ilovejedd Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 I prefer the retail packaging since this is my first computer build and I do not want to be missing heatsink, fan, or some other little items. Is the $27 difference between the E3300 and E6500 a big enough savings to justify the step down in processor? I know E3300 is more than sufficient for unRaid, but the E6500 is just in case... That's a pretty good deal for the E6500 so I say go for it. Normally, I would opt for the E3300 due to the lower power consumption and heat output. In a server filled with hard drives, though, the extra 5~10W power/heat from the E6500 becomes less of an issue. By the way, even if you're not going to use the stock HSF, I'd still suggest getting the retail version for the 3-year warranty. It's highly unlikely you'll need to RMA the CPU, but it's a bit of insurance nonetheless and you don't really pay that much extra for box vs OEM. Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Only the retail boxed version has 3 years warranty? Didn't knew that. I actually got it andhad to threw out everything except for the chip itself. Edit: One more thing: With the Ninja 2 in place one can use the 8x PCIe slot only if about 5-10mm are cut out with a dremmel from the lower couple of fins (to make sure that there is absolutely no contact possible to the card). Together with removing the decorative caps, those are both "mods" required to use the Ninja 2 with the X7SBE. Almost forgot about this one. Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Only the retail boxed version has 3 years warranty? Didn't knew that. I actually got it andhad to threw out everything except for the chip itself. OEM processors are warrantied by the seller and most sellers only have a 30-day replacement policy. Beyond that, you're on your own. By the way, I think you need both the CPU and stock HSF on-hand should you need to RMA your processor. Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 It is highly unlikely the CPU to fail if it runs beyond the burn in periof of couple of days. Thanks on the hints regarding the warranty and RMA. A side note on the PSU, I think that the Corsair HX750 would be enough to power the server, no need for the 850. Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 It is highly unlikely the CPU to fail if it runs beyond the burn in periof of couple of days. Yeah. I've already mentioned the CPU is unlikely to fail. Only CPU I've had fail on me was an old AMD K6. There's a lot of failsafes built into newer processors to prevent them from burning out. Pretty much the only issue you're likely to encounter is the occasional DOA (somewhat inevitable when you're manufacturing millions of chips). However, if buying piecemeal, it's possible that the CPU might not be tested right away, hence, the 3-year warranty is bound to be handy. Quote Link to comment
mifronte Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 The retail boxed Intel E6500 CPU comes with free shipping and a $10 coupon at eWiz. The price comes out the same as the OEM version with shipping cost (no coupon). Plus the extra warranty, because I don't know when I will gather all the parts. If the CPU comes with both heatsing and fan, can I just install the heatsink if the fan interferes with the case airflow? If a third party heat is recommended, is there another one that does not require modifications to the heatsink? This is my first build and let's just say my tool box has a couple of screwdrivers and a hammer. I just hope the Norco 4224 come with 120mm fans. Thanks for the PSU recommendation. I was just thinking about going down to the Corsair HX750 from the HX850. Orginally, I thought the PSU would have to power drives in extended cases. But now I see that those drives will be powered by a local PSU with the extended case. Is the HX750 cable of powering 22 drives and everything else in the case? Quote Link to comment
mifronte Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 Just purchased the Intel® Pentium® Processor E6500 (2M Cache, 2.93 GHz, 1066 FSB) at eWiz for $79.99 - $10 (coupon) = $69.99. Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 If the CPU comes with both heatsing and fan, can I just install the heatsink if the fan interferes with the case airflow? If a third party heat is recommended, is there another one that does not require modifications to the heatsink? This is my first build and let's just say my tool box has a couple of screwdrivers and a hammer. Not sure, it probably makes sense to wait with the CPU heatsink until you mount the mainboard into the case and sort out those kind of things. Is the HX750 cable of powering 22 drives and everything else in the case? No problem, it is a superb single rail modular PSU. In the Norco connect only one half of the power connectors. The other is for redundancy and only meant to be connected to an alternate power source. No need to connect both half to the same PSU. Quote Link to comment
mifronte Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 In the Norco case connect only one half of the power connectors. The other is for redundancy and only meant to be connected to an alternate power source. No need to connect both half to the same PSU. I have no idea what this means right now, but I hope it will be clear once I get the case and start the build. Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 The Norco has two rows of power connectors to the disk backplane. Connect only one vertical row of them to the PSU, not both at the same time to the same PSU. As soon as you get the case you will get a better picture :-) In the meantime look here: http://www.awfulbooks.com/eBay/Norco-4020/unboxing/fullrez/backplane_molexes1.jpg Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 If the CPU comes with both heatsing and fan, can I just install the heatsink if the fan interferes with the case airflow? If a third party heat is recommended, is there another one that does not require modifications to the heatsink? This is my first build and let's just say my tool box has a couple of screwdrivers and a hammer. The older Intel heatsinks, it was fairly easy to remove the fan. The newer ones have the fan connected to the legs making it harder to remove. Either way, you can just opt not to connect the fan to the motherboard header, albeit that might hurt cooling some. Quite frankly, though, I don't think the stock CPU fan would hurt airflow that badly. Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Was just doing some shopping on Newegg and funnily enough, the KVR800D2E5K2/4G ECC kits were cheaper than either of the Non-ECC models. *sigh* I just wish I'd bought them back when they were $35 a kit. I stocked up on the Non-ECC kits. Should've bought at least four of these kits, too. By the way, the KVR800D2E5 is what's been tested with the X7SBE. Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 By the way, the KVR800D2E5 is what's been tested with the X7SBE. Yeap, I am running the KVR800D2E5/2G without a hitch! Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 By the way, the KVR800D2E5 is what's been tested with the X7SBE. Yeap, I am running the KVR800D2E5/2G without a hitch! Starcat, can you update your sig and put in the ram model number if it fits? Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Done, almost in parallel :-) Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 You Rock!!! Have you posted your parity generate and check speeds anywhere? I'm looking to get a benchmark to see if I'm in the ball park as I expand. Right now with an Areca high end pcie x8 controller I started at 110,000kb/s and ended around 92,000 using a mixture of 7200 rpm drives. Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Have you posted your parity generate and check speeds anywhere? I, too, am interested in seeing parity check and write speeds, particularly as I'm planning on a very similar build (X7SBE + 2x AOC-SAT2-MV8). I'm looking to get a benchmark to see if I'm in the ball park as I expand. Right now with an Areca high end pcie x8 controller I started at 110,000kb/s and ended around 92,000 using a mixture of 7200 rpm drives. Isn't the Areca a hardware RAID card? By the way, how many drives do you have in the array? Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 WeeboTech, actually not. I haven't done sophisticated benchmarks yet, just rsync --stats display and several others time commands more related to copy over network performance, which I have compared to what people are achieving with this mainboard and posting here and it looks like I am within "specs" :-) I have my two AOC cards still in both slots of the same 133Mhz bus which I would like to change first and put the second card on the 100Mhz bus. I didn't care looking up which slots is which and I guess now I am too lazy opening up everthing and messing up with the cables and re-assigning the disks. However, I don't think that this is a factor limiting performance at least not while writing to a data disk and updating the parity. Quote Link to comment
mifronte Posted March 31, 2010 Author Share Posted March 31, 2010 Speaking of memory, please take a look at the following URL and comment if you think it is the genuine Kingston memory. The price seems very low. Has anyone heard of the vendor? URL for KVR800D2E5/2G: http://www.buildyourowncomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=B&Product_Code=79230G ... *sigh* I just wish I'd bought them back when they were $35 a kit. I stocked up on the Non-ECC kits. Should've bought at least four of these kits, too. Where and how long ago? And I assume this was for the 2GB kit and not the 4GB kint? Quote Link to comment
ilovejedd Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 ... *sigh* I just wish I'd bought them back when they were $35 a kit. I stocked up on the Non-ECC kits. Should've bought at least four of these kits, too. Where and how long ago? And I assume this was for the 2GB kit and not the 4GB kint? About a year ago from shop.kingston.com, and the $35 was the 4GB (2x2GB) kits. The 2GB (2x1GB) kits were around $20. The Non-ECC kits were like $2 cheaper. Seriously, prices for DDR2 back then were insanely low. Even if you're only installing them on a 32-bit operating system, there wasn't much point in buying less than 4GB RAM. Heck, 4GB DDR3 kits could be had for around $60. Nowadays, RAM prices have more than doubled. Quote Link to comment
terrastrife Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 ... *sigh* I just wish I'd bought them back when they were $35 a kit. I stocked up on the Non-ECC kits. Should've bought at least four of these kits, too. Where and how long ago? And I assume this was for the 2GB kit and not the 4GB kint? About a year ago from shop.kingston.com, and the $35 was the 4GB (2x2GB) kits. The 2GB (2x1GB) kits were around $20. The Non-ECC kits were like $2 cheaper. Seriously, prices for DDR2 back then were insanely low. Even if you're only installing them on a 32-bit operating system, there wasn't much point in buying less than 4GB RAM. Heck, 4GB DDR3 kits could be had for around $60. Nowadays, RAM prices have more than doubled. yeah ddr2 has pretty much gone up 100% in the last couple of years while ddr3 has gone down by about 50% Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Isn't the Areca a hardware RAID card? By the way, how many drives do you have in the array? It is a hardware raid card, but it can also be set for pass through. This opens the door up for massive servers as they support 16 & 24 port cards in the x8 slots. I bought an open box x8 8 port card for around $200 a ways back. (which was a steal I could not pass up). I was actually going for a 2 port, then saw a cheap 4 port and noticed how cost effective the 8 port was so I grabbed it. In any case, it is a caching controller with a write back cache if you enable it. For short bursty writes it performs really well. Which is my usage pattern. I giggled when I saw a small transfer to one disk finish at 39MB/s. I think the X7SBE is a great performer of a motherboard too. In my test array I have 2 - 1.5tb seagate 32MB cache 7200 rpm 1 - 1.5tb seagate 32MB cache 5900 rpm 1 - 1tb seagate 32MB cache 7200 rpm 2 - 1tb Samsung spinpoint F3 32MB cache 7200 rpm I have a 2TB WD green drive, but I did not add it to the array yet. I have other tests to do with the PCI-X slots and a Promise TX4. I know the promise TX4 is capable of 66Mhz. So I want to benchmark that. I should probably cross post in the X7SBE thread and continue there. Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 WeeboTech, are you using the Areca in pass through with unRAID? Quote Link to comment
starcat Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Look here for an easy mod to the Norco cases: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=16447829&postcount=162 and also here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=18001512&postcount=5279 Quote Link to comment
WeeboTech Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 WeeboTech, are you using the Areca in pass through with unRAID? Yes, it works, but it has it's quirks. I should post another thread related to the topic. Quirks being, Drives are not identified correctly like regular SATA drives. It's just some kind of binary identifier for now. Also, if you make a raid array at the hardware level, unRAID sees it in the devices page, but does not let you assign it. At least my last test trying a RAID0 array with parity did not work. But pass through worked fine so far. Quote Link to comment
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