New Motherboard Questions


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I've been using an old AMD motherboard with unRaid for ~ 3 years now and have absolutely loved it. I've maxed out my on-board SATA ports and with the addition of 2 PCI Sata cards and an Altec 1200 case, and 6 x 3-in-2 RAID cages, I now have 18 HDD's and 2 SSDs. It's time for a motherboard and CPU upgrade with some more processing power to be able to transcode more streams at once. I had my eye on this motherboard: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182944&cm_re=dual_xeon_motherboard-_-13-182-944-_-Product which is a Supermicro with spots for up to 512GB of RAM (which I know I'll never need anything close to with an unRAID server) and 2 LGA 1151 CPU sockets. I see this is an EFI motherboard and that the newest unRAID supports EFI boot. Does unRAID have the capability of utilizing both CPUs? Will I see much difference between Skylake and Kabylake? Would a single nicer E5 be better for my applications than dual E3's? I was thinking of doing 2 x E3 SkyLakes as the price point is lower but I'd gladly spend the extra money if the performance enhancement was that significant. Also I was thinking of putting 32 - 64GB or RAM and was looking for suggestions as to what would be best for this build. I run several dockers and VMs. 

 

Dockers: Plex, Sonarr, Couchpotato, SABNZBD, HTPC Manager

VMs: Mythbuntu 14.04 (for tuning LiveTV for Kodi) and LinuxMint 14.04 (as a sandbox and test rig) The 2nd one is only on when turned on and does not run at boot. 

 

Thanks for any suggestions you may have in advance,

 

MikeDPitt420

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You're always so quick to respond CHBMD. Thanks. Could you link me to your build? I'd really like to know more about whether a dual E3 or single E5 would be better. Thanks again so much dude!

6 minutes ago, CHBMB said:

That motherboard works fine, check my sig ;)

 

Recently built a server based on one with a couple of Engineering Sample Xeons, been very happy with it.

 

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Sorry I just clicked your name and you have SO many posts I didn't see it readily. So you can't run dual E3's in this mobo only dual E5's That's probably out of my price range ATM, but I think maybe starting with a single E5 then upgrading may be the way to go then? Sorry I can't see the link in your Sig, I'm not on these forums a heckuva lot and since it's been revamped etc I would greatly appreciate it if you found the time to throw the link at me, otherwise I'll just keep looking. Thanks again so much!

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3 minutes ago, mikedpitt420 said:

Sorry I just clicked your name and you have SO many posts I didn't see it readily. So you can't run dual E3's in this mobo only dual E5's That's probably out of my price range ATM, but I think maybe starting with a single E5 then upgrading may be the way to go then? Sorry I can't see the link in your Sig, I'm not on these forums a heckuva lot and since it's been revamped etc I would greatly appreciate it if you found the time to throw the link at me, otherwise I'll just keep looking. Thanks again so much!

 

You need to turn on sigs....

 

Account settings, signature, flick the switch.

 

Here's my build

 

Case: Lian Li PC-343 MB: Supermicro X10DRL-I CPU: Dual Intel Xeon E5-2630v4 RAM: 64GB DDR4
PCIe: M1015 FW15 - TBS6205 Quad Tuner DVB-T2 - Dell X3959 Dual NIC Array: 6 x Seagate 4TB ST4000 - 3 x Western Digital 4TB WD40
Parity: 2 x 4TB Western Digital WD40 Cache: 2TB Samsung HD204 Non-Array: 256GB Samsung SSD 840

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Quite interested what content (1080? 4k? bitrate?) u want to transcode on your Plex server? How many streams?

1080p 10mbit takes 2000 passmark points and a Intel Xeon E3-1245 v6 has 13000 passmark points available.
Dual Intel Xeon E5-2630v4 like CHBMB will get you in the 26000 range, and that's allot of streams.

Unless u want to run x265 or 4k content at remux bitrates.

 

 

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No just 1080p and hopefully at one point some 4k when I get displays for it. So possibly 2 of these https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117696 ? since they're V4. Sorry to sound like such a N00b I've just never dabbled in dual processor builds before and don't want to mess it up. I read that I need a PSU that has 2 ATV 12V plugs just for CPU which most don't have so I'd love any recommendations. I currently have a CPU that does have two slots (one being unused for CPU) so I think I'm good on that end. I had a bunch of custom length wiring made for my HDD's SATA connections and HDD power connections but I still have the one in the box for the 2nd CPU. As I had the cables made custom they won't likely fit in another PSU and as this thing is a very tall tower they're needed. It's an EVGA 80 plus gold 850GQ. So that's 100 watts more than yours CHBMD, so I think that should be plenty. Last question, do I need RDIMM Ram and should I also populate all slots for each socket? I've read some people saying this is very important and others saying DIMM should be fine and populating each socket doesn't really matter. 

 

I know this may be overkill, but I'm the type that would rather go a few years without having to mess with it so I'm willing to go a bit overboard now in the interest of having a working system for a few years.

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I got 4 x 16GB sticks in mine, 2 allocated to each CPU.  I think it would be quicker with the slots filled, so 8 x8GB, but I wanted to leave some slots free for expansion.  I picked up the memory cheap (for DDR4) off ebay at £110 per stick.

