as many graphics cards and processors out in the market."
-Person I do not like (Obviously tongue in cheek)
Ultimately what I'm asking here is if I can avoid making a dedicated storage & plex server by repurposing my server as a workstation. Not the first, won't be the last, but I hope this thread can be a help for people in the future with the same esoteric builds.
Usage for this machine is as follows
Actual benchmarks are sparse, so anyone with experience, it would be helpful. A lot of the presumptions here could be wrong, but I'd rather err on the side of overpowered than underpowered. I have very little free time, tinkering is not something that I get to enjoy. And frankly, my family doesn't appreciate it either. That being said, I'm not going to straight throw money into the trash or start making multiple build outs if I don't have to.
In order of usage
#2 dictates either a high thread count CPU with the below requirements or dual sockets, dual sockets preferred. When high thread counts are needed (plex with desktop or gaming use concurrently) single thread performance is not an issue (Which is what would make this machine okay using mid market Xeons).
#3 dictates a ~18,000 passmark (worst case 265 w/o HW decoding, 264 only 12K)
#4 dictates a single thread ~2000 passmark (combined 5000 passmark) with at least two cores (RE: analysis that Doom 2016 will max out processor usage around an i3-4300)
(#3&4 dictates a combined passmark of around 20,000 with around 12 threads)
Other requirements
#2 Leaves it to 600 series chipsets
#3 Leaves SuperMicro style cases (bottom hot swap, top 3 5.25), Full size eatx "super tower" cases and niche servers like the T620 and Lenovo TD350 and HP ML350 which have 8SFF lower bays. These all seem to have issues with using a GTX (since they have workstation equivalents in their umbrella). The ML350 does not have an issue with a W10 install, still looking to see if it will take a GTX, then it might be the ideal platform.
And given the nature of the requirements, I do seem to be coming back time and time again to a SuperMicro x9 series DP LGA2011 Socket R board. This seems to be 2600 v1 & v2. These boards from what I can tell do not have issues running consumer graphics cards, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of information out there. As a last case resort I could buy a SLI certified board like the x10dax.
Ideally I'm trying to get as close to a 2000 passmark as possible for single thread performance with the highest passmark per dollar for the actual composite score. I can tell that they're really really trying to prevent this multi faceted type of build, because of course, I should be buying a xeon and an i7. I should be buying a Quadro and a GTX (though I'll have to buy an NVS for the 10 bit Adobe pipeline).
Options
-Person I do not like (Obviously tongue in cheek)
Ultimately what I'm asking here is if I can avoid making a dedicated storage & plex server by repurposing my server as a workstation. Not the first, won't be the last, but I hope this thread can be a help for people in the future with the same esoteric builds.
Usage for this machine is as follows
Actual benchmarks are sparse, so anyone with experience, it would be helpful. A lot of the presumptions here could be wrong, but I'd rather err on the side of overpowered than underpowered. I have very little free time, tinkering is not something that I get to enjoy. And frankly, my family doesn't appreciate it either. That being said, I'm not going to straight throw money into the trash or start making multiple build outs if I don't have to.
In order of usage
- General web,office and creative use (Windows 10\Office 2016\Adobe PS & LR)
- Data storage (up to 200gb per day, roughly 1-2TB per month)
- Plex (1 4k stream with w/ 6 concurrent FLAC chromecast streams) (Not all can be hardware decoded)
- Gaming
#2 dictates either a high thread count CPU with the below requirements or dual sockets, dual sockets preferred. When high thread counts are needed (plex with desktop or gaming use concurrently) single thread performance is not an issue (Which is what would make this machine okay using mid market Xeons).
#3 dictates a ~18,000 passmark (worst case 265 w/o HW decoding, 264 only 12K)
#4 dictates a single thread ~2000 passmark (combined 5000 passmark) with at least two cores (RE: analysis that Doom 2016 will max out processor usage around an i3-4300)
(#3&4 dictates a combined passmark of around 20,000 with around 12 threads)
Other requirements
- A build that is highly expandable through the future (For instance dual socket LGA2011 has a number of years before I could throw top of the line processors at it for any reasonable price. The RAM limits are outrageous and some chipsets allow DDR3 and DDR4)
- Front hot swap access w/ At least 2 other open 5.25 bays (I hate external stuff laying around) and need consistent access to drives for backups and upgrades of storage. The machine's primary pragmatic bottleneck for me is drive management. Hotswap is #1 behind hardware requirements.
#2 Leaves it to 600 series chipsets
#3 Leaves SuperMicro style cases (bottom hot swap, top 3 5.25), Full size eatx "super tower" cases and niche servers like the T620 and Lenovo TD350 and HP ML350 which have 8SFF lower bays. These all seem to have issues with using a GTX (since they have workstation equivalents in their umbrella). The ML350 does not have an issue with a W10 install, still looking to see if it will take a GTX, then it might be the ideal platform.
And given the nature of the requirements, I do seem to be coming back time and time again to a SuperMicro x9 series DP LGA2011 Socket R board. This seems to be 2600 v1 & v2. These boards from what I can tell do not have issues running consumer graphics cards, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of information out there. As a last case resort I could buy a SLI certified board like the x10dax.
Ideally I'm trying to get as close to a 2000 passmark as possible for single thread performance with the highest passmark per dollar for the actual composite score. I can tell that they're really really trying to prevent this multi faceted type of build, because of course, I should be buying a xeon and an i7. I should be buying a Quadro and a GTX (though I'll have to buy an NVS for the 10 bit Adobe pipeline).
Options
- Dell T620, disable onboard video, install KVM, run guest as hidden and remove virtualized info from the VM, run W10 as a guest, pass the GTX. This setup has the best storage management, SuperMicro's stuff is nice, but Dell's true server grade stuff is unbeat. Firmware level RAID and super cheap SAS drives are nice. I move enough data to be able to follow storage cost curves as they are phased out for the next round in the TB wars. So this is a very appealing setup, outside of the fact that I really don't want to spend that much time setting up the server and also knowing its a small dice roll that somehow Nvidia has thrown up additional road blocks or will in the future, locking the card out of KVM.
- Custom SuperMicro workstation build. Honestly seems to be what I'm going to have to end up doing as all the mainstream vendors are locking out the GTX and consumer OS builds. SuperMicro doesn't seem to have this issue, though I have to check if the c600 chipset has a roadblock for GTX. I believe the Asus Z9PE-D8 WS to be a rebranded SuperMicro.
- Resign in defeat and build a separate plex\storage server.