Recommend CPU for server upgrade


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Im planning on upgrading CPU, motherboard, and RAM in my server. Currently trying to find a CPU. Any recommendations for a Xeon that supports the following:

 

- ECC RAM

- hyperthreading

- VTx and VTd

- Integrated graphics

 

The main reason for the upgrade is that I have 2 VMs, both of which need access to 2 separate physical GPUs for machine learning purposes, so I think this requires the CPU to have integrated graphics and support both VTx and VTd

 

I took a look at the ARK website, but there are so many CPUs that meet the requirements. Anything I should pay attention to that differentiates them? Is there a Xeon that is most commonly used in unraid builds that meet the requirements above?

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Probably at least 4C/8T 3.3+GHz. Not an insane amount of horsepower as the GPUs will be doing the heavy lifting

 

Dont I need integrated graphics in order to do GPU passthrough? I seem to remember trying passthrough with one of the i5s or i7s and it didn't work because it lacked an iGPU, but I may be remembering wrong...

 

Do none of the E5s have integrated graphics?

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3 hours ago, tdallen said:

unRAID needs a GPU.

I don't think this is true - you should be able to hand over the GPU to a VM when the VM starts. unRAID would stil have access to a monitor when booting and you can still connect to a ssh console after the VM has started.

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19 minutes ago, pwm said:

I don't think this is true

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right and it occurred to me as I was posting that my response was somewhere between overly simplistic and wrong.  

 

But, the OP was under the impression that they *had* to have an iGPU in order to do GPU pass-through for the add-in cards.  To the best of my knowledge that's not the case.  Rather, it can be nice to have an iGPU so you can give it to unRAID and cleanly give the add-in GPUs to VMs.  Also, some motherboards insist on having some kind of GPU at boot-up so even though unRAID doesn't have to have a GPU, it can be hard to boot unRAID without one depending on your setup.  I should have taken more time to type the first time o.O.

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