I ordered one too many AMD Opteron 4386 CPU's, and I'm thinking of using it in an Unraid 6.0 box (for VM's along with my storage).  Does anybody on here know if the Supermicro MBD-H8DCL-6F can be run with a single CPU, or would I need to go ahead, bite the bullet and order a 2nd 4386 (these things are pricy, but 8 core would be nice for running VM's, 16 core would be a bit of overkill at the moment though).  I'm looking at this board since it has IPMI built in, as well as a LSI 2008 Sas controller on-board (nothing to add, would run my current configuration without adding any cards at all, or I could drop my MV8 in one of the 8x slots and have a total of 16 sas, and 6 sata 3.0 ports, or 22 drives total).  Only other thing that I'm not sure about, can you run the LSI controller on board without it being in raid-mode?

 

Board is here:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182318

 

 

as far as I know any MB can be run with single CPU

however when using single CPU you are reducing the effective RAM in half as well.

meaning with a single CPU setup,  you can only use RAM bank  next to the CPU used.

so if you put CPU in socket 2 you can only use MEMORY bank 2 (P2)

thus since your board supports 256GB RAM(8 DIMS x 32GB in both banks ) you will only be able to use 128GB (4DIMS x 32GB) in a single memory bank.

vl1969 is correct, "most" dual proc mobos will run with one cpu but some can't access the second bank of memory, some can.  Also, most dual proc mobos have a primary cpu socket, make sure you identify that socket and put your single proc in that socket and not the secondary one.  Most will not boot without a processor in the primary socket, but all depends on the mobo.  Best place to check these things is the manual but I'm almost positive all Supermicro dual proc mobos will boot with one processor.

 

{edit} Here is the mobo manual http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/SR56x0/MNL-H8DCL-%28i%29%286%29%28F%29.pdf

and it states on page 29 "For a dual-CPU system, repeat these steps to install another CPU into the CPU#2 socket (and into CPU#2, #3 and #4 sockets for a quad- CPU configuration"  so it is socket dependent.

vl1969 is correct, "most" dual proc mobos will run with one cpu but some can't access the second bank of memory, some can.  Also, most dual proc mobos have a primary cpu socket, make sure you identify that socket and put your single proc in that socket and not the secondary one.  Most will not boot without a processor in the primary socket, but all depends on the mobo.  Best place to check these things is the manual but I'm almost positive all Supermicro dual proc mobos will boot with one processor.

 

I'll bet that ALL MB would boot when using Socket-1  :-)

 

 

 

I was pretty sure that was the case, just wanted others to weigh in on it.  Probably order that board sometime this week.  Also has a USB socket on board, perfect for the unraid stick to go in (I'm using a USB header to dual socket converter in my current case, seems to work just fine).

 

Wonder if the performance will increase with the onboard LSI controller, or if I should go with the MV8 card (or put half the drives on one, half on the other). 

 

 

I just realized my MCE8 server I'm wanting to virtualize (I don't use med center anymore, basically just media browser 3 and Roku's at the TV's) is running a AMD 8320 8-core 3.5ghz CPU, I may just use that box for my unraid system, sell the Opteron, and use that towards 4tb drives.  Sure, it's power hungry, but so is the AMD 920 running in my current unraid system (was my old desktop PC mobo).  The opteron is a little more frugal with power (95w as opposed to 125w), but I'm looking at a $350ish mobo purchase at a minimum, where I already have the full system for the 8320.  Decisions, decisions, lol. 

Decided to sell the CPU, and just repurpose the Media Center machine..  Now I just need 5 4tb HD's, lol.