Processors and motherboards recommendation

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Alfred1206

New Member
Sep 17, 2018
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Hi all

I am new to here and trying to build a workstation; budgets are no more than $500 including CPU & motherboards & RAM

Could you guys recommend some? At this time, should I choose LGA2011-v3 or LGA2011? I am OK with QS CPU. Thanks so much!!!
 
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alex_stief

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May 31, 2016
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A workstation for...?
Without this information choosing the right tool for the job is impossible.
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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Alfred1206 said:
Thanks so much!
No video games, just compile some cpp file, write C++ / python code to process data ()... large RAM is required
Click to expand...
Go with 2011 v2 so you can save on ram price....

What's the amount of ram you def have to have? that will dictate the MB choice....
 
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Alfred1206

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Sep 17, 2018
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wildpig1234 said:
Go with 2011 v2 so you can save on ram price....

What's the amount of ram you def have to have? that will dictate the MB choice....
Click to expand...
Thanks!
I am trying to hit 64GB... Is there a big difference between 2011 v2 and v3? And is there a room for upgrading in the future if I go with 2011 v2? If v3 is much better, I could increase the budgets. Thank you.
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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64gb is easily obtained either way.... obviously, DDR3 will always be much cheaper than DDR4 for a small performance hit that probably not worth the price premium most of the time.... If all you need is 64gb ram, you would need a MB that would have at least 4 ram slots and can use rdimm or one with 8 ram slots...

X79 chipset boards are limited to only udimm. so either 32 or 64gb depends on either 4 or 8 ram slots since udimm are typically only avail up to 8gb chips

C602 chipset boards can use rdimm so 4 ram slots can get up to 64gb with 16gb rdimm which is a little more expensive than the more common 8gb udimm... C602 boards with 8 ram slots can get up to 128gb total ram with 16gb rdimm...... there's the even more expensive 32gb rdimm but not very common as they are so expensive....

My recommendation: if you can find a lenovo S30 v2 for $250 or less, should get it... The other consideration is the chinese X79 MB (which are actually equipped mostly with C602 chipset)..... both these allow for rdimm since both use C602 chipset......

The chinese MB does not support S3 sleep at all... Also they are all limited to two pcie x16 slots working at once despite how several might show more than two pcie x16.

V3 stuffs are significantly more expensive due to DDR4 price....If you need more than the processing power of an e5-2697 v2 cpu then you have to get a v3 but if not then a v2 will last a while and save a lot of money....
 
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alex_stief

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May 31, 2016
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Now with the new information my choice would be:
Some ASRock x79 motherboard (because these can run Xeons and RDIMM): 100-150$ depending on your luck
Xeon E5-1650 v2 (because medium core count and high clock speed): ~120$
8x8GB DDR3 regECC, single or dual-rank, not quad-rank (because cheap): ~160€

Some prebuilt workstation like the aforementioned Lenovo S30 will also work.
Going DDR4 won't be worth it. You will pay nearly 500$ for 64GB of memory alone.
 
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Alfred1206

New Member
Sep 17, 2018
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wildpig1234 said:
64gb is easily obtained either way.... obviously, DDR3 will always be much cheaper than DDR4 for a small performance hit that probably not worth the price premium most of the time.... If all you need is 64gb ram, you would need a MB that would have at least 4 ram slots and can use rdimm or one with 8 ram slots...

X79 chipset boards are limited to only udimm. so either 32 or 64gb depends on either 4 or 8 ram slots since udimm are typically only avail up to 8gb chips

C602 chipset boards can use rdimm so 4 ram slots can get up to 64gb with 16gb rdimm which is a little more expensive than the more common 8gb udimm... C602 boards with 8 ram slots can get up to 128gb total ram with 16gb rdimm...... there's the even more expensive 32gb rdimm but not very common as they are so expensive....

My recommendation: if you can find a lenovo S30 v2 for $250 or less, should get it... The other consideration is the chinese X79 MB (which are actually equipped mostly with C602 chipset)..... both these allow for rdimm since both use C602 chipset......

The chinese MB does not support S3 sleep at all... Also they are all limited to two pcie x16 slots working at once despite how several might show more than two pcie x16.

V3 stuffs are significantly more expensive due to DDR4 price....If you need more than the processing power of an e5-2697 v2 cpu then you have to get a v3 but if not then a v2 will last a while and save a lot of money....
Click to expand...

