Need help picking a motherboard

[Monolith]

I need to build a non gaming machine specifically for usage with CNC work. But I simply cannot find a motherboard that will suffice. I would greatly appreciate some help from the gurus in finding a mobo.

I own four 240pin DIMM 16GB 2Rx4 PC3L 10600R ram sticks. 16GB 1.35V 1333 sticks. I wish to utilize these to attain 64GB of ram for this build.

The mobo needs to have atleast 1 16X pci-e slot for the CAD gfx card. 2 or more would be preferred to run multiple quadro cards.

I have a few CPU's on hand but these are not a must be compatible scenario but it would be nice to save a few bucks at the moment if I could drop one of these in for the time being.
CPUs on hand are :
Socket G2 - i7 3840QM
Socket 1155 - i5 2400
Socket AM3+ - AMD FX-6300
(also have a dual set of 2009 Xeons 3.5ghz somewhere but cannot locate them atm.)

If the mobo has an serial/printer port, that would be great too, otherwise I will need to utilize another slot to attain it, as the machine itself is ran via the serial port.

I've been looking from time to time for the past few months with little success. It seems to be very very difficult to locate an motherboard based on utilization desires. And very easy to do the exact opposite.

I am fairly confident a motherboard exists, but I simply cannot find it. If all else fails when do or die time comes, as a last ditch effort I'll grab a cheap server blade and Frankenstein the sucker. Would really rather avoid it though.

 

[Patrick]

Are you thinking of this as a workstation or is this a machine that will be sitting on a production floor next to a CNC machine?

 

[Peanuthead]

First and foremost none of the processors listed will work with the RAM you have. The AMD will support ECC but not registered ECC RAM. Sending you a PM.

 

[Monolith]

Thank you for the reply Patrick and Peanuthead.

The machine is to be on the Production Floor(my garage turned into a fabrication shop) next to (attached to) the CNC machine itself. Primary workstation design work to be done on a different workstation in a different area(inside the house on a decent workstation dedicated for CAD). However if corrections need to be done, this machine will need to be able to perform that action as well.

The biggest holdup in time is when taking the file to the machine and the machine calculates the pathways code to send to the machine. Would like to make a little beast of a pc machine to plow threw that phase and minimize that downtime. When that's occurring, the machine isn't running, and this process can take several hours presently. Desiring to make that a few minutes instead, or at least considerably less. Power consumption is playing a factor also due to the duration this process is taking.

I was under the impression the g2 i7 could utilize the ram, however its mostly used an laptops, and as far as I can tell there is no motherboard that has this socket type with four 240 pin slots compatible to do 64gb total. The best I have found is a 2 slot application with a 16gb overall max, likely not to function with even the single stick. Only reason I thought it to be compatible was from the info here :
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_...ssor - AW8063801103800 - BX80638I73840QM.html

I am not against buying CPU's, I believe the xeons I own somewhere are able to run with these ram sticks but its been a long time and they might not be findable. But even if buying new replacements, I'm wanting to run all four of the 16gb 10600R sticks I have on a single motherboard. I imagine a dual set of used server cpu's (same era xenos) are likely are laughably affordable.

However I am having zero success with coming up with a motherboard that can support the full array of ram sticks.

 

[Peanuthead]

I believe 2009 was the Westmere/Nahalem series processor. It should be able to handle that RAM dependent on MB and processor.

 

[Patrick]

I believe the R means registered RAM which means you need a DDR3 server platform (Westmere or Xeon E5-v1 would be my recommendations.)

You could get an E5-2670 V1 for sub $70, get a LGA2011 server/ workstation motherboard (C602 chipset not X99), and use that RAM.

Here is an example motherboard: SUPERMICRO X9SRL-F ATX Server Motherboard LGA 2011 DDR3 1600

Any other printer ports/ etc you would likely require using a USB adapter for.

 

[nk215]

DDR3 is good ram and you can definitely reuse this. Unfortunately, this is the only thing you can reuse.

None of the CPU you listed support DDR3 RDIMM. The only 2009-era Xeon 3.5gHz I know of is the X5270 which is way too old.

You want to reduce "several hours" of "machine calculates the pathway code" to minutes may require more CPU power than whatever you have in hand.


IMHO you have 2 options:

1) Use the computer you already have in the house (your CAD) computer. This should be a powerful computer

Use a Serial-over-Ethernet device to connect your CNC machine to this machine. A good one is in the $200-$300 range. Get one from Amazon with solid return policy to try out.

