From E5-v4 to Xeon W. A worthy upgrade?

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

balnazzar

Active Member
Mar 6, 2019
221
30
28
Hi folks. I currently have an Asrock EPC612D8 and an E5-2680v4 that I use with 4 GPUs (deep learning workstation).

Now, a colleague of mine has offered 500eur for the bundle cpu+mobo. One upgrade option I'm thinking about is a Gigabyte MW51-HP0 to be bought new for 410 eur, with a W-2150B (ebay, 350eur). So I would spend some 250 eur. Is it worth the money and the hassle?

It seems I'll a modest multi-core boost, but a much more solid single-thread performance:

1600379500791.png

What do you think?
 

zack$

Well-Known Member
Aug 16, 2018
701
315
63
So am not the only one looking at this...With the trend of the W-21XX and W-22XX CPUs also dropping, I might skip buying more v4s despite the prices now.

From a bird's eye view, single core performance is better and so to is power consumption. You also get more pcie lanes and rdimm and lrdimms work, so I can use existing modules.

Only issue would be getting a good MB on the very cheap at the moment.

All in all, I think I will be content with the LGA2066 platform for my homelab for a while to come.
 
  • Like
Reactions: balnazzar

balnazzar

Active Member
Mar 6, 2019
221
30
28
Only issue would be getting a good MB on the very cheap at the moment.
Also it's a bit hard to get a motherboard with the correct slot layout.. That Gigabyte is the only one I found with enough slot placement flexibility, but it has a PLX chip I don't like, and no IPMI.
 

balnazzar

Active Member
Mar 6, 2019
221
30
28
Yes and no. Consider that modern GPUs are quite heavy, and they sag even with X16 mechanical.

As for the lanes, you are right: X8 gen3 will suffice even for communication between 4 GPUs