Thoughts for a Workstation Build

[Jek]

I have a brief history with this subject. It has all been based on AMD desktop processors, overclocking and water cooling not, server processors. If I can afford a system based on Intel's Xeon I will but, this may best be considered a separate plan. Reference either in your response.

My goal is to specify a workstation for engineering and physical science use. I mean this literally as well as the more general referents of applications and method development. I prefer the tower case because, I do not have racks for mounting and regard this as a frivolous expense for a home (I am not an IT professional that might need to invest in a rack). I am strongly attracted to low TDP yet, not to the point that performance night be overly reduced. I am currently looking at dual & quad G34 motherboards but, lack significant experience with this hardware that could make me susceptible to claims rather than fact.

If you have references to refer me to please do so. It best best to build a position rather than merely fall subject to those of others...

 

[wildpig1234]

You could build a LGA 2011 2x e5-2670 with 128GB ram that would clean opteron 2x 6380. The cpu/MB combo is around $450 at natex. Several of us have built one, myself included. Probably the cheapest path but be prepared to do some tweaking.

Refurbished S2600CP Server Motherboard with memory and CPU, Natex.us

 

[MiniKnight]

Yea. Dual E5-2670's a for $470 are the way to go. Hard to beat for the price.

 

[Bill1950]

Natex sells a pair of E5-2670 v1 processors for ~ $140 shipped. An ASRockRack EP2C602 mb runs ~ $300 from newegg. That's $440.

A pair of Supermicro heatsinks run ~ $75, mem on ebay, 8 x 4gb is less than $60. That's a very strong basic build for less than $600.

Take a look at this for a similar reference build: Building a 32-Thread Xeon Monster PC for Less Than the Price of a Haswell-E Core i7

 

[Jek]

Yes, these systems do look good. Thanks for the posts and the article references.

 

[wildpig1234]

For reference, using y cruncher, a heavily multithread app, my 2x e5-2670 is almost 4 times faster than my single i7-2600k setup. This is just calculating pi to the max number of digits (5 billions) using only ram. obviously the 2011 WS can go to 21 billions digit and would kill the i7-2600k even more since the i7 MB is maxed out at only 32GB ram compared to the 2011 which has 128GB.

If you want to save yourself some more trouble, troll ebay and get a barebone lenovo d30, dell t7600, or hp z820. This will increase your total built cost by about $150 or so. And you have to accept that you are going to be dealing with some proprietary parts. The lenovo has the least amount of proprietary parts. Unfortunately it has the lowest # of pcie slots b/c it has 2 legacy pci slots. Also the bios options are limited in these oem systems so less chance to play around. But going this route could save you a significant amount of time tweaking to get everything working. As well as also that the oem system has onboard sound and usb3.0 and firewire built in with a fairly substantial number of sata ports. The S2600CP2J only have 6 sata ports which is likely enough for most people but if you want more you have to put in another controller card.

 

[Jek]

I think a factor involved in this type of activity (i.e., older product) that is often unrecognized is the requirement for familiarity/knowledge the owner must possess to make the ownership/use relationship successful. With this in mind I think the S2600CP2J (or the ASRock) is a better path in that this skill is more likely to be coupled to the system/end result because, it is assembled over time with component/smaller scale purchases. I have repeatedly been in the position where I was required to "get the job done" and this knowledge is priceless when it comes to diagnosing system/instrument issues in that it aides efficiency. For these reasons my preference would be to specify and assemble from components.

Proprietary parts do not concern me too much. Yes, they can be more costly but, they are also often better in that they are subjected to more/better evaluation before being placed into production.

The entertainment functions you cited (i.e., Firewire, on-board sound, etc) are not important to me at the moment.

 

[wildpig1234]

From the sound of it, the MB/CPU combo from natex would be ideal for you. It's the most cost effective path to LGA 2011 v1 system. $450 + $80-90 for evga 850 b2 + $80 - 90 for EEB case + $50 for 2 Cpu cooler = $680 for 2x e-2670 v1 with 128GB ram (not including hdd or gfx card). I don't think there's really any better deal than this.

if you go with the asrock it will definitely cost significantly more. You get 1/2 ram slots on the asock compared to intel s2600. Same total # of pcie slots between intel and asrock but the asrock is pcie 3.0 with more of the x16 too. intel s2600 is unfortunately limited to pcie 2.0 but if you not running sli shouldn't matter as much. And i don't think either MB supports SLI anyway. Asrock also have a lot more onboard sata ports compared to s2600. But then again sas controller cards are so cheap nowaday anyway (Adaptec ASR-31605 / 256MB 16-Port Raid Controller Card Std. profile w/ Battery).

I specify an Evga 850 b2 but if you don't care about warranty, you can get a Lenovo D30 1120W gold plus psu for around $40-50 on ebay. It's like the cheapest gold plus 1100w psu i ever seen. I am sure they are also built to be very durable like most other lenovo components.

 

[Jek]

What is the compatibility of the socket on the S2600CP board with other revision levels of the e5-2670? The Natex information clearly states the boards they have feature the 2670 v1 sockets. I have not been able to find information regarding the issue of cpu/S2600CP socket compatibility. My point being, other versions of the LGA 2011 e5-2670 were made and I prefer to know if the newer 2670's can be used in this board before jumping in the water. I suspect the answer to my question is only v1 cpu's for this board but, I have to ask.

 

[wildpig1234]

What is the compatibility of the socket on the S2600CP board with other revision levels of the e5-2670? The Natex information clearly states the boards they have feature the 2670 v1 sockets. I have not been able to find information regarding the issue of cpu/S2600CP socket compatibility. My point being, other versions of the LGA 2011 e5-2670 were made and I prefer to know if the newer 2670's can be used in this board before jumping in the water. I suspect the answer to my question is only v1 cpu's for this board but, I have to ask.

It's good for up to e5-26xx v2 (ivy bridge-e) cpus. but those are still not cheap enough to worth upgrade to at this point.

The latest 2011 v3+ boards are not backward compatible with v1 cpu since v1 and v2 uses DDR3 and v3+ uses DDR4.

 

[Bill1950]

To expand a little on the previous post...

V1 and V2 E5-2670s are compatible with the S2600CP. V3s are not. The C600 series chipsets generally supports the V1 and V2 CPUs, look for MBs that use a C610 series chipsets for later generation. Compatibility varies by mb manufacturer and BIOS version.

There are significant performance advantages for the C610 series chipsets and V3 CPUs over the earlier generation. They will be a pretty big step up in CPU cost and use more expensive DDR4 memory. The prices of new motherboards with the C610 series chipsets are comparable if not a little less expensive then their C600 mb equivalents.

 

[wildpig1234]

To expand a little on the previous post...

V1 and V2 E5-2670s are compatible with the S2600CP. V3s are not. The C600 series chipsets generally supports the V1 and V2 CPUs, look for MBs that use a C610 series chipsets for later generation. Compatibility varies by mb manufacturer and BIOS version.

Yeah, (V1,V2) and V3+ boards are not backward nor forward compatible with each other.

 

[Jek]

I found the Anandtech article discussing this and became a little concerned. However, the Intel documentation for the SC2600CP clearly states v2 is okay....as long a marketing published correctly!

 

[Bill1950]

I just read what I wrote. Oops, it doesn't read like what I meant.

What I meant to say is that C600 series chipsets support both V1 and V2. but compatibility with both V1 and V2 vary by motherboard manufacturer and BIOS version. V3 is not compatible and requires a later chipset like the C610 series. V1 and V2 CPUs use memory controllers for DDR3 memory. V3 CPUs require DDR4. They are not interoperable.

A apologize for any confusion I might have caused.