 

You do need two CPU power connectors.  This is the PSU I'm using, I bought it second hand off ebay as well for £75

 

http://www.corsair.com/en-gb/ax760-atx-power-supply-760-watt-80-plus-platinum-certified-fully-modular-psu

 

Don't swap cables between PSUs, even with the same manufacturer the cable layouts can change, so mixing them up is a good way to release the magic smoke from your PC..... O.o

 

Biggest problem I found with that mobo is finding decent engineering sample CPUs I went with 2 x E5 2630 V4 ES QK3G which have an identical stepping to production CPUs  so virtualisation works fine.  Again I bought these off eBay from China for approx £160 each

 

Finding CPU coolers that fit was a little tricky.  The coolers I got were these, bought them new from Amazon.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00PIPCFX2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Oh for sure I'm aware not to go swapping PSUs. When I had these cables made I purchased a matching spare of the exact same model and type PSU which is hidden away still  in the packaging in a closet. So you do think populating all the slots would give me a decent speed boost then? Also you weren't satisfied with the coolers that came with the E5? I have a couple of similar coolers for my gaming PC's CPUs and this Antec case definitely has to room for something a bit shorter like this. So you didn't bother getting RDIMM DDR4 you just got regular unregistered DDR4?  If that's the case I would probably be best to get 8 4GB sticks which would fill all the slots then?

 

Alright, I think I have myself a build ready to go. Thanks again so much for all the help!

Edited by mikedpitt420
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1 minute ago, mikedpitt420 said:

Oh for sure I'm aware not to go swapping PSUs. When I had these cables made I purchased a matching spare of the exact same model and type PSU which is hidden away still  in the packaging in a closet. So you do thing populating all the slots would give me a decent speed boost then? Also you weren't satisfied with the coolers that came with them? I have a couple of similar coolers for my gaming PC's CPUs and this Antec case definitely has to room for something a bit shorter like this. So you didn't bother getting RDIMM DDR4 you just got regular unregistered DDR4?  If that's the case I would probably be best to get 8 4GB sticks which would fill all the slots then?

 

Alright, I think I have myself a build ready to go. Thanks again so much for all the help!

 

My ES CPUs didn't come with coolers.  My RAM is  this one - Micron 16GB ECC DDR4-2133MHz PC4-17000,  I think, but I may be wrong, you need ECC RAM, but can use either RDIMM or LRDIMM, to be honest, if I were you I'd go with at least 8GB sticks to allow some expansion, especially with Dual CPU.  I don't think you'll see a massive performance increase fully populating the slots, my guess is more memory would give a better performance.

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41 minutes ago, mikedpitt420 said:

Also you weren't satisfied with the coolers that came with the E5?

Just as a general thing, I don't think the high end server CPU's come with coolers, even straight from intel. It's assumed they will probably be used in rack mount systems which can't use standard form factor coolers, generally it's more of a radiator with ducting and remote fans, or heat pipes.

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Wow, you're right all this googling and newegg searching has me kind of overwhelmed. So something like this would probably work, even though there is a small piece that juts off one side if aligned with air flow from front to back, do you think it may fit? https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0R7-000D-00003

 

I also found these "slim" models that also would seem to fit. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709038

 

Man you've saved me a ton of back and forth shipping with that. I wouldn't have even noticed unless you brought it up. You're a lifesaver 

Edited by mikedpitt420
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Note that Supermicro has good information about their products, so you should spend a bit of time locating the motherboard there and read the information.

 

And when you think you have a suitable HSF, it's good to google for the motherboard+HSF to find other people who have tried that combination. Then you can get hits if there are issues because the HSF blocks memory slots or blocks the first card slot etc.

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Note that Supermicro has good information about their products, so you should spend a bit of time locating the motherboard there and read the information.
 
And when you think you have a suitable HSF, it's good to google for the motherboard+HSF to find other people who have tried that combination. Then you can get hits if there are issues because the HSF blocks memory slots or blocks the first card slot etc.
That's one of the reasons I went with the Noctua, found someone on line that had used them before..... :D

Although I do like Noctua coolers and my last server used one too.....

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

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Thanks so much, Supermicro does have a list of approved coolers for this board. Quite a few of them are passively cooled which surprised me a bit. This one is on their list as approved and for a 2011 chipset https://www.supermicro.com/ResourceApps/Heatsink_Matrix.aspx

 

the heatsink: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101827&cm_re=SNK-P0048P-_-16-101-827-_-Product

 

will definitely be monitoring CPU temp very closely unless anyone has experience with this cooler and it seems to do the job.

 

Thanks to all of you so much again. What a great community

 

EDIT: Well these are apparently only for use in SUperMicro cases with shroud. Back to the drawing board

 

Edited by mikedpitt420
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And as you suggested 4 of these for the RAM then? https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA22F6NM5989&cm_re=8GB_RDIMM_DDR4-_-9SIA22F6NM5989-_-Product I see a ton of RDIMM DDR4 on Newegg but they all reference that they're made specifically for particular Dell models. Would I be fine with something like this?

 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2F845K0106&cm_re=RDIMM_8GB_DDR4-_-2BA-0041-00024-_-Product

Edited by mikedpitt420
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