Should I go with x99 or move on?

[Magnet]

I have an old workstation that was my primary gaming computer for years. I'm wondering if its a good value to upgrade the current setup with a motherboard I already own.

Current freenas setup:

• E3-1286L v3
• 32GB RAM
• Intel low-end server MB

Proposed setup:
ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer
i7-5820K (upgrade to compatible used Xeon)
16GB DDR Memory (upgrade to 32/64GB DDR4 ECC)

Is there any real value in upgrading this x99 board with a used Xeon and some DDR4 ECC vs. just going new board, new Ryzen and new DDR4 ECC?

For me the value prop is that I already own the motherboard, could sell the old CPU and RAM, offsetting costs. Just not sure if this is a good idea.

As for use, I use the freenas for file store along with plex server and other misc services. Nothing too heavy, but I do a fair amount of CPU-based transcoding. I have about 40TB raw space.

 

[Marsh]

Is there any real value in upgrading this x99 board with a used Xeon and some DDR4 ECC vs. just going new board, new Ryzen and new DDR4 ECC?

The real question is
Do you own the x99 board already? Do you have to buy the x99 board?

If you already own the x99 board, then there is plenty of cheap v3 CPU for it now.
If you buy the x99 board , hint: it is not cheap. You be better off using the money to get the current AMD.

 

[Magnet]

I have the board mentioned in the original post, so I don't need to go buy it.

 

[Marsh]

You could get some 12-14 cores V3 CPU for around $100, mod the bios with all-core-turbo.
It will serve you for few more years.

I am still running x99 in my house.
Here is the math , I purchased $100 for x99 Asrock WS board ( back in late 2018 to 2109),
$100 to $80 v3 16 -core CPU, all-core turbo to 2.9ghz
Cheap 16gb DDR4 ram ( $28-$32) per stick.
10 SATA ports, with 1 m.2 , dual LAN

 

[Dreece]

I'd personally just look it as a "if I stick with this board and spend more on upgrading it, will it do everything I need it to do currently and for future plans?"... if the answer is yes, then as Marsh said it, definitely can get a few more years out of it.

 

[Marsh]

I run the following vm with the x99 setup. CPU hardly go over 10%
2 x sonarr + sazbnd vm , 1 x WSUS vm , 1 x Office 2016 vm , 2 x Ubuntu Docker vm host.
1 x W10 music streamer , 1 Youtube Downlad W10 vm , 1 x Bittorrent W8.1 vm , 1 Emby server vm,
1 x Chrome cast stream server to 3 x Lenovo 10" smart dispay W10 vm. 1 virtaul fileserver with HD pass thru.
The x99 host is also my main fileserver with 8 x 14TB WD disks.

Misc vm that not always on.

I am not sure that I need more horsepower.
Due to the upgrade sickness
I brought a Gigabyte WS C246 motherboard for $99 on Amazon warehouse sale.
Another ASUS WS C246 board for $70 on Amazon warehouse sale as well.

I may be moving my AIO fileserver and vm server.

 

[Marsh]

Found my old thread Nov 14 2019

E5-4xxx v3 CPU are basement bargain at this time.

Picked up 12 x E5-4667 v3 retail ( 16 core , 32T, base 2.0ghz , turbo 2.9ghz ) CPU at $80 each.

The CPU came up from HP servers pull, looks like brand new without any thermal paste on top.

Single E5-4667 v3 Cinebench R15 is 2200

 

[Dreece]

Considering the V3 are a tock generation, and a pretty stout architecture at that too, can't really see them going out of fashion anytime soon, for home-labs in particular. V4s as a tick gen get you a few more cores and some optimizations here and there but I'd be looking at Scalables as the next jump or preferably Epyc/Ryzen, and only really if extra muscle is required. Vm's run better on scalables than V3/V4, there are some extra optimizations in that department and better performance with cpu mitigations etc, but again, unless one is running VMs with low-latency requirements or say a need for AVX512 etc, one isn't really going to benefit from the expense of upgrading.

V3 come with AVX2, that's a game changer for encoding (25%+ performance over V2/V1), as well as a few IOMMU/VFIO optimizations for VMs, some very appreciable advantages depending on use-case obviously.

If being economical was the name of the game, I really couldn't advise an upgrade from V3 unless there was a strong need for heavy-duty horsepower.

When money's no object, latest and greatest is fine, pub bragging rights and all that is the return, or maybe one really does need all that power because they're running serious encoding farms/facial-recog deep-learning algos and the like... in a homelab? yer right.

 

[Prof_G]

How Munchie for the motherboard you got ? I would be interested in it if the price is right Magnet.