Basically, you'll run a network cable to your garage (or wireless bridge) then connect the CNC machine serial port to this device.

I would bring your CAD machine to the shop and do a trial-out to see if it actually get you the computing time for CNC pathway code you want.


2) A dedicated machine as your original plan. The oldest you should consider is a socket 1366 with a Xeon X5650 or a dual X5570 to reuse your memory (around $100 for the motherboard and CPU). If you shop hard, you may be able to get a X58 motherboard with an first gen i7 with memory for $120 or so.

This approach may not reduce your computing time to minutes like you want. Especially if your CNC program is single thread.

If you want to start fresh, look for a I3 processor which give you good single core computing power (I make a wild guess that CNC program is single thread processing) and great power consumption. TS140 is a cheap option but you'll pay quite a bit for the UDIMM memory.

What is your budget? I gave you low cost approach but if you budget is significant then by all mean get the E5-2600 v2 which can use you DDR3 RDIMM also.

 

[wildpig1234]

even cheaper solution for lga 2011 in the form of intel S2600cp2j board might also be viable. There are two pcie slots on the s2600cp2j that can supply 75w for gpu. even though the slots are x8 2.0 it shouldn't really matter using it in yr purpose. The s2600cp2j board is only $170 and even has room for a 2nd cpu if you need the xtra oomph.... can also uses your 16GB ECC DDR3

If you can locate or give more info about those older xeon then maybe we can look at those. however if they are from 2009 then they could be LGA 1366 cpu and maybe look at some of those lga 1366 board too? that would save you on cpu cost also. but if they are older than lga1366, then there's no point.

 

[helsyeah]

....
The biggest holdup in time is when taking the file to the machine and the machine calculates the pathways code to send to the machine. Would like to make a little beast of a pc machine to plow threw that phase and minimize that downtime. When that's occurring, the machine isn't running, and this process can take several hours presently. Desiring to make that a few minutes instead, or at least considerably less. Power consumption is playing a factor also due to the duration this process is taking.
...

Quick question; Is your CAM software multithreaded? If not then you obviously need clockspeed over core count.

 

[Monolith]

Dug around and found the xeon processors wedged in foam between a dusty outdated box full of 1gb registered ram sticks. They are Xeon 2.66ghz 5650 (SLBV3). I guess I half expected something newer would out perform these buggers for pluggin away with building the file. I think I had debated selling these long ago but determined they weren't worth the time. Got them for pretty much nothing, seems they are still worth next to nothing now.

I plan to use Quadro FX 4000 cards, (1 or 2 never tried more but I suppose one could) would like to utilize x16 with them and refrain from x8.

I'm expecting full well to need to buy a PCI card to run the printer port for the machine, sending the data to the machine has never taken long. But building that file to send to the machine, completely painful.

 

[Monolith]

helsyeah, I honestly don't know.

Dated software, Modela player 4. Machine is Roland MDX-650

Use a different software to build the part, then open the part with Modela player 4 to build the cut paths and send to the machine threw it.

Haven't tinkered with other software applications, not sure if they would work with the machine. HSMWorks or Fusion360 seemed like good ones if they can drive the 4th axis and tool changer. But I am pretty much clueless.

 

[Peanuthead]

For the SRM-20
This is minimum requirement for operation.

• - Operating system（OS）: Windows 7/8/8.1/10 (32-bit/64-bit edition)*
• - CPU/Memory (RAM): Intel Core 2 Duo or more (Core i5 or more recommended)
• - Memory (RAM): 1GB (2GB or more recommended)
• - Video card and monitor: Resolution: 1280 x 1024 and 16bit color or more recommended
• - Interface: USB
• - Others: The environment that can connect to the Internet and Web browser (Internet Explorer version 10 or higher).

* Software for SRM-20 including Roland OnSupport are 32 bit application software, so on 64bit version of Windows the software runs using WOW64 (Windows-On-Windows 64). If it's 32-bit then definitely willing to bet clock speed over core count.

 

[wildpig1234]

Dug around and found the xeon processors wedged in foam between a dusty outdated box full of 1gb registered ram sticks. They are Xeon 2.66ghz 5650 (SLBV3). I guess I half expected something newer would out perform these buggers for pluggin away with building the file. I think I had debated selling these long ago but determined they weren't worth the time. Got them for pretty much nothing, seems they are still worth next to nothing now.

I plan to use Quadro FX 4000 cards, (1 or 2 never tried more but I suppose one could) would like to utilize x16 with them and refrain from x8.