Thanks so much!!!

I will look for Lenovo S30 v2... It's hard for me to trust Chinese MB :(

I found an HP Z620 with dual E5 2670 / 32GB on Ebay, and it's only for <$600... what do you think this one?

As I have full tower case and 1000W power, would it be possible to fit some used server board?
 
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Alfred1206

New Member
Sep 17, 2018
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alex_stief said:
Now with the new information my choice would be:
Some ASRock x79 motherboard (because these can run Xeons and RDIMM): 100-150$ depending on your luck
Xeon E5-1650 v2 (because medium core count and high clock speed): ~120$
8x8GB DDR3 regECC, single or dual-rank, not quad-rank (because cheap): ~160€

Some prebuilt workstation like the aforementioned Lenovo S30 will also work.
Going DDR4 won't be worth it. You will pay nearly 500$ for 64GB of memory alone.
Click to expand...
Thanks so much!!!
Sure. I give up DDR4 now. One more thing, what do you think of Dual E5 2670? Is it better than E5 1650 v2? or it depends on the task? Thank you :)
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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dual 2670 is significantly faster than single 1650 v2 at multicore but slower at single core or anything less than 4 cores.... it all depends on your software. obviously dual 2670 uses more significantly more power....

Also, unless you want to get stucked only with e5 v1 cpu, i would be real careful looking at WS from lenovo, hp, dell. If the WS doesn't support v2 cpu from the get go, there is no bios upgrade to do that..... They actually have two different versions, the earlier one only support v1 cpu and a later ver support both v1 and v2 cpu... A clue is looking at whatever cpu that comes with the system. In this case i am betting that HP 620 you're looking at will not support v2 cpu and there is nothing you can do to make it work with v2 cpu, unless the seller says it originally came with a v2 cpu but was replaced with v1 cpu.

Server board with 2 sockets also good but a little more expensive. intel s2600 cp is the cheapest option, but intel also have problem of not supporting everything all the way.... like limiting a lot of cards to Pcie 2.0 instead of 3.0 when v1 cpu is used. also oem cpu like 2696 v2 won't work...

there are also a lot of people with supermicro boards around here. I myself have the asus z9pe-d10. It's not the cheapest but it's very flexible since it support oem cpu like 2696 v2 which intel s2600 doesn't and has less restriction on hardware support than intel s2600. the asus board also support S3 sleep as well as I have personally no issue with it ever locking up randomly under win 10. I tried two supermicro boards when i bought my pair of 2696 v2 and they had random crash under win 10 which was never resolved.

Here's a z9pe board for $350: ASUS Z9PE-D16/2L SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 w/ASMB6-iKVM PIKE 2008 4053162458444 | eBay
 
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Robert Fontaine

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Jan 9, 2018
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Be careful to use appropriate cpus with the Lenovo boards. The don't like the spicey chips. First lesson I learned.
The 2680 v2 is a nice price. SM X9 boards are also nice. On a workstation a single cpu board, and ram should hit around $500USD
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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I should note also that lenovo s30 doesnt use2696 v2 (and probably any other oem cpu) but lenovo d30 will allow 2696 v2 cpu...
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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Robert Fontaine said:
Be careful to use appropriate cpus with the Lenovo boards. The don't like the spicey chips. First lesson I learned.
The 2680 v2 is a nice price. SM X9 boards are also nice. On a workstation a single cpu board, and ram should hit around $500USD
Click to expand...
If you get the asrock extreme, be aware that they use X79 chipset like the asus p9x79 so you should get one with 8 ram slots if you ever want 64gb ram. Those asrock boards are not as easy to find as the asus p9x79 and here's one for a reasonable $200:

ASUS P9X79 Pro LGA2011 DDR3 Intel X79 ATX Motherboard | eBay
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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Alfred1206 said:
Many thanks for your help!!! I don't care win10, just for Ubuntu. I will look at it! Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Well, hope it works out for you.... the 2667 v2 part is pretty good... It's one of the highest clocked v2 cpu avail....can turbo up to 4 ghz in single core mode....even with all 8 cores it still go up to 3.6ghz. that package also have 4x 16gb ram modules so you still have 4 more ram slots to go to 128gb if you want later..
 
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