mATX E5-16x0 v1/v2 build?

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

niekbergboer

Active Member
Jun 21, 2016
154
59
28
46
Switzerland
I've been thinking about upgrading my old Xeon X5660-based workstation for a while now. Main goal is a higher per-thread performance at a reasonable price. However, Xeon is a must, since I want ECC RAM. Given that I want high per-thread performance, it's probably going to be E5-16x0.

Looking at CPU prices, the E5v3 parts are still too expensive for what they deliver. E5-16x0v1/2 parts are much more reasonable though. However, I'd like to fit things onto mATX if possible, and although mATX LGA2011v3 mainboards exist, there seems to be a dearth of mATX LGA2011 boards?

Does anyone have any suggestions here? Thanks in advance!
 

Michael Hall

Member
Oct 9, 2015
40
10
8
Ryzen may be an option, as well, once they're released. Historically, most AMD desktop processors (except AM1/FM1/FM2) have supported ECC RAM, but I haven't heard if Ryzen will or not.
 

TLN

Active Member
Feb 26, 2016
523
84
28
34
I have a motherboard from HP ML350 for sale: mATX formfactor, takes any E3-12xx v1/v2 CPUS (I can throw in 1230v2) and DDR3 ECC RAM up to 32 gigs.
 

Aluminum

Active Member
Sep 7, 2012
431
46
28
Other than a few X79 gamer-ish boards, there is nothing. Its all going to be used/old-stock/hard-to-find stuff too.

Quite a few choices in X99 for uATX, if 2011v3 ebay xeons are still too expensive for you I'd stick to E3/consumer for $/perf.

There are two ITX boards as well. Asrock's enthusiast/gamer X99 with only 2 dimms, but Asrock Rack has a real server-oriented C612 ITX with 4 so-dimm slots and onboard BMC/video/IPMI: ASRock Rack > EPC612D4I

Would be neat to build a portable VM powerhouse :)
 

Peanuthead

Active Member
Jun 12, 2015
839
177
43
44
I guess the question begs to be answered "What is too much?" That will give you a good baseline of where to go there.