So i'd posted before with interest in older DDR3 workstations and people steered me in the direction of DDR4. I ended up getting both DDR3 and DDR4 stuff, the oldest a Z600 (for only $35 with a 24" monitor i couldnt pass up) the newest are a couple Z440 and Dell Precision 5810's with v3 (Haswells) or one v4 (Broadwell) Xeons. This is meant to serve for all my experimenting and learning needs this spring.
However I always want to know what to watch for that at some point will be an upgrade, so i'm trying to fill in gaps in my knowledge for where will I go from here whether it happens later this year, or next year.
The next step newer seems to be when the Xeon Scalable series started and these seem to be used in both the newer Dell 5820/7820/7920 and HP G4 Z4 Z6 Z8 type workstations. I'm not against other workstations (Lenovo) if I ever see them I just haven't looked at them at all. I'm assuming used HP and Dell are probably the most affordable and easy to get used servicing parts for/information about.
Some things i'm saying is just because i'm not familiar with changes in the market but maybe people more familiar could fill in my understanding... it looks like Dell drops lower level workstation support (no 3820?) to target mid and higher only, and I see what looks like desktop cpu's in some workstations I guess that's Cascade-Lake X and that High End DeskTop stuff Intel tried.
Dell's numbering schemes always changing confuses me, and how they don't seem to directly match competitors. The Dell 7820 is of interest to me because it's dual socket if I end up needing that, but the 5820 looks like it uses a different cpu W-2000 family. The HP does NOT seem to directly compete as their Z6 midline model has dual sockets instead of a single socket on the Dell, and using the Scalable cpu's instead of the W-2000. The branding of 'Dell XL' on some machines confuses me and I don't know what it means if anything...
Both Dell and HP seem to have different motherboards in the same chassis, like the 5820 says uses X-family and W-family for their midline single socket model. The HP uses W-family and Scalable, an image of the HP motherboard mentions a 2nd cpu riser as there's no socket visible on the board, I assume this is something that if you dont get from the factory might be a PITA to add later due to cooling and other issues but I don't know.
One thing I liked about the Dell's I messed around with so far was it's easy swap and upgradeable PSU which I assume is the same here, and their 'reliable memory technology' thing that can work around a few bad bits of RAM to let you still work. I'm not sure about upgrade cost or if it's as easy to upgrade HP PSU's but I haven't needed to yet.
Does anyone with experience playing around with these era of workstations have suggestions on what to look for when looking beyond the desktop level? I'm always looking for what will give me the higher affordable RAM capacity, more pcie lanes, and a bunch of affordable cpu cores. I'm running Adobe CC fine on my Broadwell now, but at some point when I upgrade it will either be go Intel 12th generation with like 128gig of ram, or looking at one of these used workstations which might give more performance for the same/less money, or give more pcie lanes and x16 slots than I can find on any desktop board for virtualization and AI playing around.
What would you go with for the money? (either now or where you expect it to be in like a year)
However I always want to know what to watch for that at some point will be an upgrade, so i'm trying to fill in gaps in my knowledge for where will I go from here whether it happens later this year, or next year.
The next step newer seems to be when the Xeon Scalable series started and these seem to be used in both the newer Dell 5820/7820/7920 and HP G4 Z4 Z6 Z8 type workstations. I'm not against other workstations (Lenovo) if I ever see them I just haven't looked at them at all. I'm assuming used HP and Dell are probably the most affordable and easy to get used servicing parts for/information about.
Some things i'm saying is just because i'm not familiar with changes in the market but maybe people more familiar could fill in my understanding... it looks like Dell drops lower level workstation support (no 3820?) to target mid and higher only, and I see what looks like desktop cpu's in some workstations I guess that's Cascade-Lake X and that High End DeskTop stuff Intel tried.
Dell's numbering schemes always changing confuses me, and how they don't seem to directly match competitors. The Dell 7820 is of interest to me because it's dual socket if I end up needing that, but the 5820 looks like it uses a different cpu W-2000 family. The HP does NOT seem to directly compete as their Z6 midline model has dual sockets instead of a single socket on the Dell, and using the Scalable cpu's instead of the W-2000. The branding of 'Dell XL' on some machines confuses me and I don't know what it means if anything...
Both Dell and HP seem to have different motherboards in the same chassis, like the 5820 says uses X-family and W-family for their midline single socket model. The HP uses W-family and Scalable, an image of the HP motherboard mentions a 2nd cpu riser as there's no socket visible on the board, I assume this is something that if you dont get from the factory might be a PITA to add later due to cooling and other issues but I don't know.
One thing I liked about the Dell's I messed around with so far was it's easy swap and upgradeable PSU which I assume is the same here, and their 'reliable memory technology' thing that can work around a few bad bits of RAM to let you still work. I'm not sure about upgrade cost or if it's as easy to upgrade HP PSU's but I haven't needed to yet.
Does anyone with experience playing around with these era of workstations have suggestions on what to look for when looking beyond the desktop level? I'm always looking for what will give me the higher affordable RAM capacity, more pcie lanes, and a bunch of affordable cpu cores. I'm running Adobe CC fine on my Broadwell now, but at some point when I upgrade it will either be go Intel 12th generation with like 128gig of ram, or looking at one of these used workstations which might give more performance for the same/less money, or give more pcie lanes and x16 slots than I can find on any desktop board for virtualization and AI playing around.
What would you go with for the money? (either now or where you expect it to be in like a year)