Building a new server and wanted your thoughts on the CPU

[mathomas3]

Hello all,

I recently got a Dell R430 that has the Intel Xeon E5-2609 v4 CPU installed on it. I found a pair of Intel Xeon Processor E5-2640 V4 for $25 each. A comparison the two CPUs here plus the 3rd CPU is my current system's CPU Intel® Xeon® CPU X5650.

 

My question is this, would it be worthwhile to install these CPUs? My main motivation for updating to this server was so save on power and noise. 

 

One last question, there is currently only 1 stick of ram for each CPU in the system currently. What would be the best number of RAM sticks to have for this system? 1x16gb vs 2x8gb vs 4x2gb etc... How much of a difference is there if I kept it in it's current configuration?

 

I am waiting on a PCIE bracket to arrive before I migrate off of my current setup. 

 

Funny thing is that I bought this server on ebay and the darn thing still has 10 months on it's warranty  

Edited February 8, 2023 by mathomas3

[Decto]

The E5-2640 V4 is similar TDP, I have just had one delivered to replace a E5 2660 V3 as it is similar cores / clocks but a later generation and very inexpensive so I'm interested to see if there is any significant difference.

 

I would not expect any noise / power benefit to switch the CPU, you would just have more cores + HT however appliciation will be a lot more snappy as the CPU's can boost to 3.4Ghz vs the original CPUs which are static at 1.7Ghz so peak power consumption may increase but be offset as the system returns to idle more quickly. 

 

Unless you need the cores, the greatest efficienty saving in the Dell R430 would be switching to 1 CPU + memory, perhaps streching to 14 cores if a single CPU and you need more.

 

These processors can have 4 Dimm channels so for maximum memory bandwidth you need 4 per CPU.

As the memory is slow by modern standards, single channel (1 dimm) is likely to be terrible, 2 dimms minimum and 4 dimms ideal.

 

As a starter I would try 1 new CPU (With HT boosting > 3Ghz)  +  4 Dimms and see if it is enough performance.

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2023 by Decto

[mathomas3]

Not sure this belongs here before I make a large hardware change... but this issue started today... Emby playback is dim via a web browser... so I started streaming the video directly from the server... 

 

within 30mins CPU usage will spike to 49% and hover there... and while I have a number of dockers... streaming a video directly from the server should be devoid of docker issues/lag... 

 

Im welcome for comments... but again... I will be replacing this server in around 3-5 days with a much better CPU/RAM config... 

 

my concern is that I was streaming a file from the server and the CPU spiked to 49% which caused a lag in the video playback... 

 

Im all ears!

 

 

[mathomas3]

normal CPU activity for this system is around 4-8%... I dont stream video from the server directly often... but shouldnt that be a LOW cpu task? why would the CPU spike to t49% on this task?

[mathomas3]

Just got everything together and it's up and running... so happy... and now I think I have enough cores

[mathomas3]

It was only after I had the system open that I noticed that the existing memory had matching specs with the memory that I was installing... happy little 16gb surprise

[mathomas3]

A question... I have 3 SSDs that I have in my 24 bay DAS... when I tried using these three drives in the old server chassis they came up with a weird ID, thus UR wasnt able to identify them as my cache/app drives... once I added them into the DAS everything was normal again... 

 

I would like to reclaim these three slots for data disks moving forward... Given that this is a new server with a new RAID controller... what are the odds that I will have this issue again... What caused that issue to begin with? 

 

Should I try to move these drives into the R430 chassis and I run into this same issue... what can I do to correct the issue?

 

Thank you