I'm expecting full well to need to buy a PCI card to run the printer port for the machine, sending the data to the machine has never taken long. But building that file to send to the machine, completely painful.

x5650 cpu are still not bad. so you can build a dual cpu lga 1366 only needing a MB. They are certainly not worth nothing. A dual x5650 will absolutely beat one single 6700k with anything that is heavily multithreaded. So you have to have the app that is heavily threaded to take advantage of that.

As far as pcie goes, the fx 4000 is an older pcie 2.o card. also the increase between x8 and x16 is small and if you are talking about games, it's a non issue. for a few apps 3DSMax, Catia, Ensight, Lightscape, Maya, Pro Engineer or SolidWorks it makes a small difference

SPECviewperf 9.03, Continued - PCI Express Scaling Analysis

for gaming, this is really a non issue unless we go down to x4. See above and also this:

GeForce GTX 980 PCI-Express Scaling

Here's a few cheap LGA 1366 board:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tyan-S7012-...2a-/112141974619?_trksid=p2352135.m2548.l4275

SuperMicro X8DTL-3F rev2.01 Motherboard server board Dual LGA 1366 Sockets DDR3

 

[wildpig1234]

* Software for SRM-20 including Roland OnSupport are 32 bit application software, so on 64bit version of Windows the software runs using WOW64 (Windows-On-Windows 64). If it's 32-bit then definitely willing to bet clock speed over core count.

If it's based on clockspeed, then you either have to just live with slower cpu clockspeed of the x5650 or just build something with newer i5 cpu with a much faster single core speed.

or you can render 8 projects at once and take advantage of the x5650 but you have to do that all the time

 

[Monolith]

wildpig1234-
I have the fx 4000's on hand. Would love to buy better ones, but newer cad cards are outrageous in cost.

Bummer neither of those boards have a x16 slot. Truly a non issue with cad software to run two 4000s at 8x?

Peanuthead-
So is the verdict then, even with a hefty amount of registered ram, if it is a 32bit software building the file... Its just always going to take a eternity to build that file?

If that's the case, I will absolutely need to look harder at alternative software mediums.

 

[wildpig1234]

yeah these quadro cards are crazy expensive. I am sure you can find a MB with 2x 16x pcie but it won't be cheap for the small increase (if even noticeable). i hate to recommend spending excessively on older techs.

most important thing is finding a 64 bit heavily multithreaded app to take advantage of x5650 threads. if that can't be done then skylake i5 is probably a better option speedwise.

also if it's not a 64 bit app, then it can't even use more than 3gb of ram anyway. of course if your project is small relatively and never need that much memory space then wouldn't matter if 32 or 64 bit as much but i don't know how big your project is.

 

[nk215]

Very few CPUs remain relevant after 15 years. The X5650 is one of those.

I would get the above Tyan motherboard and give the dual x5650 setup a try

 

[Monolith]

I believe SolidWorks + HSMWorks has the ability to draw and build the file someway or another. Have not ever used HSMWorks, but its function for drawing and building the pathway/gcode/ whatever file, is specifically what I'm trying to minimize the downtime on.

If I can figure out if HSMWorks can accomplish that part of what Modela 4 does for me. Then using dropout software to send the file built from HSMWorks within solidworks might work on keeping this all in a 64bit environment. Will have to fiddle with this a lot more.

I'll likely pick up one of those two boards linked and if I can stumble across a affordable multiple 16x pci-e slots board, replace it at that time. And if a large chunk of cash drops from the sky onto my lap, perhaps then buy a current gen cpu/mobo/fx/etc.

Really appreciate your guys input and help! You guys really know your stuff!

 

[wildpig1234]

Very few CPUs remain relevant after 15 years. The X5650 is one of those.

I would get the above Tyan motherboard and give the dual x5650 setup a try

it is old but still relevant, but not quite that old...lol more like 6 yrs rather than 15. but get what you mean...

 

[fractal]

wildpig1234-
I have the fx 4000's on hand. Would love to buy better ones, but newer cad cards are outrageous in cost.

Bummer neither of those boards have a x16 slot. Truly a non issue with cad software to run two 4000s at 8x?

The cards want an x16 physical slot. You won't notice the difference between an x8 vs x16 electrical. Many of the LGA1366 motherboards have x8 physical/x8 electrical with the end broken off so you can stuff an x16 in them. I always though that was funky. More than a few have x16 physical with x8 electrical and your quadro's will run just fine in those.