I'm running an Intel Xeon E-2288G CPU + Supermicro X11SCZ-F at the moment.  I am strongly considering "upgrading" to an AMD EPYC 7642 or EPYC 7413 with Supermicro H12SSL-I.  I lose integrated graphics, but I gain a huge amount of PCI lanes and CPU power.  I also have higher potential power consumption.  I'm looking at these two listings right now:

 

AMD EPYC 7413+ Supermicro H12SSL-I +8x32g 3200 DDR4 REG ECC=256G combination US $1,814.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/387125658055?

 

Supermicro H12SSL-i Motherboard With AMD EPYC 7413 CPU，8x32GB 3200MHz RECC RAM US $1,679.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/126573440505?

 

AMD EPYC 7642+ Supermicro H12SSL-i +8x32g 2133P DDR4 REG ECC=256G combination US $1,470.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175430840223?

 

I'm leaning towards the 7413 just because it's newer, but frankly the 7642 is much better value.  Twice the cores, $350 less, and just a bit less efficient per core.  I'm also considering staying where I am now.  My server does everything I need still, but I don't think I can push it much harder and still be happy with the performance.  Also, I would love more PCI lanes and a second SSD slot on board.  I don't think I'd even install the full 256GB of memory as 128GB is fine right now, but I like having it on hand for future expansion.

 

What would you do?  Why?

 

Thanks!

Edited July 28, 20241 yr by craigr

I couldn't even count the number of times I would have liked to add another PCI device but I am out of slots.  Also running my 9305-24i at 4x has always been kind of lame.  I see uses for more CPU cores and PCI lanes and NVME drives and yeah...

Found another seller who is cheaper for the 7413 who is cheaper.  Price difference down to $209.

 

Someone, anyone, please help... or save me from myself.  This really isn't what I need to spend time on right now!

I am also open to other options.  Though after extensive searching those are the most economical combos.

Haven't experience for EPYC, my previous build (3.5yrs ago) also due to need for PCIe lane slot and memory slot. Cost also a key point, they are Intel X299 and AMD X399 platform.

 

I like those hardware, flexible for IO expansion, but a bit higher power usage, so both won't 7x24.

 

Finally, X299 is winner for Unraid purpose, because

1) More mobo choice then X399 ( I have three X299 mobo and one X399 mobo finally )

2) More cooler choice to fit in 3U rack case.

3) My X399 mobo not have great compatibility with different PCIe card.

Edited July 28, 20241 yr by Vr2Io

You could always buy one of each.  😆

1 minute ago, ConnerVT said:

You could always buy one of each.  😆

Because I am not sure which is the best, so I buy both platform to test, as those not enterprise equipment, so rather cheaper and I could afford buy several mobo.

 

During play with Unraid, I always found a good mobo far more important then everything.

10 hours ago, craigr said:

AMD EPYC 7642 or EPYC 7413

In general, I won't recommend core monsters CPU, because they usually run in low clock rate which will affect performance in most case.

Edited July 28, 20241 yr by Vr2Io

Ho-hum.  I guess I'm not in a rush.  Prices don't usually go up on this type of hardware.

10 hours ago, Vr2Io said:

Haven't experience for EPYC, my previous build (3.5yrs ago) also due to need for PCIe lane slot and memory slot. Cost also a key point, they are Intel X299 and AMD X399 platform.

 

I like those hardware, flexible for IO expansion, but a bit higher power usage, so both won't 7x24.

 

Finally, X299 is winner for Unraid purpose, because

1) More mobo choice then X399 ( I have three X299 mobo and one X399 mobo finally )

2) More cooler choice to fit in 3U rack case.

3) My X399 mobo not have great compatibility with different PCIe card.

It gets trickier if you want enterprise hardware.  I want ECC memory, Xeon or EPYC, VT-D, good IOMMU virtualization ...  Running a couple VM's and dockers changes the equation.  Nothing Intel makes (made) is like the above two AMD options with so many PCI lanes with all the features that I can afford.

 

Another advantage to moving from my current platform to EPYC is that I get registered ECC where now I have unregistered.

Edited July 29, 20241 yr by craigr

3 hours ago, Vr2Io said:

In general, I won't recommend core monsters CPU, because they usually run in low clock rate which will affect performance in most case.

 

You have a good point here.  Both EPYC's have slower cores than my current intel by a LARGE margin.

 

To be more precise, *for example* if EPYC 7413 have 3.6Ghz on half core (12) at 90w, actually it is pretty good. But I am not sure what power / clock rate scheme of EPYC, pls verify.

Edited July 28, 20241 yr by Vr2Io

Looking into this more the loss of the QuickSync iGPU is become a bigger deal breaker than I expected.  The HDR to SDR UHD transcode is really important because I stream PLEX to family members (like my elderly mother) who use Roku players and 2/3 of my movie collection (as well as much of my TV collection) is UHD now... and most of them don't have UHD TV's.  So that means an expensive less capable GPU taking a PCI slot and using power to only be used sometimes.  I really like the "Inno3D Nvidia GTX 1650 Single Slot" that I have now because it uses almost no power at idle, but the card doesn't seem to be made anymore and I can't find a duplicate (it's not like it was ever prolific).  I bought it from grooves.land in September of 2000 for $195.  Any recommendations on GPU's for plex transcoding that do HDR to SDR tone mapping, are not expensive, and don't use a lot of power (used or new)?

