Keep E-2278G or Switch to Ryzen 7 3700X

[ramblinreck47]

I’m at a crossroads, and I’m not sure which way to go.

Background: I spent the last couple of years finishing paying off my student loans and was finally able to build my very own Unraid rackmount server. I played it safe and went with this:

CPU: Intel Xeon E-2278G
MB: Supermicro X11SCH-F
RAM: 2 x 16GB Supermicro 2666mhz DDR4 ECC (MEM-DR416L-HL01-EU26)

…in a Supermicro 836 with 2 x 920P-SQ PSU’s and a HP H220 HBA

Now, 3 months later and I’m having regrets that I didn’t go with AMD Ryzen. The E-2278G is pretty powerful, the iGPU makes quick work of Plex transcodes, and it has been problem free in terms of bugs or compatibility. The issue is that it has limited upgradeability outside of adding either a 10Gbe card OR GPU for a VM. I also thought I would need IPMI and it would be awesome to have it but I’m finding out that it’s just not that important. My server rack is always going to be in a place I can easily get to and if I’m doing upgrades to Unraid, I’ll always be there with a monitor. It’s definitely a neat feature but I’m just not seeing it as being terribly useful for me.

I was very close to going with Ryzen before I bought the E-2278G. The only thing that really turned me off of it was the lack of full compatibility with Unraid 6.8.3 (no Zen 2 ECC support, lack of some temp kernels, etc.), higher idle power consumption, and lack of full compatibility with my Supermicro chassis. I decided to play it safe and go with what I knew would work with Unraid 6.8.3. I sold my Nvidia P2000 (feel kind of stupid for doing that now) to fund my backup server build and went all in with the E-2278G.


As Unraid 6.9 (non-Beta) looks to be getting closer to launch and my new place has electricity at $0.07/kWh, the reasons that kept me from jumping on the Team Red bandwagon are disappearing. I love to tinker and upgrade all the time and I feel like a Ryzen build would give all that and more for the next several years. Here’s what I have in mind:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
MB: Asus Prime X570-Pro
RAM: 2 x 16GB 3200mhz DDR4 ECC (they have just not started coming available)
GPU: HP OEM Nvidia GTX 1660 TI (just bought this off eBay because it a rare GTX card that has the Turing encoder/decoder as well as the power connector facing toward the front of the server case)

Am I crazy for wanting to change here in the next couple of months when the new Unraid build launches? I feel like Chidi from The Good Place.

Would $890 for my current Intel CPU/MB/RAM combo be a fair price considering the E-2278G and X11SCH-F are both hard to find and this combo has only seen limited usage? Would anyone be interested?

 

[TXAG26]

Your current build is great for what you built - a server. I would stick with it as its tried and true for what you are doing. While the Ryzen is a great chip, those are desktop components you listed. If you're wanting to move to AMD, an Epyc platform would be more appropriate, but I would stick with the E-2278G and X11SCH-F if I were in your shoes.

 

[Netwerkz101]

Would $890 for my current Intel CPU/MB/RAM combo be a fair price considering the E-2278G and X11SCH-F are both hard to find and this combo has only seen limited usage? Would anyone be interested?

1. $890 fair? Subjective, but with current pricing, you might pull that off.
Ref: X11SCH-LN4F + E2288G was an $800 purchase for me in March 2020.

2. No. Not interested myself, - i chose to keep mine.
(i do feel your buyers remorse pain though)

 

[PigLover]

What workloads are you running that aren’t doing well on your current build - or what do you want to run that you are holding off due to the platform? You didn’t really say but best my best guess would be none. As an unraid server that system is totally overkill already. Assuming you are running Plex on it in a docker - the iGPU on that E-2278G will crunch more streams than you are likely to serve. Not sure what else you’d really need the Ryzen for.

Of course there is no need for a reason beyond “i want it”. But I think you’d be better off keeping this build for your server and looking at what you need/want for a workstation as the target for something higher performance.

Just because you’ve paid off your student debts doesn’t require immediately spending the windfall!

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

Agree with PigLover, if you've not got any problems or limitations with your existing build I'd say leave it as-is; it's all decent recent kit and looks well-suited to the task. I'm using a 3700X in a X470D4U myself.

RAM: 2 x 16GB 3200mhz DDR4 ECC (they have just not started coming available)

Derail: Last I looked a few months ago there weren't any DDR4 ECC UDIMMs available at 3200, 2666 was as high as it went, do you know what models are poised for release?