 

Maybe I should wait two years and get an EPYC 4004 with 16x cores because they have iGPU's.  But really they are just rebranded Ryzen 7000's and we are back to 28 PCI lanes.  Ugh.  Why not just put an iGPU in an EPYC AMD?

6 hours ago, Vr2Io said:

To be more precise, *for example* if EPYC 7413 have 3.6Ghz on half core (12) at 90w, actually it is pretty good. But I am not sure what power / clock rate scheme of EPYC, pls verify.

 

AMD is so much more cryptic than Intel with the details.  There is not ARK for AMD that I am aware of.  It's just plain hard to figure all this out.  The last AMD I bought was 15+ years ago.  A big reason is because I find it difficult to know what I am getting.  I hear such great things about the EPYC line though, I'd like to try it.

 

Edited July 29, 20241 yr by craigr

Could you swap HBA and 10GNIC slot, So HBA in x8 ( CPU lane ) and 10GNIC in 4x ( PCH lane ) ?

4x PCIe 3.0 for Mellanox almost won't affect it's performance.

 

Or source a full-atx mobo for E-2288G then got more PCIe slot from PCH. Something like Asus WS C246 PRO have 2 M2 slot and one more PCIe16 (x4) slot.

 

Edited July 29, 20241 yr by Vr2Io

19 minutes ago, Vr2Io said:

Could you swap HBA and 10GNIC slot, So HBA in x8 ( CPU lane ) and 10GNIC in 4x ( PCH lane ) ?

4x PCIe 3.0 for Mellanox almost won't affect it's performance.

 

Or source a full-atx mobo for E-2288G then got more PCIe slot from PCH.

 

On my current SuperMicro X11SCZ-F?  My SuperMicro X11SCZ-F has PCIe 3.0; one 16x lane and two 4x lanes in 8x slots.  My Nvidia GTX 1650 is in the 16x lane, and both my HBA and 10GB NIC are in the 4x lanes.  I have 20x 3.5" drives connected to my HBA.  It's less than ideal.

 

That said, I'm souring on this idea all together.  I think I'm going to put a fork in it and look back at Intel in a few months when I have more free time.

 

Basically, I'd like 8-16 more cores, more 16x and/or some more 8x PCIe 4.0 lanes, two or more NVMe 4.0 slots, and an iGPU.  That's the wish list.

 

I found a really good deal on another site for a 7643 with 128GB ECC, but than I think, do I really want 48 cores?

 

Edited July 29, 20241 yr by craigr

1 minute ago, craigr said:

Basically, I'd like 8-16 more cores

OK.

Just now, Vr2Io said:

OK.

 

Well, you edited your post and I like it better.  I thought you meant with my current board.

 

I like your idea.  I can live without more cores for a while longer.

 

I really want a server level board with IPMI though.

4 minutes ago, craigr said:

I thought you meant with my current board.

I mean if need more CPU core then you must change platform.

 

9 minutes ago, craigr said:

  It's less than ideal.

Note now, you have 1650, so can't assign 16x slot for HBA.

Even HBA run in x4 lane, it should have 4GB/s bandwidth, more PCIe lane may increase speed for parity task. So upgrade in PCIe I/O may not have significant improvement. 

Yup, I think PARITY checks would run faster in an 8x slot.

Well, I think I will do nothing at the moment.  It's not a good time in my life to play with this.  Maybe in three to six months I will revisit the idea.  I like the 7443 by far the best as an option.  It's even slightly better performance per core than my current Intel, but it's still too expensive IMHO.  If I were going to buy today, I would probably go with the 7413. 

 

Then there is the question of ROMED8-2T or H12SSL-i motherboard.  I got really excited about the ASRock, but after careful consideration, I'd get the Supermicro instead.  More it comes down to bias probably for me.  SM has been making high quality MB's for longer and I trust them a lot more.  I HATE that both have 2x 10GB RJ45 Ethernet ports, I'd much rather they have nothing or SFP+.  But those are the two options for a home lab when you want enterprise grade server boards.

 

I'm going to eventually circle back to Intel as well and see what I can do there.

 

Thanks for chatting Vr2Io.

I found these resources helpful:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4346vs4708vs3546/AMD-EPYC-7413-vs-AMD-EPYC-7443-vs-Intel-Xeon-E-2288G

 

 

This site is no ARK, but it's a place to start.  Some of the information is wrong or incomplete, but it's a good place to start:

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/epyc

 

Best,

craigr

Lastly, I also can't believe I've had my current CPU/MB nearly five years already.  How time flies.  I tend to hold onto builds for a long time and this would have been a very short cycle for me.  I closed all the browser tabs for EPYC I made over the last few days.  It's done for now.

I will stay current build for long time unless I found much improvement if upgrade. On the other hand, my storage demand also decrease a lot. So, the build may be the first also the last.

20 hours ago, craigr said:

Looking into this more the loss of the QuickSync iGPU is become a bigger deal breaker than I expected.  The HDR to SDR UHD transcode is really important because I stream PLEX to family members (like my elderly mother) who use Roku players...

I don't understand. My Roku has no issues with UHD (and it's from 2018). AFAIK the last 2 generations of the Roku stick haven't had issues either. It would be cheaper to upgrade that than anything else.  The current Fire stick is supposed to handle UHD as well. All of these are around $40.

Edited July 30, 20241 yr by whipdancer