 

[ramblinreck47]

Thanks to @TXAG26, @Netwerkz101, @PigLover, @EffrafaxOfWug for all your replies. I talked it over with my wife, and I'll hold off on doing anything right now. I'll see where Unraid and Ryzen are at holiday season and see if it's worth the jump. I also figured out the Asus WS C246 Pro might actually be a good compromise. It gets me all the PCIE lanes I could want to add stuff later on and should be a pretty fair trade for my Supermicro motherboard. I'd gladly trade IPMI for more PCIE lanes.

@EffrafaxOfWug, I found these Kingston KSM32ED8/16ME (16GB 3200mhz ECC UDIMM's) on Provantage: PROVANTAGE: Kingston Technology KSM32ED8/16ME 16GB 3200MHZ DDR4 ECC CL22 DIMM 2RX8 Micron E

Grab them while you can!

 

[Patrick]

I am probably one of the "if it is working fine, then I will try fixing it" folks, but if your current setup is working well I would probably leave it alone. Upgrade/ change when there is a compelling reason rather than just to stay trendy.

We can debate how cool the Xeon E is, but as a server it is great. IPMI is a useless feature, until the day you absolutely need it. An example, I once was on a business trip and repaired our home pfSense firewall via IPMI from the food court in a shopping mall.

 

[ramblinreck47]

IPMI is a useless feature, until the day you absolutely need it. An example, I once was on a business trip and repaired our home pfSense firewall via IPMI from the food court in a shopping mall.

I'm just having a hard time figuring out when I'll actually need it. I like my server being up 24/7 but if it had to wait a day or two to be backup and running, that's why I have a backup server to handle redundant critical files (funny enough that I bought its chassis from your BIL off eBay). I also have been having a hard time getting the iKVM to stay up as soon as i915 is loaded in Unraid. Tried some of the fixes proposed for the X11SCA-F but it hasn't worked as of yet.

 

[zer0sum]

If the only thing you feel like you're missing is a few more PCIe slots, why not just switch the motherboard out?

You could go with an X11SCL-F which is really similar to your board:

• 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x8 (in x16 slot),
• 2 x PCI-E 3.0 x4 (in x8 slot)

Or an X11SSM-F if you're sticking with 64G ram or less and don't mind dropping the M2 slot:

• 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x8 (in x16 slot),
• 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x8,
• 2 x PCI-E 3.0 x4 (in x8 slot)

You could always use a PCIe card to get more M2 drives working anyways

 

[ramblinreck47]

If the only thing you feel like you're missing is a few more PCIe slots, why not just switch the motherboard out?

You could go with an X11SCL-F which is really similar to your board:

• 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x8 (in x16 slot),
• 2 x PCI-E 3.0 x4 (in x8 slot)

Or an X11SSM-F if you're sticking with 64G ram or less and don't mind dropping the M2 slot:

• 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x8 (in x16 slot),
• 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x8,
• 2 x PCI-E 3.0 x4 (in x8 slot)

You could always use a PCIe card to get more M2 drives working anyways

The X11SCL-F has the C242 chipset and doesn’t support QuickSync.

The X11SSM-F has a 1151 v1 socket which won’t work with my E-2278G.

If I’m going to go with a different motherboard, I’ll go with the Asus WS C246 Pro:
2 x PCIE 3.0 x8 (8/8 shared in first 2 x16 slots)
2 x PCIE 3.0 x4 (in the bottom 2 x16 slots where 4 SATA ports would then be unusable...I don’t need them)
2 x PCIE 3.0 x1 (second one would be blocked by a two slot GPU...that’s okay)
1 x M.2 NVME 3.0 x4

I could run:
iGPU for QuickSync
2 x M.2 NVME (one in M.2 slot and one in 4th x16 slot...both full 3.0 x4 speed)
1 x GPU (running at PCIE 3.0 x8)
1 x HBA card (running at PCIE 3.0 x8)
1 x 10Gbe card (running at PCIE 3.0 x4)

I would lose IPMI but like what has been stated earlier, I’m just not finding it terribly useful.

 

[zer0sum]

Hmm, I like to use Nvidia P400/P2000 cards for transcoding so I don't know anything about quicksync
That Asus WS C246 Pro looks pretty good

The Asrock Rack E3C246D4M-4L looks sort of interesting as well, and is a lot cheaper

• Mezzanine slot
• SLOT2: Gen3 x8 link
• SLOT3: Gen3 x1 link
• SLOT4: Gen3 x1 link
• SLOT5: Gen3 x1 link
• SLOT6: Gen3 x16 link

It's trivial to cut the back out of the slots so you can fit bigger cards in there as well